WHEN it comes to giving aid to developing countries, is the United States hero or villain? It gives a smaller percentage of its national output as aid than any other major country, a meagre 0.15 per cent, or 15 cents of every $100. The figure has been declining for decades.

It is well below the 0.41 per cent that is the average of major countries and even further off the 0.7 per cent UN target that Tony Blair is trying to move the wealthy world towards. Britain currently gives 0.34 per cent.

Yet in hard cash, the US aid contribution amounted to more than $16 billion (£8.8 billion) last year, nearly twice the next largest donor, Japan.

Britain, in fifth place behind France and Germany, gave $6.3 billion (£3.5 billion).

There is also a great deal that the much bandied figure of 0.15 per cent ignores. Much of the tsunami relief effort this year would have ground to a halt, for instance, without the American ships, helicopters, transport planes and men and women diverted by the military.

Such help comes from the Pentagon budget and does not show up in US aid figures.

Nor do the figures include the substantial philanthropic donations of America’s foundations, corporations, universities and religious congregations. Together they will give up to $30 billion this year.

Bill Gates, the Microsoft billionaire, gave $1.2 billion in grant payments in 2003, 60 per cent of it abroad.

In terms of trade, aid, investment and private donations, the US accounts for 70 per cent of the total financial flow from the seven richest countries, the G7, to the developing world.

The US aid figure also excludes donations from individual Americans who, living in a heavily community-based society and in the absence of a welfare state, tend to dip their hands into their pockets much more habitually than Europeans. This year Americans will give up to $25 billion directly to charities, four times the British Government’s aid budget.

President Bush’s record, which has seen a doubling of overseas aid since he came to office, has won praise from Bono, the U2 singer and campaigner. Under that umbrella, funding for basic education in developing countries has more than tripled under Mr Bush, up from $126 million in 2001 to $397 million this year.

Mr Bush also surprised many when he increased US aid for Aids relief in Africa and the Caribbean from $5 billion to $15 billion over five years.

Mr Bush and Mr Blair share many common goals in Africa, but they differ on how to deliver them.

The flagship of Mr Bush’s aid policy is the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) that ties grants to developing countries to their willingness to take steps towards “good governance, rooting out corruption, upholding human rights and adherence to the rule of law”.

Critics have said that the MCA means aid going to countries that ally themselves to Washington in the fight against terrorism and make US-friendly economic reforms. Only eight of the 17 countries eligible for MCA funding are in sub-Saharan Africa. The others are Armenia, Bolivia, Georgia, Honduras, Morocco, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka and Vanuatu.

The ambitious plans hatched by Mr Blair and Gordon Brown to raise billions for Africa by selling bonds through an international finance facilitator run counter to the MCA, and has therefore run into the sands in Washington.

Mrm Bush says that he cannot support the bonds plan because it runs counter to US budget law which states that one Administration cannot bind the hands of future Administrations. Canada and Japan were also opposed.

WHERE THEY STAND

WHAT BLAIR WANTS

WHAT BUSH PLEDGED

A one-off $630 million in aid for Africa. The cash was already part of the US aid budget, but had not been allocated

$1.4 billion to the UN for emergency funds

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