Decisions regarding Humanitarian Needs and Response Plans, or HNRPs — including prioritization and anticipatory action across several high-risk contexts in West and Central Africa — are being made based on outdated, incomplete, or non-comparable evidence due, in large part, to funding cuts from the U.S.

Date: 4/26

Region: Global

Country: Global

Topic: Refugees & Displacement, Food & Farming

Policy Lens: Security & Resilience

Entry Type: System Impact

Additional Context: This information was collected by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, from a survey conducted with 17 humanitarian actors at the regional and field level. Funding reductions have particularly affected core data systems and staff capacity, which OCHA deems to be "collapsing or operating at minimal levels." According to OCHA, without urgent funding action, low evidence baselines will significantly undermine the credibility and effectiveness of humanitarian response. Countries and regional platforms affected include the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Sahel, Cameroon, Chad, and Mali.

Devex Researcher Note: HNRPs are a collective process conducted by U.N. interagency humanitarian country teams to identify humanitarian needs of affected populations and efficiently plan for humanitarian responses. This process relies on primary data collected by both U.N. agencies and local partners, as well as secondary data, which should reflect the most up-to-date information on countries' humanitarian situations. Although not listed in the source document, the U.S. enacted major cuts to the agencies supporting the data systems mentioned — the International Organization for Migration's, or IOM, Displacement Tracking Matrix, the World Food Programme's, or WFP, Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping, and the Cadre Harmonisé, among others. In the case of IOM, U.S. operational contributions declined by $795 million between 2024 and 2025,accounting for about 86.3% of the total reported funding decrease. U.S. contributions to the WFP more than halved, from $4.45 billion in 2024 to $2.06 billion in 2025, making up 74% of the total funding decrease, which forced WFP offices to "cut down on costly surveys." Although the funding situation of the Cadre Harmonisé, a regional food security analysis tool for Central and West Africa, is unclear, its reliance on technical partners like the WFP and Food and Agriculture Organization, also reporting cuts, for data inputs is well documented.

Source: OCHA