Is aid to agricultural innovation a priority for the international community?

While the Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI) initiative provides data and analysis of domestic public and private spending on agricultural research and development for a wide range of developing countries, the literature pays little attention, if any, to foreign assistance to agricultural, fishing and forestry research and agricultural extension. The objective of the present study is to fill this gap. OECD data is used to analyse, across countries and regions, the amount and variability of foreign assistance directed to agricultural research and extension, as well as to fishing and forestry research, during the period 2002–2012. The first section of the paper presents the OECD database, the working definitions and the methodology. The second section describes the trends of overall foreign assistance commitments during the period 2002–2012 and of foreign assistance allocation across income classes and regions. This is followed by an analysis of aid volatility. The paper ends with a brief discussion of the results and puts forward some policy considerations.