Presentation Matters: Humanitarian Responses to the ‘Defence Shift’ in the Global Funding Landscape

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.