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Refugees who fled Burundi wait at Kagunga on Lake Tanganyika, Tanzania, in May 2015.
Aid to Tanzania fell in 2014, yet the country is having to deal with the arrival of refugees from Burundi. Photograph: Jerome Delay/AP
Aid to Tanzania fell in 2014, yet the country is having to deal with the arrival of refugees from Burundi. Photograph: Jerome Delay/AP

The aid pie is growing, but the poorest countries get a smaller slice

This article is more than 8 years old

Aid is going up, but billions of people who count on it are receiving less as funds are diverted to refugees and other crises

The start of a new year is meant to bring with it a sense of optimism. However, there’s not a lot to celebrate in the new international aid figures from the OECD development assistance committee. It seems we’re going backwards in the fight against extreme poverty. While overall aid levels hit a record high, the amount going to the poorest nations fell by almost $2bn (£1.3bn). The least developed countries (LDCs) received a smaller share in 2014 than at any time in the past 10 years.

Aid is, of course, only one part of the solution to poverty – but it’s an important one, especially for the very poorest countries. In total, 2014 global aid flows increased by 3.5% compared with 2013 (not including debt relief), while support to LDCs fell by 4.6%, leaving them with less than 30% of overall aid. The $1.9bn cut in aid to these 48 countries is far worse than had been expected in preliminary figures released last year. Two of the wealthiest donor countries cut their support to LDCs significantly: Japan by 22% and Canada by 20%. These cuts hit hard: Tanzania and Sudan lost more than half a billion dollars each, with their aid cut by 19% and 45% respectively.

So if overall aid went up and the amount for the poorest countries went down, where did it go? A big part of the answer lies in the refugee crisis. Aid-giving nations can count some costs associated with refugees arriving in their countries in the official definition of international aid. In 2014, those “in-donor” refugee costs increased by $1.8bn. Added to that, aid increased for countries dealing with an influx of refugees, including Jordan (up 72%) and Turkey (27%).

The world must respond generously to the refugee crisis. But the wealthiest countries had a combined total income of $46.3tn in 2014, and spent 0.29% on aid. When finding new funds for the refugee crisis, those countries appear to have raided this tiny slice of their economies, rather than looking to the far larger amounts spent on other things. It’s like inviting a needy neighbour round for Sunday lunch, and cancelling your donation to Oxfam for that week to cover the cost of the extra food.

This should ring alarm bells. These figures are for 2014, before the huge peak in refugees we saw last year. We expect that when preliminary aid figures for 2015 are released in April, the problem will have got even worse. And the cuts to LDCs cannot be explained entirely by the refugee crisis. First, some of the biggest “cutters” to the LDCs, such as Japan and Canada, had no significant increase in refugee costs. And the seven countries where aid more than double in 2014 include Chile, Grenada, Guyana and Uruguay – none of which are dealing with an influx of refugees.

It is especially dangerous to be cutting aid to LDCs just as the new global goals for sustainable development kick off. This is supposed to be the year when the fight against extreme poverty gets a turbo boost, to set us on track to eradicate it by 2030. World leaders committed to this at the UN last year, where the global goals were agreed, and they pledged to support all countries to achieve them. Leaders also recognised the need to focus international aid, pledging to reverse the decline in aid to LDCs. Instead, they appear to be doing the opposite.

They should start by pledging half of aid to LDCs. These countries have the fewest resources to lift themselves out of poverty, and the greatest need, and will require significant external support for some time to come. Donor countries must target their aid to the world’s poorest. Only then will we stand a chance of reaching the lofty goals leaders agreed to last year, goals that billions of people are counting on.


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