New Zealand aid: A primer

Concluding our primers on English-speaking donors, we take a look at one more Development Assistance Committee member country, New Zealand. New Zealand’s aid spending fluctuated throughout the decade. It first crossed the $500 million mark at the start of 2018 and has remained above that level since. However, the country’s official development assistance-to-gross national income ratio still lagged behind both the DAC average and the 0.7% target. Preliminary data shows that its official development assistance, or ODA, in 2024 is currently worth $768 million, or 0.32% of its national income. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade manages the country’s overall foreign assistance. As with Australia, New Zealand allocates higher aid to neighboring small island developing states, or SIDS. New Zealand mostly channeled its aid bilaterally, averaging 82.5% between 2019 and 2023. Of its total ODA in 2023, $640 million, or 83.8%, was bilateral aid. Nearly a third of this, worth $200.7 million, went to multicountry and regional projects in Oceania, while another $56 million was spent on activities with multiple recipients from different regions. Samoa got the largest share of country-specific aid, worth $41 million. Fiji followed, with $29.5 million; Tonga, with $27.8 million; Niue, with $25.6 million; and Solomon Islands, with $23.1 million. Among DAC members, New Zealand is the largest provider to SIDS and the second-largest source of ODA to Oceania. Almost a quarter of New Zealand’s bilateral aid in 2023 went to administrative costs and budget support. Among those with specific target sectors, the largest sum went to material relief assistance and services, worth $42.7 million, followed by higher education, worth $37.9 million, and renewable energy generation, worth $26.2 million. New Zealand’s remaining $124 million aid in 2023 went to the multilateral system. Its top recipients included the World Bank’s International Development Association, which got $22.3 million; the Global Environment Facility Trust Fund, with nearly $12 million; and the Adaptation Fund, with $9.2 million.