Have we reached ‘peak aid’?
23/1/2025: Foreign aid spending reached a record high of $223 billion in 2023, according to new figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Yet, in 2024, eight wealthy countries announced $17.2 billion in cuts to official development assistance - and these figures exclude cuts from the 2025 executive orders signed by President Donald Trump.
Source: The Guardian
Trump’s foreign assistance freeze generates uncertainty and confusion
22/1/2025: Within hours of taking office, US President Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on foreign assistance spending during which the new administration will decide which aid programs should stay and which should go. USAID’s annual budget is currently about $40 billion.
Source: Devex
OECD nations continue to raid aid budgets for refugees
17/1/2025: Country members of OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) are allowed to classify costs relating to asylum seekers within their own borders as foreign aid. In 2023 14.6% of all DAC foreign aid was spent on domestic refugee costs, despite calls to limit this offset.
Source: Devex
William Ruto calls for action on Africa’s debt burden
2/1/2025: The President of Kenya is concerned that 19 of Africa’s 35 low-income countries are in debt distress, obliged to pay interest rates of between 5% and 16% on loans and 10-year government bonds. He calls for a review of current credit ratings whilst welcoming the recent $100 billion replenishment of the World Bank's International Development Association.
Source: Devex
Opportunities for finance for development at 2025 UN summit
13/12/2024: African policy experts advocate that the continent’s voice and participation should be enhanced at the UN's financing for development conference in Spain, at the end of June 2025. Progress on poverty reduction in Africa has stalled since the last FfD conference in Addis Ababa in 2015.
Source: Devex
World Bank secures record pledges for international development
9/12/2024: World Bank officials have announced $23.7 billion in contributions promised to the International Development Association, which provides grants and low-interest loans to 78 low-income countries. Experts are particularly concerned whether the $4 billion pledge by the US will survive the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.
Source: Devex
G20 leaders have agreed: It’s time to tax the rich
20/11/2024: A proposal to tax billionaires is a key feature of the G20 Leaders' Declaration in Rio de Janeiro. It is not yet clear who would be targeted with that tax, what the tax rate would be, or where any additional tax revenue would go. But the hope is that the cash could be channeled toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, especially as they relate to climate change.
Source: Devex
The G20 road map to transform multilateral development banks
19/11/2024: Heads of state at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro have endorsed a plan to make institutions such as the World Bank “better, bigger and more effective.” The framework aims to tackle several challenges, from streamlining the slow, often bureaucratic processes of MDBs, to leveraging private capital to boost resources, to enhancing the role MDBs play in climate change financing.
Source: Devex
What could Trump 2.0 mean for humanitarian response?
7/11/2024: The return of Donald Trump injects another level of volatility into the world's emergencies. US funding dominates humanitarian aid, and volatile swings in funding from the world’s biggest donor can hamstring an entire sector. Vulnerable areas include UN agencies, reproductive health and climate change.
Source: The New Humanitarian
US cancels $1.1 billion of Somalia’s debt
6/11/2024: Somalia has announced that more than $1.1 billion of outstanding loans will be cancelled by the US, about a quarter of the country’s debt. Having completed its programme under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, Somalia is eligible for $4.5bn in debt relief.
Source: The Guardian