Is the Dutch election result bad news for aid?

“Volledige stop op ontwikkelingshulp,” reads the manifesto of the Party for Freedom, or PVV, the surprise far-right winners of this week’s Dutch election — or, translated, a “complete stop on development aid.”

The vow lays bare how the bombshell result that has thrust PVV’s notorious anti-Islam leader Geert Wilders to the brink of power in a key European capital has also thrown into jeopardy his country’s status as one the world’s leading donor nations.

In 2022, the Netherlands spent $6.5 billion on official development assistance — 0.67% of its gross national income — putting it in 6th place in the league table of the planet’s most generous countries.

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