International development lenders committed $4.7 billion in 2024 to projects aimed explicitly at reducing air pollution, less than 1% of all international development finance, according to an annual analysis published Tuesday by the Clean Air Fund (CAF).

That was up 58% from $3.0 billion in 2023, nearly matching the 2022 peak of $4.8 billion. A broader measure, which also counts projects where cleaner air is a co- benefit, fell 6% to $28.7 billion, the first annual decline in five years. Five of the ten most polluted countries got less than $2 per citizen, and most of the money came in the form of loans, the analysis found.

Air pollution causes 7.9 million premature deaths a year, nine in ten of them in low- and middle-income countries, according to Health Effects Institute figures. It costs the equivalent of nearly 5% of global GDP, the World Bank estimates, and targeted policies could halve the number of people exposed to dangerous levels by 2040, with economic benefits of up to $2.4 trillion.

“Funding remains worryingly low, concentrated on a limited number of places, and misaligned with countries facing the greatest burden,” said Sean Maguire, executive director for strategic partnerships at CAF.

The data analysed stops in 2024, before the largest annual drop in development aid on record hit the following year. Development assistance for health fell by more than a fifth in 2025, to $39.1 billion, its lowest level in over 15 years, according to estimates by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). US health aid fell 67%.

Even before the cuts, air pollution drew little donor money relative to its toll, compared with causes such as food security, humanitarian relief or climate finance. Foundations gave it less than 0.1% of their global giving between 2019 and 2023, a separate CAF analysis found.

“Recent gains remain fragile,” the report says. “The challenge is whether these gains can be sustained and scaled amid shrinking aid budgets.”

The CAF report, produced with Climate Policy Initiative (CPI), tracks 2020-2024 commitments by development banks and donor governments. It excludes domestic budgets and private finance, and nearly nine in ten dollars it counts are loans.

“With development budgets under growing pressure, clean air objectives must be built into wider development investment, so every dollar works harder and delivers benefits for health, climate and economies at the same time,” Maguire said.

Most polluted countries left behind

Pakistan, Nepal, Myanmar, Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo, five of the world’s ten most polluted countries, each received less than $2 per person in air quality funding in 2024. India, the second most polluted, was the exception, drawing 19% of all air quality funding that year.

“Air quality funding is not going where pollution exposure and health risks are greatest,” Maguire said.

Pakistan, ranked third for exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5), received about 3 cents per person. Between 2020 and 2024, it received $1.7 billion in what CAF calls fossil fuel-prolonging funding, nearly three times the $0.6 billion it received for all air quality projects combined.

Bangladesh, the most polluted country in the ranking, was the largest recipient of fossil fuel-prolonging funding over the five years, at $3.7 billion. Bangladesh’s fossil fuel funding fell 96% in 2024, to $113 million, the report found. Over the five years, it received $7.8 billion in air quality funding.

“Our analysis shows that money is not yet consistently following need, and that countries facing some of the highest pollution levels often have the least access to finance,” said Barbara Buchner, chief executive of CPI.

A wide tent for what counts as clean air funding

Projects that make no mention of air quality made up 84% of the air quality funding CAF counted in 2024.

CAF and CPI find these co-benefit projects through keyword searches of project descriptions in OECD and development bank data, projecting a clean air benefit from the type of project. The methodology captures investments in public transportation like buses, railways and metro lines, wastewater plants and networks, solid waste, household energy efficiency, food waste and soil health. It does not check whether individual projects actually cut pollution.

Transport accounted for 62% of all air quality funding over the five years, with railways and public transport alone making up $53 billion. Two loans worth $5 billion for a high-speed rail line between Mumbai and Ahmedabad made up 14% of South Asia’s air quality funding.

“Investment in railways, public transport and cleaner mobility is demonstrating how better connectivity and economic development can go hand in hand with cleaner air,” said Fu Lu, CAF’s regional director for Southeast Asia. “We need these benefits to be shared by many more people and places.”

Because co-benefit funding tracks wider lending for transport and infrastructure, its growth provides only mixed signals about whether funders are prioritizing clean air specifically.

Total air quality funding, co-benefit projects included, has held at 5.6% of international development funding across the last two five-year periods, while the outdoor share slipped from 0.8% to 0.7%.

The narrower outdoor category leans on similar projects. Under the keyword rules CAF published last year, a transport or water project counts as explicit clean air funding if its description also mentions air, health or exposure. Ten projects made up 53% of outdoor funding over 2020-2024, seven of them rail or public transport, mostly metro lines.

CAF itself found “no structural shift towards explicitly targeting air quality improvements” over the medium term.

Loans dominate co-benefit finance

Loans made up 89% of the $124.6 billion in air quality funding between 2020 and 2024, about $110 billion. Grants accounted for 7.7%. Co-benefit projects, which make no mention of air quality, made up $108.7 billion of the total.

Concessional funding fell from $19 billion to $12 billion, while non-concessional funding rose from $12 billion to $17 billion, 58% of the total. Concessional loans carry below-market interest but still have to be repaid. In 2024, the balance tipped further toward market-rate lending.

In CAF’s figures, which follow OECD aid classifications, concessional finance counts as aid, and aid budgets are shrinking, with the OECD projecting a further 5.8% drop in 2026. The reliance on loans in the donor landscape may put air quality funding beyond reach for countries already carrying heavy debts, according to CAF’s analysis.

Official development assistance from OECD donors fell 23.1% in real terms in 2025, to $174.3 billion, according to preliminary OECD data, as the United States cut its aid by 56.9%.

Across the global South, debt service is absorbing 45% of government revenue in 2025 and exceeds combined spending on education, health and social protection by 20%, according to Development Finance International’s Debt Service Watch.

A narrow measure of fossil fuel finance

About $1.2 trillion is expected to flow into oil, gas and coal in 2026, according to the International Energy Agency’s annual investment report. Governments plan to produce 120% more fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C, according to the 2025 Production Gap Report.

The International Monetary Fund puts explicit fossil fuel subsidies at $725 billion in 2024. Implicit subsidies, three-quarters of them the unpriced cost of air pollution and climate damage, add $6.7 trillion. Removing both would mean 1.1 million fewer premature deaths from air pollution, the IMF estimates.

Against those sums, the report counted $4.7 billion in what it calls fossil fuel-prolonging development finance in 2024, down 48% from 2023, and said that put it level with outdoor air quality funding.

The report counts only international public development finance recorded in OECD data, and only projects that build polluting assets, such as power plants, pipelines and airports, or that promote polluting activities.

Private banks, domestic state spending, guarantees, most export credit and fuel subsidies fall outside it, and road building was dropped from the count this year.

G20 governments and multilateral development banks provided at least $47 billion a year in international public finance for oil, gas and coal between 2020 and 2022, according to the campaign group Oil Change International. About 65% came through export credit agencies, which CAF’s figures largely leave out.

The report warns that continued investment in long-lived fossil fuel assets risks “lock-in to a fossil fuel-dependent development pathway.” It also acknowledges that such funding can support energy access and security in developing countries.

Last year’s edition urged donors to end funding for fossil fuel-prolonging projects. None of this year’s five recommendations mentions fossil fuels.

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