Brutal UN budget cuts threaten humanitarian aid across crisis-ridden regions in Africa

Business Insider

16-06-2025

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA) has announced a drastic reduction in its global aid operations, citing what it described as "brutal" budget cuts.
The United Nations' OCHA has announced a significant reduction in humanitarian aid efforts due to funding shortages.
This adjustment follows a revised global humanitarian appeal of $29 billion, drastically lower than initial forecasts.
The funding crisis mainly affects operations in Africa, where critical aid programs are being scaled back or suspended.
The UN agency, which oversees emergency response in conflict and disaster-affected areas, now seeks $29 billion in a revised humanitarian appeal reflecting significant budget cuts from earlier projections.
Posting on its official X page, OCHA stated, " We have been forced to re-prioritize our work. Brutal 2025 funding cuts mean humanitarians must do more with less, and millions will go without humanitarian assistance. This is just the tip of the iceberg."
The announcement comes amid sweeping aid reductions prompted by U.S. President Donald Trump following his return to office.
Since taking office, Trump has scaled back the role of USAID and ordered cuts across several major donor agencies, triggering a global ripple effect in humanitarian financing.
UNICEF, OCHA, and other UN bodies have already initiated budget cuts that will affect roughly 20 percent of their staff and programming capacity.
The World Food Program (WFP), which relied on the United States for nearly half of its funding in 2024, is expected to reduce its workforce by as much as 30 percent.
A senior WFP official described the funding collapse as " the most massive the agency has seen in 25 years," warning that without urgent financial support, key operations in hunger-stricken regions will either shrink drastically or vanish entirely.
This budget shock, exacerbated by donor fatigue, rising geopolitical tensions, and competing global emergencies, has already forced the UN to scale back critical aid in some of the most fragile regions of the world, particularly in parts of Africa where humanitarian needs are escalating.
Crisis-torn Africa regions most hit
The impact of the UN's funding crisis is felt most acutely in parts of Africa, where millions are already grappling with the combined effects of armed conflict, climate shocks, food insecurity, and large-scale displacement.
In countries such as Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, and across the Sahel, UN-supported programs that deliver food, shelter, medical assistance, and protection for vulnerable populations are being scaled back or suspended entirely due to financial constraints.
Aid flows to Africa have been declining steadily since 2021—a trend that should have alerted the continent's leaders to the looming humanitarian crisis.
According to data from Development Aid, African countries received US$64.8 billion in assistance from donor nations in 2021. That figure dropped to US$60 billion in 2023, with less than US$20 billion coming from the United States.
In 2024, U.S. foreign aid to Africa fell even further, plummeting to just US$12.7 billion.
This sharp decline comes at a time when the continent is confronting a convergence of poverty, disease outbreaks, climate shocks, and political instability.