Misc

Ranked: The OECD Countries Giving the Most Foreign Aid

Published

4 months ago

March 25, 2025

Our World in Data

Featured Creator

See this visualization first on the Voronoi app.

Ranked: OECD Countries Giving the Most Aid

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Key Takeaways

Only three OECD countries met the foreign aid target: 0.15% of their national income in 2022.
They are: Luxembourg, Sweden, and Norway.
The U.S. is the largest single-donor by dollar amount.

This graphic by Our World in Data ranks OECD countries—a collection of mostly high-income economies—by the most foreign aid given in 2022.

ℹ️ They reference figures from the UN which tracks net official development assistance (ODA) to Least Developed Countries (LDCs) as a percentage of OECD-DAC donors countries’ gross national income (GNI).

A benchmark in the 1980s set the threshold at 0.15% of their national income. By 2022, only three countries sat above that line.

How Major Economies Compare in Giving Foreign Aid

In 2022, only Luxembourg, Sweden, and Norway gave 0.15% or more of their national income as foreign assistance

Ranked	Country	Foreign Assistance to LDCs (% of GNI)
1	🇱🇺 Luxembourg	0.46%
2	🇸🇪 Sweden	0.28%
3	🇳🇴 Norway	0.20%
4	🇩🇰 Denmark	0.14%
5	🇮🇸 Iceland	0.14%
6	🇧🇪 Belgium	0.13%
7	🇫🇷 France	0.12%
8	🇩🇪 Germany	0.12%
9	🇯🇵 Japan	0.12%
10	🇳🇱 Netherlands	0.12%
11	🇨🇭 Switzerland	0.12%
12	🇫🇮 Finland	0.11%
13	🇮🇪 Ireland	0.11%
14	🇨🇦 Canada	0.10%
15	🇬🇧 United Kingdom	0.08%
16	🇺🇸 United States	0.08%
17	🇦🇹 Austria	0.07%
18	🇰🇷 South Korea	0.06%
19	🇸🇮 Slovenia	0.06%
20	🇮🇹 Italy	0.05%
21	🇦🇺 Australia	0.04%
22	🇳🇿 New Zealand	0.04%
23	🇪🇸 Spain	0.04%
24	🇵🇹 Portugal	0.03%
25	🇨🇿 Czechia	0.02%
26	🇬🇷 Greece	0.02%
27	🇵🇱 Poland	0.02%
28	🇸🇰 Slovakia	0.02%
29	🇭🇺 Hungary	0.02%
30	🇱🇹 Lithuania	0.02%
31	🇪🇪 Estonia	0.02%

Meanwhile, the U.S. sent around 0.08% of its national income, behind many of its peers including Canada, France, Germany, and the UK.

However as these values are percentages, the actual dollar amount is a lot higher. Also this metric only tracks assistance to LDCs.

In fact the UN states that the U.S. is the single-largest foreign aid donor, accounting for 40% of all humanitarian aid tracked in 2024.

A large part of U.S. assistance went to Ukraine, but many African countries feature prominently on the receivers list.

Most recently, the Trump administration announced a 90-day freeze on USAID, the agency that oversees its humanitarian support.

The Economics of Foreign Aid Programs

Foreign aid can be instrumental during crises, such as providing food during famines or medical assistance during disasters.

However, failures can and do occur. A notable example is Haiti, which received nearly $13 billion in aid after a devastating earthquake in 2010. Haitian activists say that this has disincentivized the political class to carry out institutional reforms.

While this money has been vital in providing services and supplies to Haitians, violence, corruption, and political paralysis has gone unchecked.

On the other hand, well-targeted aid, like funding infrastructure projects in Rwanda or investing in education programs in Bangladesh, can drive long-term growth.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

Where does U.S. foreign aid go? View this graphic on Voronoi, the new app by Visual Capitalist, to find out.

This article was published as a part of Visual Capitalist's Creator Program, which features data-driven visuals from some of our favorite Creators around the world.

Click for Comments

Energy

Mapped: The World’s Most Critical Oil Chokepoints

As Israel and Trump weigh future strike scenarios on Iran, we map the Strait of Hormuz and its vital role in the global oil market.

Published

1 day ago

July 17, 2025

Dorothy Neufeld

Why the Strait of Hormuz is a Vital Oil Chokepoint

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Key Takeaways

Roughly a fifth of global oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz, the second-largest oil chokepoint in the world.
As tensions flare in the Middle East, any closure to the Strait of Hormuz could cause oil prices to spike to up to $130.
The U.S. has imposed sanctions on Iranian oil, in efforts to exert pressure on the regime.

The total volume of oil passing through the Strait of Hormuz stands around a staggering $600 billion.

While a blockade of the strait is considered a distant possibility, its closure could ripple across global supply chain networks. In particular, Japan, China, and India would be impacted the most. Furthermore, a shock to oil prices would likely affecting production costs, in turn raising the price of consumer goods.

This graphic shows the most vital oil transit chokepoints, based on data from MUFG.

The Strait of Hormuz and Oil Trade Flows

Below, we show how the Strait of Hormuz sees the second-highest volume of oil passing through its corridor globally:

Location	Million Barrels per Day in 2023
Strait of Malacca	23.7
Strait of Hormuz	20.9
Suez Canal & SUMED Pipeline	8.8
Bab el-Mandeb	8.6
Cape of Good Hope	6.0
Danish Strait	4.9
Turkish Straits	3.4
Panama Canal	2.1

In 2023, 20.9 million barrels of oil flowed through the Strait of Hormuz, which lies between Iran and Oman.

Iran largely controls this waterway, where 20% of global oil consumption is transported across this shipping route. In response to Israel-Iran conflicts, oil production surged by 950,000 barrels per day in June—largely driven by Saudi Arabian output.

While tensions have recently flared between Israel and Syria, it remains to be seen if conflict will resurface with Iran. Earlier in July, Israeli officials met with Trump to discuss certain scenarios that would justify a future attack on Iran—including the resumption of nuclear enrichment activities.