The way to play ODA

Even after this wave of punishing cuts in both the United States and the United Kingdom, it is likely that total annual global flows of official development assistance, or ODA, will still sit at around $100 billion, writes Adrian Lovett, executive director for the United Kingdom, Middle East, and Asia Pacific at ONE, in a Devex opinion piece.

That’s still a lot of money and it needs to be used wisely, he argues.

For Lovett, there are three paths. One, ODA must be more than just an emergency service. “Firefighting without fire prevention is wasteful and has a deadly cost,” he writes.

“Second, ODA should be a tool for the redistribution of wealth,” he adds, noting that “Mutual international investments in sustainable growth, stability, health, and prosperity are win-win, not zero-sum.”

And thirdly, aid should be “an authentic and contemporary channel of those instincts of humanity: for cooperation, empathy, and partnership.”

“Transactions that are merely tools for extracting power or for gaining geopolitical advantage have no place in this definition.”

Opinion: From cuts to common cause, how do we rethink global development?