Development Assistance Committee - History

History

Known at first as the Development Assistance Group (DAG), the committee was set up on 13 January 1960 under the auspices of the OECD's forerunner, the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC). Its first meeting took place in Washington, D.C. (U.S.A.) on 9–11 March 1960, chaired by ambassador Ortona, Italy. A primary concern of the DAG, addressed at its second (July 1960) and third (October 1960) meetings, was to achieve accurate and comparable data reporting by its members on their aid flows to developing countries. In March 1961, the OEEC published the first comprehensive survey of The Flow of Financial Resources to Countries in Course of Economic Development, 1956-59. This was followed by annual reports until 1964.

On 23 July 1961 a Ministerial Resolution decreed that upon the supercession of the OEEC by the OECD, the DAG would become the DAC, and these changes came about in September 1961. The resolution also spelled out the DAC's mandate in five points, the first of which read:

The Committee will continue to consult on the methods for making national resources available for assisting countries and areas in the process of economic development and for expanding and improving the flow of long-term funds and other development assistance to them.

— Development Assistance Committee, Mandate (1961)

The origins of the so-called "DAC Secretariat" or DCD are as follows. A Development Department (DD), under the direction of Assistant Secretary-General Luciano Giretti of Italy was established within the OECD Secretariat in 1961. It consisted of two branches, a Technical Co-operation Branch and a Development Financial Branch. The latter became the Development Assistance Directorate (DAD) in 1969 and then the Development Co-operation Directorate (DCD) in 1975.

Along with the institution of the DAG/DAC, several developments in the early 1960s completed the institutional framework for aid that is still largely in place. In 1960, the World Bank opened a subsidiary, the International Development Association (IDA) to provide loans to developing countries on easier terms than the Bank's normal lending. The aid agencies of the large donor states were also set up at this time.

Canada created an "External Aid Office" in 1960, which in 1968 became the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). France was the first country to establish a Ministry for Co-operation to be responsible for assistance to independent, mainly African, developing countries in 1961, the predecessor to French Development Agency Agence Française de Développement (AFD). Enactment in the United States in 1961 of the Foreign Assistance Act as the basic economic assistance legislation, established the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Later the rest of the member states followed, either establishing an aid agency under the command of its Foreign ministry or as a separate entity.