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Key findings

Twelve findings carry the development and humanitarian baseline. They are grouped by coupling and never ranked. Each resolves to its source or, where Nexus analysis is involved, to its stated method.

6 min read1 figure0 tables18 notesNR-SECTOR-DEVELOPMENT-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE

Contents
  1. ·Edition home
  2. ·Executive summary
  3. 1Need is rising as support contracts
  4. 2Key findings
    1. 2.1 Headline finding
    2. 2.2 Governance
    3. 2.3 Finance
    4. 2.4 Food
    5. 2.5 Systemic
    6. 2.6 Health
  5. 3Systems and sectors at baseline
  6. 4Risks and capability
  7. 5Funding contraction, displacement surge and food price shock in a highly indebted fragile economy
  8. 6Readings from the other desks
  9. 7The 2027 agenda
  10. 8Systems in depth
  11. AMethodology
  12. BData appendix
  13. CReferences and record
  14. ·Complete edition, for print

2.1Headline finding

ReportedEQL 5NRF-SECTOR-DEVELOPMENT-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-FIN-003

In 2025, official development assistance from DAC members fell 23.1% in real terms to USD 174.3 billion, the largest annual fall on record.

Figure 2.1DAC official development assistance, 2025 (USD billion)
ItemBar, scaled to the largest valueValue
Total174.3
Bilateral126.4
Multilateral47.9
Humanitarian assistance (bilateral)15.5

Source: OECD preliminary 2025 data note8. Humanitarian assistance is part of bilateral aid. Figures are preliminary.

Implication

The fall was broad but concentrated: 26 of 34 members reduced aid, and the five largest providers made up 95.7% of the fall. The United States alone made up 75.1% of it, and Germany became the largest provider for the first time. UN SDG reporting shows aid grants for poverty reduction were already back at 2015 levels in 2024, and net aid for basic health fell 12.4% that year89.

What would move it

The final OECD figures due in December 2026, the 2026 outturn against the OECD projection, and the pledges behind the 2027 Global Humanitarian Overview would each move this finding.

2.2Governance

  1. ReportedEQL 4NRF-SECTOR-DEVELOPMENT-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-GOV-001

    About 239 million people needed urgent humanitarian assistance and protection at the start of 2026, and 252 million by mid-year, 13 million more than at launch; conflict remains the main driver.13

  2. ReportedEQL 4NRF-SECTOR-DEVELOPMENT-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-GOV-004

    Humanitarian partners assisted 45.2 million of the 252 million people in need in the first five months of 2026, about one in six; 58% of those reached lived where needs were most severe, against 43% in 2025.4

  3. ReportedEQL 4NRF-SECTOR-DEVELOPMENT-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-GOV-005

    UNHCR counted 28.5 million refugees and 64.2 million internally displaced people under its series at the end of 2025, and IDMC counted 82.2 million internally displaced people; 4.4 million refugees and 10.3 million IDPs returned in the year.67

2.3Finance

  1. ReportedEQL 4NRF-SECTOR-DEVELOPMENT-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-FIN-002

    Humanitarian funding reported to FTS fell from USD 37.1 billion in 2024 to USD 28.3 billion in 2025, and contributions to the 2026 Global Humanitarian Overview reached USD 8.21 billion by the end of May, 69% above the same point in 2025.54

  2. ReportedEQL 5NRF-SECTOR-DEVELOPMENT-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-FIN-003

    Official development assistance from DAC members fell 23.1% in real terms in 2025 to USD 174.3 billion, 0.26% of their gross national income; the United States cut 56.9% and humanitarian assistance fell 35.8%.89

  3. ReportedEQL 5NRF-SECTOR-DEVELOPMENT-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-FIN-007

    An estimated 826 million people, one in ten, lived below USD 3.00 a day in 2026, only three percentage points below 2015 (10.1% in 2024 on the World Bank series), and four in five of the extreme poor in 2030 are projected to live in sub-Saharan Africa or fragile and conflict-affected countries.915

  4. ReportedEQL 4NRF-SECTOR-DEVELOPMENT-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-FIN-009

    Developing countries paid close to USD 1 trillion in interest on public debt in 2025, and 65% of Africa’s population lived in 2023 in countries that spend more on interest than on health or education; external debt service of low- and middle-income countries was USD 1.29 trillion in 2024, down from USD 1.43 trillion in 2023.1421

2.4Food

  1. ReportedEQL 4NRF-SECTOR-DEVELOPMENT-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-FOO-006

    An estimated 645 million people were chronically undernourished in 2025, and 266 million faced acute food insecurity (Crisis or worse); Catastrophe affected about 1.4 million people in 2025 on the GRFC count and 1.2 million on the OCHA count.1011121

2.5Systemic

  1. ReportedEQL 4NRF-SECTOR-DEVELOPMENT-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-SYS-008

    In 108 countries, 1.2 billion people (18.9%) lived in acute multidimensional poverty, the first rise since the index began in 2010; more than half of them are children.13

  2. Expert inputEQL 2NRF-SECTOR-DEVELOPMENT-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-SYS-012

    The leading compound pathway for 2027 testing is a funding contraction that coincides with a displacement surge and a food price shock in a highly indebted fragile economy. § scenario

2.6Health

  1. ReportedEQL 5NRF-SECTOR-DEVELOPMENT-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-HLT-010

    4.9 million children died before their fifth birthday in 2024, nearly half in fragile and conflict-affected settings; the under-5 mortality rate was 68.8 per 1,000 in low-income countries against 37.4 worldwide.916

  2. EstimatedEQL 3NRF-SECTOR-DEVELOPMENT-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-HLT-011

    One published model associates higher aid with 24% lower all-cause mortality and 33% lower under-5 mortality in 59 low-income and lower-middle-income countries; another projects more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030 if the 2025 US funding cuts are not reversed. These are modelled estimates, not counted deaths.2728

Notes

Numbers are the edition’s reference numbers, so a note reads the same in every chapter. The full list, with every source and its licence, is in Annex C. Annex C, references

  1. 8OECD (ed.), Preliminary official development assistance levels in 2025 (data note, April 2026; text read from the European Commission Knowledge for Policy record of the note, the OECD page returned an access error). Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  2. 9United Nations (UN DESA, ed.), The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2026 (full report, PDF). United Nations, New York. Observation year 2025 (data from 2015 to 2026). Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  3. 1OCHA (ed.), Global Humanitarian Overview 2026, Trends in crises and needs: a world at breaking point (December 2025; people in urgent need, drivers, famine and Catastrophe counts, civilian fatalities). United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Geneva. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  4. 3OCHA (ed.), Mid-Year Review of the Global Humanitarian Overview 2026, Trends in crises and needs: civilians in the line of fire (June 2026). United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Geneva. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  5. 4OCHA (ed.), Mid-Year Review of the Global Humanitarian Overview 2026, Humanitarians in action in 2026: delivering against the odds (people targeted, prioritised and reached; contributions to end-May 2026). United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Geneva. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  6. 6UNHCR (ed.), Refugee Population Statistics Database, public API, global totals 2015 to 2025 (refugees, asylum-seekers, IDPs, returns, stateless people). United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Geneva. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  7. 7IDMC (ed.), Global Report on Internal Displacement 2026 (full report, May 2026). Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Geneva. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  8. 5OCHA (ed.), Financial Tracking Service, public API, funding flows by year (2022 to 2025), queried at access; recent years are incomplete. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Geneva. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  9. 15DATA VINTAGE AFTER CLOSE: World Bank (ed.), World Development Indicators, SI.POV.DDAY, poverty headcount ratio at USD 3.00 a day (2021 PPP), world, low-income and sub-Saharan Africa groups, API, last updated 2026-10-08. World Bank, Washington. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  10. 14UNCTAD (ed.), A World of Debt 2026: Rising debt costs and stalling development (report page). United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Geneva. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  11. 21DATA VINTAGE AFTER CLOSE: World Bank (ed.), World Development Indicators, DT.DOD.DECT.CD and DT.TDS.DECT.CD, external debt stocks and debt service, low- and middle-income group, API, last updated 2026-10-08. World Bank, Washington. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  12. 10FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO (eds.), The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026 (publication page with headline estimates). Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  13. 11WFP (ed.), Global hunger crisis page citing the 2026 Global Report on Food Crises (266 million people in crisis levels of hunger or worse; 70% in fragile or conflict-affected countries). World Food Programme, Rome. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  14. 12Food Security Information Network and Global Network Against Food Crises (eds.), 2026 Global Report on Food Crises, Mid-year update (August 2026). FSIN, Rome. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  15. 13UNDP and OPHI (eds.), Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2026 (report page with headline findings). United Nations Development Programme, New York. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  16. 16DATA VINTAGE AFTER CLOSE: World Bank (ed.), World Development Indicators, SH.DYN.MORT, under-5 mortality rate, API, last updated 2026-10-08. World Bank, Washington. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  17. 27Cavalcanti, D.M. et al., Evaluating the impact of two decades of USAID interventions and projecting the effects of defunding on mortality up to 2030: a retrospective impact evaluation and forecasting analysis, The Lancet, 2025 (abstract read through Europe PMC). Elsevier. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  18. 28Sibils, G.B. et al., Wealth redistribution policies to mitigate the impact of development assistance defunding: a retrospective evaluation and forecasting analysis up to 2030, The Lancet, 2026 (abstract read through Europe PMC). Elsevier. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back

Cite this chapter

Valadbaygi, S. (Ed.). (2026). Chapter 2: Key findings. In Global Development and Humanitarian Risk and Resilience Report 2026: Baseline Edition, The State of Development and Humanitarian Action Worldwide. (Baseline Edition 2026, Report No. NR-SECTOR-DEVELOPMENT-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE) [Draft under review]. The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI).

Every citation form of the whole report, BibTeX and RIS included, is on the edition home. Cite this report

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