Despite the looming 2015 deadline for achieving the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals, development aid from major donor countries fell for the second consecutive year in 2012, an analysis by the Worldwatch Institute finds.

According to preliminary data, official development assistance (ODA) from the twenty-six member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Development Assistance Committee totaled $128.4 billion in 2012, down 4 percent from 2011 and 6 percent from the 2010 peak of $136.7 billion. In terms of dollar amount, the United States led all donor countries with $29.9 billion in commitments, or 23.3 percent of the DAC total, followed by the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Japan. In terms of aid as a percentage of gross national income, however, U.S. aid accounted for only 0.19 percent of GNI, far short of the UN target of 0.7 percent. In addition, aid from members of the European Union fell 7.4 percent in the wake of the Eurozone crisis, with severe cuts in development assistance from the southern European countries of Spain, Italy, Greece, and Portugal.

The report also found that short-term foreign assistance provided in response to disasters and humanitarian crises in 2012 declined some 6.5 percent on a year-over-year basis, from $13.8 billion to $12.9 billion, with the U.S. providing the most, $3.8 billion, or 29.4 percent of all humanitarian aid from DAC countries.

"ODA is far from the only mechanism of international capital flows to or from developing countries and emerging markets," said Cameron Scherer, co-author of the report and program associate at Internews. "A multitude of vehicles — private and public, bilateral, and multilateral — fill the global finance landscape. And against this broader canvas, ODA involves relatively small amounts of money."