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Mapping the Global Flow of Foreign Aid

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Global flow of foreign aid by country

Mapping the Global Flow of Foreign Aid

Billions of dollars routinely flow between countries for a number of reasons that go beyond simply helping people in less wealthy nations.

Extending foreign aid can be a tool to help strengthen relationships with allies, to help bolster a military presence in a key area, or even to project a positive image at home and abroad. Of course, aid also helps less wealthy nations do all kinds of things, from constructing new infrastructure to recovering from humanitarian crises or natural disasters.

Today’s infographic, from Wristband Resources, is a comprehensive look at the flow of foreign aid funds around the world in 2017.

The visualization raises a number of questions. For example:

  • Why does Japan send so much foreign aid to places like India and Vietnam?
  • Why does Turkey—one of the top 20 economies in the world—receive so much foreign aid?
  • And why did Ethiopia receive over $1 billion in aid from the United States?

Below we’ll answer key questions about foreign aid, while examining some of the more interesting relationships in detail.

What Constitutes Foreign Aid?

In simple terms, foreign aid is the voluntary transfer of resources from one country to another country—typically capital. Here are the six types of foreign aid:

    1. Bilateral Aid: Direct government-to-government assistance
    2. Multilateral Aid: When multiple governments pool resources in cooperation with organizations like the World Bank, the IMF, and the UN
    3. Tied Aid: The receiving country accepts aid with the expectation that it is spent in the lending country
    4. Voluntary Aid: A charitable donation, particularly when countries are facing a humanitarian crisis
    5. Project Aid: When aid is used to finance a specific project
    6. Military Aid: Similar to tied aid, but specific to weapons and military supplies

Note: The graphic above measures official development assistance (ODA), as defined by the OECD. ODA excludes military aid and the “promotion of donors’ security interests” as well as transactions that have primarily commercial objectives.

Which Countries Give the Most Foreign Aid?

Every country’s budget is different, and priorities can change as the economic and political cycles progress. As of 2018, here are the countries that contributed the most foreign aid as a portion of their Gross National Income (GNI).

foreign aid by country

In a 1970 resolution, the UN challenged countries to spend 0.7% of their GNI on foreign aid. Today, only four countries—Sweden, Luxembourg, Norway, and Denmark—surpassed the United Nations’ official development assistance target.

Using this measure, all top 10 countries are located in Europe. That said, in absolute terms, countries like Japan and the United States are still major contributors of aid around the world.

Below are a few real world examples of foreign aid flow, and more context around why money is flowing between the countries.

Japan → India

India is the top recipient of foreign aid, with the majority of funds coming from Japan. The country received close to $2.4 billion from Japan in 2017.

In recent years, the growth of Japan-India relations is viewed as a counter to China’s expanding economic and political influence across the Asian continent. As China’s national banks continue to fund megaprojects around the world, Japan is helping to fill a similar role in India.

One major project currently under construction is the Mumbai–Ahmedabad High Speed Rail Corridor. To move the $22 billion project forward, Japan offered India a 50-year loan at a 0.1% interest rate, covering 80% of the project cost.

European Union → Turkey

European institutions contributed nearly $2.6 billion to Turkey in 2017. On the surface this may seem confusing, as Turkey is more developed than most nations receiving foreign aid—however, much of this funding stems from the migration crisis. In 2016, the EU struck a deal with Turkey to reroute any migrant arriving in Europe via the Aegean Sea back to Turkey. In exchange, the EU agreed to fast-track Turkey’s EU membership bid.

Turkey has been bearing the brunt of caring for refugees, and the EU has contributed significant funds to the effort. For example, funding for the Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN) program in Turkey has reached $1.2 billion.

In 2019, EU-Turkey relations took a chilly turn as European Parliament voted to suspend Turkey’s EU membership bid, expressing concern over creeping authoritarianism and human rights violations.

United States → Ethiopia

In 2017, Ethiopia was under a state of emergency as the African country faced a third straight year of drought, and security forces and anti-government protesters clashed in the streets. Though the U.S. does provide plenty of military and security-oriented aid, this is an example of humanitarian aid in the face of a crisis.

The United States was also the top source by far for aid flowing into other countries in the region, including Kenya, Tanzania, and South Sudan.

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War

Visualized: Top 15 Global Tank Fleets

Heavily armed and armored, the modern tank is a versatile and mobile weapons platform, and a critical piece of contemporary warfare. 

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Teaser image for an dot matrix chart of the top 15 global tank fleets, broken down by main battle tanks, armored fighting vehicles, and storage, showing that the U.S. is number one, by a wide margin.

The Top 15 Global Tank Fleets

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Heavily armed and armored, the modern tank is a versatile and mobile weapons platform, and a critical piece of contemporary warfare.

This visualization shows the top 15 global tank fleets, using data from the 2024 Military Balance report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

Let’s take an in-depth look at the top three fleets:

1. United States

As the world’s pre-eminent military power, it’s perhaps no surprise that the United States also has the largest tank fleet, by a wide margin.

In total, they have just over 45,000 armored fighting vehicles in operation, along with 2,640 main battle tanks (MBTs), and 12,800 vehicles in storage, of which 2,000 are main battle tanks.

CategoryVehiclesGlobal rank
Main battle tanks2,6404
Armored reconnaissance1,7451
Infantry fighting vehicles3,2623
Armored personnel carriers10,6441
Amphibious assault vehicles1,4011
Armored utility vehicles28,4451
Storage12,8001
Total60,9371

The U.S. is internalizing the lessons from the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, where Western-supplied anti-tank weapons and massed Ukrainian artillery have been cutting Russian tanks to pieces. As a result, the U.S. recently canceled an upgrade of the M1 Abrams in favor of a more ambitious upgrade.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is nervously eyeing a more confident China and a potential clash over Taiwan, where air and naval forces will be critical. However, a recent war game showed that Taiwanese mechanized ground forces, kitted out with American-made tanks and armored fighting vehicles, were critical in keeping the island autonomous.

2. Russia

According to Oryx, a Dutch open-source intelligence defense website, at time of writing, Russia has lost almost 2,800 main battle tanks since invading Ukraine. Considering that in the 2022 edition of the Military Balance, Russia was estimated to have 2,927 MBTs in operation, those are some hefty losses.

Russia has been able to maintain about 2,000 MBTs in the field, in part, by increasing domestic production. Many defense plants have been taken over by state-owned Rostec and now operate around the clock. Russia is also now spending a full third of their budget on defense, equivalent to about 7.5% of GDP.

At the same time, they’ve also been drawing down their Soviet-era stockpiles, which are modernized before being sent to the front. Just how long they can keep this up is an open question; their stockpiles are large, but not limitless. Here is what their storage levels look like:

Category20232024YOY change
Main battle tanks5,0004,000-20.0%
Armored reconnaissance1,000100-90.0%
Infantry fighting vehicles4,0002,800-30.0%
Armored personnel carriers6,0002,300-61.7%
Total16,0009,200-42.5%

3. China

China holds the third overall spot and top place globally for the number of main battle tanks in operation. Untypically, the People’s Liberation Army has no armored vehicles in storage, which perhaps isn’t surprising when you consider that China has been rapidly modernizing its military and that stockpiles usually contain older models.

China also has one of the world’s largest fleets of armored fighting vehicles, second only to the United States. Breaking down that headline number, we can also see that they have the largest number of light tanks, wheeled guns, and infantry fighting vehicles. 

CategoryVehiclesGlobal rank
Main battle tanks4,7001
Light tanks1,3301
Wheeled guns1,2501
Infantry fighting vehicles8,2001
Armored personnel carriers3,6045
Airborne combat vehicles1802
Amphibious assault vehicles9902
Total20,2543

This is equipment that would be integral if China were to make an attempt to reunify Taiwan with the mainland by force, where lightly armored mechanized units need to move with speed to occupy the island before Western allies can enter the fray. It’s worth noting that China also has one of the world’s largest fleets of amphibious assault vehicles.

End of the Tank?

Many commentators at the outset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, were quick to predict the end of the tank, however, to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the tank’s demise are greatly exaggerated.

With the U.S. and China both developing remote and autonomous armored vehicles, tanks could be quite different in the future, but there is nothing else that matches them for firepower, mobility, and survivability on the modern battlefield today.

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