TOKYO, April 18 — Global official development assistance fell 23.1 per cent in 2025 from a year ago, the OECD said, marking its largest annual contraction on record as the United States (US) administration of President Donald Trump pushes for deep cuts in international aid.

Kyodo News Agency reported that preliminary data by the 38-member Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, released in early April, showed that the total amount of foreign aid by 33 major donors came to US$165.5 billion last year in real terms, a decline for the second straight year.

The five largest aid providers by volume—Germany, the US, Britain, Japan and France—accounted for over 95 per cent of the total fall in assistance, with the United States alone driving three-quarters of the decline, according to the Paris-based body seen as a club of mostly wealthy countries.

US foreign aid plunged 56.9 per cent to US$28.2 billion, with the US Agency for International Development scrapped in July under the Trump administration, which has accused the agency of wasting taxpayer money by conducting programmes abroad that are not in American interests.

Germany became the largest aid provider for the first time, with its assistance totalling US$29.1 billion in nominal terms, narrowly surpassing the US$29.0 billion provided by the US, the OECD data showed.

With Britain in third place at US$17.2 billion, Japan ranked fourth with US$16.2 billion, down 1.7 per cent, followed by France at US$14.5 billion.

The latest report underscored the change in trend in official development assistance by the Development Assistance Committee, which comprises 33 nations and the European Union, after the figure rose 32.7 per cent from 2019 to 2023.

Past growth was driven by the countries’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic and to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, but “that growth has since reversed” and begun to shrink amid mounting political and fiscal pressures, bringing it to 4.2 per cent below 2019 levels, the report said.

The OECD also said it projects a further 5.8 per cent drop in official development assistance in 2026, even though it has yet to take account of the “strain” from the West Asia crisis, in an apparent reference to the US-Israeli conflict with Iran. — AFP