Dear all,

On last week’s call about a joint CSO statement to the DAC on ODA and vaccines, we agreed on the following approach:

-          At this stage, we favour a strong and principled approach to push back against Covid-19 research and vaccine dose donations being counted as ODA. Our rationale is centred around the need for ODA eligibility rules to uphold ODA’s integrity and credibility, prevent an artificial inflation in ODA budgets, and avoid unduly valorising donor countries for a behaviour that exacerbated vaccine inequality in the first place. This position is laid out in this short statement: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eL6uvSI1IhOorS_vBce1YGv3h2cPEG7z/view?usp=sharing, which is open for CSO endorsement by Thursday 1 July COB. If your organisations wishes to sign onto this statement, please send your logo to me and Nerea by 1 July COB ([email protected]). We’ll then send the letter to the DAC on Friday 2 July, ahead of its next meeting on Monday 5 July.

-          If the DAC decides to count these as ODA (which is the most likely scenario), we will then put forward more details on how to limit the ODA eligibility of such activities, as detailed in the longer draft we had developed.

Let me know if you have any questions,

Julie

Julie SEGHERS
Global policy lead on aid and development finance

Advocacy advisor on OECD

Oxfam International