International aid drops 23.1% in 2025, biggest decline ever

On August 3, 2026, the Financing for Development study, produced by the Brics Policy Center at PUC-Rio, revealed the largest reduction ever recorded in international aid: a 23.1% drop between 2024 and 2025.

Historic aid reduction in 2025

Last year, the total resources allocated to Official Development Assistance (ODA) reached $174.3 billion, about R$ 900 billion. The decline represented $52.4 billion in real terms, after accounting for inflation. This was the second consecutive year of decline.

Main donors and resource cuts

The data were drawn from the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the OECD. Five countries – France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States – accounted for 95.7% of the reduction. The United States led the cut, slashing 56.9% of its contribution, which corresponds to 75.1% of the total decline.

All major donors posted declines for two consecutive years: Germany (-17.4%), France (-10.9%), the United Kingdom (-10.8%) and Japan (-5.6%).

Shift in priorities: defence and energy

The study notes that the reduction in international aid coincides with a reallocation of resources toward energy security and defence. In the United States, defence spending rose from $822.8 billion in 2024 to $845.3 billion. In the European Union, defence investment grew 11%, reaching €381 billion.

Total energy investment in the EU almost doubled between 2015 and 2025, climbing from $215 billion to about $420 billion. “This investment boost has been consolidating over the decade and was sharply accelerated by the energy-security shock following the start of the Ukraine war [February 2022],” the report explains.

Impacts on developing countries

The setbacks were not uniform across multilateral channels. Funding to the UN system fell 27%, the largest decline ever recorded, while support for the World Bank rose 6.4% and for regional development banks increased 11.9%.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, the hardest-hit region, resources fell 23% in 2025 to $29.2 billion. The projection for 2026 indicates a further drop of 11.6%, equivalent to $11.8 billion less.

“Donor governments are redefining which types of multilateral engagement they deem worth preserving, for strategic reasons,” the document states.

Despite a 91% cut in U.S. aid to Ukraine, the country remains the single largest recipient in ODA history, with R$ 44.9 billion, surpassing even the total allocated to the 44 nations classified as Least Developed Countries (LDCs) – $28.1 billion.

Projections and recommendations for 2026

Researchers project a further decline of 6.9% in 2026, marking a third consecutive year of reduction and bringing aid levels back to 2014 levels.

Using Oxfam data, the study estimates that the 2025 cuts generated 695,238 excess deaths and that the continuing trend could reach 9,416,417 deaths by 2030.

Among the recommendations, the need to channel scarce resources to the poorest countries, to plan financing exits responsibly and in a coordinated manner, and to make aid more effective and impact-driven for development is highlighted.

With information from Agência Brasil.