Who suffers when education aid falls? 

By: Yuki Murakami, GEM Report

Last year, the GEM Report warned that, by 2027, aid to education could fall by around a quarter from its peak in 2023. This was a projection based on donor announcements at the time. One year later, new evidence from donors shows that the drop is likely to be even sharper at 30%.  



Who will bear the cost?

Aid to education often supports system development and generates less immediately visible outcomes. Cuts are therefore hard to relate to people’s everyday lives. But the subsequent pressure on systems will ultimately be felt by schools and learners and, over time, by societies in the countries most affected.

Which donors are changing course?  

Up until two years ago, 80% of aid to education was provided by just 10 donors, of which the World Bank, the United States, the European Union, Germany and France were the largest. Apart from the World Bank, the other top donors are stepping back. 

The United States has made the most dramatic and widely reported move. Following the suspension of most foreign assistance programmes in early 2025, its overall aid fell by 57%, the largest reduction by any donor on record. This new direction has been mirrored by other donors albeit not to the same dramatic extent. Germany reduced its development budget by a quarter compared to 2022 levels and removed its commitment to spend 0.7% of national income on aid. France has recorded three consecutive years of declining aid. The European Union reduced aid by 14% in 2025, although it is yet to announce its new policy from 2028 onwards. 

Other donors among the top 10 are also on shaky ground. The United Kingdom has announced that aid spending will fall to 0.3% of national income by 2027 down from the original 0.7% commitment, which has been already lowered to 0.5% in 2021, in order to fund increased defence spending. Japan’s aid fell by 6% in real terms.  

Why is education being hit harder?

Between 2023 and 2024, direct aid to education fell by 8%. Aid to basic education, targeted at the pre-primary, primary and lower secondary education levels and supporting the most excluded children in the world’s poorest countries, fell by 15% overall and by 17% in low-income countries, or twice as fast.

The squeeze is coming from two places at once. Not only is the amount in the overall aid pot getting smaller, but the share going to education is shrinking at the same time. In 2010, education received 10% of sector-allocable aid. By 2024, that figure had fallen to 7.5%. This places additional pressure on countries that rely on external support to expand access and improve learning. 



The countries with the least room to absorb the shock 

Between 2022 and 2024, aid accounted for almost 40% of public education spending in Rwanda, 31% in Sierra Leone and 19% in Burundi. In absolute terms, some of the largest recipients included Bangladesh, Jordan, the State of Palestine and the United Republic of Tanzania

Our latest analysis suggests that, by 2025, one third of low- and lower-middle-income countries had lost at least one third of the education aid they received on average between 2021 and 2023. Countries such as Afghanistan, Liberia, Mali and Niger were projected to have lost at least 40% of their programmable aid to education

Many of these countries are already facing debt pressures, humanitarian crises or rapidly growing school-age populations. Although not true for all countries, for many, education aid continues to be a life-saving injection they will certainly miss.

Some impacts are already becoming visible in international organisations too. UNICEF reduced spending on education programmes in 2025. The World Food Programme reached one million fewer children through school meals, take-home rations and cash transfers than the previous year. UNRWA faced a funding shortfall of around USD 200 million and reduced services accordingly

A question of priorities 

An about-turn in the approach to aid might be understandable – or even necessary, according to some. But a comparison to some other government priorities, which seem to be gaining ground, helps put the decline in aid to education into perspective. For instance, global military spending reached USD 2.9 trillion in 2025. That means that the world spent as much on defence in just one and a half days as it spent on direct aid to education throughout the whole of 2024. These figures highlight the choices governments are making about where public resources are directed

While aid cannot fix all of our education problems, it is at least helping to build a stronger future. There are 273 million out of school worldwide, learning levels remain alarmingly low and many countries continue to recover from the long-term effects of the pandemic

A different conversation is needed

Today’s Transforming Education Summit +4 is looking at making education systems more resilient. But resilient and sustainable financing is equitable financing. From an aid perspective, this means supporting basic education, which can be directed towards helping the poorest children to complete primary school and it means supporting countries most in need. As this graph shows, this is often not the case.  



If aid is on the decline but numbers out of school are on the rise, we must take this matter seriously. Our recommendation is to redirect remaining resources through multilateral mechanisms, reduce earmarking, and support national education budgets rather than fragmented projects. This will strengthen education systems and leave them more resilient if and when donors change their minds.
 

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