Aid policies shift in line with populist changes in the political wind

A potentially radical shift in major donors’ provision of overseas development assistance (ODA) is reflected in more funds being channelled into projects intended to stimulate business and reinforce security, rather than following the stricter definition of aid agreed over many years within the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) structure. Where aid flows have increased in the past year, in France and Germany for example, this has been linked to governments allocating ODA to their domestic spending on migrants, rather than to traditional development projects.