The Global Humanitarian Assistance Report 2026 shows an unprecedented contraction in humanitarian funding, resulting in millions of people in crisis without assistance and backsliding on promised reforms.

International humanitarian funding has contracted by almost a third since 2023, with a single-year drop of 20% in 2025 placing total assistance at its lowest level in a decade. The United States and Germany together account for nearly nine in ten dollars lost last year. Gulf donors, however, have increased their contributions. This more diverse donor landscape carries the risk of assistance being adversely affected by fragmentation and misaligned interests unless action is taken to increase coordination. Almost every major crisis has been dealt cuts in assistance, and the largest funding gap on record for UN-coordinated appeals means countless people in need went unassisted in 2025. Millions of people have been removed from humanitarian plans through prioritisation processes introduced to respond to the paucity of funding. Against this backdrop, humanitarian actors are still waiting for reforms promised 10 years ago under the Grand Bargain. Following very little change, progress achieved in key reform areas is now backsliding. Calls are growing to both reform the existing system and create a new vision for humanitarianism altogether. Igniting the political will remains the greatest challenge of all.

Key facts and figures:

• One in three humanitarian dollars has disappeared in just two years.
• Humanitarian funding fell for the third year in a row, with a 20% drop in 2025

• The majority of top donors cut humanitarian funding in 2025

• All of the largest recipient countries of humanitarian assistance – apart from Palestine and Myanmar – experienced funding cuts in 2025

• Funding cuts from major donors have driven a reduction and shift in the concentration of donors in the largest recipient countries

• The largest funding gap on record left millions of people without assistance in 2025

UN-coordinated appeals are the funding requirements set out in interagency response plans to address needs arising from a humanitarian crisis. The amounts raised by these appeals fell for the third consecutive year in 2025 to US $16.6 billion, leaving the largest funding gap on record of only 35% of requirements met.

• Almost all humanitarian funding is locked into long-running crises.

Nearly all humanitarian funding for UN-coordinated appeals (95%) went to protracted crises in 2025. This is a relatively recent phenomenon – in 2016, only 54% of funding went to protracted crises. The average protracted crisis now has had a response plan in place for 15 years, showing that transitioning away from humanitarian support is simply not happening.

• Multilateral organisations remained the largest recipient group, absorbing half of all direct donor funding in 2025

• The US contributed significant volumes of its humanitarian assistance via UN-managed pooled funds in 2026