The country has made a historic leap after being named the world’s biggest donor, said Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed, Deputy Prime Minister.

 

In August, the UAE was unofficially named the world’s largest donor of development assistance in proportion to its gross national income (GNI).

 

And this week a report released by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development made it official.

 

Sheikh Mansour, also Minister of Presidential Affairs, said the report affirmed the UAE’s worthiness to win the first position as the world’s largest donor country of official development assistance, making a leap that no other DAC member state has made in the past 50 years

 

The UAE exceeded the United Nations’ target of 0.7 per cent official development assistance in proportion to its GNI ratio by donating Dh19.84 billion, representing 1.34 per cent of its GNI for official development assistance in 2013 and beating Norway, the second-largest donor with a 1.07 per cent ratio.

 

France was the last DAC member country to achieve this ratio, in 1961.

 

 

PHOTO: A solar PV project in Tonga already developed under the UAE-Pacific Partnership Fund.