ABSTRACT
Aid is one of the most prominent features of debates concerning both development and international relations. This chapter examines the way the term aid is defined and measured. It steers the discussion towards what has been the dominant architecture of aid, that centred on the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)/Development Assistance Committee definition of Official Development Assistance (ODA) and constructed by a dualistic definition of donors and recipient countries. The chapter deconstructs this mainstream view of aid by firstly describing forms of assistance that have not been included in ODA and then identifying new players and evolving ‘South–South’ ways of operating that are beginning to challenge and disrupt the OECD-centred aid hegemony. Defining and tracking ODA over time is also complicated by changes in counting what might be considered a ‘developing’ country and who is seen as a donor.
