In 2004, the Czech government reduced the number of priority countries from 20 to 8 according to the following selection criteria: socio-economic development, political and trade relations with the Czech Republic, existence of a democratic and stable state, existence of infrastructure for development projects, presence of Czech diplomatic corps, and coordination with other donor countries.

From 2001 to 2006, the Czech ODA increased from 1 billion CZK to 3.6 billion CZK, i.e. an increase of the ODA as a percentage of the GNP from 0.047% to 0.12%. In 2007, the ODA decreased to 0.11% of GNP in comparison with 0.12% of GNP in 2006. In comparison with the other Visegrád (V4) countries, the Czech Republic has the highest ODA levels as a percentage of its GNP.

Before 1989, the Czech ODA was mostly politically motivated and influenced by the world’s bipolar partition. Since the Czech Republic joined the OECD in 1995, a modern era of Czech development cooperation has been initiated. By the year 2002, fragmentation, incoherence and a lack of transparency were characteristic of the Czech ODA. The initial step for a transformation of the Czech ODA system was the Conception of the Czech official development cooperation for 2002-2007.

In the present context, ODA refers to the aid of the Czech government by transferring financial, material, technical or expert aid in order to achieve sustainable development in partner countries.