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	Devastating funding cuts have left millions of people without aid by UNICEF, UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs   Feb. 2026   UNICEF calls for urgent investment in life-saving services for children to meet urgent needs, by Catherine Russell - UNICEF Executive Director   "The global environment for children remains extraordinarily difficult. Conflict, climate shocks, economic instability and inequality place enormous pressure on children, families and communities.   The humanitarian situation facing children today is among the most severe we have ever seen. More than 200 million children across over 130 countries need humanitarian assistance in 2026.   Last year saw the highest number of verified grave violations against children on record. These violations include horrendous acts such as killings, abductions, and sexual violence. At the same time, famine re-emerged in 2025, when two famines were declared simultaneously - an unprecedented and deeply alarming development. Beyond these formal famine declarations, millions more children suffer from malnutrition and are living one shock away from life-threatening catastrophe.   Yet even as needs grow, we see resources shrink. Abrupt, severe funding cuts are forcing impossible choices across humanitarian operations - which lives do we prioritize as we limit supplies, reduce the frequency of services, and scale back interventions that children depend on to survive.   The global humanitarian funding environment has deteriorated dramatically. Announced and anticipated funding cuts by donor governments are already limiting UNICEF’s ability to reach millions of children in dire need.   Across UNICEF’s nutrition programming alone, a 72 per cent funding gap in 2025 forced cuts in 20 priority countries – reducing planned targets from more than 42 million to over 27 million women and children. In education, a shortfall of US$745 million has left millions more children at risk of losing access to learning, protection and stability.   The current global funding crisis does not reflect a decline in humanitarian need, but rather a growing gap between the scale of suffering and the resources available. Children are paying the price of shrinking humanitarian budgets.   UNICEF is urging national governments, public sector donors and private sector partners to increase their investment in children, prioritising flexible and multi-year funding; support locally led response and national systems; uphold humanitarian principles and the centrality of protection; and remove barriers that impede humanitarian access".   http://www.unicef.org/emergencies/launch-2026-humanitarian-appeal http://www.unicef.org/emergencies http://www.unicef.org/topics/humanitarian-action-and-emergencies   Dec. 2025 (OCHA)   In 2025, humanitarian funding saw its greatest contraction in a decade, with donor cuts causing funding to drop below 2016 levels.   The United States of America—traditionally, the largest humanitarian donor—funded $2.5 billion against the 2025 Global Humanitarian Overview, compared to $11 billion in 2024.   This came on top of reductions from other donors, including France, Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, and on the back of a reduction in humanitarian aid from 2023 to 2024.   Confronted with this reality, in mid-2025, humanitarians took excruciatingly difficult decisions to hyper-prioritize response for people facing the most life-threatening needs.   This hyper-prioritization led humanitarians to collectively focus their efforts on reaching 114.4 million people out of the 178.7 million total people targeted for 2025, and to urgently appeal for $29.1 billion out of the full $44 billion required.   The dramatic reduction in funding forced humanitarian organizations to severely reduce delivery to people in crisis—shutting down programmes, closing offices and laying off thousands of staff—with devastating consequences.   In Colombia, 13 per cent of partners were forced to suspend or scale down humanitarian operations. In Mali, at least 45 per cent of life-saving programmes implemented by local NGOs were disrupted.   Globally, these funding shortfalls have meant that:   Millions of crisis-affected people around the world did not receive the help they needed. While some form of humanitarian assistance reached nearly 98 million people in 2025, this represented just 65 per cent of people targeted. This is a stark reduction from 2024, when 123 million people—25 million more than in 2025—received at least one form of assistance.   The contraction of humanitarian action was particularly evident in 21 countries which received less funding and reached fewer people.   In countries like Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Venezuela and Yemen, millions of people in each country did not receive planned assistance.   When people did receive humanitarian assistance and protection, it was often significantly reduced. In the Central African Republic, more than 50 per cent of people who received assistance only received one-third of the expected aid. In Somalia, food security partners reduced transfer values, the duration of assistance and had to cut people assisted by 70 per cent.   Cuts in food assistance and emergency agriculture are jeopardizing lives.   While acute hunger rose in 2025, humanitarian funding for food assistance, nutrition, and emergency agriculture plummeted, with a 51 per cent projected drop between 2022 and 2025. This would return funding to levels last seen in 2016, despite the prevalence of acute hunger doubling since then.   Humanitarian actors are forced to hyper-prioritize responses, reducing coverage and sharply cutting rations. Programmes to treat acute malnutrition are being scaled back, leaving millions of children at risk of death.   At the same time, funding shortfalls are eroding the ability to collect and analyse reliable food security and nutrition data, weakening the evidence base for effective response.   At the start of 2025, Food Security partners identified 190 million people in need out of 295 million facing IPC/CH Phase 3 (Crisis) or above.   Initially, 104 million were targeted. By mid-year, funding shortfalls forced a reduction to 79.8 million, leaving nearly one in four people originally targeted without aid.   Funding cuts may drive 13.7 million people in IPC Phase 3 (Crisis) towards Emergency levels of hunger.   Across Sudan—one of the worst food crises with confirmed famine in El Fasher and Kadugli—only 3.5 million out of 10 million severely and extremely food insecure people are receiving regular monthly food assistance.   In Uganda, only 45 per cent of Sudanese refugees received rations in 2025. In Myanmar, 825,000 people did not receive life-saving emergency food assistance, while in Afghanistan, only around 1 million of the most vulnerable people will receive food assistance during the lean season in 2025, compared to 5.6 million during the same period in 2024.   By mid-2025, only 16 per cent of people targeted with emergency agriculture were reached, compared to 26 per cent by the same time in 2024.   This shortfall means that, looking ahead to 2026, more people will likely require food assistance—at a higher cost than if they had been supported to produce their own food—and many may face worsening acute food insecurity.   Health services for 52.6 million people were shuttered or reduced due to underfunding, significantly increasing the risk of preventable death. The funding cuts affected more than 6,600 health facilities across 22 countries (as of 20 September 2025), a third of which were forced to suspend operations.   In Sudan alone, more than 180 health facilities are no longer supported, affecting almost 2.7 million people’s ability to access health care services.   In Somalia, more than 150 health facilities have closed due to funding cuts, including at least eight hospitals and 40 primary care centres.   In Myanmar, 600,000 people will not receive essential healthcare services, supplies or emergency referral services. In Yemen, no health service for communicable diseases was available in 39 per cent of health facilities monitored by the World Health Organization (WHO), while in Libya, this proportion was as high as 41 per cent.   Communicable disease outbreaks became harder to prevent and contain, including due to cuts to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH).   In South Sudan, partners struggled to control the spread of cholera due to access and underfunding, while in Chad underfunding stalled investments in water systems and sanitation, undermining efforts to contain the disease.   In Yemen, water and sanitation conditions will deteriorate for over 15 million people who are already water insecure. And in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, limited health services combined with reduced water availability and poor sanitation have increased the risk of disease outbreaks for the Rohingya.   Children faced a heightened risk of severe malnutrition and death as nutrition programmes are cut back.   In Yemen, one of the worst nutrition crises globally, a staggering 70 per cent of the needs for moderate acute malnutrition are unmet, leaving an estimated 450,000 vulnerable children and mothers without critical care each month.   Haiti’s nutrition crisis is at a tipping point: one in three children with acute malnutrition will remain untreated without additional resources, placing over 187,000 children at heightened risk of preventable death.   In Somalia, nutrition services declined by 39 per cent in 2025 compared to 2024. In Chad, 240,000 children did not receive planned nutrition assistance, and in Burkina Faso, more than one-third of all nutrition programmes—and thousands of children’s lives—are at risk.   In Nigeria, the scale down of nutrition programmes in July 2025 affected more than 300,000 children. In areas where clinics closed, malnutrition levels deteriorated from “serious” to “critical” in the third quarter of 2025.   Gains in reducing maternal mortality risk immediate reversal, as sexual and reproductive healthcare services are cut. Sixty-two per cent of surveyed partners working on maternal, newborn and child health reported having to downsize their programs, while 37 per cent temporarily suspended activities, and 19 per cent permanently closed initiatives.   Support for midwives in crisis settings has been dramatically scaled back, jeopardizing the health and lives of pregnant women and newborns. In Syria, funding cuts are impacting reproductive and maternal health, with 15 hospitals, 54 health facilities and 26 mobile teams at risk of closure.   Protection programmes, more broadly, were forced to scale down or stop altogether in multiple countries, increasing the risk of exposure to violence and exploitation.   In Nigeria, despite renewed violence, 1.4 million people did not receive protection support. In Afghanistan, protection services for over 3.3 million people, including more than 1.6 million children, could no longer be provided.   In Syria, about 2.5 million children, including those with disabilities, will not have access to child protection response services.   In Uganda, loss of experienced child protection staff has weakened survivor-centered care: by September 2025, child protection cases had surged by 37 per cent to 26,245, compared to the same period in 2024. In Somalia, protection services were halved, affecting 1.7 million people, including 600,000 children.   Funding cuts have also affected mine action: 65 per cent of the Syrian population (15.4 million people) will continue to be exposed to the risk of explosive ordnance contamination. In Afghanistan, which has one of the world’s highest explosive ordnance casualty rates, the number of mine action teams has decreased by a third, from 300 teams a month to only 176.   In Yemen, where funding cuts have halted mine clearance programmes, five children were killed in July while playing football, highlighting the risk that unexploded ordnance poses to all people.   Gender-based violence (GBV) response and prevention efforts were reduced or shut down, removing access to vital services for survivors and increasing the risk of harm at a time when GBV is increasing.   One-third of women-rights organizations and civil society organizations working to end violence against women reported programme suspension or closure.   As of 20 November 2025, only 19 per cent of GBV requirements were funded. The consequences are already visible: over 460,000 people in West and Central Africa have lost access to GBV services.   Hundreds of thousands of children’s futures are in jeopardy, as cuts hit education services. In emergencies, schools are more than places of learning: they are safe spaces that provide hope, stability, protection and access to essential services.   In Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, underfunding left over 190,000 Rohingya children without education due to closures of 43 per cent of learning facilities. In Afghanistan, around 145,000 children (60 per cent girls) will not be able to access education through community-based interventions, and an additional 130,000 children (67,600 girls) will not be reached with a second round of teaching and learning materials. This comes at a time when more than 2.2 million Afghan girls are banned from attending school beyond primary school.   In Turkiye, underfunding of the Syria refugee response meant that approximately 250,000 refugee children remained out of school, with 32 per cent of families citing financial difficulties as the primary barrier to enrolling and retaining their children in school.   In Uganda, funding cuts forced the layoff of 2,000 teachers, causing the pupil-to-teacher ratio to balloon from 1:77 (2024) to 1:117 (2025)—more than double the national standard of 1:53, with nearly 120 students per classroom.   Overall, if funding cuts materialize as envisaged in 2026, millions more children will be out of school, resulting in some 276 million potential pupils going without an education.   Lack of shelter is leaving millions of people exposed to the elements and violence.   In Myanmar, 1.3 million conflict-affected internally displaced persons (IDPs) and other vulnerable people did not receive shelter due to funding cuts. In Nigeria, this was the case for 631,000 families. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 85 per cent of people targeted for shelter response did not receive assistance. In Chad, 56,000 vulnerable households remained without emergency shelter following the floods.   Cash and voucher assistance (CVA)—including multi-purpose cash—has been drastically reduced in multiple countries. CVA is projected to drop precipitously in 2025, after already decreasing in 2024 as a proportion of humanitarian assistance.   In Somalia, only 273,000 people (29 per cent of the target) received cash assistance. In Sudan, over 250,000 people did not receive cash-based assistance. In Lebanon, more than 300,000 vulnerable households will remain without critical cash support through 2026 if funding is not received.   In the Central African Republic (CAR), the number of people receiving cash and voucher assistance decreased by 76 per cent (or three quarters), from 407, 000 people in mid-2024 to 96,000 people mid-2025.   Services for refugees and migrants have been hit hard. In Lebanon around 1.4 million people risk losing access to primary health care, with essential refugee health services expected to phase out by the end of 2025.   By the end of September 2025, only 21 per cent of the 493,400 people targeted under the Venezuela Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan (RMRP) had been reached.   Funding cuts also compromised critical enablers that are the backbone of coordinated humanitarian responses.   The United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) was forced to suspend or reduce flights, while other air operations were on the precipice of collapse due to inadequate or delayed funding.   In CAR, warehouses closed and the Logistics Cluster was only able to transport half of the planned emergency airfreight cargo to hard-to-reach communities.   And yet, the funding requested for humanitarian action is extremely modest in comparison to other expenditures and/or profits globally. It amounts to less than one per cent of global military expenditure (which has reached over $2.7 trillion in 2024) or less than half a per cent of the global banking industry’s profits.   With a minor adjustment of these priorities and/or donation of these profits, global humanitarian action could be immediately and fully funded.   http://humanitarianaction.info/document/global-humanitarian-overview-2026/article/under-fire-and-under-pressure-what-happens-when-humanitarian-action-hindered http://humanitarianaction.info/document/global-humanitarian-overview-2026/article/trends-crises-and-needs-world-breaking-point http://humanitarianaction.info/document/global-humanitarian-overview-2026/article/humanitarians-action-delivering-2025-amid-extreme-challenges http://humanitarianaction.info/document/global-humanitarian-overview-2026 http://www.unicef.org/press-releases/unicef-calls-urgent-investment-life-saving-services-children-global-humanitarian http://www.wfp.org/news/wfp-prioritize-feeding-110-million-hungriest-2026-global-hunger-deepens-amidst-uncertain http://www.nrc.no/news/2025/december/2026-millions-in-need-will-not-get-aid-unless-global-solidarity-revived http://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/analysis/2025/12/11/abrupt-transitions-global-humanitarian-overview-pushes-dangerous-trend http://reliefweb.int/report/world/year-no-other-ngo-statement-launch-new-un-2026-appeal   http://www.msf.org/us-policies-are-reshaping-global-health-and-humanitarian-aid http://www.msf.org/attacks-medical-care-armed-conflict-reach-record-levels http://www.refugeesinternational.org/reports-briefs/a-generational-collapse-tracking-the-toll-of-trumps-humanitarian-aid-cuts/ http://www.cgdev.org/blog/global-collapse-funding-food-insecure http://www.cgdev.org/blog/coming-humanitarian-data-drought http://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/child-under-five-could-die-every-forty-seconds-2030-due-us-aid-cuts-oxfam-analysis http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/feb/07/starmer-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-sharp-cuts-to-world-food-programme http://una.org.uk/un-agencies-brief-the-un-appg-on-the-challenges-of-the-global-humanitarian-landscape/ Visit the related web page
	Small-scale farmers and peasants feed around 70 per cent of the world by UN Working Group on peasants and rural workers   April 2026   Transforming food systems for a safe climate and health for all - Report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change, Elisa Morgera. (OHCHR)   In the present report, the Special Rapporteur clarifies human rights obligations and responsibilities to transform food systems in order to effectively mitigate and adapt to climate change and respond to loss and damage.   She recommends combining decarbonization, defossilization and detoxification of food systems to prevent localized and global human right harms. She also confirms that prioritizing Indigenous Peoples’ and peasants’ agroecology, small scale ecosystem-based fisheries and pastoralism enhances the sustainability and resilience of food systems, planetary and human health, including nutrition, to the benefit of all:   http://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/62/44 http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/06/transforming-food-systems-key-protecting-climate-and-human-rights-says-un   Oct. 2025   A handful of powerful corporations now control vast portions of global agricultural production, input markets and food supply chains, a concentration of power that undermines the autonomy of small-scale farmers, exacerbates inequality and endangers the ecological foundations of our food systems, UN experts warned today.   In their reports to the UN General Assembly, the Working Group on peasants and rural workers and the Special Rapporteur on the right to food warned that the growing dominance of transnational corporations and industrial agribusiness in global food systems poses an escalating threat to food security, rural livelihoods, and human rights.   “Peasants and small-scale farmers feed the majority of the world’s population with healthy and diverse food, yet they are increasingly marginalised and dispossessed by the expansion of corporate-driven food systems,” the experts said. “The current model of agribusiness, supported by powerful States, prioritises profit over people and the planet — this must change.”   Corporate practices, including large-scale land acquisitions, monopolisation of seeds and agrochemicals, food speculation, exploitative contract farming, and the escalating corporate capture of decision-making spaces traditionally held by peasants and rural workers in food system governance have cumulatively created deep dependencies that erode rural resilience and undermine the autonomy of those who sustain our food systems.   Digital technologies are further reshaping food systems, often extending corporate control through the capture of agricultural data. These trends, combined with the climate crisis, have further jeopardised the right to food for millions.   The experts reaffirmed that the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) provides a crucial legal framework for addressing systemic injustices faced by small-scale farmers, fisherfolks, pastoralists and rural agricultural workers.   “States have an obligation to regulate corporate activity, prevent human rights violations and abuses, and ensure access to justice for victims,” they said.   “Voluntary commitments are not enough. The rights enshrined in UNDROP — including rights to land, seeds, biodiversity, and participation — must be implemented through binding laws and robust accountability mechanisms. To ensure digitalisation serves equitable and sustainable food systems, data governance must protect farmers’ rights, knowledge, and autonomy.”   Peasants and rural workers harmfully affected by corporate misconduct, from land grabs and toxic exposure to wage theft and forced evictions, still struggle to access effective remedies.   The Working Group and the Special Rapporteur called on all governments, the private sector and UN agencies to place small-scale farmers, fisherfolks, pastoralists and rural workers at the center of food policies and global governance.   “Food is not a commodity — it is a human right,” they said. “We must act now to ensure that those who feed the world can live and work with dignity, free from exploitation and fear.”   Ahead of the upcoming session of the Open-ended Intergovernmental Working Group on Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Respect to Human Rights, the experts urged all Member States to prioritise the finalisation of a legally binding treaty to regulate corporations and financial institutions and hold them accountable for human rights violations and abuses.   “A binding treaty is essential to close the accountability gap and rebalance power in our food systems. Without enforceable obligations, corporate impunity will continue to erode human rights and the planet’s capacity to feed itself sustainably,” they said.   http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/06/states-businesses-and-investors-must-adopt-rights-based-approaches-food http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/10/un-experts-urge-binding-accountability-agribusiness-safeguard-peasants http://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/a80213-corporate-power-and-human-rights-food-systems-report-special http://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/ahrc6033-rights-peasants-and-other-people-working-rural-areas-report http://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/a80180-right-participation-peasants-report-working-group-peasants-and http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/12/kenyas-seed-sharing-ruling-milestone-peasants-rights-and-food-security-un http://www.seeds-savers.org/   http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/10/global-financial-architecture-needs-urgent-reform-uphold-equality-and-human http://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/ahrc5848-right-food-finance-and-national-action-plans-report-special http://ipes-food.org/cop30-ends-without-action-on-food-systems/ http://ipes-food.org/industrial-food-system-failing-as-un-finds-733-million-still-hungry/ http://ipes-food.org/land-squeeze-soaring-land-prices-grabs-carbon-schemes-threaten-food-production/ http://www.fao.org/cfs/cfs-hlpe/insights/news-insights/news-detail/building-resilient-food-systems--pathways-to-equitable-transformation/en http://www.fao.org/cfs/cfs-hlpe/insights/news-insights/news-detail/food-security-in-a-changing-planet--aligning-the-rio-conventions-with-the-right-to-food/en   Small-scale farmers and peasants feed around 70 per cent of the world. (OHCHR)   Despite recognition that peasants and rural workers are essential to providing everyone food and protecting the planet’s biodiversity, the world has treated them as expendable, UN experts said today.   Ahead of the 17 December anniversary of the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas, the experts made the following statement:   “Four years ago, the UN General Assembly recognised the past, present and future contributions of peasants and rural workers to global food security, development and environmental conservation and adopted a ground-breaking Declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas (UNDROP). Regrettably, they still lead a precarious existence.   While small-scale farmers and peasants feed around 70-80 per cent of the world, they shockingly represent 80 per cent of the world’s hungry and 70 per cent of those living in extreme poverty.   Besides their disproportionate exposure to environmental degradation, toxic substances, land grabbing and climate change, peasants and rural workers also suffer from the burdens caused by poverty, hunger and malnutrition.   More recently, their situation has become even more dire, due to the direct effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as its subsequent harmful impact on food and cost-of-living crisis.   We commend peasants and rural workers across the world who have shown great resilience in the face of multiple challenges and intersectional oppression facing them and their communities. However, world governments must do more to protect, support and listen to peasants and rural workers.   The Declaration on the Rights of Peasants is a call for justice, based on the culmination of grievances and struggles of the world’s peasantry. It is also a plan of action for governments to respect, protect and fulfil the rights of peasants while also effectively regulating transnational corporations to prevent harm. It provides a framework to enable a just and sustainable transition to a food system where biodiversity and human rights flourish.   The current global crises make it more urgent than ever to enact the commitments of the Decalaration and fulfill everyone’s human rights.   We have witnessed some commendable efforts to incorporate UNDROP provisions in national laws and policies, in what is a unique and unprecedented opportunity to redress various forms of discrimination, systematic violations and historical disadvantage that have affected peasants and rural workers for many decades.   We therefore urge States to show leadership and implement the UNDROP by incorporating its norms and standards into national laws and policies. We also call on the United Nations agencies to support and empower peasants and rural workers throughout their work, both at policy and operational levels.   The Declaration provides not only a recognition of peasants’ and rural workers’ rights and contributions, but it also serves as a roadmap for States, the UN, business enterprises and other stakeholders to take concrete actions on the ground.”   http://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2022/12/un-declaration-rights-peasants-un-experts-call-action-ahead-anniversary http://peasantjournal.org/news/working-paper-series-international-conference-on-global-land-grabbing-bogota-colombia/ http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2024.2317961 http://viacampesina.org/en/peasant-agriculture-a-key-element-in-the-fight-against-the-climate-crisis/   * UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants: http://bit.ly/3Ijpzau Visit the related web page
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