Australia Lags Behind as Global Foreign Aid Plummets

Recent data reveals a dramatic reduction in foreign aid contributions last year, with the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, and France leading the retreat of tens of billions of dollars.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has disclosed that global aid decreased by $56.7 billion in 2025, representing a 23 percent drop, marking it as the most significant annual reduction on record.

This funding gap likely resulted in hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths in many developing countries, with the potential for millions more to be affected.

The United States played a major role in this decline, contributing to three-quarters of the decrease by dismantling USAID early in Donald Trump’s second term.

Additional considerable cuts from other key donors such as the UK (11 percent reduction), Japan (5.6 percent), and France (10.9 percent) further intensified the worldwide development assistance crisis.

The US retreat from supporting the world’s poorest and most in-need populations meant that for the first time, Germany was the top foreign aid provider last year in real terms.

Germany’s development assistance hit $41 billion in 2025, ahead of the United States by almost $200m.

In terms of percentage of a country’s gross national income (GNI), Norway was the most generous, giving 1.03 per cent.

Australia, by contrast, is of below-average generosity, ranking 25th of 32 donor nations, giving 0.18 per cent of GNI, behind the UK (0.43 per cent) and New Zealand (0.27 per cent).

Countries not meeting UN goal

Wealthy countries, including Australia, have signed up to a United Nations goal of giving 0.7 per cent of GNI — or 70c in every $100 from each nation’s budgets — to lesser developed nations.

Just four nations did so in 2025: Norway, Luxembourg, Sweden and Denmark, with an average of 0.26 per cent.

Oxfam Australia said the figures should spur Australia to step up its global giving to fill gaps left by others, helping to combat diseases like HIV/AIDS and malaria.

“Oxfam analysis found that global aid cuts mean a child under 5 could die every 40 seconds by 2030. If this trend continues, aid cuts could kill over 9 million people by 2030,” head of humanitarian Lucia Goldsmith said.

“The governments of wealthy nations are turning their backs on the lives of millions of women, men and children in the Global South through severe aid cuts.”

Oxfam research from January found a child under five years old could die every 40 seconds due to the US aid cuts.

Another study published by global health publication Lancet last year suggested aid cuts — at 21 per cent — would kill almost 700,000 people last year, and cumulatively 9.4 million people by the decade’s end.

Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has budgeted $5.1 billion in official development assistance this financial year, with a small increase in line with inflation.

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