2024 was a gruelling year. The number of armed conflicts reached a record high¹ , leading to deaths and suffering, with civilians bearing the brunt. According to the United Nations, it was also the deadliest year on record for humanitarian workers. In addition to conflicts, climate, health, economic, and political crises have exacerbated the situation; yet, resources available to meet humanitarian needs are dwindling. As 2025 is expected to be equally challenging, let’s take stock of the global humanitarian situation².
Millions of people were left without assistance in 2024, and this trend is expected to continue in 2025
Despite all the efforts deployed by humanitarian actors, more than 82 million people did not receive the humanitarian aid that had been planned for in the 2024 humanitarian programming cycle. In other words, only 59% of the humanitarian needs targeted by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), across all plans, were covered last year. In addition to insufficient funding, this is also explained by the inability to access certain areas due to insecurity, difficult logistical conditions, bureaucratic problems, and some authorities who deliberately instrumentalise and restrict humanitarian aid.
Concretely, the consequences for the affected populations are immeasurable. Some figures:
- At mid-2024, more than 100 million people were deprived of access to essential water, sanitation, and hygiene services.
- 120 million people were forcibly displaced, an increase observed for the 12th consecutive year. In five years, the number of people forced to flee their homes within their own country, mainly due to conflict, has increased by nearly 50%³.
- In August 2024, for the first time since 2017, famine resurfaced and was confirmed in some localities in Darfur, Sudan⁴.
For 2025, OCHA estimates that 305 million people will need humanitarian aid and protection – a number that has more than doubled in 5 years – and sets a target of 189 million people to be reached as a priority among them. To this end, 47.4 billion US dollars will be needed. While this sum may seem enormous, OCHA reminds us that it represents less than 2% of military spending or about 4% of the profits of the banking sector worldwide.
Humanitarian plans are chronically underfunded
In 2023 and 2024, less than half of the financial requests, 45% and 43% respectively, had been funded. To address this problem, humanitarian coordination has initiated a process of prioritising and rationalising costs to present plans that “concentrate humanitarian assistance on crisis-affected areas with the most severe needs” by adopting a new methodology for defining and analysing needs.
Thus, the total budget requested in 2025 is more than 2 billion lower than in 2024. This decrease in funding requests does not necessarily reflect an improvement in the overall humanitarian situation, but rather a desire to restrictively delimit the scope of humanitarian action, assuming, without certainty, that other donors or development plans will cover these needs deemed less of a priority. In a context of constrained budgets, cost rationalisation must not, however, compromise our humanitarian principles.
For example, in Myanmar in 2025, 19.9 million people – or one-third of the population – will need humanitarian aid. Despite the increase in needs, the Myanmar national humanitarian plan has limited its target of people to be reached to 5.5 million people. If this plan is only 25% funded by the end of the year, nutrition humanitarian associations predict that they will only be able to assist 160,000 internally displaced persons (54% of the target set for this category of population). Stateless persons, displaced persons returning home, and all other people affected by the crisis will receive no support.
The constant decrease in budgets allocated to humanitarian aid and development is a worrying trend observed in several countries. It is highly likely that in 2025, these political choices, far from being inevitable, will force us into situations where we must prioritise certain humanitarian needs over others.
Civilian populations pay the heaviest price for crises, especially when international humanitarian law is not respected
2024 was marked by violations of international humanitarian law and indiscriminate attacks on civilians and humanitarian workers and infrastructure. In Gaza, in Sudan, and in many other places, humanitarian aid has been blocked and instrumentalised, making our work almost impossible.
In 2025, the highest humanitarian needs are in Eastern and Southern Africa, where 85 million people need assistance; the crisis in Sudan alone accounts for 35% of the needs. The figure of 30 million people in need in Sudan is unprecedented for a national plan and underscores the severity of the humanitarian situation in the country.
In the Middle East and North Africa, 59 million people are in need. Syria remains, in terms of numbers, the country with the highest humanitarian needs, the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and particularly in Gaza, is particularly horrifying.
In Western and Central Africa, 57 million people need immediate assistance, with the most significant increase observed in Chad, due to the arrival of people fleeing Sudan.
55 million people in Asia-Pacific, including 30 million, or half, in Afghanistan, and 34 million in Latin America and the Caribbean are affected by humanitarian crises. In Europe, nearly 13 million Ukrainians, or 36% of the population, will require humanitarian aid.
Conflicts, climate crises, poor preparedness and response to natural disasters, inequalities in access to essential services, and poor governance are at the root of humanitarian needs; all are the direct result of human actions and political choices.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to be optimistic, and it is highly likely that in 2025 most people will not have access to the aid they need. This poignant observation of failure must confront all humanitarian actors with their responsibilities. In cooperation with our local partners, our humanitarian associations are innovating and adapting their practices to develop more efficient, faster, and more responsive aid to the specific needs of each person. However, we need the financial means and the political conditions to fulfil our mandate as best as possible:
- Donors must make ambitious choices and provide quality funding to enable flexible, rapid, and principled humanitarian action.
- As humanitarian and displacement crises are becoming increasingly protracted, it is crucial that Official Development Assistance also prioritise these fragile contexts to restore future outlook for populations.
- Parties to conflicts must respect their obligations and international diplomacy must place respect for international humanitarian law at the heart of its priorities.
While crises are intensifying, human rights and international humanitarian law are being increasingly disregarded, and millions of lives are being devastated and shattered, our commitment to providing impartial, neutral, and independent humanitarian assistance to crisis-affected populations, wherever they may be, is unwavering.
Key figures for 2025
The 5 largest national crises in terms of the number of people in need of aid (in descending order): Sudan, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, and Yemen.
16 countries have reduced their funding targets compared to 2024: Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, El Salvador, Somalia, South Sudan, Ukraine, and Yemen.
The average duration of humanitarian plans/appeals now reaches 10 years. The Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Somalia, and Sudan have experienced continuous humanitarian needs for more than 20 years.
¹ During the following reference period: July 1, 2023 – June 30, 2024. International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Armed Conflict Survey 2024, December 12, 2024, https://www.iiss.org/publications/armed-conflict-survey/
² Unless otherwise stated, data is from the 2025 Global Humanitarian Overview of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) https://humanitarianaction.info/
³ In April 2024. UNHCR, Global Trends, Forced Displacement in 2024, https://www.unhcr.org/global-trends
⁴ Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Framework, Sudan: Acute Food Insecurity Situation – Updated Projections and Conclusions of the Famine Review Committee from October 2024 to May 2025 https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipc-country-analysis/details-map/en/c/1159433/?iso3=SDN