Posted on 19 April 2023
According to the newly released 2022 ODA by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), foreign aid from official donors hit a record high of USD 204 billion last year.
However, a breakdown of the statistics show that the trend actually reflects aid shifting away from where it is most needed. The increase can be largely attributed to more support hosting refugees in donor countries, which is reported as foreign aid, as well as aid for Ukraine (7.8% of the total ODA).
Despite the overall increase, support to least developed and sub-Sahara African countries fell by 0.7%. Some countries utilised left over-vaccines as an aid strategy, but in many cases these were unusable. Despite the perceived increase, the majority of countries are still falling short of their goal of spending 0.7% of their gross national income on aid.