ODA Spending on Modern Slavery

We analyzed more than 2 million official aid project records from 2000 to 2017. On average, less than USD 12 per victim was committed in aggregate ODA, globally, each year. Spending on modern slavery, forced and child labour and human trafficking is highly fragmented into a large number of small projects. Average spending was around USD 109,000 for bilateral projects, and just USD 18,000 for multilateral projects. Only 1,327 projects in the more than 2 million project records we reviewed were worth USD 1 million or more and addressed these forms of exploitation. ODA spending on these issues was spread to more countries, but increasingly thinly, over time.

We explored the data to consider which forms of exploitation were referenced in ODA commitments between 2000 and 2017. Between 2000 and 2017, both the number and value of ODA commitments addressing modern slavery (including forced marriage) and child soldiering were an order of magnitude below the number and value of those addressing forced labour and human trafficking. The number and value of ODA commitments to child labour was somewhere in between. While the number of ODA commitments on child labour surged for several years starting around 2005, the aggregate value of those commitments did not – suggesting the same resources may have been spread more thinly. In contrast, commitments addressing human trafficking increased massively from around 2004 to 2009 – increasing more than seven-fold in the wake of concerted outreach and communications efforts by UNODC and others. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, spending on forced labour seems to have increased on a similar pattern – though this may also explain why commitments to child labour declined over the same period.

These results suggest that once the development community comes to understand how certain aspects of exploitation relate to its own objectives and work, there is scope for increased resource allocation.  Yet they also make clear that, as of now, ‘modern slavery’ is not a significant part of most development actors’ discourse (how they justify their commitments), or indeed their resource allocation choices. The results also point to the constraints that development actors are operating under – including a lack of complete, timely data about ODA spending on different forms of exploitation.

Number and value of ODA commitments 2000-2017 by type of exploitation – aggregated (Figure 13)

Data source: AidData Institute, University of William and Mary

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Number of ODA commitments 2000-2017 by type of exploitation year on year (Figure 14)

Data source: AidData Institute, University of William and Mary

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Value of ODA commitments 2000-2017 by type of exploitation – USD, year on year (Figure 15)

Data source: AidData Institute, University of William and Mary

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