Convened largely in response to the Syrian civil war and the mass displacement that followed, the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit represented an unprecedented attempt to rethink how the humanitarian system functions. More than 9,000 participants, including governments, UN agencies, NGOs, civil society organisations, academics, and private sector representatives, came together to discuss how humanitarian action could become more cooperative, effective, principled, and locally driven.
As we reached the WHS’s tenth anniversary, it is fair to say the global political landscape has undergone a major shift, and in doing so, has impacted the foundation of humanitarian action. Whilst the summit reflected optimism about international cooperation, the decade since has demonstrated how fragile those ambitions become when political will begins to decline.
What was the outcome of the WHS?
The World Humanitarian Summit resulted in more than 3,500 commitments to action and established 5 core responsibilities, including Responsibility No.5: Invest in Humanity. Among the various transformations within this commitment, two key areas emerged.
One was that the summit encouraged donors to shift from short-term funding toward long-term financing. A central concern of the summit was that funding models often prioritised immediate crisis management over sustained investment in protracted conflicts and recovery efforts.
Another focus was localisation. Rather than international organisations designing and delivering responses themselves, the summit encouraged a model in which funding travelled to local organisations to lead humanitarian action. Localisation encourages international donors and organisations to move from asking, ‘What action we take’ to ‘What action you take with our support’.
Investing in Humanity was about not only increasing funding but being more strategic with long-term investment frameworks and distribution methods.
What role do states have in Commitment No.5: Invest in Humanity?
Despite pioneering a mass intersectional discussion across all layers of the humanitarian sector, the role of UN member states remains central to funding (and mechanics) of the humanitarian system. 80% of humanitarian financing comes from donor countries in the form of foreign aid, with a majority from Western nations. In 2024, US$232 billion of humanitarian aid came from governments, whilst only US$11 billion came from private donors.
There is, therefore, an unavoidable relationship between politics and humanitarian action. When discussing the commitment to Invest in Humanity, foreign aid allocation becomes inseparable from domestic political priorities.
However, the decade since the WHS has coincided with a broader global shift toward nationalism, right-wing populism, and scepticism toward multilateral cooperation. Recent years have seen growing political resistance to international institutions, migration, and collective global responsibility.
Events such as Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the rise of “America First” politics under Donald Trump accelerated this trend. During the pandemic, vaccine nationalism and border closures demonstrated how quickly states prioritised domestic populations over global cooperation. More broadly, nationalist political movements increasingly frame globalisation as a threat to national culture.
The liberal internationalism on which the UN system was built assumes states share responsibilities beyond their borders and that humanitarian crises require collective responses. However, rising nationalism has weakened support for refugee resettlement, multilateral institutions, and foreign aid. As humanitarian crises become more frequent and complex, the political environment supporting international cooperation has become increasingly fragmented.
What political trend have we witnessed in the past 10 years?
The decade since the WHS has coincided with a broader global shift toward nationalism, right-wing populism, and scepticism toward multilateral cooperation. Recent years have seen growing political resistance to international institutions, migration, and collective global responsibility.
Events such as Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the rise of “America First” politics under Donald Trump accelerated this trend. During the pandemic, vaccine nationalism and border closures demonstrated how quickly states prioritised domestic populations over global cooperation. More broadly, nationalist political movements increasingly frame globalisation as a threat to national culture.
Liberal internationalism assumes states share responsibilities beyond their borders and that humanitarian crises require collective responses. However, rising nationalism has weakened support for refugee resettlement, foreign aid, and multilateral institutions. As humanitarian crises become more frequent and complex, the political environment supporting international cooperation has become increasingly fragmented.
What has nationalist politics meant for Commitment No.5: Invest in Humanity?
The rise of nationalism has already had profound consequences for the WHS commitment to Invest in Humanity. Although the summit acknowledged the need to diversify humanitarian financing, it largely assumed states would continue supporting long-term aid commitments. Instead, many governments have become increasingly reluctant to sustain foreign aid spending.
The clearest example has been the United States under Donald Trump. The “America First” agenda frames international aid and multilateral institutions as burdens on American taxpayers, rather than investments in global stability. Cuts to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have created cataclysmic effects across the international aid sector.
Between 2024 and 2025, more than 30% of global humanitarian funding disappeared, largely due to the decline of US support. The World Health Organisation estimates that 54.5 million people have lost access to essential health services, and Oxfam estimate that 3 million people will die of preventable deaths per year. ImpactCounter estimates that worldwide, there will be 750,000 deaths per year caused by cuts to USAID.
Furthermore, UN agencies have been severely hit by Trump’s decision. UNHCR cut 5,000 positions, scaled back 185 field offices; WHO cut more than 2,300 positions; WFP cut 6,000 positions; and US NGOs cut between a quarter to a half of their original workforce.
The regression of commitment to humanitarian aid by the Trump administration shifts the conversation from achieving the ‘long term financing’ originally set out by the WHS, to simply scrambling to fix the gaping aid hole left by this major political power.
Interestingly, some nationalist movements have supported localisation because it aligns with reducing international intervention and financial responsibility. However, localisation without sustained funding risks becomes less about empowering local actors and more about donor states withdrawing responsibility altogether. Without long-term investment and partnership, localisation can quickly become a justification for aid retrenchment rather than genuine power-sharing.
Why is this important 10 years on from the World Humanitarian Summit?
It is difficult to consider broader humanitarian goals when severe funding shortages have devastated the sector. Rising nationalism, shrinking aid budgets, and declining support for multilateralism have called the sustainability of the current humanitarian system into question.
If there were a World Humanitarian Summit 2.0, what would Commitment No. 5, Invest in Humanity, look like in today’s political environment?
Discussions around diversifying away from an overreliance on humanitarian systems on a small number of Western donor states would need to be accelerated. A greater transactional approach may be necessary, with private-sector partnerships or climate financing mechanisms playing a greater role.
Rather than state commitments that fluctuate based on domestic politics, perhaps a form of longer-term and legally binding financial commitment (eg, based on a percentage of GDP) could stabilise investments.
Localisation may take on renewed significance as a practical necessity, as local organisations are often more embedded, trusted, and operationally sustainable during periods of geopolitical instability. However, meaningful localisation still requires long-term investment, equitable partnerships, and the transfer of decision-making power.
Beyond the need to rethink what Investing in Humanity looks like, the past decade has exposed how vulnerable humanitarian systems are to political change. The rise of nationalist politics, exemplified by the Trump administration, has challenged the liberal internationalist assumptions on which the modern humanitarian system was built. Yet humanitarian crises are not contained within national borders. Conflict, displacement, disease, economic instability, and climate-related disasters all have far-reaching consequences.
The challenge moving forward is not only how to finance humanitarian action differently, but how to sustain some sort of shared agenda to keep humanitarian action alive in a different body.
Image reference:
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