Our World
in Data
Data

Foreign aid given as a share of national income

Net disbursements
See all data and research on:
Foreign Aid

What you should know about this indicator

  • Official development assistance (ODA) eligibility criteria are based on (i) country eligibility, (ii) concessionality, and (iii) the promotion of the economic development and welfare of developing countries as the main objective. This means that (i) only countries and territories included in the list of ODA recipients are eligible to receive this assistance, (ii) lending is defined by minimum requirements according to the income category of the recipient country, and (iii) reporting rules have been implemented to define what is "primarily developmental".
  • This indicator is divided by the gross national income (GNI) of the country. The GNI measures the total income earned by residents of a country, including income earned abroad.
  • Disbursements refer to money actually given/received, which can differ from what was originally pledged. These are also net disbursements: grants and loans are valued in the same way by recording the flows of cash that were granted, or the face value of loans that were lent to developing countries, deducting any repayments on the loans. The method does not reflect actual efforts by donor countries: a grant represents a bigger effort than a loan; and a loan with a very low interest rate and a long repayment period represents a bigger effort than a loan with a higher interest rate and a short repayment period. From 2018, headline figures from the OECD are based on the , which is a more accurate reflection of the effort made by donor countries.
  • The OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) mantains a list of territories where ODA can be provided. The countries and territories on the DAC list of ODA recipients consist of all low and middle income countries based on gross national income (GNI) per capita as published by the World Bank, with the exception of former G8 members, EU members, and countries with a firm date for entry into the EU. The list also includes all of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) as defined by the United Nations. The list is updated every three years and is available in the OECD website.

From OECD's indicator explainer

Official development assistance (ODA) is defined as government aid designed to promote the economic development and welfare of developing countries. Loans and credits for military purposes are excluded. Aid may be provided bilaterally, from donor to recipient, or channelled through a multilateral development agency such as the United Nations or the World Bank. Aid includes grants, "soft" loans and the provision of technical assistance. The OECD maintains a list of developing countries and territories; only aid to these countries counts as ODA. The list is periodically updated and currently contains over 150 countries or territories (see DAC List of ODA Recipients: https://oe.cd/dac-list). A long-standing United Nations target is that developed countries should devote 0.7% of their gross national income to ODA. Prior to 2018, the ODA flows basis methodology covered loans expressed on a “cash basis”, meaning their full face value was included, then repayments were subtracted as they came in. From 2018, the ODA grant-equivalent methodology is used whereby only the “grant portion” of the loan, i.e. the amount “given” by lending below market rates, counts as ODA.

Foreign aid given as a share of national income
Net disbursements
Official development assistance (ODA) divided by gross national income, expressed as a percentage. Monetary aid is estimated as net disbursements.
Source
OECD (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
August 21, 2024
Next expected update
August 2025
Date range
1960–2023
Unit
% of GNI

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

This database provides aggregates on official development assistance (ODA), other official flows (OOF) and flows from non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or philanthropic foundations. These statistics are shown by provider over time.

Retrieved on
August 21, 2024
Retrieved from
https://www.oecd.org/en/topics/policy-issues/official-development-assistance-oda.html
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
OECD (2024). OECD Official Development Assistance (ODA) - DAC1: Flows by donor (ODA+OOF+Private). OECD Data Explorer.

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline
Notes on our processing step for this indicator

We calculated this indicator by dividing by the gross national income (GNI) of the donor country regional aggregation. The GNI estimate is available in the OECD dataset.

The OECD provides indicators as a share of GNI, but only until 2017 for net flows. We calculated this to have the entire series.

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Foreign aid given as a share of national income”. Our World in Data (2024). Data adapted from OECD. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/foreign-aid-given-as-a-share-of-national-income-net [online resource]
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

OECD (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

OECD (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “Foreign aid given as a share of national income – Net disbursements” [dataset]. OECD, “OECD Official Development Assistance (ODA) - DAC1: Flows by donor (ODA+OOF+Private)” [original data]. Retrieved October 5, 2024 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/foreign-aid-given-as-a-share-of-national-income-net