In 2025, humanitarian funding experienced its sharpest decline in a decade, dropping below 2016 levels due to significant cuts from major donors, including the United States, France, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. This dramatic reduction forced humanitarian organizations to make difficult decisions, prioritizing assistance for people with the most life-threatening needs and leaving millions without essential aid. Out of 178.7 million people targeted globally, only 114.4 million received support, while the funding gap for urgent humanitarian needs reached $29.1 billion.
The contraction in resources led to widespread program closures, office shutdowns, and layoffs, severely limiting aid delivery in countries like Colombia and Mali. Millions of people worldwide did not receive the help they needed, with countries such as Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Venezuela, and Yemen particularly affected. Those who did receive assistance often received significantly reduced support, including lower food rations, shortened assistance duration, and reduced cash transfers, heightening vulnerability among populations already facing crisis.
Food security and nutrition programs were especially hard hit, with funding for food assistance, emergency agriculture, and nutrition plunging 51 percent between 2022 and 2025. Acute hunger rose dramatically, yet millions of people received inadequate support. Countries including Sudan, Uganda, Myanmar, Afghanistan, and Yemen saw large gaps in food aid coverage, leaving children and vulnerable populations at risk of malnutrition and death. This funding shortfall also compromised the ability to monitor food security trends, further weakening humanitarian response efforts.
Health services were also severely impacted, with over 6,600 health facilities across 22 countries reduced or shuttered, affecting 52.6 million people. In Sudan, Somalia, Myanmar, Yemen, and Libya, healthcare disruptions increased the risk of preventable deaths. Reduced access to water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services worsened disease outbreaks, while millions of internally displaced persons in Syria, Yemen, and Bangladesh faced deteriorating living conditions and elevated exposure to illness.
Cuts to maternal, newborn, and child health programs threatened to reverse gains in reducing maternal mortality, while sexual and reproductive health services were significantly scaled back. Nutrition programs for children and mothers were drastically reduced in Yemen, Haiti, Somalia, Chad, Burkina Faso, and Nigeria, putting hundreds of thousands at heightened risk of malnutrition and preventable death. Protection services, including child protection, mine action, and gender-based violence response, were also curtailed, leaving millions exposed to violence, exploitation, and trauma.
Education programs suffered from funding constraints, leaving millions of children without access to safe learning environments. In Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Türkiye, Mali, and Uganda, school closures, teacher layoffs, and shortages of learning materials disrupted education for hundreds of thousands of children, especially girls. Similarly, lack of shelter and displacement management left millions exposed to environmental hazards, insecurity, and inadequate basic services in countries such as Myanmar, Nigeria, the DRC, Chad, Haiti, and Somalia.
Cash and voucher assistance, critical for supporting families in crisis, was drastically reduced across multiple countries, forcing affected households to adopt harmful coping mechanisms such as reducing meals, accruing debt, and child labor. Refugees and migrants were particularly affected, with millions unable to access essential services in Ethiopia, Lebanon, Somalia, and Venezuela due to funding shortfalls.
Humanitarian coordination and logistics were severely disrupted, with air transport, warehouses, and data collection systems scaled back or suspended. Despite the urgent need, funding for humanitarian action remains less than one percent of global military expenditure or a fraction of the profits of the global banking sector.
Aid workers themselves faced extreme risks in 2025, with at least 320 killed across 23 countries, attacks and detentions increasing, and restricted access in conflict zones limiting aid delivery. Violence against health and education facilities, child protection services, and humanitarian personnel remained widespread, highlighting the urgent need to implement international commitments to protect aid workers and hold perpetrators accountable.
The cumulative effect of these funding cuts has left millions of vulnerable people worldwide without lifesaving assistance, underlining the urgent need for renewed international support, adequate funding, and stronger protection for humanitarian action to prevent further loss of life and human suffering.
