A System Under Strain
The Crisis Behind the Crises
There is no shortage of headlines about war, displacement, and disaster. Yet beneath the visible crises lies a deeper, more structural emergency, one that receives far less attention. The global humanitarian system itself is faltering. Designed in the aftermath of the 20th century’s worst catastrophes, it is now being pushed beyond its limits by the scale, frequency, and complexity of modern crises. The result is a widening gap between need and response, one that risks reshaping not just humanitarian outcomes but global political stability.
In 2026, the world is witnessing an unprecedented convergence of crises. Conflicts are lasting longer, climate shocks are intensifying, and geopolitical rivalries are constraining cooperation. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 239 million people worldwide require humanitarian assistance, a figure that has become the new baseline. Compounding the scale of human suffering, for the first time in recorded history, two simultaneous famines unfolded in 2025, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Sudan, a grim milestone in a year OCHA’s humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher described as the worst on record.
The Middle East on fire: Iran, Israel and a region in free fall
The 2026 Iran War
On 28th February 2026, the United States and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury, a sweeping series of joint strikes on Iran targeting its nuclear programme, ballistic missile infrastructure, and political leadership. The opening salvo assassinated Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and several senior officials, shattering the rules of engagement that had governed even the most violent previous rounds of conflict. The strikes, numbering close to 900 in the first 12 hours alone, marked the beginning of what is now an active, open-ended war with no clear diplomatic off-ramp.
Iran has responded with waves of missile and drone attacks on Israel, US military bases, and Gulf Arab states, including Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the UAE. By late March, Iranian attacks had targeted locations across nine countries. The humanitarian implications are cascading rapidly. More than one-sixth of Lebanon’s population has been displaced, Iranian strikes have hit residential buildings across central Israel, and the disruption of the Strait of Hormuz has driven Brent crude past $100 a barrel, triggering fuel rationing across parts of Asia.
As of 29 March 2026, day 30 of the war, foreign ministers from Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia convened in Islamabad in search of a diplomatic solution. The Pentagon, meanwhile, is reported to be preparing for potential ground operations in Iran. The conflict has now drawn in Yemen’s Houthis and reignited fighting between Hezbollah and Israel in Lebanon, creating a multi-front war that humanitarian organisations are wholly unprepared to address.
Gaza: a humanitarian system broken
The ceasefire that took effect in Gaza on 10 October 2025 offered a brief, fragile pause after more than two years of war. In the months that followed, humanitarians delivered over 165,000 metric tonnes of aid, repaired roads, and reached 1.3 million people with food packages. But according to OCHA, these were “Band-Aid” solutions on a wound requiring far deeper care. Less than 40 per cent of healthcare facilities remained operational. Virtually all schools in Gaza had been damaged or destroyed.
When the wider Iran-Israel war erupted on 28 February 2026, Israel immediately closed all crossings into Gaza, halting the entry of aid, fuel, and medical supplies and suspending the coordination of humanitarian movements. The UNRWA’s Commissioner-General stated that the agency had “reached breaking point.” As of mid-March 2026, 46% of essential medicines and 66% of medical consumables were out of stock. More than 72,000 Palestinians had been killed in Gaza since October 2023.
The 2026 Flash Appeal for the Occupied Palestinian Territory called for $4.1 billion to assist 3.6 million people. As of late January 2026, Member States had disbursed just $211 million, barely 5% of what was requested.
Africa: a continent engulfed
Sudan: the world’s largest displacement crisis
Sudan’s war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which erupted in April 2023, has become the world’s largest displacement crisis. Estimates suggest up to 400,000 people may have died since fighting began. More than 12.8 million people have been forcibly displaced internally. Over 4.5 million have fled to neighbouring countries, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Uganda, placing a catastrophic strain on already fragile host systems.
In October 2025, the RSF captured El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, massacring thousands and leaving over 150,000 residents unaccounted for. In 2025, more than 30 million people in Sudan required humanitarian assistance. Partners needed $4.2 billion to respond, a sum that remained overwhelmingly unfunded. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) warned in March 2026 that supply chains are now further disrupted by the Middle East conflict, delaying tent deliveries from Dubai and cholera treatment kits to Chad.
Somalia, the Sahel and the fragmentation of African security
Somalia faces a convergence of threats. With 5.9 million people in need of assistance and 2.4 million internally displaced, the country is one of the world’s most acute protracted crises. Al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda affiliate, continues to pose an existential threat to the Somali state, while climate shocks have now overtaken conflict as the leading driver of displacement. Youth unemployment stands at 34%. The country’s ability to hold credible elections in 2026 remains uncertain.
Across the broader continent, tens of thousands died in armed conflicts in 2025, in Sudan, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Sahel. The African Union, which would ordinarily serve as an anchoring institution, is, by the assessment of the International Crisis Group, arguably at its weakest since its founding. Meanwhile, the proliferation of drone warfare, recorded in at least 31 African countries, is reshaping the character of conflict, raising non-combatant casualties and extending the reach of both state and non-state armed groups.
Demand is surging, but supply is collapsing
The central tension of the modern humanitarian landscape is brutally simple: demand is rising sharply while supply is contracting. In 2025, the UN-led humanitarian appeal received just $12 billion, the lowest funding in a decade. By mid-year, less than 17 per cent of the $46 billion needed had been received, a 40% drop compared to the same period in 2024. Humanitarians reached 25 million fewer people than in 2024.
The collapse of US aid architecture played a decisive role. The Trump administration dismantled USAID, and Congress voted through $8 billion in annual aid cuts. An appeals court upheld those cuts in August 2025. In Europe, France cut its official development assistance by nearly 40 per cent. Germany reduced its humanitarian emergency aid budget by 53 per cent. Switzerland, Sweden, Belgium, and the Netherlands all announced similar contractions. The combined effect has been a structural evisceration of the funding base on which the global humanitarian system depends.
UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher was unsparing in his assessment at the launch of the 2026 Global Humanitarian Overview: “We have been forced into a triage of human survival. The math is cruel, and the consequences are heartbreaking.” For 2026, OCHA is asking for $33 billion to reach 135 million people, but targeting fewer than 60% of those in need for the first time, acknowledging that financial realism has displaced humanitarian ambition.
Climate, conflict and compounding risk
The humanitarian system is being further reshaped by the intersection of climate change and conflict. In Somalia, recurrent droughts, flash floods, and environmental degradation have now surpassed conflict as the leading cause of displacement among pastoralist communities. In Sudan, climate shocks compound economic collapse and ethnic violence. Across East Africa, prolonged drought conditions have pushed tens of millions into food insecurity, while flooding in South Asia continues to displace entire communities seasonally.
These are not isolated weather events; they are systemic, accelerating, and interacting with fragile governance structures in ways that multiply humanitarian needs far beyond what emergency relief frameworks were designed to address. In the DRC, where 4.3 million people face a complete loss of humanitarian assistance, the interplay of armed conflict, endemic disease, and climate disruption has rendered the humanitarian response almost impossible to sustain.
A system at a crossroads
The implications of this systemic strain extend well beyond the humanitarian sector. When aid falls short, the consequences ripple outward, driving instability, migration pressures, and geopolitical tension. In this sense, the humanitarian system is not merely a moral imperative. It is a critical component of global security architecture.
What is needed now is not simply more funding, though that is essential, but a fundamental rethinking of how humanitarian action is structured and delivered. This includes greater integration with development and peacebuilding efforts, more flexible funding mechanisms, stronger engagement with local actors, and a political commitment from major powers to stop using aid as a geopolitical lever.
The 2026 Iran war has demonstrated in real time how a single regional conflagration can simultaneously generate new displacement crises, sever aid corridors, disrupt energy markets, and paralyse diplomatic channels. The humanitarian system cannot be reformed from within if the political conditions outside it continue to deteriorate.
The risk is not only that the system will fail those it is meant to serve, though millions are already being failed. It is that the erosion of norms, institutions, and solidarity at the humanitarian level reflects and accelerates a wider unravelling of the international order itself. That is the deeper crisis behind the crises.
Bibliography
ACAPS (2026) ‘Country Analysis: Somalia’. https://www.acaps.org/en/countries/somalia
NRC (2025) ‘2026: Millions in need will not get aid unless global solidarity revived’. Norwegian Refugee Council. https://www.nrc.no/news/2025/december/2026-millions-in-need-will-not-get-aid-unless-g global-solidarity-revived
OCHA (2026a) ‘Global Humanitarian Overview 2026 (EN/AR/ES/FR)’. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. https://www.unocha.org/publications/report/world/global-humanitarian-overview-2026-enesfr
OCHA (2026b) ‘Flash Appeal 2026 for Occupied Palestinian Territory’. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. https://www.ochaopt.org/content/flash-appeal-2026-glance
OHCHR (2025a) ‘Sudan faces worsening humanitarian catastrophe as famine and conflict escalate’. United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/04/sudan-faces-worsening-humanitarian-catastrophe-famine-and-conflict-escalate
OHCHR (2025b) ‘Sudan: UN report details horrific patterns of violations committed during SF takeover of Zamzam IDP camp’. United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/12/sudan-un-report-details-horrific-patterns-violations-committed-during-rsf
Sigmon, E. (2025) ‘Africa adrift: Trump, DOGE and the sweeping cuts to US foreign assistance and the diplomatic corps’. Elcano Royal Institute. https://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/en/analyses/america-adrift-trump-doge-and-the-sweeping-cuts-to-us-foreign-assistance-and-the-diplomatic-corps/
UN News (2025) ‘Humanitarians launch $33 billion appeal for 2026’. Humanitarian Aid, United Nations News. https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/12/1166526
