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What are the current trends in global aid funding in 2026?

In 2025, the United States, until that year the world’s largest aid donor, said that it would close USAID, an agency created in 1961 to spend and manage the US aid budget. It has also withdrawn from several multilateral organisations including the World Health Organization, although in 2026 it announced new humanitarian funding for the UN.

The Trump administration said that the closure of USAID and merging of its functions into the US State Department would ensure “all the tools of foreign policy [are] in the same toolbox” and future US aid would be better “focused on the things that further our national interest”.

The US is far from the only aid donor reducing its aid budget and emphasising alternatives to aid such as trade, investment and increased private sector action. Germany (now the largest aid donor globally, following US cuts), France, Japan and the UK have also announced spending reductions.

Launching the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs funding appeal for 2026, the UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Tom Fletcher said that the latest funding appeal had to be “laser focused” due to rising humanitarian need and falling aid budgets (not just from the US).

Data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows that aid is declining aid globally, and that France, Germany, Japan, the UK and the US together represented 96% of the decline of global aid in 2025.

This briefing sets out how US, UK and global aid spending has changed over the past year. The Commons Library briefing, The UK and international development: Global issues for 2026, covers wider policy and reforms in 2026. 

Source: OECD Data Explorer, DAC1: Flows by provider, retrieved 1 July 2026