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[Paris, January 16, 2026] On January 20, 2025, Donald Trump suspended US funding for international aid. Despite the dramatic consequences of this decision, other countries have also reduced their dedicated budgets. SOLIDARITÉS INTERNATIONAL warns of the urgent need to establish equitable funding for the sector. Financial decisions must be guided by the actual needs of populations facing crises.
A year ago, soon after taking office at the White House, Donald Trump signed an executive order suspending US foreign aid funding, including humanitarian aid. A few days later, Elon Musk, then appointed head of the “Department of Government Efficiency,” announced the closure of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). As a result, $75.9 billion¹ in planned funding was abruptly canceled.
The effects of this cut were immediate and tangible. In Yemen, after more than a decade of war, 23.1 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian aid², and the cholera epidemic is considered one of the most violent in the world. However, the end of US humanitarian aid has resulted in the closure of many humanitarian programs. One of these was SOLIDARITÉS INTERNATIONAL’s program, which involved supplying water, building latrines, and distributing emergency supplies to 117,000 displaced people in camps.
In Afghanistan, our efforts to rehabilitate water sources and combat malnutrition among more than 50,000 people have been suspended. In Mozambique, our program has come to end. It provided access to water and sanitation to more than 150,000 people caught up in the war between government forces and insurgents affiliated with the Islamic State.
It’s estimated that globally, the decline in US humanitarian aid could cause the deaths of more than 22 million people by 2030³. “This is an aberration, a huge moral mistake, but also a major strategic error. The cost of preventing crises and conflicts is much lower than the cost of inaction” explains Kevin Goldberg, Executive Director of SOLIDARITÉS INTERNATIONAL.
However, it would be wrong to attribute the humanitarian crisis purely to the American political turnaround. This rupture comes at a time when humanitarian aid is under severe pressure due to the collapse of the global financial framework for official development assistance (ODA). A real budgetary scuttling is underway in France: with cumulative cuts of more than 49% in two years, the state budget has been hit hardest. The majority of traditional donors -Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands- are also making drastic cuts in favor of defense spending. Projections indicate a decline in global ODA of nearly 26%. This is undoubtedly only the beginning.
We are therefore facing a global crisis in humanitarian funding, coupled with a crisis of morality and legitimacy, as Tom Fletcher, UN Under-Secretary-General for humanitarian affairs, has stated. In order to remain loyal to our mandate and continue to provide the necessary aid to populations in distress, finding new donors is an imperative that SOLIDARITÉS INTERNATIONAL works on every day.
However, the reform of the international humanitarian system initiated by the UN in March 2025 confirms the gradual reduction of the sector’s activities by endorsing a hyper-prioritization of aid that ignores chronic crisis situations, the necessary coordination of emergency aid with recovery and resilience strategies, and the need to prevent health disasters as early as possible.
One year after the cessation of US aid, the issue of financing international solidarity remains unresolved. With at least 239 million people in need of humanitarian assistance in 2026 according to Humanitarian Action⁴, there is an urgent need to collectively rethink the sector’s funding tools and ensure that states contribute fairly according to their capacities and the needs of the populations at risk. “The decline in collective awareness of the human suffering exposed daily in images is palpable. But solidarity should not be an option. It is essential to put the principle of humanity back at the heart of international concerns” insists Kevin Goldberg.
Spokespersons available:
Kevin Golberg, Directeur Général de l’ONG SOLIDARITÉS INTERNATIONAL
Press Contact
Charlotte Nouette-Delorme : 07 85 42 56 99 / +33 1 76 21 86 59 / presse@solidarites.org
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² Yemen Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2026 | Humanitarian Action
³ Global Aid Cuts Could Reverse Decades of Progress in Health and Development – ISGLOBAL