The architecture of global humanitarianism is fracturing. Across Sudan, the Horn of Africa, and Myanmar, civil wars and power struggles continue to expand, displacing millions and pushing entire regions toward famine. Yet the traditional custodians of international aid—the United States and Western Europe—are retreating. The Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID and sharp reductions in foreign assistance have created a funding vacuum that United Nations agencies and humanitarian organizations are struggling to fill. As the system strains under the weight of simultaneous crises, the question of who will step in to mitigate escalating humanitarian emergencies in the Global South demands urgent attention. The answer is not a single actor, but a fragmented coalition of regional powers, emerging donors, multilateral institutions, and local organizations—each with distinct limitations and motivations.
The Retreat of the Traditional Donor System
The scale of the Western withdrawal cannot be overstated. In 2024, the United States provided approximately 40 percent of global humanitarian funding, with USAID alone accounting for 44 percent of Sudan’s humanitarian financing. The abrupt cuts have cascading effects across the entire aid ecosystem. The World Food Programme faces a 34 percent reduction in 2025 compared to the previous year; the International Organization for Migration, 30 percent; and the UN refugee agency, 17 percent. UNHCR’s available funding fell from $5.178 billion in 2024 to $3.932 billion in 2025, and by July 2026, it had received only 32 percent of the $8.5 billion needed for the year.
The consequences are not abstract. In Somalia, the World Food Programme’s food assistance now reaches just over 670,000 people monthly, down from more than 4 million a few years ago. In Afghanistan, the cash grant on arrival for returning refugees has been cut from $375 per person to $170 per household. The UN refugee agency has warned that 8.3 million refugees and displaced people are on the brink of losing access to vital assistance, with protection systems—registration, safe houses, child protection services—collapsing entirely in some regions. As UNHCR’s Dominique Hyde starkly observed, “Below a certain threshold the system doesn’t shrink, it fails”.
Regional Powers and the New Aid Landscape
In the absence of Western leadership, a diverse group of actors has begun to fill the gap. The most prominent include the Gulf states—Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar—along with Turkey and China. These nations have increased their visibility in development and humanitarian finance, but their approach differs fundamentally from traditional Western donors.
Gulf states and China have concentrated on infrastructure projects, energy, transportation, and telecommunications, often relying on debt-based and blended financing rather than grants. Their contributions remain “a fraction” of what the United States and Europe once provided, and their motivations are avowedly geopolitical and commercial. As one analysis notes, these new donors “approach development finance differently,” prioritizing projects that serve their own economic and strategic interests. This shift represents not merely a change in funding sources but a transformation in the very logic of international aid—from needs-based humanitarianism toward transactional partnerships.
The Gulf states’ interest in humanitarian funding is not purely altruistic. Regional leaders have recognized an opportunity “to fund and to bridge the gap” created by Western cuts, thereby enhancing their soft power and influence. For the Gulf monarchies, humanitarian engagement offers a means of projecting influence in regions like the Horn of Africa, where they have significant economic and security interests.
China presents a more complex case. While Beijing has expressed ambitions to play an expanded role in UN development and humanitarian agencies, it is “unlikely that China will increase its commitment” significantly, given domestic priorities and the Chinese public’s preference for domestic spending. China’s aid model emphasizes South-South cooperation, sovereignty, and non-interference—principles that resonate with many Global South governments but offer little to populations in acute crisis where government consent is contested or absent.
The Persistent Role of Multilateral Institutions
Despite the funding crisis, UN agencies and multilateral institutions remain central to any meaningful response. The African Union, through its Peace and Security Council, has continued to engage in Sudan, calling for an immediate ceasefire, humanitarian access, and a Sudanese-led political process. The AU’s field missions and its coordination with IGAD demonstrate that regional organizations are attempting to fill the political vacuum left by Western disengagement.
The European Union, while not immune to budget pressures, has sought to maintain its commitments. In August 2026, the EU announced an additional €10.5 million in humanitarian aid for Myanmar, bringing its 2026 total to €49.1 million. European Commissioner Hadja Lahbib emphasized that “at a time when other donors are retreating and humanitarian law is under unprecedented pressure, the EU remains committed to providing principled aid”. Yet Europe’s capacity to compensate for American withdrawal is limited. The EU cannot match the scale of US funding, and its own resources are stretched by the war in Ukraine and domestic political pressures.
The political dimension of the crisis remains unresolved. In Sudan, the African Union, European Union, France, Germany, the UK, and the United States have issued joint statements urging warring parties to cease hostilities and engage in negotiations. The G7 has condemned atrocities and called for expanded arms embargoes. But these declarations have done little to alter the behavior of the Sudanese Armed Forces or the Rapid Support Forces. The gap between rhetoric and enforcement remains as wide as ever.
The Local Turn
Amid the funding crisis, humanitarian organizations are increasingly turning to local partners as both a cost-saving measure and a strategic necessity. Education Cannot Wait, a global fund for education in emergencies, has committed to delivering at least half its funds through local organizations. The Norwegian Refugee Council in Somalia is implementing anticipatory action through community-led cash transfers, with 41 communities submitting applications for flood preparedness and mitigation.
This local turn is not merely pragmatic; it reflects a deeper recognition that humanitarian response must be rooted in the communities it serves. Local organizations often have access, knowledge, and legitimacy that international agencies lack, particularly in conflict zones where access is contested. However, local organizations also face structural disadvantages: they are typically underfunded, lack the administrative capacity of large international NGOs, and are often excluded from major funding decisions.
The World Food Programme’s operations in Somalia illustrate both the potential and the limits of localization. WFP works with Youthlink, a local partner, to provide nutrition assistance at the Weidow health centre in Mogadishu. But as caseloads have grown and other clinics have closed due to lack of financing, the centre is overwhelmed. “It is very concerning to see the increasing number of women coming here needing help,” says Yusuf Hassan of Youthlink. “We have to turn them away because we don’t have enough resources”. Localization without adequate funding simply shifts the burden without addressing the underlying shortfall.
Philanthropy and the Private Sector
Private foundations and philanthropists have attempted to fill part of the gap. The Gates Foundation announced a $1 billion commitment to AI-powered tools for farmers, educators, and health workers. Bill Clinton called on attendees at the Clinton Global Initiative to “step into the void created by retreating governments”. The Eleanor Crook Foundation’s Operation End Starvation launched with a $100 million, two-year commitment, though its CEO acknowledges needing “17 times more every year” to address acute malnutrition adequately.
These initiatives are welcome but insufficient. Philanthropy cannot replace the $30 billion-plus annual shortfall created by US cuts. Private actors remain hesitant to fill the void in low- and middle-income countries as long as barriers such as poor infrastructure and financial risks persist. Moreover, philanthropic funding is often earmarked for specific programs and lacks the flexibility that humanitarian response requires.
The Structural Crisis
The humanitarian funding crisis is not merely a matter of insufficient resources; it reflects a deeper structural problem. The global aid system has long depended on “a narrow club of around twenty countries, essentially Western or OECD-aligned”. This concentration created vulnerability, and the system is now paying the price for its failure to diversify.
The irony is that the resources exist. As Pierre Micheletti of SOS Méditerranée notes, if the 90 countries classified by the World Bank as high-income or upper-middle-income contributed just 0.06 percent of their gross national income, the global humanitarian budget of $40 billion would be reconstituted. “Remember that last year global spending on armaments reached $1,700 billion,” he adds. “And we are told it is impossible to find $40 billion for humanitarian aid: it is hallucinatory”.
The crisis in Sudan illustrates the stakes. More than 33 million people—two-thirds of the population—require humanitarian assistance, and 20 million face acute food insecurity. The war has triggered famine, widespread sexual violence, and the collapse of health and education systems. Yet the international response remains fragmented and inadequate. The African Union calls for peace, the EU provides funding, the Gulf states offer selective support, and humanitarian agencies struggle to reach those in need.
Conclusion: No Single Savior
The question of who will step in to mitigate escalating humanitarian crises in the Global South admits no simple answer. The United States has abdicated its role as the world’s leading humanitarian donor, and no single actor—not China, not the Gulf states, not the European Union, not private philanthropy—can replace it. What is emerging instead is a fragmented, multi-polar aid landscape in which regional powers, multilateral institutions, local organizations, and private actors each play partial roles, driven by distinct and often conflicting motivations.
This fragmentation carries profound implications. Humanitarian aid is increasingly transactional, tied to donors’ commercial and geopolitical interests rather than needs-based principles. The coordination mechanisms that once enabled a coherent international response are weakening. And the populations most in need—in Sudan, Somalia, Myanmar, and beyond—are left to depend on an improvised and inadequate system.
The crisis demands more than new donors; it requires a fundamental rethinking of how the world finances and delivers humanitarian assistance. If the current trajectory continues, the coming years will witness not merely a funding gap but a legitimacy crisis for the entire humanitarian enterprise. The Global South will not be saved by a single savior, because it has been abandoned by a system that has lost its way.
