With aid abating, African solutions must kick in
Unprecedented global cuts to humanitarian assistance will force the African Union to look inward for answers.
Seventy-five percent of the world’s humanitarian crises are on African soil. Since 1946, it has been home to one-third of all armed inter- and intra-State conflicts and, since 1989, 75% of non-state conflicts. The number of displaced Africans has doubled since 2018 – more than 44 million have been forced from their homes. For the 14th consecutive year, conflict, violence, unrest, climate change and disasters have displaced record numbers of citizens.
Organisations such as the AU and regional economic communities (RECs) have played a secondary role to international aid in funding and delivering humanitarian assistance on the continent. Aid has been widely used by wealthy states – notably western liberal democracies – as a tool for global policy influence. International humanitarian aid has provided life-saving support in emergencies … but at a price. It has most often been conditional on serving political and economic interests of and building dependency on donor countries, although Africa is a net creditor and donors earn US$7 to US$8 per dollar spent on aid.
Donor countries have majorly slashed humanitarian funding in response to changing domestic priorities, economic uncertainty and fatigue. Many have seen inward political shifts, surges in defence spending and corresponding aid cuts, shuttering off refugee resettlement programmes and increasing border security.
As far back as the founding of the Organisation of African Unity, the AU and its member states have been urged to exercise their own authority and agency. The AU has created humanitarian instruments such as African Risk Capacity in response to natural disasters and extreme weather conditions and Africa Centres for Disease Control (Africa CDC) for public health emergencies. There is also the Humanitarian Policy Framework and Special Emergency Assistance Fund for humanitarian relief and the African Humanitarian Agency (AfHA). Implementation progress for most remains hampered by funding and low political will to prioritise such issues.
AfHA was established at the 2016 AU Summit, but is not operational. In contrast, Africa CDC founded at the same event was launched by 2017, operates across many areas of its mandate and has responded robustly to weak health systems in several countries.
Since 1989, Africa has been home to 75% of non-state conflicts
Political will in humanitarian aid is complex, particularly in conflicts, where control over responses is highly politicised and instrumentalised to establish control and undermine opponents' legitimacy. In many cases, aid is intentionally blocked and aid providers attacked by warring parties. AU initiatives and agencies compete for limited funding and the AU, with its many priorities, has to attract attention and funding from a limited and shrinking audience.
Overwhelming crises
In June, the United Nations Refugee Agency released its annual global trends report. At the end of 2024, 123.2 million people were displaced – an increase of seven million in one year. Climate change, protracted state and non-state conflicts and economic fragility are converging to compound crises. Most displaced Africans remain in their home countries or in neighbouring countries – most resource-poor and suffering from similar conflict, unrest or disasters.
The number of internally displaced persons in Africa has tripled since 2015 (from 11.8 million to 35.4 million). Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) accounted for 45% of all internal displacements worldwide in 2024 (5.3 million in the DRC and 3.8 million in Sudan).
As of April 2025, the agency reported a slight drop in global refugee numbers for the first time in a decade, down 1% to 122.1 million. In 2024, 1.6 million people returned to their homes, most to Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine. Many have returned to poor conditions, having given up trying to access rights and services in host countries.
South Sudan was the only African country to see a significant number of returns. Going home is not viable for most refugees on the continent, due to the protracted conflicts. Many spend their lives in severely underfunded camps, unable to work, study or move freely. Funding cuts will worsen their prospects.
Sudan is the world’s largest displacement and humanitarian crisis – the civil war has driven 14.4 million people from their homes and left two-thirds of the population needing aid. About 11.6 million are internally displaced and 2.8 million are across borders. At the end of 2024, conflict in the DRC had created 1.22 million refugees and asylum seekers and 6.9 million internally displaced persons. As of April 2025, only 10% of Sudan’s humanitarian appeal had been met.
The AU and its states have long been urged to exercise their own authority and agency
The DRC now hosts the most displaced persons in history (7.8 million) and 27.7 million people face crisis levels of food insecurity. South Sudan has 4.3 million displaced people and 9.3 million reliant on aid.
International aid and solidarity plummeting
In December 2024, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the AU co-hosted the launch of the global humanitarian overview for 2025, an appeal for US$47 billion, US$20 billion (41%) of which is needed in Africa. Of the world’s 305 million people needing assistance in 2025, 46% are in Africa: 85 million in southern and eastern Africa, 59 million in the Middle East and North Africa and 57 million in West Africa and Central Africa. The appeal sounded the alarm that only 43% of the 2024 appeal for US$47 billion had been met.
The Norwegian Refugee Council issues an annual list of the top 10 most neglected displacement crises globally. Eight in 2025 are African: Cameroon, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Burkina Faso, Mali, Uganda, the DRC and Somalia. Nine of the 10 were African in the 2024 list, which rated Cameroon the world’s most neglected crisis, assigning a zero out of 30 rating for political will and ‘negligible’ media coverage.
Cameroon hosts people fleeing internal conflicts and violence in Lake Chad Basin and the Central African Republic. It hosts 1.1 million displaced persons and 480 000 refugees and has 2.8 million people facing acute food insecurity.
At the start of his second term, United States President Donald Trump issued an executive order imposing a near-full halt on foreign aid and the refugee admissions programme. This was quickly followed by a halt to activities supporting refugees. Reports also indicate Trump is diverting US$250 million from foreign aid budgets to repatriating foreigners, without due process and at times against court orders.
While the United States has made the harshest changes, the United Kingdom reduced development assistance by 40% and European countries such as France and Germany announced their own reductions. The European Union redirected some of its development budget to Ukraine and border management.
Before these major slashes, global refugee funding gaps had already reached US$24 billion in 2024 – what the world spends on military defence in four days. Funding for humanitarian food aid is projected to drop by up to 45%, and most forcibly displaced people are in areas of food crises. The concomitant reductions in development aid will reduce host country governments’ fiscal capabilities to support refugees.
AU humanitarian action lagging
On 1 July 2025, the Peace and Security Council (PSC) addressed Africa’s humanitarian situation at its 1 286th meeting. The ensuing communiqué expressed concern over the crises and deep concern over dwindling financial support. In the spirit of equitable burden and responsibility sharing, it emphasised the need for global solidarity for African countries hosting large numbers of displaced people.
AfHA cannot resolve any crisis unless it’s sustainably funded, responsive and implemented
It further recognised the links among peace, humanitarian aid and development and the need to enhance synergies, coordination and joint action among the AU, RECs, regional mechanisms and humanitarian actors. Peace and security cannot be achieved amid an overwhelming humanitarian crises. The communiqué reiterated calls to activate and sustainably finance AfHA and for member states to fulfil their pledges from the 2022 Malabo extraordinary humanitarian summit and pledging conference.
At the 26th AU Summit in January 2016, the AU Assembly decided to establish an African humanitarian agency anchored on regional and national mechanisms and funded with Africa's resources. It asked the AU Commission to follow through with architecture built on principles of pan-Africanism and African shared values.
AfHA is meant to fill a coordinating void and facilitate collaboration among development security, the private sector and humanitarian actors. It is expected to be funded through the regular AU budget and develop creative sources of funding to ensure African ownership and direction.
AfHA should lead the development of response strategies and build capacity among member states and other actors. It will institutionalise best practices, mobilise resources and coordinate humanitarian responses, collaborate with states, RECs, regional bodies and humanitarian aid agencies.
The structure was ratified in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea in May 2022, with participants pledging US$176 million. The summit led to the Malabo Declaration and established the 10-year Post-Malabo Implementation Plan 2023 to 2032. Its strategic priorities included strengthening the role of the state in humanitarian action; reforming Africa’s humanitarian architecture, addressing causes, proposing durable solutions and moving from norm setting to implementation. Member states adopted the statute in February 2023 at the 36th AU Summit. Uganda was selected to host AfHA in July 2024 and it is reportedly currently recruiting management staff.
The communiqué following the 1 176th PSC meeting in 2023reiterated the call for the AU Commission to expedite AfHA by 2024/25. It is not yet operational and details remain vague on how it will become functional, coordinate with existing humanitarian actors and member states and source funding. In the nine years since the 2016 decision, the AU footprint has remained negligible and even absent at times. And many questions abound about how countries, RECs and the AU will coordinate humanitarian action.
With current crises and the retreat of aid partners, the AU must drive its own responses
The AU has the Humanitarian Policy Framework, Kampala Convention, the common African position on humanitarian effectiveness and the African Regional Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction. However, it struggles with implementation linked to long-term funding, coordination within and across bodies and a lack of political will among some member states.
The 2015 policy framework aimed to provide the AU and other humanitarian actors with strategic approaches and guidelines to improve their capacity for prevention, preparation, response and mitigation. It encouraged strengthening capacities and capabilities, emphasises using Africa's resources for Africa's action and tasked the AU with securing predictable and adequate funding and member states with channelling 1.5% of their gross domestic product into the effort.
Some have questioned whether the AU needs another humanitarian agency when it already has frameworks that aren’t fully implemented. A new structure will not resolve the situation unless it is sustainably funded, able to respond quickly and implemented. The AU has established other agencies to respond to disasters and crises with varying degrees of success. AfHA can draw lessons from Africa CDC.
Catalysed partly by the 2014 to 2016 West African Ebola crisis, Africa CDC helps member states build public health capacity and infrastructure to detect, prevent, control and respond to public health threats. It was established at the 26th Ordinary Assembly of Heads of State and Government in January 2016 and launched in January 2017.
The initiative has been lauded for its progress. Its successes include the New Public Health Order for Africa, Africa Medical Supplies Platform and African Vaccine Acquisition Trust. It also coordinated a continent-wide Covid-19 response, negotiated vaccines and prevented donations of expiring vaccines.
With unprecedented humanitarian crises and the move away from solidarity and support from traditional aid partners, it is more important than ever that the AU collaborate with RECs, member states and international organisations to drive its own responses.
The situation is an opportunity to rethink the humanitarian landscape, break silos among security, development, humanitarian actors and the private sector, and implement coordinated, cohesive responses. Innovative ways must be found to raise funding from non-traditional sources, such as the African private sector or philanthropists, or even combining forces to leverage African Risk Capacity.
