Which countries does the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) talk about when it talks about international development?

Since 1961, the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has been charged with setting standards for effective development cooperation and safeguarding the integrity of official development assistance (ODA). Donor countries come together in the forum to discuss (1) what development is, (2) how “less-developed” countries should go about achieving development, and (3) how “developed” countries should go about helping those countries achieve development. The reports produced under the organization’s peer review system give us insight into trends and changing priorities in development thinking. Looking at 60 years of OECD DAC peer reviews, we explore the question of “what do we talk about when we talk about development” by studying which aid-receiving countries the OECD DAC focuses on when it talks about international development assistance. Which countries have been held up as models of development, and how do those examples reflect other trends in the international development industry? Which countries are over- and underrepresented in the OECD DAC peer reviews? We show evidence that a few countries have been historically overrepresented in the peer reviews, while countries receiving foreign assistance for strategic reasons and that have relied more heavily on state-led development models are typically underrepresented.