Executive Summary
Why Donors Must Act Now
A coming catastrophe is foreseeable. Its worst outcomes are still avoidable but the window to prevent them is closing.
Donor choices will determine whether the predictable weather pattern of El Niño unfolds into a humanitarian catastrophe. Hunger is not inevitable and cannot be blamed on weather alone when the tools to predict and fight food insecurity are at our fingertips.
El Niño is arriving at a time of intense precarity. Global estimates show that acute food insecurity has not come down from its 2022 peak — from 258 million people to 266 million in 2025, a rise of 3% despite a collapse in data collection coverage — while the funding to meet that need has fallen by 68% over the same period. While needs are increasing and funding is decreasing, women and girls absorb the sharpest edge of every shock, and the women-led organizations that are often the most effective actors at reaching them, are receiving disproportionately low levels of quality funding.
While the most cost-effective and humane responses are those that are delivered early or in advance of the predictable crisis, there is still time for well-resourced action to be effective in curbing the worst impacts of El Niño. Recent history bears out this fact: in 2022, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine disrupted grain and fertilizer markets, a surge of international humanitarian assistance — a 39% jump from the year before — combined with diplomatic efforts helped avert a forecast surge toward 620 million people losing at least one meal a day. That response was not without flaws, but it showed that early, large-scale, coordinated action can mitigate the worst outcomes and save lives.
By all accounts, humanitarians cannot expect that the scale of support that was mobilized in 2022 will materialize. Reported food-security sector funding has fallen from $12.9 billion in 2022 to $3.7 billion by mid-September 2026. Meanwhile, the drivers of humanitarian needs like conflict, displacement, and high food and fuel prices are now compounded by renewed disruption to food and energy markets stemming from escalating conflict in the Middle East.
However, the outcome is not predetermined. To meet needs in time, there are several actions that donors must take today, including:
- Release new and additional funding for anticipatory action before seasonal windows around the world close — donors must not rely on reallocating funding that is already committed, they have to fund more and smarter money.
- Protect and provide direct, quality funding to the local and women-led response capacity that delivers assistance in the most impactful and cost-effective way. Quality funding refers to funding that is flexible, predictable, multiyear, as localized as possible, and which covers fully the direct and indirect costs of implementation.
- Diversify the donor base so no single government’s withdrawal determines whether millions of people receive life-saving support.