$163 Billion Wiped from Children’s Futures as Global Aid Plummets – World Vision Warns
- For every $1 in international aid spent on children, the world gets a $10 return on investment, from better education, health and other outcomes.
- Donors projected to cut overall international aid by $51 billion from 2025 by 2030.
- With less and less aid going to children, this means $163 billion loss – in boys’ and girls’ futures, health and education.
Global aid cuts are stripping away the futures of millions of children and threatening to erase $163 billion in long-term returns, according to a hard-hitting new report released today by World Vision at the Financing for Development summit. The analysis, based on data from EY-Parthenon about levels of ODA spent on children, reveals that despite overwhelming evidence that every $1 spent on children’s health, education, and protection generates nearly $10 in returns, rich nations are retreating from investing in the very people who need it most — children.
In 2023, only 11.5% of Official Development Assistance (ODA) was spent on children, a sharp drop from 15% just one year earlier. If current trends continue, that number is set to plummet to just 7% by the end of the decade. Meanwhile, global aid budgets are forecast to fall by $51 billion by 2030. The combined impact of shrinking aid and diminishing child-focused investment equates to a staggering $163 billion in lost potential.
“This is not a routine fiscal adjustment,” said Dana Buzducea, World Vision International’s Global Lead for Advocacy and External Engagement. “It amounts to a dangerous retreat from our global responsibility to protect the most vulnerable. If this trend continues, children will pay the price — in missed school years, untreated illnesses and shattered dreams.”
Ms. Buzducea said the effects of these cuts are already playing out on the ground. “We are seeing children drop out of school to work or marry early, emergency food programmes suspended, health clinics shuttered, and child protection services forced to close. The consequences are immediate, devastating, and long-lasting.”
The report shows that many of the worst-affected programmes are in regions already grappling with the fallout of conflict, hunger, and climate shocks. Aid cuts by countries such as Belgium, France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States, have already triggered the closure of critical services. Further proposed cuts, including those recently announced by Germany, threaten to deepen the crisis.
“Let’s be clear — investing in children is not charity. It is one of the smartest, most strategic investments we can make,” said Buzducea. “We are talking about a $10 return for every $1 spent. There is no business case, no moral argument, no development goal that justifies walking away from that.”
World Vision is calling on donor governments to reverse course immediately, warning that the current trajectory will lock in cycles of poverty and instability for generations. “We are standing at a crossroads,” said Ms Buzducea. “This is not just about aid flows — it’s about whether we believe that every child, regardless of where they are born, deserves a fair shot at life. If we fail to act now, the damage will be irreparable — and history will judge us for it.”
For more information please contact: Katherine Shaw | kate_shaw@wvi.org | +44 (0) 7917 377 541
Report available to download here
About the Report
‘ODA at the crossroads: Why putting children at the heart will create a brighter future for all’ uses data and economic analysis of OECD/DAC database undertaken by EY-Parthenon, combined with publicly available information about aid cuts in a number of major donors to make new projections about the lost return on investment from reduced overseas development assistance.
Lost return on investment is based on applying the exact figure of $9.80 in returns for every $1 spent to a projected $16,672,222,545 decrease in child specific and child related ODA between 2023 and 2030. This is a baseline forecast that assumes continuation of current trends and no additional sharp cuts to ODA besides those already announced by France, Netherlands, Belgium, the United Kingdom and the United States. It does not include proposed cuts by the German government announced in June 2025, which would cause further lost investment.
For information about the effects of aid cuts already taking place, please read World Vision’s 2025 report, “Hunger, harm and hard choices”.
For more information about the return on investment for ODA spent on children, please read World Vision’s 2024 report, “Putting Children First for Sustainable Development.”
World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organisation dedicated to working with children, families and their communities to reach their full potential by tackling the root causes of poverty and injustice. World Vision serves all people, regardless of religion, race, ethnicity or gender. For more information, please visit www.wvi.org