Underfunded Crisis Index: 2023 Update1 min read

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 often neglected crises.

Based on this story from 2021, the index aims to measure which recurring humanitarian crises are consistently underfunded.

The index will not tell you about funding today, or even in the last year or two. It will look at contexts over the past five years, giving us a perspective on contexts that have been consistently underfunded over time.

The 2023 index shows that 13 contexts are severely or chronically underfunded, that is they have received less than 50% of what they have needed in the past five years. This has risen from 8 in 2021, and 10 in 2022.

The regional DRC plan, Venezuela, Haiti and the regional South Sudan retain spots in the top five most underfunded crises. Colombia is a new entry at 5th on the index (receiving only 35% of their cumulative funding requirement). Other contexts that are ‘severely’ underfunded include: the regional Venezuela plan, Mali, DRC, the regional Syria plan, Chad, Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Burundi.

Click below to see the index.