Glossary

Blue economy: Development paradigm which leads to improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities, endorsing low carbon, resource efficiency and social inclusion. The report also makes reference to the “ocean economy”, which refers to the sectoral and cross-sectoral economic activities related to the oceans, seas and coasts, without including an explicit sustainability dimension. Projections for the ocean economy are used in this report as proxy for the potential of the blue economy.

Budget support: Finance that is extended by development agencies in order to support to macro-level policies and to augment government budgets to assist the recipient through a programme of policy and institutional reform and implementation that promote growth and achieve sustainable reductions in poverty.

Concessional finance: Official resources extended by DAC members, other bilateral providers, and multilateral providers – grants and concessional loans – which meet the ODA definition. In this report, the terms “concessional finance” and ODA are often used interchangeably. Not all concessional resources to all countries count as ODA. For details about the ODA-eligibility criteria, please refer to: www.oecd.org/dac/stats/daclist.htm.

Creditor reporting system (CRS): The OECD/DAC statistical database recording individual aid activities.

Development Assistance Committee (DAC): The committee of the OECD which deals with development co-operation matters. Currently there are 30 members of the DAC: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States and the European Union.

DAC List of ODA Recipients: The DAC list of ODA Recipients shows developing countries and territories eligible for receiving official development assistance (ODA). The list is designed for statistical purposes, not as guidance for aid or other preferential treatment. In particular, geographical aid allocations are national policy decisions and responsibilities. The list is revised by the DAC every three years.

Domestic resource mobilisation: Generation of savings from domestic resources and their allocation to economically and socially productive investments. Such resource allocation can come from both the public and private sectors.

Fragility: Measure determined by a country’s exposure to risks and insufficient coping capacity of the state, system and communities to manage, absorb or mitigate those risks. This is expressed in the following five dimensions: economic, environmental, political, security, societal. There are currently 56 states on the OECD list of fragile states including six of the SIDS considered in this report.

Official development assistance (ODA): Grants or loans to countries and territories on the DAC List of ODA Recipients (developing countries) and to multilateral agencies which are: (a) undertaken by the official sector; (b) with promotion of economic development and welfare as the main objective; (c) at concessional financial terms (if a loan, having a grant element of at least 25%). In addition to financial flows, technical co-operation is included in aid. Grants, loans and credits for military purposes are excluded. Transfer payments to private individuals (e.g. pensions, reparations or insurance pay-outs) are in general not counted.

Public financial management: This builds on the development community's efforts to strengthen developing countries' capacity to better manage their public finances.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Officially known as Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is a set of 17 "Global Goals" with 169 targets between them.