The aid landscape has changed dramatically in the past decade. The growth of new forms of development assistance – funding from non-DAC donors such as China and India, climate finance funds, social impact investors, philanthropists and global vertical funds – has greatly outpaced that of traditional aid. The research report ‘The Age of Choice: How are developing countries managing the new aid landscape?’ explored the challenges and opportunities three developing countries – Cambodia, Ethiopia and Zambia – faced in managing these wide range of non-traditional development assistance (NTDA) flows from both traditional and less-traditional providers. Its specific focus on the priorities and strategies that developing country governments employ in doing so complemented existing global studies on trends in development finance flows.

A second set of case studies in Ghana, Senegal and Timor-Leste was commissioned by the OECD. UNDP commissioned another case study in Papua New Guinea (PNG) that served as a background analysis to inform the PNG Development Finance and Aid Policy. We recently also published two case studies on Fiji and Vanuatu’s approach to managing the rapidly changing aid landscape.

ODI will undertake seven additional case studies between December 2014 and the end of 2016 with the financial support of the Gates Foundation. This roundtable therefore provides a timely opportunity to review the findings of the previous nine case studies and their implications for the development finance debate as well as to learn from the experience and findings of similar research projects. The discussion will also help identify the next steps and directions that will inform the upcoming research agenda.