Overseas Development Assistance

Poor countries have lost out on $5.7 trillion in aid over the last 50 years - equivalent to $114 billion a year - because rich countries have reneged on their “solemn promise” to deliver 0.7 percent of their national income in international aid, a new Oxfam report revealed today.

 

Oxfam today celebrated news that donors had increased their development aid spending to $134.8 billion in 2013, which the OECD says stands at the highest-ever recorded level. However aid levels to Africa dropped by 5.6% to just $28.9 billion – back to the levels they were 10 years ago.

Faltering overseas aid figures announced today are depriving poor countries of a massive $18bn worth of life-saving aid, at a time when 64 million more people globally have been pushed into poverty by the financial crisis.

International aid agency Oxfam today warned that the conflict-driven emergency in Yemen could soon ignite into a full-blown humanitarian crisis unless immediate action is taken to stop the fighting between government forces and Houthi rebels in the north of the country.