UN cuts aid appeal for 2026 despite growing need

The United Nations appealed on Monday for an aid budget just half of what it had hoped for this year, acknowledging a plunge in donor funding at a time when humanitarian needs have never been greater.

By its own admission, the UN’s $23 billion appeal will exclude tens of millions of people who urgently need help, as falling support has forced it to prioritize only the most desperate.

The funding cuts come on top of other challenges for aid agencies including risks to the safety of staff in conflict zones and lack of access.

“Cuts are ultimately what force us into these tough, tough, brutal choices that we have to make,” UN aid chief Tom Fletcher told reporters.

“We are overstretched, underfunded and under attack,” he said. “And we’re driving the ambulance to the fire. On your behalf. But now we’re being asked to put out the fire. And there’s not enough water in the tank. And they’re shooting at us.”

A year ago, the United Nations sought about $47 billion for 2025 – a figure that was later reduced as the scale of aid cuts by US President Donald Trump, as well as other top Western donors such as Germany, began to emerge.

November figures showed it had received only $12 billion so far, the lowest in 10 years, covering just over a quarter of needs.

Next year’s $23 billion plan identifies 87 million people considered priority cases whose lives are at risk. But he says about a quarter of a billion need urgent help, and he will seek to help 135 million of them at a cost of $33 billion — if he has the means.

The largest appeal of $4 billion is for the occupied Palestinian territories. Most of them concern Gaza, which has been devastated by the two-year Israel-Hamas conflict, which has left almost all of its 2.3 million residents homeless and dependent on aid.

Sudan is second, followed by Syria.

Fletcher said aid groups faced a grim scenario of increasing hunger, spreading disease and record violence.

“(The appeal) is laser-focused on saving lives where the shocks hit hardest: wars, climate disasters, earthquakes, epidemics, crop failures,” he said.

UN humanitarian agencies depend heavily on voluntary donations from Western donors, with the United States by far the top historical donor.

UN data showed it continued to hold the top spot in 2025 despite Trump’s cuts, but that its share had shrunk from more than a third of the total to 15.6% this year.