Funding

International aid under threat: What consequences? What responses? What reconfigurations?

Everyone now recognises that Donald Trump’s second presidential term marks a radical transformation of the global arena. His controversial decisions and dramatic announcements are reshaping the balance of geopolitics and...

François Audet - Jean-François Corty - Stéphanie Tchiombiano

2025: The humanitarian movement’s Great Depression

The drastic cuts in Western aid budgets in 2025 have exposed the chronic fra­gility of the humanitarian sector. The author explains how, between financial subordination and geopolitical exploita­tion, this model...

Pierre Micheletti

Humanitarian organisations in the face of (under)funding for Cameroon’s crises

Now that American aid has been sus­pended, humanitarian organisations in Cameroon are facing a double whammy: an immediate funding crisis on top of a significant and long-standing trend of underfunding...

Alex Pueugue Simo

What future for the Global Compact on Refugees in an international system in crisis? The case study of Niger

International solidarity with refugees is breaking down due to massive budget cuts. In Niger, a Sahelian country host­ing close to 400,000 refugees, American and European funding decisions are jeopardising previously...

Rémy Kalombo

Mutualisation: an approach to overcoming the funding crisis in the humanitarian sector

The humanitarian sector is currently undergoing upheaval as organisations look for ways to continue their activi­ties with increasingly limited funding. This article explores how mutualis­ation can help aid actors optimise...

Jean-Baptiste Lamarche

Can pooled funds transform humanitarian governance?

Swingeing budget cuts are undermining the humanitarian system. And humani­tarian pooled funds are now (re)emerg­ing as a solution to do more with less. But beyond money transfers, can these mechanisms...

Maryam Z. Deloffre

After the funding stops: the human cost of aid dependency in Côte d’Ivoire

Published on 13 November 2025 This article is an extension of our special issue “Aid in danger: after the shock of 2025, the consequences and the response” published in November...

Ella Noël - Lea Obermüller

A new era for aid: prioritising people and protecting progress

Published on 4 November 2025 As donor budgets shrink and crisis-hit populations face abandonment, IRC charts a data-driven path forward. Through evidence-based targeting, proven innovations, and local partnerships, the organisation...

Imogen Sudbery

Radical criticism

Le mot de l’éditeur Contre-histoire de l’humanitaire [An Alternative history of humanitarian aid] is a critical analysis of the humanitarian sector, which is increasingly ruled by funding, the priorities of...

Can anything positive come out of this crisis?

Published on 24th April 2025 The decisions of the new US administration to freeze aid and abolish USAID has sent shockwaves through the system. USA is the largest bilateral ODA...

Wolfgang Jamann

Geneva’s Role as a Centre for International Cooperation Faces a New Challenge from the U.S.

Published on 10 April 2025 Stability in the Balance Geneva, French-speaking Switzerland’s largest city, is celebrated as the birthplace of Henry Dunant, founder of the International Committee of the Red...

Daniel Suda-Lang

We are becoming insanely indifferent to the world’s misfortunes

Published on 11 March 2025 The collapse of western funding for international aid – for both emergency humanitarian operations and official development assistance (ODA) – is a major blow. The...

Pierre Micheletti