When large-scale aid programmes to developing countries began in the 1950s and 1960s, new concepts and definitions were required to measure and compare donors’ efforts. One of the key contributions of the Development Assistance Committee was to codify the notion of foreign aid under the name "official development assistance" (ODA). The DAC developed the ODA definition in the late 1960s and gave it its final form in 1972. The documents below discuss what the definition means in practice, which countries are eligible for ODA, and what progress donors have made towards achieving the UN target for ODA of 0.7% of their national income...