African economies, most of which import the petroleum products they consume, are being hit by a toxic combination of surging energy costs, depreciating currencies as investors flee to safe-haven assets, and tighter food supplies as fertiliser becomes scarce and expensive. Twenty-one African countries are already in or at high risk of debt distress, while borrowing costs have almost doubled for African countries since 2020.

G7 countries’ cuts to official development assistance (ODA) over the last few years—in part to shift spending to military defence—has exacerbated the effects of recent external shocks on African countries.

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is the first major stress test of a system that has been hollowed out as a result of rapid aid cuts, leaving disease surveillance systems weakened against pandemic threats.

Declining G7 Assistance

Aid to Africa peaked in 2021 while the continent was dealing with COVID, and has since been in decline. In 2024, G7 ODA to Africa hit its lowest level since 2019. Between 2021 and 2024, G7 ODA to Africa declined by $10 billion, or 18.7%. Meanwhile, Africa's population has been growing by roughly 2.5% a year. As a result, even when overall aid budgets hold steady, they are spread more thinly due to growing need.

New analysis by ONE shows that, when adjusted for population, G7 per capita ODA to Africa fell by almost one-quarter in real terms between 2021 to 2024. It dropped from $37.8 per person in 2021 to $28.6 per person in 2024, in constant 2024 dollars. That means that G7 aid to Africa was $9.15 lower per African person in 2024 than it was just three years earlier.

G7 leaders are asking African countries to manage more frequent global shocks, protect their populations from imported inflation, invest in resilience, and stay on track toward long-term development goals, with less support.

Aid is not the only answer to Africa’s financing challenges. It cannot, by itself, solve debt distress, climate vulnerability, or weak tax capacity. But for many low-income and crisis-affected countries, concessional finance remains one of the few sources of funding that can support basic services, humanitarian needs, and long-term investment without adding to debt stress.

That makes the decline in G7 aid per person especially worrying.

Who is cutting — and by how much

The decline is not driven by one donor alone. Across the G7, most major donors provided less aid to Africa in 2024 than they did in 2021.

In per capita terms, the United States remained the largest G7 donor to Africa in 2024, providing $12.7 per African person and accounting for around 44% of total G7 ODA to the continent. But US support per capita was down 15% from 2021. Canada, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom all made per capita cuts of over 30% between 2021 and 2024.

Not only is aid to Africa in decline, but the share of total ODA spent in African countries is at its lowest levels in the past two decades. That means that Africa is receiving a smaller share of the pie, as aid gets spent in other places, particularly with the rise of refugee costs in donor countries.

It’s Only Getting Worse…

Preliminary data from the OECD, published in April 2026, points to a further dramatic deterioration. Bilateral ODA from all DAC donors to Africa fell by 23.9% in 2025, the second consecutive year of decline and the steepest on record. France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States together accounted for 95.7% of the total global ODA decline; the United States alone drove three-quarters of the decline, with its ODA dropping 56.9% compared to 2024.

These are bilateral figures only. We cannot yet extend our per capita series to include 2025, because the imputed multilateral ODA data—which captures donor contributions that flow through international institutions—will not be available until December 2026. Those multilateral flows may have buffered some of the aid cuts, or not. But the direction is unambiguous. With bilateral ODA to Africa falling by nearly a quarter in a single year, 2025 almost certainly represents another sharp fall in aid received per African person. The OECD projects a further 5.8% decline in global ODA in 2026, and that projection does not account for the additional fiscal strain created by the Middle East conflict.

As previous ONE analysis has demonstrated, donors are increasingly trying to do more with less, stretching aid budgets across refugee costs, Ukraine support, climate finance, private sector instruments, and geopolitical priorities. Those pressures are real. But when the aid pot does not grow, trade-offs become unavoidable. Too often, Africa loses.

The worst possible moment

The economic effects of the Iran war are still evolving, and will vary by country. Some African oil exporters may see short-term revenue gains from higher prices. But the balance of risks is negative for many African countries, especially net fuel, food, and fertiliser importers.

Higher oil prices raise transport and energy costs. Shipping disruption increases import costs and delays. Fertiliser price spikes can hit farmers before they hit consumers, threatening yields and food security months later. And when these shocks arrive on top of high debt service costs, they leave governments with fewer good choices.

Amidst global instability, ODA has been a critical mechanism keeping net financing flows to African countries positive. Private capital has retreated. Chinese lending to Africa dropped 80% from its 2018 peak by 2024 and has not recovered. Commercial borrowing has become prohibitively expensive. As aid now declines, there is nothing ready to replace it.

Cutting the support that reaches the most vulnerable people at precisely this moment is a choice — and it is the wrong one. Global poverty data makes this clear: Approximately 43% of people in sub-Saharan Africa live in extreme poverty — a rate that, unlike in other regions, remains stubbornly high. The absolute number of people in extreme poverty in Africa is rising, as population growth outpaces economic progress. The 2026 shocks to energy and food prices will push millions more toward the edge.

This is why the G7’s aid retreat is so poorly timed. African countries are not being asked to absorb one shock. They are being asked to absorb shocks layered on top of shocks, with less support per person than they received three years ago.