Apart from the Middle East, all regions saw real terms reductions in official development assistance (ODA) from Development Assistance Committee (DAC) donors in 2012.
New data from the OECD shows the regions with the largest proportional reductions in aid were North & Central America (22%), Europe (19%) and South & Central Asia (13%). The largest absolute falls were in aid to South & Central Asia (US$2.7 billion) and sub-Saharan Africa (US$1.6 billion), which are home to over three quarters of those living in extreme poverty.
Developing countries received a total of US$129 billion in aid from the 23 DAC countries in 2012. This was 3.5% (US$4.7 billion) less in real terms than in 2011. But the fall was less than previously thought, with around 3.9% previously estimated using incomplete provisional data from donors.
Notes:Written by Ian Townsend and Anna Osborne. Data for net disbursements of bilateral and imputed multilateral ODA for DAC-23 countries, i.e. excluding the five countries that joined in 2013 (Czech Republic, Iceland, Poland, Slovak Republic, Slovenia). All figures in 2011 prices. Regional figures include apportionments of continent-wide but region/country specified aid to Asia, Africa and the Americas (using ratios of disbursements to sub-regions within them. For example, region unspecified ODA to Africa was divided between North and Sub-Saharan Africa for each donor using shares of ODA to those sub-regions).