(a) Multilateral donors

Multilateral donors are those international agencies,  institutions or organisations whose members are governments or a fund managed autonomously by such an agency, pool thier contributions so that they loose their identity and become integral part of its financial assets, and conduct all or part their activities are in favour of development.

This group includes World Bank; Regional Development Banks (Asian Development Bank, African Development Bank/Fund, Inter-American Development Bank, Caribbean Development Bank, and other Arab Development Banks) and the International Organizations likes FAO, UNDP, CGIAR, and  IFAD. 

(b) Bilateral donors 

are those donors that effectively control the disposal of the funds by specifying the recipient or other aspects of the disbursement (e.g. purpose, terms, total amount, repayments, etc.). This group includes OECD member countries, Arab Banks, and funds like Kuwait Fund

(c) Official Development Assistance (ODA):
 
ODA is defined as those flows to developing countries and multilateral institutions provided by official agencies, including state and local governments, or by their executive agencies; and each transaction is administered with the promotion of the economic development and welfare of developing countries as its main objective, and is concessional in character (contains grant element of at least 25% - calculated as a rate of discount of 10%).
 
(d) Official Aid (OA):
 
OA consists of flows that meet all the tests of ODA, except that they are directed to countries on part II of the DAC list of aid recipients (mostly countries in transition) and to multilateral institutions, which primarily benefit part II aid recipients.
 
(e) Commitment:
 
Commitments is a firm written obligation by a government or official agency, backed by the appropriation or availability of the necessary funds, to provide resources of specified amount under specified financial terms, conditions and for specified purposes for the benefit of the recipient country. Commitments are classified between years according to date of signing (item 7).
 
(f) Grants:
 
Grants are transfers in cash or in kind for which the recipient incurs no legal debt. For DAC/CRS reporting purposes, it also includes debt forgiveness, which does not entail new transfers; support to non-governmental organisations, and certain costs incurred in the implementation of the aid programmes.

Concessional - Commitment with a grant element not less than 25% it is concessional otherwise it is Non-Concessional.

(g) Recipients:
 
Recipients are all developing countries which qualify for the ODA, and some developed or more advanced countries (countries in transition) that qualify for the OA.

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