Net bilateral aid flows from DAC donors are the net disbursements of official development assistance (ODA) or official aid from the members of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC). Net disbursements are gross disbursements of grants and loans minus repayments of principal on earlier loans. ODA consists of loans made on concessional terms (with a grant element of at least 25 percent, calculated at a rate of discount of 10 percent) and grants made to promote economic development and welfare in countries and territories in the DAC list of ODA recipients. Official aid refers to aid flows from official donors to countries and territories in part II of the DAC list of recipients: more advanced countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the countries of the former Soviet Union, and certain advanced developing countries and territories. Official aid is provided under terms and conditions similar to those for ODA. Part II of the DAC List was abolished in 2005. The collection of data on official aid and other resource flows to Part II countries ended with 2004 data. DAC members are Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Slovienia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, and European Union Institutions. Regional aggregates include data for economies not specified elsewhere. World and income group totals include aid not allocated by country or region. Data are in current U.S. dollars. Limitations and exceptions: Data exclude DAC members’ multilateral aid (contributions to the regular budgets of the multilateral institutions). However, projects executed by multilateral institutions or nongovernmental organizations on behalf of DAC members are classified as bilateral aid (since the donor country effectively controls the use of the funds) and are included in the data. Aid to unspecified economies is included in regional totals and, when possible, income group totals. Aid not allocated by country or region - including administrative costs, research on development, and aid to nongovernmental organizations - is included in the world total. Thus regional and income group totals do not sum to the world total. Statistical concept and methodology: The Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has 30 members - 29 individual economies and 1 multilateral institution (European Union institutions). Data are based on donor country reports of bilateral programs, which may differ from reports by recipient countries. Recipients may lack access to information on such aid expenditures as development-oriented research, stipends and tuition costs for aid-financed students in donor countries, and payment of experts hired by donor countries. Moreover, a full accounting would include donor country contributions to multilateral institutions, the flow of resources from multilateral institutions to recipient countries, and flows from countries that are not members of DAC. Some of the aid recipients are also aid donors. Development cooperation activities by non-DAC members have increased in recent years and in some cases surpass those of individual DAC members. Some non-DAC donors report their development cooperation activities to DAC on a voluntary basis, but many do not yet report their aid flows to DAC.