International Support for the Realisation of Children's Rights: Aid modalities and accountability in reporting, and a review of aid for basic social services

The paper reflects on the potential of the OECD DAC creditor reporting system to systematically capture flows of official development assistance (ODA) in support of realising children’s rights. The growth in modalities for delivering aid - including sector programmes, SWAP’s, dedicated funds which encompass public-private partnerships such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, as well as the OECD-DAC commitment to promote harmonization and simplification in provision of ODA and promote government ownership through general budget support - raises challenges to assessing ODA for children. The question 'Is it meaningful to single out and measure direct assistance to children?' also must be raised. The paper goes on to analyse ODA trends for basic social services. The analysis further confirms that social sector programmes and sector wide approaches (SWAP’s) are on the rise but still account only for a small portion of total ODA to basic social services although a number of such programmes are targeted specifically to basic services.