Global aid spending drops as refugee flows decrease — OECD
Donor countries not living up to their 2015 pledge to ramp up development finance, says secretary-general Angel Gurría
London — As global refugee flows fell in 2018 , so did aid from rich countries, official data showed on Wednesday, tumbling for the second consecutive year, and hindering efforts to end poverty. Major donors spent $149.3bn on aid in 2018, a decrease of 2.7% compared with the year before, according to preliminary figures released by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This was mostly due to a 28% drop in spending on hosting and processing refugees, which cost about $10.6bn in 2018, the Paris-based think-tank said. About 116,000 refugees and migrants entered Europe in 2018, said the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), the lowest since more than a million arrived in 2015, when the continent experienced its largest influx since World War 2 . Rich countries need to increase aid spending if the world is to achieve 17 global development goals, seeking to end poverty and hunger and tackle climate change, which were agreed in 2015 by UN member states and estimated ...
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