Development aid suffered a "historic decline" of 23.1% in real terms last year according to the OECD , blaming a massive withdrawal of US support against a backdrop of budgetary and geopolitical tensions.
The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said its preliminary data showed official development assistance (ODA) by member countries of its Development Assistance Committee reached $174.3 billion last year, down for the second consecutive year.
"This is the largest annual contraction recorded in the history of ODA," the OECD said, noting that the total represented just 0.26 percent of contributing states' combined gross national income.
The OECD said 26 of 34 members reduced their ODA, with the five largest providers combined (France, Germany, Japan, Britain and the United States) accounting for 95.7% of last year's drop.
"The United States alone drove three-quarters (75.1 percent) of the decline, with its ODA falling by 56.9 percent, marking the largest reduction by any provider in any year on record," the organisation said.
Although German cuts amounted to 17.4%, nonetheless, the scale of the US decline meant that Germany became the largest provider of ODA for the first time.
The anti-poverty NGO Oxfam condemned the cuts, citing the aid's crucial role in combating diseases such as HIV-AIDS and malaria.
"Wealthy governments are turning their backs on the lives of millions of women, men and children in the Global South with these severe aid cuts," Oxfam's development finance lead Didier Jacobs said.
He said the Institute of Global Health of Barcelona estimated that global aid cuts of such magnitude would kill hundreds of thousands of people.
"If this trend continues, aid cuts could kill over nine million people by 2030," Mr Jacobs said.
He urged governments to restore their aid budgets and shore up a global humanitarian system facing "its most serious crisis in decades".
"There are other ways to find tens of billions of dollars, such as by taxing the $2.84 trillions of dollars that the super-rich hide in tax havens," he said.
