Foreign aid, budget cuts, and influence among developing country leaders for select donors

Once reliable standard bearers for aid programs, traditional donors are retreating from aid commitments—and may risk losing influence with Global South leaders in the process.

Notes: Influence data is drawn from AidData's 2024 Listening to Leaders Survey. Among leaders who reported working with a given donor, "influence" is the percentage of responses evaluating that donor as “quite” or “very influential” in 2024. For more, see AidData's Listening to Leaders 2025 report.
Chart: Sarina Patterson/AidDataSource: Sources: OECD (2023b, 2024b), Donor Tracker (2024a-b, 2025), Meijer (2024), Gulrajani and Pudussery (2025), Belga (2025), MacKinnon (2024), Knickmeyer et al., (2025), Mitchell and Hughes (2025), Hird (2025), GoN. (2025), Craig (2025), Demirjian et al., (2025).