By Minaz Kerawala, Communications and Public Relations Advisor
How much humanitarian aid does the world need, and how much does it receive?
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs answers these questions every year in its Global Humanitarian Overview report, the 2026 edition of which was released last week. The headline number is that US$33 billion will be needed to serve 135 million people in the coming year. Tracking on last year’s report indicates that only 28.5 per cent of the amount needed for 2025 was raised.
These two figures―the former, astronomical; the latter, abysmal―prompted a stark and sobering response from a coalition of 89 local, national, regional and international NGOs, including Caritas Internationalis, of which Development Peace ― Caritas Canada (DPCC) is a member. Their collective statement is at once an indictment of and an appeal to the international community, especially the wealthiest countries that are retreating from and even actively undermining international solidarity.
Humanitarian aid: the need in numbers
The Global Humanitarian Overview presents a grim picture. With most countries slashing aid budgets, UN agencies are forced to target less than 58 percent of 239 million people who will be in need in 2026.
Even within that already cruelly triaged number, only 87 million people are accorded priority. Meeting the needs of this subset would cost less than 1 per cent of the world’s total military spending of $2.7 trillion.
During a press briefing, the UN’s under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, Tom Fletcher, said, “The total global appeal could be fully funded if the global top 10 per cent of earners – that’s everyone earning over $100,000 – gave just 20 cents a day.”
Another telling statistic has surfaced since the release of the report. The $33 billion it seeks represents less than a tenth of the net worth of Elon Musk, the world’s richest person who spearheaded the destruction of USAID earlier this year.
Humanitarian aid: what drives the need
Naming conflict and climate change as the leading drivers of humanitarian need in 2026, the Global Humanitarian Overview notes that:
- At least 56,000 civilians were killed in conflicts in the first 10 months of 2025.
- Civilian casualties from explosive weapons rose by 69 per cent in 2024.
- Drone attacks increased by 4,000 per cent between 2020 and 2024.
- Over 117 million people are forcibly displaced by conflict and violence.
- Around 520 million children—over one in five—are living in or fleeing conflict zones.
- Conflict-related sexual violence increased by 87 per cent in two years.
- More than 295 million people face high acute food insecurity.
- Three in four of the world’s forcibly displaced people live in countries facing high-to-extreme exposure to climate-related hazards.
- Averaged over a decade, weather-related disasters have caused around 70,000 internal displacements per day.
- Development and climate financing remain lowest in countries with the highest fragility and vulnerability.
What the NGOs say
The Global Humanitarian Overview documents how the largest contraction in humanitarian aid funding in a decade forced aid agencies to drastically cut programming and staffing in 2025 and refocus efforts on hyper-prioritized subsets of people, depriving tens of millions of vital nutrition; health care; protection; and water, sanitation and hygiene services.
Building on this critique, the NGOs’ statement denounces the “political pushback against inclusion and gender equality;” the obstruction of aid; the targeting of aid workers; “the use of starvation and gender-based violence as weapons;” the lack of “political will to maintain peace or hold perpetrators of international crimes accountable;” and the gutting of organizational capacities, especially among women- and refugee-led organizations and in the domain of child protection.
The NGOs strongly recommend that:
- Politicians in donor countries stop vilifying aid and fund the UN’s appeal fully
- Hyper-prioritization be stopped so that the neediest do not have to be picked from among the needy based on the harshest criteria
- Community, local and national actors be included across the humanitarian program cycle
- The private sector and multilateral and international financial institutions contribute more
- The humanitarian system be made more people-centred, efficient, plural, agile, inclusive and accountable
- Organizations embrace complementarity over competition
- UN agencies devolve power and resources to local and national actors
- Intermediary organizations consider enabling local actors over implementing programs themselves
- Donors become less risk-averse; more willing to fund proven cash disbursal programs; more transparent; less bureaucratic; and less burdensome on the recipients of funding
- Governments ensure consistent adherence to international law
The Canadian picture
Last month, we had criticized the Government of Canada’s budget decision to reduce international aid by $2.7 billion over four years. Like under-secretary Fletcher, our executive director Carl Hétu had contrasted the tight-fistedness on aid with the open-handedness on military spending. “As a Catholic organization, we find it unbelievable that when the world needs more bread, Canada wants to make more bombs,” he had lamented.
The Global Humanitarian Overview and the NGOs’ response to it make Canada’s traditional moral leadership in the global humanitarian space even more appreciable. Fortunately, the government’s regrettable choice has not yet undermined Canada’s role and reputation.
Currently, for instance, DPCC has several grants from Global Affairs Canada for ambitious, multi-sector, multi-year programs in Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Palestine, the Sahel region, Sudan and Ukraine. Over their lifetime, these programs will provide a range of supports and services to over 10.3 million people in situations of conflict and crisis, including meeting basic food, shelter and health care needs; climate-proofing and strengthening communities’ economies; and improving people’s capacities for engaged citizenship.
These contributions make a mark. “Canadian aid is more than a donation—it is a demonstration of deep solidarity and compassion with people in Sudan,” Mary Wamuyu, who oversees our partner’s projects in that country recently told DPCC supporters. Any reduction in government funding for longer-term programming will result not only in damage to Canada’s image and standing, but also in the reversal of many substantial and hard-won social gains.
That is why we reiterate our call to Prime Minister Mark Carney to respect “Canada’s values of compassion and generosity” by keeping his word on not cutting international aid. Because, as Hétu had put it simply, “Lives depend on it!”