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Increase or decrease development aid? French, German, British and American views

Published 28 June 2022 in Surveys

In partnership with University College London (UCL) and Birmingham University, Focus 2030 is conducting a research-action program to analyze the perceptions, attitudes, behaviors and feelings of citizens on international solidarity issues in four countries: France, Germany, United States and United Kingdom.

This research programme Development Engagement Lab (DEL), aims at providing various actors in charge of development issues (NGOs, foundations, think-tanks, ministries, public institutions, international organizations) with data to enable them to better understand citizens’ expectations while they implement their communication, mobilization and advocacy activities.

Within the DEL project, the same 10 question survey is conducted three times a year in order to measure how much opinions evolve about official development assistance (ODA) in the four DEL countries.


When measuring respondents’ opinions on whether official development assistance (ODA) should be increased, maintained, or decreased in the four countries surveyed by the DEL research project, we note that since 2019, French people are more likely than the Germans, Americans, and British to want their governments to increase the amount of money allocated to ODA in order to support development in the poorest countries.

With the exception of the United Kingdom, where there has been an increase in support for more ODA since January 2021 (coinciding with the British government’s decision to decrease ODA), in the other three countries, this proportion has been decreasing since June 2020, around the time of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Since this period in 2020, opinions supporting an increased ODA seem to be stalling in the United States and Germany, joining British opinions at around 23%. While French opinions in favor of increasing ODA tend to remain higher in 2022.

Since this point in 2020, opinions supporting an increased ODA seem to have stalled in the United States and Germany, joining the views of the United Kingdom, at around 23%. In contrast, French opinions in favor of increasing ODA tend to remain above those observed in the other three countries.


This data comes from our survey conducted by the YouGov Institute and piloted by the research team at University College London and the University of Birmingham as part of the project Aid Attitudes Tracker which measures the evolution of opinions and behaviors on issues of international solidarity in four countries.

Further reading

Retrouvez la méthodologie du projet Development Engagement Lab (DEL)

Documents to download

Retrouvez la méthodologie du projet Development Engagement Lab (DEL)