As governments around the world cut aid funding, humanitarian leaders are looking to philanthropists for money. They are also reevaluating how to best spend it in these desperate times.
“Humanitarian needs are outpacing resources,” said Barham Salih, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) at the annual Clinton Global Initiative in New York City. “We are speaking today at a time when there is an unprecedented record of forcibly displaced people around the world. Nearly 25 million refugees have been displaced for 5 years or more and around 14 and a half million remain dependent on humanitarian assistance for basic needs.”
As the refugee crisis grows, donor governments are retreating. In July of 2025, President Trump officially dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), exacerbating humanitarian crises worldwide. Just a few months before, the UK government announced a reduction in their foreign aid budget from 0.5% to 0.3% of the gross national income, the lowest level in decades. Over the last three years, across all public donors, humanitarian funding dropped by nearly 30%, the most drastic sustained decline in recorded history. Donor governments are prioritizing military spending instead.
“It’s the exact opposite direction we need to go,” said Ambassador Rick Barton, former Deputy High Commissioner for the UNHCR.
Part of the problem is that politicians have failed to make the case against engaging in costly wars. “I think we’ve really got to build a constituency for peace,” Barton said. “We have just not articulated the benefits of prevention versus the inefficiencies, and the grotesque expenditures, and the torturing of society that war produces.”
The result is that more money has been funneled into combat, and less is available to provide for civilians in crisis. Researchers at Boston University estimated that the USAID cuts have already caused six hundred thousand deaths, the majority of them children.
Philanthropists are stepping up where they can. Several foundation leaders announced new commitments to action at the Clinton Global Initiative in September. Dr. Nahla Gadalla, CEO of the Sudanese American Medical Association, spoke about establishing a permanent humanitarian relief center in eastern Chad, which will provide essential services to over 1 million Sudanese refugees who fled the ongoing civil war. Laura Miller, CEO of the War Child Alliance, revealed a $100 million grant going toward mental health and wellbeing for 10 million children affected by conflict, to be distributed over the next decade. Direct Relief CEO Amy Weaver is launching a $40 million campaign to allocate towards maternal health in conflict and disaster zones.
At the conference, Salih encouraged the UNHCR’s partners to consider the longevity of stability in the regions they support. “I do believe strongly that we really need to move beyond the concept of managing displacement year on end. We need to have a pathway to giving people the agency they deserve.”
There’s been a long-standing frustration, Barton elaborated, that aid only serves to save “a life today in order to save it again tomorrow.” This inability to move beyond recurring crises may stem from a paternalistic approach to aid. That is, many donors are hesitant to let local forces lead the rebuilding process.
“There’s been more of an effort to take power and authority away from people in the field and sort of centralizing authority back at a headquarters in Washington or Paris or Rome or wherever, and that’s not good because I think the people that are best positioned to figure out the solutions are the people that are right at the site of the disaster,” said Princeton lecturer Doug Mercado, who has decades of experience directing emergency operations and post-conflict recovery.
Direct cash grants are one way to shift the power back to local actors. Carolyn Makinson, former executive director of the International Rescue Committee UK and the Women’s Refugee Commission, recalled the funding model of GiveDirectly, a non-profit which provides unconditional cash assistance to households in need.
“They had almost zero overhead, and they found very clever ways in settings, whether they were humanitarian or development settings, of identifying absolutely the poorest people in the community,” she said. “They just gave them cash grants, and it was quite remarkable what happened.”
“Cash preserves dignity and choice while also supporting long-term self-reliance when linked to education, livelihoods, and income-generating opportunities,” Salih said.
Investments in long-term recovery, though important, may need to take a backseat for now, as foreign aid cuts have made meeting even basic needs for survivors of war and disaster difficult.
Mercado emphasized the importance of reestablishing a disaster response agency to save the lives most imminently at risk. Philanthropists alone cannot accomplish this. Government aid spending must resume, he said. “You can’t do more with less. You’ve got to do less with less.”
