The Japanese government announced last week that it would provide aid for the first time to foreign militaries through its Official Development Assistance (ODA) program. The move is part of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s aggressive diplomatic efforts to build Japanese influence and ties, particularly in Asia, on all levels, including military.

The United States Agency for International Development has requested $21,8 million to fund political activities in Zimbabwe for 2016, including availing money to the civil society's agenda to "hold Government accountable". Information at hand indicates that some of the countries to receive the money in Sub-Saharan Africa besides Zimbabwe are South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Liberia and Somalia.

Indonesia’s foreign ministry told Australia on Wednesday that Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s reminder about a $1 billion aid rendered during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami crisis will not change Indonesia’s mind about executing the Bali Nine duo Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran for drug trafficking. Foreign Ministry spokesman Armanatha Nasir told reporters that he understood what Abbott meant with his statement.

“By far, the largest component of our requested budget increase is dedicated to the critical states of Afghanistan and Pakistan,” he told the committee in March 2010. (...) In the five years since those remarks, Shah has appeared to focus less and less on Afghanistan and more on other development programs, such as combating global poverty and the Ebola outbreak, while aid to Afghanistan accounts for billions more U.S. taxpayer dollars than any other country where the agency operates.

The future of aid, how aid agencies need to evolve and the impact of Australia’s foreign aid cuts were among the hot topics on Day One of the Australasian Aid Conference in Canberra.

The foreign aid budget has been increased so quickly that ministers and officials are ‘struggling’ to spend it properly, a major report warns today. It found that they were ‘unprepared’ for the challenge of spending a 30 per cent increase in the budget last year. The increase followed David Cameron’s controversial pledge to spend 0.7 per cent of the UK’s income on foreign aid.

Japan will open the way to channel aid to foreign militaries under a new charter for overseas development assistance, as the nation seeks to bolster regional security ties amid a territorial dispute with China. The Development Cooperation Charter will allow Japan to provide overseas aid for non-combat purposes, according to a copy of the document obtained by Bloomberg News. 

The Islamic State militant group said on Friday that its last known remaining American hostage, female aid worker Kayla Mueller, has been killed by a Jordanian airstrike against extremist targets in Syria.According to SITE, a group that monitors online jihadi messages, the Islamic State reported on Twitter that Mueller, of Prescott, Arizona, “was killed when she was buried beneath the rubble of the building.”