Guyana received little foreign assistance during the early 1980s because aid donors disapproved of the Burnham government's political orientation. According to the government, total aid flows into Guyana were US$71 million in 1981, US$40 million in 1982, US$32 million in 1983, US$23 million in 1985, and US$31 million in 1986.

In the late 1980s, aid donors provided assistance primarily in the form of debt refinancing. Help in clearing Guyana's arrears on its debt was a form of aid because it made the country eligible for various international loans and assistance programs. Guyana was slated to receive assistance from the United States Agency for International Development (AID) in 1991. Beginning in 1988, the year that the Hoyte government announced its Economic Recovery Program, the United States provided about US$7 million (under the Public Law 480 program) in concessional loans for wheat purchases. Guyana also received aid from the EEC, in the form of preferential access to EEC markets and grants for infrastructure development. Canada also provided aid.

Data as of January 1992