Highlights:

• The past year has been a tumultuous one for the sector with unprecedented funding cuts impacting the scale and scope of humanitarian operations. The consequences for humanitarian data were unclear but the analysis in this report now shows that short-term mitigation measures and rapid reprioritization resulted in only a marginal decrease in data availability relative to the level of cuts.

• Based on analysis of the HDX Data Grids, we estimate that 68 percent of crisis data is available and up-to-date across 22 humanitarian operations, down from 74 percent in the previous year. Where the timeliness of data worsened, this can be attributed to process slowdowns, resulting from capacity constraints and the abrupt loss of third-party support.

• While primary data collection continued, partners prioritized the most severe crises, directing limited staff capacity toward those contexts. Within these locations, they focused on targeting the most severe areas and addressing agreed data gaps. This continuation was critical given the host of planning processes that rely on primary data, such as the Joint Interagency Assessment Framework, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) and West Africa’s Cadre Harmonisé.

• Research institutions and the private sector play an important role in providing weather-related data that is critical for anticipatory action and rapid impact assessments. Over a dozen organizations now share climate data through HDX, providing scientific and technical expertise that complements humanitarian knowledge. The availability of this data was stable year-on-year proving the value of building partnerships beyond the sector.

• The ramifications of the funding cuts in 2025 are likely to be felt more acutely in the year ahead. In conversations with partners, many anticipate that the humanitarian data footprint will shrink in 2026, with fewer surveys, smaller samples, and entire geographies going unmonitored. This reduction in geographic coverage will make it difficult for humanitarians to reliably identify emerging hotspots or rapidly respond to new or deteriorating crises, particularly in non-HNRP countries.

• Data has a central role to play in a revitalized humanitarian system – one that delivers more effectively and builds trust in multilateral action. It is a core asset that should be managed, with appropriate safeguards, as a public good in service of saving lives.

• The UN80 Initiative and the Humanitarian Reset are opportunities to consolidate and refocus data efforts across agencies and align our ambition for data as a key driver of humanitarian action. This moment requires us to find efficiencies and new ways of working, reducing friction in how data is shared and used. Together, we need to define core data, agree on common standards and find ways to do better with less.

• The HDX platform plays an important role in bringing humanitarian data together across crises and organizations. In 2025, the platform’s almost 20,000 datasets were downloaded 3.4 million times. The Humanitarian Reset presents an opportunity to scale what works – HDX will continue to evolve, providing humanitarians with the data they need to build a common operating picture and deliver an impactful response.

• The story of Sauti, a non-governmental organization in East Africa, is a great example of the Reset in practice. The Sauti team generates insights from trusted datasets on HDX for local farmers and traders, covering market prices, exchange rates, food security and climate data, turning globally-available data into locally-led action.

• Beyond the humanitarian sector, the rollout of Large Language Models from global tech giants has changed the digital landscape. The rise of AI bots fueled by these models has created new challenges for accurately assessing data use from websites such as HDX. Managing bot identification and platform safety will require a strategic reallocation of resources toward infrastructure and specialized skillsets, ensuring our platforms remain human-first but AI-ready.

• We call on governments and partners to continue investing in the data that underpins crisis response. Where possible, collective financing should be used to fund the common data services that the sector relies on.

Figure: Availability of data by location and sub-category