Foreign aid statistics show a large but changing system of official development assistance (ODA). Development Assistance Committee (DAC) members provided USD 214.6 billion in grant-equivalent ODA in 2024, while all DAC and voluntarily reporting non-DAC official providers together supplied USD 255.4 billion. These totals combine different channels, recipients, and purposes, so the measurement period and definition matter.
Table of contents
- Global totals and recent trends
- Donor countries
- Recipients and country groups
- Humanitarian aid and crisis response
- Multilateral, bilateral, and civil-society channels
- Sectors and cross-cutting priorities
Global totals and recent trends
The OECD’s final 2024 figures put DAC-member ODA at USD 214.6 billion on a grant-equivalent basis. That measure values the concessional element of loans as well as grants, rather than treating every loan at its face value. DAC-member ODA fell 6.0% in real terms from 2023 to 2024, and it equaled 0.34% of combined gross national income (GNI) in 2024. These figures come from the OECD’s Final OECD statistics on ODA and other resource flows to developing countries in 2024.
The 2024 total was nevertheless 25% higher in real terms than the DAC level in 2019. Non-DAC providers that voluntarily report concessional finance contributed USD 17.99 billion on a grant-equivalent basis in 2024. Adding DAC and non-DAC official providers produces net ODA of USD 255.4 billion, down 4.5% from 2023.
The OECD’s earlier 2023 ODA Figures and Trends: Launch press conference reported DAC-member development aid of USD 223.7 billion in 2023, equal to 0.37% of combined GNI. That was a 1.8% real increase from 2022. In nominal terms, DAC-member ODA rose 34%, from USD 160 billion in 2019 to USD 214 billion in 2023. The nominal and real comparisons describe different changes: inflation and price effects are included in the nominal series but adjusted in the real-term comparisons.
Donor countries
The donor-country figures below are 2024 ODA totals on a grant-equivalent basis. They are reported in the OECD’s Preliminary official development assistance levels in 2025, which contains the 2024 country values used here.
| Donor | 2024 ODA |
|---|---|
| United States | USD 65.475 billion |
| Germany | USD 32.660 billion |
| United Kingdom | USD 18.010 billion |
| Japan | USD 16.494 billion |
| France | USD 15.448 billion |
| Netherlands | USD 7.522 billion |
| Canada | USD 7.387 billion |
| Italy | USD 6.841 billion |
| Norway | USD 5.179 billion |
| Sweden | USD 5.003 billion |
The United States had the largest listed total at USD 65.475 billion. Germany’s total was USD 32.660 billion, while Japan, France, and the United Kingdom reported USD 16.494 billion, USD 15.448 billion, and USD 18.010 billion respectively. Among the smaller listed totals, the Netherlands provided USD 7.522 billion, Canada USD 7.387 billion, Italy USD 6.841 billion, Norway USD 5.179 billion, and Sweden USD 5.003 billion.
Totals and aid effort are not the same measure. Norway’s 2024 ODA equaled 1.02% of GNI, and Sweden’s equaled 0.79% of GNI. Those GNI shares indicate the relative scale of aid in the donor economy; they do not replace the dollar totals in the table.
Recipients and country groups
Recipient-group statistics show where ODA was directed and how the distribution changed. In 2024, ODA to least developed countries totaled USD 61.8 billion in real terms, down 1.5% from 2023. By contrast, ODA to sub-Saharan Africa rose 5.2% to USD 66.5 billion. Aid to small island developing states reached USD 7.9 billion, up 23% from 2023, while aid to landlocked developing countries reached USD 34.3 billion, up 5.4%.
Countries in extreme and high fragility received USD 92.2 billion in 2024, a 1% decrease from 2023. These figures are from the OECD’s Final OECD statistics on ODA and other resource flows to developing countries in 2024. The groups overlap: a country can belong to more than one classification, so these amounts should not be added together as mutually exclusive regions.
The 2023 OECD figures provide an additional bilateral view. DAC bilateral ODA to least developed countries reached USD 37 billion in 2023, up 3% in real terms from 2022. Bilateral aid is only one channel, so this amount is not directly comparable with the broader 2024 total for all ODA to least developed countries.
United States allocations illustrate the geographic concentration that can sit inside a donor total. In 2024, United States bilateral ODA allocated USD 15.9 billion to Africa. It allocated USD 10.5 billion to ODA-eligible Europe, and 90.7% of that Europe allocation was for Ukraine. These country and regional figures come from the OECD’s Development Co-operation Profiles: United States.
Humanitarian aid and crisis response
Humanitarian assistance is a substantial part of foreign aid, but it is not the same as total ODA. DAC humanitarian aid totaled USD 25.9 billion in 2023, up 4.8% from 2022, according to the OECD’s 2023 ODA Figures and Trends: Launch press conference.
DAC support to Ukraine rose from USD 17.8 billion in 2022 to USD 20 billion in 2023. Within that 2023 response, humanitarian aid to Ukraine accounted for USD 3.2 billion, or 9% of total ODA. The support total and the humanitarian subtotal measure different components, so they should not be treated as interchangeable.
Refugee-related spending inside donor countries also affects ODA statistics. DAC ODA used for processing and hosting refugees in donor countries totaled USD 31 billion in 2023, or 13.8% of total ODA. In-donor refugee costs fell 6.2% from 2022 to 2023. This accounting category means that some ODA was spent in donor countries rather than transferred to programs in developing countries.
The United States profile reports USD 17.5 billion in support to high- and extreme-fragility contexts in 2024, equal to 29.7% of gross bilateral ODA. Humanitarian assistance represented 42.4% of United States ODA to those contexts. Peace allocations represented 6.2% of United States gross bilateral ODA in 2024, up from 5.5% in 2023.
Multilateral, bilateral, and civil-society channels
Multilateral organisations disbursed USD 250 billion from core resources to developing countries in 2024, down 2% from 2023. Their concessional outflows totaled USD 107 billion, and EU institutions accounted for 39.6% of those concessional outflows. Non-concessional outflows totaled USD 143 billion. These figures are reported in the OECD’s Final OECD statistics on ODA and other resource flows to developing countries in 2024.
The composition of multilateral outflows also matters: grants made up USD 52 billion in 2024, while loans made up USD 197 billion. The grant and loan amounts describe the financing instruments within the reported outflows; they are not a claim that all multilateral finance has the same terms.
For the United States, gross ODA to the multilateral system totaled USD 23.8 billion in 2024, down 15.7% in real terms from 2023. Core funding accounted for USD 6.6 billion, equal to 10.1% of total United States ODA. United States civil-society organisations received USD 11.5 billion of gross bilateral ODA in 2024, including 11.2% directed to developing-country-based civil-society organisations. These figures come from the Development Co-operation Profiles: United States.
Sectors and cross-cutting priorities
Sectoral data show what bilateral commitments were intended to support. In 2024, United States social infrastructure and services accounted for 41.3% of bilateral ODA commitments, or USD 24.4 billion. Support to government and civil society totaled USD 12.4 billion. Health and population ODA totaled USD 9.4 billion, while education ODA totaled USD 1.8 billion.
Humanitarian ODA from the United States totaled USD 14.9 billion in 2024, including USD 14.5 billion for emergency response. The emergency-response figure is a component of humanitarian ODA, not an additional amount to add to it.
Cross-cutting priorities provide another way to read the same aid portfolio. Screened United States bilateral allocable ODA for gender equality averaged 21.3% in 2023-2024, equal to USD 9.7 billion per year. Climate-focused bilateral allocable ODA averaged 12.1%, or USD 5.5 billion, over the same 2023-2024 period. Both are averages across a two-year period, rather than single-year 2024 totals. The source for these sector and priority measures is the OECD’s Development Co-operation Profiles: United States.