Benchmarking official development assistance (ODA) for medical research, by recipient and by donor country
Published: March 2025, data up to 2023
The Official Development Assistance (ODA) data are collected from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
ODA data are reported below for the year 2023 in US$. (Note: not all countries have reported data on this indicator)
See also:
What you see
The data visualization compares ODA for medical research as % of (total) ODA for health (i.e. health ODA) in ODA recipient countries (chart A) and donor countries (chart B) against the global target (5%) set out in the 1990 report of the Commission on Health Research for Development (indicated by a horizontal line; an additional dashed line is also shown at 1%). The size of the country’s income group symbol indicates the amount of health ODA spent on medical research.
Four questions are explored (one in each of the four tabs at the top of the page):
- Tab 1: How do countries compare in the % of health ODA allocated to medical research?
- Tab 2: Is the percent allocated to medical research influenced by the income of countries?
- Tab 3: Taking a closer look at recipient countries in the lower percentage range, can we detect any relationships?
- Tab 4: Does the health research capacity of countries influence the amount and % allocated to medical research?
Points to note:
- The data are derived from 133 ODA recipient countries and 41 ODA donor countries for which data are available.
- Gambia received the highest share of its health ODA for medical research (52%), followed by Cuba (15%). This is a large reduction since 2020 data at which time Malaysia received the second highest amount of health ODA for medical research at 40%, which is now 5%). (tab 1, chart A)
- Only Gambia (low-income country), Cabo verde and Algeria (lower-middle income countries), Cuba, Namibia, Malaysia and Brazil (upper-middle income countries) met the 5% target. (tab 1, chart A)
- The majority of recipient countries did not meet the target of being allocated at least 5% of health ODA to medical research, while several countries did not receive any ODA for medical research. (tab 1, chart A)
- Among donor countries (tab 1, chart B), the United Kingdom (62%, increased from 33% in 2020), followed by Estonia (50%) and Luxembourg (17%) allocated the highest share of their donated health ODA to medical research.
- Overall, the level of GDP per capita (tab 2), did not seem to influence the share of ODA for health allocated to medical research , neither in the recipient nor in the donor countries; however, the total amount of ODA for health seemed to slightly influence the amount allocated to medical research in the recipient countries (view the size of the symbol) ( tab 1, chart B) .
- Taking a closer look at the data (see tab 3), countries that were allocated relatively higher percentages of health ODA to medical research (among those in the 0%-10% range), with relatively higher amounts (represented by the size of the symbol), are countries known to have existing capacity for health research, such as Brazil, Indonesia, Cambodia, Kenya and India.
- There no longer appears to be a relationship between countries capacity for health research (measured by the number of health researchers per million inhabitants) and the % of health ODA allocated to medical research (tab 4). (Note that data for both indicators are only available for a subset of countries).
To explore the data further:
- Select a WHO region (from the top right key) and/or income group (from the top left key) to filter countries according to these categories, or select a country from the ‘Find a country’ dropdown list. Use your control key to select more than one category.
- Hover the cursor on a symbol in a graphic to see more information in a popup window.
- Undo the selection by clicking ‘undo’ or ‘reset’ near the bottom of the page or by clicking the same element again.
Data sources
- Indicator: UNESCO; OECD; Eurostat
- Country income group classification
- GDP