UNITED NATIONS, Oct 20 (IPS) – In 2025, unprecedented cuts to foreign aid and humanitarian funding have exacerbated global hunger crises, leaving millions without access to food or basic services. Funding shortages have forced aid agencies to scale back or suspend lifesaving programs in some of the world’s most food-insecure regions, especially in the Global South – exacerbating already dire conditions caused by conflict, displacement, economic instability and climate shocks.
On October 15, the World Food Program (WFP) released a report: A lifeline in danger: food aid at a breaking pointwhich illustrated the impact of funding gaps for their programs in the context of six countries: Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Haiti, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan. In these countries, austerity has had devastating consequences, pushing entire communities to the brink of starvation.
“We are seeing significant reductions in our operations and those of our partners,” said Ross Smith, WFP Director of Emergency Preparedness and Response. “This ranges from completely cutting people off from aid, reducing rations and shortening the duration of aid. Many vulnerable people are currently completely without a safety net or landing platform.”
The report highlighted that the number of people in urgent need of food and livelihood support has risen to a record high of 295 million by 2025 – coinciding with major cuts in foreign aid and humanitarian financing from major donors, including the United States. As a result, WFP has been forced to drastically scale back its activities, struggling with budget cuts of an estimated 40 percent, severely limiting its ability to provide life-saving support to the world’s hungriest populations.
The WFP warns that recent funding cuts “could seriously undermine global food security.” It is estimated that roughly 13.7 million people dependent on WFP food assistance could face a state of emergency hunger, with children, women, refugees and internally displaced persons disproportionately affected.
“These cuts lead to additional food insecurity which in itself can have consequences at both national and regional levels,” said Jean-Martin Bauer, director of WFP’s Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Service.
WFP notes that the full extent of the impact of these food aid cuts will not be immediate but will materialize in the coming months. “That’s why we call it a ‘slow burn’ in the report,” Bauer said. “Because the cuts have not yet been fully implemented through the system in all countries and communities.”
Bauer warned that escalating hunger amid declining aid could have far-reaching consequences that could worsen existing crises, citing rising rates of child marriage, increased school dropouts, increased social instability, increased displacement and growing economic and political unrest. In addition, WFP has recorded an increase in malnutrition among children in refugee communities, causing many of these children to experience lifelong health problems.
One of WFP’s most pressing challenges is reducing disaster preparedness programs for some of the world’s most crisis-prone countries, while directing resources to support emergency food assistance for the most affected populations. In Haiti, WFP has been forced to suspend its hot meals program for displaced families and halve monthly rations as the country continues to struggle with record levels of hunger.
Bauer noted that the humanitarian aid supply for Haiti has been completely depleted and WFP is unable to replenish it for the first time since Hurricane Matthew in 2016. The agency continues to closely monitor the food security situation in Haiti.
Similarly, Smith reported that conditions in Afghanistan have deteriorated significantly over the year, with less than 10 percent of the country’s 10 million food-insecure people now receiving humanitarian assistance. “We expect pipeline breaks as early as November and can only provide (limited) winter assistance at this time,” Smith said, noting that less than 8 percent of those needing winter assistance will receive it.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), WFP has been forced to reduce its operations from 2.3 million people to just 600,000 people and warns that its resources could be completely depleted by February next year without additional funding. In Somalia, WFP’s reach has also been drastically reduced, with the agency now able to help fewer than 25 percent of the people it supported last year.
In Sudan, WFP managed to help around 4 million people in August, half of them in hard-to-reach areas such as Darfur and South Kordofan. “We are shifting from what used to be a very large program, in the absence of significant government support for many people, to a program that is now focused on famine prevention and moving from hotspot to hotspot,” Smith said. In neighboring South Sudan, WFP has redeployed its limited resources to prioritize citizens suffering the most extreme hunger.
According to the report, WFP has recalibrated its food assistance priorities in the face of shrinking aid budgets and a shrinking workforce. It has chosen to focus on efforts to prevent famine and distribute food rations that reach fewer people but cover basic needs. Bauer added that it is imperative that humanitarian aid groups join local actors and continue to closely monitor hunger levels. “The data and analytics are the GPS of the humanitarian community,” Bauer said. “We risk getting lost without the data. So the data has to flow.”
IPS UN office report
© Inter Press Service (20251020170102) — All rights reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service
#World #Food #Program #warns #hunger #emergency #severe #budget #cuts