Which countries or regions received the largest share of USAID humanitarian assistance in 2024?
Executive summary
In fiscal 2024 USAID’s largest single-country recipients were Ukraine ($6.1 billion) and the Democratic Republic of Congo ($1.3 billion), while the agency’s top-10 list also included Jordan, Ethiopia, West Bank and Gaza, Sudan, Nigeria, Yemen, Afghanistan and South Sudan (top recipients by USAID-managed funds) [1] [2]. USAID reported roughly $10.5 billion in humanitarian assistance across 84 crises in 66 countries in FY2024, and much of its humanitarian funding was concentrated in MENA (Gaza, Iraq, Syria, Yemen) as well as countries in sub‑Saharan Africa [3] [4].
1. Who got the biggest slices — the headline numbers
Public reporting and USAID-linked data identify Ukraine as the largest single beneficiary of USAID-managed aid in 2024 at about $6.1 billion, followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo at roughly $1.3 billion; the congressional CRS summary lists the top 10 recipients in descending order as Ukraine, DRC, Jordan, Ethiopia, West Bank and Gaza, Sudan, Nigeria, Yemen, Afghanistan, and South Sudan [1] [2]. USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance and State Department documents say the agency provided about $10.5 billion in humanitarian assistance in FY2024 across 84 crises and 66 countries, indicating that the largest country recipients absorbed substantial shares of that wider humanitarian portfolio [3].
2. Regional concentration — MENA and sub‑Saharan Africa dominated certain flows
Independent analysis and regional breakdowns show heavy humanitarian concentration in the Middle East and North Africa: USAID allocated significant MENA-targeted funds in 2024, with about $2.0 billion earmarked for humanitarian aid in Gaza, Iraq, Syria and Yemen alone, and over $2.1 billion provided to Gaza since October 2023 for emergency food, health and water services [4]. At the same time, USAID channeled large humanitarian commitments to sub‑Saharan Africa — including sizable programming in Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo — and supported WFP operations that reached over one million people in Burkina Faso with a $124 million BHA contribution in 2024 [4] [5].
3. Why Ukraine towers above other recipients
Ukraine’s $6.1 billion USAID figure reflects the exceptional, conflict-driven U.S. response since Russia’s full‑scale invasion and includes humanitarian and other USAID-managed assistance; Visual Capitalist and ForeignAssistance.gov–based reporting underscore Ukraine as the single largest beneficiary in 2024 [1]. The CRS and other sources note that extraordinary Ukraine appropriations in recent years made humanitarian assistance again the top USAID sector in FY2024, shifting typical sectoral patterns [2] [6].
4. Caveats, classification and the limits of the public numbers
“USAID-managed funds” and “humanitarian assistance” are overlapping but not identical categories; some figures cited for top recipients mix humanitarian, development and other USAID-managed flows, and not every source disaggregates pure humanitarian grants versus broader foreign assistance [2] [1]. The official ForeignAssistance.gov portal is the central data hub for U.S. foreign assistance but public summaries and secondary graphics sometimes collapse categories, so totals attributed to a country can reflect programmatic breadth not only emergency relief [7] [1].
5. Competing narratives and reporting priorities
Different outlets emphasize different priorities: Visual Capitalist highlights the country-by-country dollar rankings and lists Ukraine first and DRC second [1]; the CRS product frames the same top-10 list and stresses that humanitarian assistance “returned to the top of the list” in FY2024 [2]. Policy analysts focused on MENA emphasize that about half of USAID’s MENA obligations—around $2.0 billion—were humanitarian and heavily concentrated in Gaza, Iraq, Syria and Yemen [4]. Each narrative uses overlapping data but advances distinct policy emphases — geopolitical stabilization in Europe (Ukraine), crisis response in MENA, and protracted humanitarian need in sub‑Saharan Africa.
6. What the sources don’t say — gaps you should note
Available sources do not provide a single, fully disaggregated table in these excerpts showing exactly what share of the $10.5 billion of humanitarian assistance went to each country; the top-country dollar amounts reported for 2024 mix USAID-managed aid categories and are presented in different formats across sources [3] [1] [2]. Detailed line‑item breakdowns by country and pure humanitarian-vs-development classification should be retrieved directly from ForeignAssistance.gov for precise shares [7].
7. Bottom line for readers
For 2024, Ukraine and the Democratic Republic of Congo were the largest USAID recipients by reported USAID-managed dollars, with a broader top‑10 that includes Jordan, Ethiopia, West Bank and Gaza, Sudan, Nigeria, Yemen, Afghanistan and South Sudan; USAID provided roughly $10.5 billion in humanitarian assistance across 84 crises in 66 countries, with notable regional concentration in MENA and sub‑Saharan Africa [1] [2] [3] [4]. For program-level shares or to answer “what percentage of USAID humanitarian aid went to X country,” consult ForeignAssistance.gov’s dataset, since the public summaries cited here mix categories and do not supply a single per-country humanitarian-only share in the excerpts provided [7].