2025 saw the largest shift in the global aid landscape in decades. The USAID shutdown, along with drastic funding cuts from many other major donor countries, has had a significant impact on capacities to respond to and prepare for emergencies in donor-dependant states. It has also left both international and local aid organisations scrambling to adjust and adapt to a significantly more competitive funding pool. However, as Mohamud (2025) clearly demonstrates, this crisis is receiving a lot of attention whilst underlying sectoral flaws remain largely undiscussed. As I/NGOs try to find new ways to appeal to increasingly limited donors, accountability to affected populations appears to be forgotten.
A particularly worrying trend for
funders appears to be the move away from aid spending in favour of defence. As the world grows more
militarised, and aid organisations look for ways to secure longer-term funding,
many key players retain or increase their relationships with private and public
partners who take a decidedly different view of humanitarian aid to the neutral
and impartial norms of the sector.
 |
Source: https://odi.org/en/insights/aid-and-defence-a-data-story-of-two-global-targets/ |
This is in part due to shifting donor priorities, which are increasingly focused on national security and
pragmatic relationships of mutual benefit, rather than the more idealistic
humanitarian principles of helping those most in need. As I/NGOs attempt to sustain their own survival, many have recognised the need to frame their actions in new terms, more in line with
the rhetoric of ‘national security’ favoured by donors. This is a problem for humanitarian
principles because it shifts the stated purpose of aid away from supporting
those most in-need globally, and towards strategic provision in contexts where
donor governments seek to gain influence.
Recent years have also seen a
dramatic spike in the number of aid workers killed globally. The
link between the politicisation of aid and potential harm to humanitarian
workers has long been established, and yet the drive to utilise
aid in military and defence settings has not declined. With the increasing push on the part of donors to align any
international aid interventions with national security priorities, this
relationship appears stronger than ever.
 |
| Source: https://www.npr.org/2025/08/19/nx-s1-5506773/record-aid-workers-killed-2024-un. |
Efforts to align humanitarian aid
with changing donor priorities is emblematic of a fundamental flaw in the
system, a lack of accountability to affected populations. Even
before the most recent aid cuts, global humanitarian need was rising, and the
number of underfunded sectors was spiralling. The
funding pots that humanitarians have relied on are rapidly drying up, and so
new approaches to courting donors are necessary. However, buying into the increasingly
militarised worldview of historic donors both raises the risk to frontline
humanitarians and undermines the sector’s goal to support the most vulnerable.
So, what should we be doing
differently?
Slim (2025) lays out the often-incremental
changes of previous ‘humanitarian resets’ and identifies the need for a smaller
and more localised humanitarian system in the future. This is vital for
ensuring humanitarianism is fit for purpose and unhitches aid from the whims of
the retreating historic donors. That’s why it is so positive to see leading
organisations like Save the Children announce their plans to withdraw
from certain funds to prioritise local actors. A key
first step, but INGOs still need to find ways to operate with more limited
budgets and reach. This is a more challenging question to answer in a way that
suits the sector.
As a trustee of a small charity
that supports two local organisations in Tamil Nadu,
I have seen the value of the flexibility afforded by small-scale, locally-led
interventions. The localisation agenda in the humanitarian system has never
succeeded in meaningfully shifting real power away from donor countries and large
INGOs, but with western donors and organisations now facing a crisis of
legitimacy, the time to explore new networks and opportunities is here. For
example, Tammi (2024) highlights some of the key opportunities associated with
humanitarian actors courting climate funding for their interventions, whilst
also acknowledging the challenges with this for funding non-climate-related
responses. There may be a part-solution in exploring climate financing for
humanitarian response, and this certainly carries less rhetorical downsides
than aligning with ‘national defence’ messaging, but it is not enough.
It should also be noted that remittances account for more aid funding than all other forms of aid combined.
Similarly, research from Sudan has demonstrated the effectiveness of local
mutual aid initiatives in the absence of international aid. Mutual support and solidarity are a lot more resilient than
the flimsy architecture of international aid system. The sector should not aim
to co-opt these systems, but supporting and working with them is one way that
I/NGOs can continue to deliver technical support in the absence of
international funding, whilst also strengthening their own legitimacy in line
with on-the-ground projects that work.
Many humanitarians are calling for this moment to be one that sparks significant change in the sector. Change is indeed needed, but the ways in which that change is enacted risk selling out the humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality, and independence if actors simply align themselves with current political trends. The so-called ‘Humanitarian Reset’ is promising a more efficient and effective aid sector in the face of overwhelming challenges to its legitimacy. To deliver on that, humanitarians need to be honest about our role, and careful not to bow to pressures from increasingly hostile political actors. Accountability to those we serve must be prioritised over those who pay, especially now. Presenting humanitarian aid in a way that is palatable to donors is vital to ensure the survival of the system, but this cannot be done at the expense of the core humanitarian values.
