Japan was likely the fourth-largest official development assistance provider last year among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, with Britain reclaiming third place, according to the body’s preliminary data.
The United States remained the top ODA donor in 2024 among the 32 member countries of the OECD Development Assistance Committee, with $63.3 billion, down 4.4 percent from 2023 in real terms, the OECD said in a report released in April.
Following Germany’s $32.4 billion, down 17.2 percent, and Britain’s $18.0 billion, down 10.8 percent, Japan’s aid was estimated at $16.8 billion, down 10.3 percent, with France trailing at $15.4 billion, nearly unchanged from a year earlier, the report said.
File photo taken on April 8, 2022, shows Akihiko Tanaka, president of the Japan International Cooperation Agency, holding a press conference in Tokyo. (Kyodo)
Japan had held the position of third-largest donor since surpassing Britain in 2021. The decline in its donations in 2024 was mainly due to the yen’s depreciation, the Foreign Ministry said.
A Foreign Ministry official said the decline also came in contrast to the sharp increases seen in 2022 and 2023 when many development projects backed by Japan resumed after being suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The OECD will finalize the data, calculated by international standards under the grant equivalent system, around year-end, the official said.
Japan views ODA as one of its “most important diplomatic tools” as it pursues a “free and open” Indo-Pacific amid China’s growing military and economic clout, though it faces a tight fiscal situation with its public debt more than twice the size of gross domestic product.
Photo taken on April 3, 2025, shows members of a medical team dispatched by the Japan International Cooperation Agency, the nation’s aid-implementing body, to Mandalay in central Myanmar, after it was devastated by a powerful earthquake on March 28. (Kyodo)
The report by the OECD, a Paris-based club of mostly wealthy nations, also showed that overall ODA by Development Assistance Committee members fell 7.1 percent in real terms in 2024 to $212.1 billion, marking the first decline after five consecutive years of growth.
The result was because of “a reduction in contributions to international organizations, as well as a decrease in aid for Ukraine,” the organization said, referring to the support for the Eastern European nation fighting a Russian invasion since 2022.
The net ODA to Ukraine declined by 16.7 percent to $15.5 billion, accounting for 7.4 percent of the total aid, it said.
Lower levels of humanitarian aid and reduced spending on hosting refugees in donor countries were also contributing factors, the OECD added.
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