Global development advocates have sounded urgent warnings over the steepest collapse in foreign aid spending in recorded history, as the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund (IMF) Spring Meetings concluded in Washington, D.C. last week with no breakthrough on debt relief or aid reform.
Official Development Assistance (ODA) from members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) fell 23.1 percent in 2025, the largest annual contraction on record, bringing total ODA to 174.3 billion dollars. The United States alone drove roughly three-quarters of the decline, with its aid volumes falling nearly 56.9 percent compared to 2024, the largest single-year reduction by any donor on record.
Matthew Simonds, Senior Policy and Advocacy Officer at the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad), told NewsGhana the data paints an alarming picture. “ODA providers are cutting because they have chosen to prioritise domestic political agendas over their international commitments,” he said. “ODA is an easy sacrifice for politicians and policymakers, who have transferred funding to security issues and defence spending.”
Simonds noted that even the funds still being counted as aid are increasingly spent inside donor countries rather than reaching communities in the Global South, further shrinking the actual resources available for development.
Africa Bears the Brunt
The African continent faces some of the sharpest consequences. Bilateral ODA to sub-Saharan Africa fell 26.3 percent in 2025, while aid to the world’s least-developed countries dropped 25.8 percent. Ukraine, by contrast, received 44.9 billion dollars in net ODA, the largest volume to any single recipient in any year on record, an amount larger than combined bilateral ODA to all least-developed countries and all of sub-Saharan Africa combined.
Simonds described the contrast as stark evidence of political rather than developmental prioritisation. Despite public narratives about aid skepticism, he cited a recent survey of G7 countries showing 78 percent of respondents view aid as a long-term investment, and 73 percent as a moral obligation.
OECD projections suggest a further 5.8 percent decline in net ODA in 2026, and that figure does not yet account for additional strain from the crisis in the Middle East.
Debt Crisis Worsens Without Meaningful Reform
On sovereign debt, civil society experts expressed frustration at the continued failure of existing restructuring mechanisms. Catherine Mithia, Policy Research and Advocacy Officer at the African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD), pointed to the newly established Borrower’s Platform as a step in the right direction, describing it as a dedicated space where debtor nations can share experiences and speak collectively on debt issues.
“A lot of debt conversations have been shaped by creditor-led forums, in spaces like the G20 and the Paris Club, where borrowing countries, particularly developing countries, are not represented,” Mithia told NewsGhana.
However, she cautioned that voluntary participation by private creditors continues to undermine the process. In Ethiopia’s debt restructuring, she noted, private creditors rejected two government proposals for reduced payments even though they would still have yielded profit under those terms.
Tirivangani Mutazu, Senior Policy Analyst for Debt Management at AFRODAD, said progress under the G20 Common Framework has been negligible. “Zambia, Chad, Ethiopia and Ghana have experienced bad outcomes, and processes have been very slow. Private creditors continue to be absent,” he told NewsGhana.
Both AFRODAD officials called for a legally binding United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Sovereign Debt, a position aligned with the African Union’s Lomé Declaration, which calls on African institutions to advocate for far-reaching reform of the global debt architecture through a comprehensive and transparent multilateral mechanism.
Over half of African countries are currently spending more on debt servicing than on health, education, and infrastructure combined, according to AFRODAD. Without meaningful restructuring, Mutazu warned that countries risk serial defaults as underlying debt vulnerabilities remain unaddressed.
A System Structurally Skewed Against the South
Vitalice Meja, Executive Director at Reality of Aid Africa, told NewsGhana the broader global financial architecture reflects power dynamics that have long disadvantaged developing economies. “The deck is stacked against developing countries, which are being forced to deal with shocks they didn’t cause, carry huge amounts of illegitimate debt, and operate under rules they didn’t set,” he said.
Meja said the IMF and World Bank, despite introducing new tools, remain too slow and too incremental in their reforms. Their core structures, he argued, still reflect a post-World War II system poorly suited to today’s multipolar reality.
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva acknowledged the difficulty of the current moment, saying that “even our most hopeful scenario involves a growth downgrade,” pointing to disrupted supply chains and weakened confidence following the Middle East energy crisis.
On building influence, Meja advised developing countries to move away from fragmented, country-by-country approaches and invest in collective positioning, stronger regional financial institutions, and platforms like BRICS that reflect their own development interests.
