Jointly published by the Institute for Journalism and Social Change (IJSC) and Harm Reduction International (HRI), it reveals the scale of international aid funding for the war on drugs. It focuses on such funding in countries that retain the death penalty for drug-related offences, at a time when drug-related executions account for around 46% of all executions confirmed globally. This is the sharpest edge of these controversial financial flows: connecting international taxpayers to executions around the world.

Over the decade from 2015-2024, it tracks a total of about $60 million spent by aid donors on ‘narcotics control’ projects in 14 countries that retain the death penalty – including Iran, one of the leading executors of people for drug related offences.

Thirty-six countries retain the death penalty for drug-related offences as of 2026. Over the last decade, at least 3,700 people have been executed for drug offences – roughly one person every single day. By 2025, more than 46% of all recorded executions worldwide were linked to drug offences, up from one in three a decade ago.

More than 2,500 people are known to be on death row for drug-related offences today.

• Aid donors reported spending about $60 million over the last decade (2015-2024) on ‘narcotics control’ projects in countries that retain the death penalty for drug-related offences. About half was provided by the US; the other half came from Asian and European aid donors including Japan, Korea and Germany. About two-thirds of this total was spent via multilateral organisations – in particular, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC); the rest went through recipient or donor government agencies, private companies and NGOs.
• These sums and projects are likely to be the tip of the iceberg in terms of international aid supporting the infrastructure for drug-related executions; there are significant transparency gaps in such international spending. Aid isn’t the only international funding flow supporting this infrastructure either; however, it is one that is specifically supposed to support poor and marginalised communities in developing countries – not kill them.
• Top recipients of this funding include Iran – one of the leading executors of people for drug-related offences
• After the US, Japan has been the top donor of this funding overall – despite Japanese policy not to use the death penalty, domestically, for non-violent offences including drug-related ones. In total, it spent more than $18 million of its international aid, over the decade examined, on ‘narcotics control’ projects in six countries that retain the death penalty for drug-related offences. In Iran, Japan strikingly spent more of its aid on ‘narcotics control’ than on key development goals like basic education and water and sanitation.
• Over the last decade, independent evaluations commissioned by UNODC have repeatedly raised concerns about human rights. Rights violations by the agency’s partners have been considered only a “reputational risk” and due diligence only a “procedural formality.” Despite this, money has continued to flow to programmes in countries, from Iran to Indonesia, retaining the death penalty for drug-related offenses.
• Lack of transparency remains a persistent issue: figures provided in the report are likely an underestimate, because of incomplete reporting by donors, potential misclassification of projects, and the lack of participation by some key actors – such as UNODC – to the International Aid Transparency Initiative.

Iran executed at least 955 people for drug offences in 2025 (a 3,700% increase from 2020), prompting the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to call the situation “deeply disturbing.” In 2025, 79% of all confirmed drug-related executions worldwide took place in Iran. Around a third of those executed were ethnic minorities – Baluch, Kurds, and Arabs, often without adequate legal defence.

After the United States, Japan is the top donor of ‘narcotics control’ aid overall, spending more than $18.5 million over the decade examined on such projects in six countries that retain the death penalty for drug-related offences. Japan spent $9.8 million on narcotics control in Iran alone – more than it spent on basic education or water supply and sanitation in the country over the same period.

Japanese aid-funded projects have supplied X-ray scanners, drug identification devices, and sniffer dogs to Iranian law enforcement – tools that help authorities arrest people who are later executed.

Japan does not execute people for drug-related offences domestically. “Japan does not execute people for drug-related offences,” said Professor Mai Sato, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran. “Yet its funding of initiatives that contribute to such executions abroad raises serious questions about its responsibility.”

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has been the primary channel for the majority of narcotics control aid tracked in this report. It has offices in Iran, Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Egypt, Lao, Libya, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Thailand, and Yemen – countries where more than 2,000 people were on death row for drug offences in 2025.

Independent evaluations commissioned by UNODC have repeatedly raised concerns about human rights over the last decade. Rights violations by the agency’s partners have been treated as a “reputational risk” — with a low likelihood and low impact rating, and human rights due diligence described as a “procedural formality”.

Despite this, funding has continued to flow. UNODC’s own 2011 human rights guidance warned that if a country continues to apply the death penalty for drug offences, the agency “places itself in a very vulnerable position vis-à-vis its responsibility to respect human rights if it maintains support to law enforcement units, prosecutors or courts within the criminal justice system.”

After more than two decades of UNODC support, Iran has not only retained the death penalty for drug offences but brought executions to record levels.

In May 2025, UNODC congratulated Indonesia’s National Drug Agency on the country’s largest-ever drug bust – a seizure from a vessel called the Sea Dragon. The next year, prosecutors sought the death penalty for all six crew members. One of them, 24-year-old Fandi Ramadhan, said: “I had no rights, no authority, no courage, and no experience to assess the situation at that time.”

The people executed for drug offences are not abstractions. They are:

Yaghoub Ejbari, a father of eight from the Baluchi village of Gharghouk, executed in August 2023 after a trial that lasted only minutes. His family had no chance to say goodbye.

Marjan Hajizadeh, who was nineteen when the state killed her in Zanjan Central Prison in April 2024. She had been married off at sixteen and arrested alongside her husband on a motorway. Under Iran’s own laws, juveniles should not face execution for drug offences.

Parvin Mousavi, a 53-year-old mother of two living with cancer, executed in May 2024. She had been paid the equivalent of approximately €15 to transport what she was told was medicine. It turned out to be morphine. Even under Iran’s own rules, prisoners who are sick should not be executed.

Iran Human Rights documented at least 503 people executed for drug offences in 2024; only 15 were officially reported by the Iranian government.

Official Development Assistance (ODA) is defined by the OECD as government aid designed to promote the economic development and welfare of developing countries. It is supposed to be spent while ‘doing no harm’.

‘Narcotics control’ is one of more than 200 ODA sector codes. It covers activities including police training, border enforcement, and drug detection. These are activities that, in death penalty states, directly feed into systems of arrest, prosecution, and execution for drug offences.

The United Nations system officially opposes the use of the death penalty in all circumstances. Yet the UN’s own drug agency has channelled the majority of the narcotics control aid identified in this report into countries that execute people for drug offences.

The OECD is ultimately responsible for monitoring all aid spending. The contradictions documented in this report must be addressed to maintain the integrity of both international aid and international policy on the death penalty.

International donors should:

• Stop using money from limited aid budgets for ‘narcotics control’ activities, and invest in health- and human rights-based responses to drugs instead
• Conduct immediate investigations into narcotics control aid funding that has gone to countries retaining the death penalty for drug related offences, as well as what actions should be taken to remedy the harms of this support
• Publish detailed and updated information on all aid spending in retentionist countries, regardless of the sector code, including implementing partners, equipment supplied, and human rights safeguards.
• Fund rights organisations documenting executions, supporting defendants, and advocating for reforms in retentionist states.

The OECD should:

• Remove ‘narcotics control’ as a sector for allowable ODA spending.
• Issue explicit directives that ODA (under any sector code) must not support drug-enforcement activities, directly or indirectly such as through infrastructure, in countries retaining the death penalty for drug-related offences.
• Mandate more detailed reporting of security-sector support, equipment transfers, and law-enforcement training in aid datasets.
• Monitor whether member states are adhering to human rights safeguards and hold them accountable for violations.
• Increase transparency of all current and previous aid spending, making data and details of projects easier to access, thereby facilitating accountability.

The UN should:

• Suspend financial, technical, or equipment support for ‘narcotics control’ activities in countries that retain the death penalty for drug offences.
• Make human rights due diligence assessments as well as updated data on funding flows publicly available as part of transparency and accountability obligations.
• Continue calling for the divestment of punitive drug policies and investment in health- and rights-based approaches to drugs in all relevant fora.
• Ensure that all aid money received and spent by its agencies is published to the International Aid Transparency Initiative

Ahead of the report’s publication, requests for comments were sent to key donors and intermediaries identified, most notably UNODC, OECD, and relevant agencies in Japan, South Korea, and USA. Responses received are available here.

The complete list of identified ‘narcotics control’ projects reported between 2015 and 2024 is available upon request.