As DAC members can count the costs of assisting refugees within their borders as ODA, they agreed in 2017 on five clarifications to ensure comparable and coherent reporting.

The experience from the last decade suggests that while the share of in-donor refugee costs rises sharply in times of crisis, the increase does not last. In addition, most donors report that donor refugee costs are additional to the rest of their ODA programmes.

From 2020 to 2022, DAC countries gave USD 54.5 billion in ODA to address the impacts of COVID-19 in developing countries, much of which was additional.

Such assistance declined by 33% from 2021 to 2022, driven by the decline in funding for COVID-19 vaccines to developing countries.

The agreed treatment of debt relief in the grant equivalent system follows calls by developing countries and civil society for expanded international debt relief efforts.

There is no double-counting: only additional concessionality involved in debt restructuring is counted as ODA. Besides, strong safeguards have been introduced, in the form of a powerful ceiling for debt relief of ODA.