(13 April 2016) – The EU and its Member States have kept their place as the world’s leading aid donor in 2015, providing more than half of the total Official Development Assistance (ODA) reported last year by members of the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD), according to the figures published today. In 2015, the international solidarity budget increased sharply to cover the costs of the refugee crisis.
Preliminary figures show that EU collective (EU institutions and Member States) Official Development Assistance has increased to €68 billion in 2015 (up 15% from €59 billion in 2014, mainly to cover the costs of the refugee crisis).
EU collective ODA represented 0.47% of EU Gross National Income (GNI) in 2015, an increase from 0.43% in 2014. This is significantly above the non-EU Development Assistance Committee (DAC) country average of 0.21% ODA/GNI.
In 2015, five EU Member States exceeded the 0.7% ODA/GNI mark: Sweden (1.4%), Luxembourg (0.93%), Denmark (0.85%), the Netherlands (0.76%) and the United Kingdom (0.71%). In total, 21 Member States increased their ODA nominally by €9.8 billion, while the decreases in the 6 others amounted to €0.3 billion.