Overview of development finance trends
Brunei is a high-income country, one of only two in Southeast Asia. Its $14 billion GDP (2021) makes up just 0.4% of the region’s GDP, and it has by far the smallest population at just 445,000. Its per capita GDP is $31,450, the second-highest in the region behind Singapore. Its Human Development Index ranking is 51st out of 191 countries, closer to the upper-middle income countries of Malaysia and Thailand than the region’s other high-income country, Singapore. It sits at 25th out of 180 in Transparency International’s 2021 Corruption Perception Index.
Brunei’s economy is heavily dependent on oil and natural gas, which accounted for 49.6% of GDP in 2021. Its natural resources have provided substantial revenue and high earnings from exports since independence in 1984, but this reliance has exposed the economy to shocks such as the Covid-19 pandemic and fluctuations in commodities prices. There are ongoing efforts to diversify the economy, improve the quality of life, and increase GDP, articulated in the Wawasan Brunei 2035.
Despite its relative wealth, Brunei contributes very little to development assistance in Southeast Asia. Brunei provides development finance outside the Southeast Asian region, most notably via capital holdings in the Islamic Development Bank, contributions to the Central Emergency Response Fund, and financial support to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Official development finance in Southeast Asia Spent, constant 2021 US$
- Brunei
- Other recipients
Within the region, Brunei made an annual contribution to the ASEAN Coordinating
Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management. Between 2015 and
2021, it disbursed official development finance (ODF) on two other occasions: a
$100,000 grant in 2018 to aid flood victims in Laos Inter-SEA033 and a
donation of AstraZeneca vaccines worth $8,620 to the Philippines in 2021
Intra-Reg-ph-001.
Brunei is also a recipient of very small volumes of ODF. Between 2015 and 2021, it received slightly more than $3 million (2021 constant US$) in grants, averaging $434,000 a year, from the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and China. There was an increase in 2016 ODF from Japan, but volumes fell again in 2017 and remained low until 2021, when both Singapore and China donated Covid-19 vaccines to Brunei, worth $1.9 million and $1.1 million respectively.