Rising Military Spending in the Context of Falling Development Assistance

As global development and humanitarian needs rise, OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) countries are cutting official development assistance (ODA) while rapidly increasing military spending, although the savings from aid cuts are small compared with planned increases in defence budgets. An analysis, including case studies of Germany and the United Kingdom, shows that current and projected aid commitments fall far below levels expected given global needs, with serious humanitarian and development consequences and growing tensions between military priorities and non-military approaches to security.