Featured Articles

Underfunded Crises: A Look at the Last 5 Years

If you were to ask me, “Are humanitarian crises underfunded?”, I’d probably say “Sure, that’s like asking me, do you check Twitter as soon as you open your eyes in the morning? Or will there be another Fast and Furious movie? The answer is obviously yes, and it’s unhealthy”. But if you asked me which […]

Hidden Money: Growth of Multiple Sector Funding

Most of the humanitarian funding recorded in OCHA’s Financial Tracking Service (FTS) is attributed to one sector. This might be Health, or Nutrition, or Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), or one of the many other sectors. But there’s a growing trend of humanitarian funding going to multiple sectors. This could be Health and Nutrition, or […]

Shock Resilient Funding: A COVID Case Study

Don’t keep all your eggs in one basket is an English-language saying that conveys a simple piece of wisdom. One of the things that keeps a system strong and resilient is diversifying. Don’t make everything dependent on one thing. Whether that be not investing all your spare cash in Bitcoin, or an NGO having multiple […]

Humanitarian Recession: A Simple Framework

Humanitarian Funding goes up, and humanitarian funding goes down. That’s a statement of the absolute obvious. But beyond that, it’s still confusing to actually understand in what direction things are going. We have a maze of figures. Everywhere we go there’s figures, figures, figures. Charts, charts, charts. On OCHA’s Financial Tracking Service, on Humanitarian InSight, […]

Are humanitarian agencies ‘value for money’?

The funding gap between rising humanitarian needs and shrinking donor budgets is widening, with recent efforts to present a more targeted approach to global appeals. It is debated whether the scare resources are targeted impartially to where humanitarian assistance is needed most or whether political interests make some crisis the priority and others neglected. Despite […]

Prioritisation is driving a lower funding requirement

Just before the start of each calendar year, the global scale of humanitarian needs and response is summarised in the Global Humanitarian Overview (GHO). And each year this comes with a price tag. But for the first time in the past decade, the cost of meeting humanitarian needs has fallen in this yearly snapshot. The […]

Humanitarian Recession Index: 2023 Update

Humanitarian Funding Forecast is updating its Underfunded Crisis Index. The Humanitarian Recession Index is a way to understand which humanitarian sectors are moving backwards in terms of funding. A ‘real recession’ is defined as two consecutive years of a growing funding gap for a sector. The Index helps us understand which sectors are failing to […]

Underfunded Crisis Index: 2023 Update

Humanitarian Funding Forecast is updating its Underfunded Crisis Index. The Underfunded Crisis Index is a way to measure and compare the underfunding of humanitarian crises. It can help us to understand which crises are underfunded compared to how much funding they require to meet needs, and therefore help to advocate for more funding to the […]

No, we are not ‘halfway through the year’ in July

It is often said around July and August that we’re more than halfway through the year, and a humanitarian sector or response plan is only funded by a small amount. Here’s a link to the Protection Cluster saying that, ‘as of mid-2022, only 28% of activities have been funded’. Or how about the oPt HRP […]

NEW REPORT – Unprotected: Severe Lack of Funding for Child Protection

Humanitarian Funding Forecast has teamed up with The Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action, the Global Child Protection Area of Responsibility, and Save the Children to deliver a new report showing the worrying trends in Child Protection funding in conflict-affected areas. Specifically, we’ve worked on looking at forecasts for Child Protection in conflict-affected areas, […]