I mean, if I'm being pedantic about it, 'official development assistance' (ODA) is so-named because ODA aid is supposed to help assist poor countries in _developing_, getting richer and achieving economic growth. Spending money in those poor countries can indeed help them develop; but there's no reason to think that spending money in rich countries has any effect on poor country development, even if the money is spent on 'foreigners'. So even if you'll quibble on the meaning of the everyday term 'foreign aid', I don't think there's any doubt that the technical term 'official development assistance' shouldn't include at-home refugee spending.
But I would actually urge that most people are surprised to learn that 'foreign aid' can be spent at home, and your intuition is unusual; and to that degree, I do think the definition is misleading even in terms of the everyday term 'foreign aid'.
And more generally, going beyond semantics: these two categories of spending are so different, with such different aims, means, and contexts, that I think it's very clear any reasonable accounting system should treat them differently, no matter if you could technically make a semantic argument for including one within the other. They're just not the same thing, even if they're both very important.
Seems perfectly reasonable to me for foreign aid calculations to include giving aid to foreingers.
I mean, if I'm being pedantic about it, 'official development assistance' (ODA) is so-named because ODA aid is supposed to help assist poor countries in _developing_, getting richer and achieving economic growth. Spending money in those poor countries can indeed help them develop; but there's no reason to think that spending money in rich countries has any effect on poor country development, even if the money is spent on 'foreigners'. So even if you'll quibble on the meaning of the everyday term 'foreign aid', I don't think there's any doubt that the technical term 'official development assistance' shouldn't include at-home refugee spending.
But I would actually urge that most people are surprised to learn that 'foreign aid' can be spent at home, and your intuition is unusual; and to that degree, I do think the definition is misleading even in terms of the everyday term 'foreign aid'.
And more generally, going beyond semantics: these two categories of spending are so different, with such different aims, means, and contexts, that I think it's very clear any reasonable accounting system should treat them differently, no matter if you could technically make a semantic argument for including one within the other. They're just not the same thing, even if they're both very important.