Foreign Aid to Nepal: Total ODA and Donor Profiles

Official Development Assistance (ODA) is concessional financing that foreign governments and international agencies channel to Nepal to support development. It flows in three main forms: grants (money Nepal does not repay), loans (concessional credit that must be repaid, usually at low interest over long terms), and technical assistance (experts, training, studies and equipment rather than cash). The Government of Nepal's central record of this financing is the Aid Management Information System (AMIS) run by the International Economic Relations, Coordination and Development Cooperation Division of the Ministry of Finance.

Each year the Ministry of Finance, in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), publishes the Development Cooperation Report, the authoritative account of how much aid Nepal received, from whom, and for what. In fiscal year 2024/25 (BS 2081/82) Nepal received roughly US$1.60 billion in ODA. Loans made up the largest share (about two-thirds), grants a little over one-fifth, and technical assistance the remainder, reflecting a long-run shift from grants toward concessional borrowing.

Aid is delivered by three categories of partner: multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank; bilateral partners, meaning individual foreign governments such as India, the UK, the US and Japan; and the UN system. In 2024/25 multilateral partners accounted for the great majority of disbursement (around 68 percent, roughly US$1.09 billion), bilateral partners for about 28 percent (around US$448 million), and the UN system for about 4 percent (around US$65 million).

Nepal's total ODA disbursement is volatile from year to year because it depends on the pace at which large infrastructure loans are drawn down. Disbursement peaked at about US$1.70 billion in FY 2020/21, fell sharply to roughly US$1 billion in FY 2021/22 (a 15.7 percent reduction), and has since recovered to about US$1.60 billion in FY 2024/25. Over the past decade ODA has averaged close to 5-6 percent of Nepal's gross domestic product (GDP).

The composition of that aid has changed markedly. A generation ago most assistance arrived as grants; today loans dominate. In FY 2024/25 loans made up roughly two-thirds of ODA, grants a little over one-fifth, and technical assistance the balance. Because loans must be repaid, this shift steadily increases Nepal's external debt-servicing burden and is a recurring theme in national budget debate.

The single largest driver of the grant-to-loan tilt is the two big multilateral banks, whose infrastructure and policy financing is mostly credit. Bilateral partners are more mixed: India, for example, delivers most of its assistance as grants, whereas some other partners lend. Readers should treat exact annual percentages as indicative, since figures are revised as disbursements are reconciled and different agencies (Ministry of Finance versus Nepal Rastra Bank) count flows on slightly different bases.

Aid to Nepal is highly concentrated in a handful of partners. In FY 2024/25 the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank alone disbursed close to US$1 billion, roughly 60 percent of all ODA, and together they typically account for around 70 percent of concessional financing and a large slice of Nepal's public capital budget. This concentration means that shifts in the lending appetite of these two banks move Nepal's whole aid picture.

Among individual governments (bilateral donors), India was the largest in FY 2024/25 at US$107.8 million, followed by the United Kingdom (US$84.2 million), the United States (US$67.1 million), Japan (US$58.3 million) and Switzerland (US$30.1 million). India also ranked third among all donors of any type, behind only the World Bank and the ADB. The European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are also significant multilateral contributors.

This structure has policy consequences. Because the top few partners provide most financing, Nepal's development priorities in transport, energy, health and public financial management are heavily shaped by the strategies of the World Bank, ADB and a small group of bilateral partners. Recent cuts and freezes in some bilateral programmes, notably United States assistance, have therefore had an outsized effect on the pipeline of Nepali projects.

The World Bank is Nepal's single largest development partner, disbursing about US$541 million in FY 2024/25. Its concessional lending to Nepal runs mainly through the International Development Association (IDA). As of early 2026 the Bank's active public-sector portfolio comprised around 22 operations with total commitments of roughly US$2.3 billion, spanning transport, energy, education, health, agriculture, water, urban governance and public financial management. The bulk of World Bank support is credit rather than grant.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is the second-largest donor, disbursing about US$443 million in FY 2024/25. Since it began operating in Nepal, cumulative ADB assistance has reached the order of US$9 billion across several hundred loans, grants and technical-assistance operations (about US$9.3 billion in commitments as of end-2024). ADB concentrates on transport (roads), energy and hydropower, urban water and sanitation, agriculture and irrigation, and education, and it is Nepal's largest infrastructure financier alongside the World Bank.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) supports Nepal mainly through a four-year Extended Credit Facility (ECF) approved in 2022, which provides concessional budget-support financing tied to macroeconomic and financial-sector reforms; disbursements under the ECF have run into the low hundreds of millions of US dollars. The European Union (EU) is a substantial grant-based partner, focusing on education, rural development, public financial management, green energy and governance, and it disbursed on the order of US$38 million in FY 2024/25.

India is Nepal's biggest bilateral donor, disbursing US$107.8 million in FY 2024/25, of which about US$73.3 million was grants, US$25.8 million loans and US$8.8 million technical assistance. Indian assistance is unusually grant-heavy and concentrates on cross-border connectivity (roads, rail, integrated check-posts, petroleum pipelines), high-impact community development projects at the local level, and education and health infrastructure. The United Kingdom, through its Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), disbursed US$84.2 million, focusing on health, education, climate resilience, governance and economic development, and remains a long-standing grant partner.

The United States, historically channelled through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), disbursed US$67.1 million in FY 2024/25 across health, education, democracy and governance, agriculture and disaster resilience; US programming has faced significant funding disruption since early 2025. Japan, working through the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), disbursed US$58.3 million and has supported Nepal since 1978 in transport, electric power, water supply, urban environment, agriculture, health and earthquake reconstruction, using a mix of grant aid, yen loans and technical cooperation.

China's assistance to Nepal is delivered as grants and as concessional loans from institutions such as the Export-Import (Exim) Bank of China; its highest-profile project is the Pokhara International Airport, funded by a China Exim Bank concessional loan that Nepal has asked Beijing to convert into a grant because the airport has not generated enough revenue to service the debt. Among European partners, Switzerland (US$30.1 million in FY 2024/25) and Germany are durable grant donors focusing on federalism and local governance, vocational skills, renewable energy, health and agriculture. Norway is another notable Nordic contributor.

Beyond the banks and bilateral governments, the United Nations system is a distinct category of partner, disbursing about US$65 million (roughly 4 percent of ODA) in FY 2024/25. UN agencies active in Nepal include UNDP, UNICEF, the World Food Programme (WFP), the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the World Health Organization (WHO) and others, working on humanitarian response, health, nutrition, child protection, disaster risk reduction and support to Nepal's federal transition. UN assistance is almost entirely grant-based.

A wider group of bilateral partners and funds also contributes, including Norway, Finland, the Republic of Korea (through KOICA), and vertical funds such as the Global Fund and Gavi that finance health programmes. Because these flows are individually small, they rarely change the overall donor ranking, but they can be decisive in specific sectors such as immunisation or HIV, tuberculosis and malaria control.

For readers who want live, official numbers, the Ministry of Finance's Aid Management Information System (amis.mof.gov.np) publishes donor-by-donor profiles with commitment and disbursement figures, and the annual Development Cooperation Report provides the narrative analysis. Because fiscal-year data are revised over time, always cite the specific report edition and fiscal year when quoting an aid figure for Nepal.