Spending on international aid by wealthy countries fell in 2024 for the first time in five years, data shows.
Funding from the Development Assistance Committee – a group of 24 territories that includes the US, UK, Australia, and EU member-states – fell by 7.1 per cent year-on-year, down $15.7bn, preliminary 2024 data published by the OECD on Wednesday shows.
This trend is expected to increase significantly as the US cuts huge swathes of its aid spending and other countries, including the UK, redirect aid money into other areas including defence.
As a percentage of gross national income, the UK’s spending on aid stood at 0.5 per cent. It plans to cut that to 0.3 per cent of GNI by 2027.
The fall in 2024 was attributed to a fall in contributions to international organisations, as well as a decrease in aid for Ukraine, lower levels of humanitarian aid, and reduced spending on hosting refugees in donor countries.
Aid to Ukraine fell by 16.7 per cent year-on-year to $15.5bn, representing around 7.4 per cent of the overseas development aid total, while aid spending on housing refugees in donor countries also fell 17.3 per cent year-on-year to $27.8bn. All monetary values are represented as constant 2023 dollars.
Bilateral aid flows to African nations fell by 1 per cent year-on-year to $42bn, while flows to Sub-Saharan African countries fell 2 per cent to $36bn. Bilateral aid flows to the world’s least developed countries also fell by 3 per cent, the data shows.
“It is clear that the donor countries are facing significant fiscal pressures from competing spending priorities,” OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann said at a press conference on Wednesday, in which he cited health, defence, and domestic investment among other spending priorities for rich countries.
“It will be essential to both boost the effectiveness of existing official development assistance, but also to scale up alternative sources of funding,” he added.
Mr Cormann warned that pressures on developing countries were only increasing even as rich countries reduced their foreign aid support, with more than half of developing countries currently allocating at least 8 per cent of their government revenues on interest payments for national debt.
Significant increases in aid provided in recent years ensured that aid in 2024 remained 23 per cent higher than the total recorded in 2019. But with countries including the US and UK announcing major aid cuts, the decline witnessed in 2024 is expected to continue, the OECD warned.
The OECD currently predicts that aid flows will decline by between 9 and 17 per cent in 2025, based on a recent survey of Development Assistance Committee members.
Carsten Staur, chair of the OECD Development Assistance Committee, described the fall in aid after five years of continuous growth as “regrettable” on Wednesday. “It’s even more concerning that some of the major donors have signalled further, and quite significant, decreases over the coming years,” he added.
Mr Staur warned that the needs of low-income countries are only increasing, while the threat of climate change “will not go away just because Europe faces new military threats”.
Some 700 million people continue to live in extreme poverty globally, two-thirds of whom are in Sub-Saharan Africa. Meanwhile, in the world’s 26 lowest income countries, aid represents 60 per cent of overall foreign investment. “So if we see bilateral aid to Sub-Saharan Africa fall, even if only 2 per cent in real terms, this really matters, and especially so if the trend will continue in the coming years,” Mr Staur said.
Overall, the US continued to be the largest provider of aid in 2024, contributing some $63.3bn, or 30 per cent of the total from the Development Assistance Committee group of countries.
Next on the list is Germany (with $32.4bn provided), the UK ($18bn), Japan (16.8bn), and France (15.4bn).
Combined, these five donors made up 69 per cent of all aid provided by Development Assistance Committee countries.
This article was produced as part of The Independent’s Rethinking Global Aid project
