International cooperation suffers a historic decline in 2025

In a world hit by multiple global crises that have a particular impact on the most vulnerable, far from opting to strengthen an essential mechanism of global solidarity such as international cooperation, many countries are announcing more investment in weapons and fattening their defence budgets. It is the symptom of the times we are living in, marked by the imposition of the geopolitics of force, the retreat of human rights and the abandonment of policies that care for people and the planet.

The latest snapshot of Official Development Assistance (ODA) confirms this trend and puts figures on the decline of international cooperation. According to preliminary data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), international aid from the member and associated countries of the Development Assistance Committee fell by 23.1% in 2025, to 174.3 billion dollars —just under 150 billion euros—. This is the largest annual fall recorded so far and places ODA at levels similar to those of 2015, the year in which the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was approved.

The cut accentuates an involution that is not one-off, but has been coming from afar. In 2024, ODA had already suffered a reduction of 6.1%. Now, this new decline plunges international cooperation into an especially delicate situation. If we look at it in relative terms, aid represented 0.26% of the combined gross national income of donor countries, far from the historic commitment of 0.7% set by the United Nations. In 2024, this percentage still stood at 0.34%.

The scale of the fall is explained, above all, by the cuts made by the major donors. For the first time, the five main contributing countries —Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan and France— reduced their contributions at the same time. According to the OECD, these five states account for more than 95% of the total decline in ODA.

The most relevant case, evidently, is that of the United States (US), which cut its aid by almost 57% compared with the previous year, the largest reduction ever recorded by a single donor. The decision is in line with the policy of cuts to foreign aid promoted by Donald Trump, which reached a turning point with the dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), created in 1961 and considered for decades the world’s main distributor of humanitarian aid.

The blow to USAID is not minor and goes far beyond the US. For decades, the agency had been a central piece of US foreign aid, with programmes linked to health, food security, humanitarian emergency, economic development or the response to disasters and conflicts, among others.

Less resources to act on the ground

Behind these figures there are specific initiatives on the ground that help sustain rights and basic services, and that may be cut short or directly left without funding. The OECD points out that bilateral aid allocated to programmes, projects and technical cooperation fell by 26.3%, the largest drop recorded in this area. Humanitarian aid also fell sharply, dropping by 35.8%, to 15.5 billion dollars.

The multilateral system is not left outside the cut either. Core contributions to the United Nations system fell by 27%, the largest annual fall recorded so far. This puts even more pressure on agencies that are already working at the limit to respond to overlapping crises and sustain programmes linked to basic rights such as food, health, water, education or the protection of displaced people.

The cut has a particular impact on countries with fewer own resources and greater dependence on international funding. According to the OECD, bilateral ODA allocated to the least developed countries fell by almost 26% in 2025, while aid directed to sub-Saharan Africa fell by 26.3%. The figure shows that international cooperation is falling precisely where needs are most urgent. In many of these countries, ODA is a key contribution when it comes to financing policies on health, education, food security, access to water or social protection.

Along these lines, the OECD secretary-general, Mathias Cormann, warns that “fiscal pressures on developing countries are growing” and that the conflict in the Middle East represents “a significant risk to global growth and food security”. For this reason, in statements reported by the organisation, he defends the need to “maximise the impact of available resources” and mobilise new sources of investment.

Thus, the picture drawn by the OECD does not point to a one-off shock, but to a trend that may continue and worsen in the coming years. The organisation expects ODA to fall again by 5.8% in 2026, which would consolidate the global retreat of international cooperation at a time of greater humanitarian needs and more pressure on impoverished countries.

The chair of the OECD Development Assistance Committee, Carsten Staur, warns that the decline is especially worrying because of the moment at which it arrives, in a context of growing global uncertainty. “In this situation, the world needs more ODA, not less”, Staur argues, while calling on donors to reverse this trend.

The 0.7%, increasingly far away

With this cut, the 0.7% commitment is even further away. In 2025, only four countries exceeded the target of allocating this percentage of gross national income to ODA: Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway and Sweden. In total, only eight of the thirty-four members of the Development Assistance Committee maintained or increased their contributions. Spain was one of the exceptions and increased its ODA by 10.7%.

If we look at Catalonia, this trend contrasts with the demands of the global justice sector, which has long called for the consolidation of public cooperation policy and progress towards 0.7% by 2030. In fact, in an appearance before Parliament, Lafede.cat defended the need for Catalan cooperation “with optimal resources” and called for the Catalan Cooperation Law to be amended to include this commitment. The Catalan Government also maintains this horizon in the 2025 Annual Development Cooperation Plan, which sets 0.7% as the target for 2030 and places global cuts to aid among the major challenges of the moment.

This historic fall in ODA is not just a figure in a report. It has direct and very concrete consequences, such as fewer resources to respond to emergencies, sustain basic services and support the communities and countries most affected in facing the crises that are piling up. For this reason, the chair of the OECD Development Assistance Committee calls on donors to reverse this trend and increase their aid again: “It is more necessary than ever, also for long-term global security”.