A total of 532 non-governmental organisations, most of them foreign, shared a Norwegian aid allocation amounting to NOK 12.2 billion in 2025.

These so-called NGOs thus absorbed more than one in every five aid kroner. This portion of the aid funding stream has increased by 34 per cent under the Støre government. One of the beneficiaries is the World Economic Forum.

Norwegian non-governmental organisations (NGOs – Non-Governmental Organisations) received a total of NOK 7.9 billion. Towering above the Norwegian NGO industry are the “big five”: the Red Cross, the Norwegian Refugee Council, Norwegian Church Aid, Norwegian People’s Aid, and Save the Children Norway. Together, these received NOK 5.7 billion in aid funds.

This left NOK 2.3 billion in aid funding to be distributed among the remaining 89 Norwegian NGOs. These received an average of NOK 25.5 million each.

Some NGOs have disappeared and others have emerged. Some receive less than before, while others receive more. The number of Norwegian recipients has remained relatively stable. The growth in aid funding to Norwegian NGOs has primarily gone to the large organisations, while the smaller ones have remained comparatively stable.

One of the winners among the smaller organisations, however, is LO – the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (Landsorganisasjonen). It received more than NOK 42 million, almost a doubling since the Støre government took office in 2021.

In the article “LO Pays Aid Without Invoices”, Finansavisen wrote about how LO handled large payments via e-mail, internal vouchers, and without invoices, something which, according to Regnskap Norge, does not appear to constitute normal or good practice.

Aid to foreign NGOs, by contrast, has increased dramatically under Støre, by as much as 39 per cent.

NGO turnover

NOK 4.3 billion in aid funding went to a total of 438 different foreign NGOs.

At the top of the table stand two newcomers.

The Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation went from receiving zero kroner in 2024 to a full NOK 200 million in 2025.

It shares first place among foreign NGOs with an entity called the Catalytic Finance Foundation, which also received NOK 200 million from Norwegian taxpayers. It appeared out of nowhere in 2024 as a recipient of NOK 112 million in aid funding.

Both are American environmental organisations.

The number of foreign actors in the NGO industry receiving Norwegian aid funding has remained relatively stable. However, the turnover has been substantial.

No fewer than 77 foreign NGOs appeared on the recipient list in 2025. Together, they received NOK 281 million in Norwegian taxpayer funds to spend. One of the major newcomers is the Danish Refugee Council, which received NOK 49 million, followed by an entity called FSD Africa – Financial Sector Deepening Africa, which received NOK 34 million, and EDF – Environmental Defense, which received NOK 19 million.

Since the Støre government took office, a total of 290 non-governmental organisations have rotated on and off the recipient list, of which just under 270 were foreign.

Document.no does not have an overview of the background to this extensive turnover or the criteria on which it is based. Presumably, however, the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Norad should possess such information.

Børge Brende did very well

Although there is considerable NGO turnover, many long-standing organisations remain. And they are doing well.

The percentage winner among those that were on the list both before and during the Støre government is something called “PELUM – Participatory Ecological Land Use Management”, an umbrella organisation for 280 NGOs in Africa.

In 2021, it received a mere NOK 460,000. Last year, it received NOK 38.8 million.

And it was a good year for Børge Brende. The World Economic Forum returned to its glory days with a new record in Norwegian aid funding of NOK 20.8 million in 2025, an increase of 200 per cent from the previous year.

After he left Norwegian politics in 2017, aid funding to the WEF was scaled down somewhat, but last year it returned at full force.

The previous record was NOK 20.4 million. That record was set in 2016, when Børge Brende himself was Foreign Minister and had begun orienting himself towards employment opportunities within the organisation.

As is well known, Brende was obliged this year to step down from his position as head of the WEF following revelations of unusually close associations with the paedophile sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Trust in the system

With 532 NGOs out of a total of 845 different organisations that received Norwegian aid funding last year, it is an extensive task to review everything, not least to understand the criteria underlying these allocations and whether there is adequate auditing and analysis of any form of results achieved.

In the end, everything rests on trust in people such as Espen Barth Eide, Børge Brende, and their like.