A United Nations agency reports that at least one million women and girls have lost access to humanitarian and other critical support over the past 18 months, marking what it calls "the steepest annual decline" in foreign aid on record.
UN Women report highlights funding crisis
The report by UN Women, which focuses on advancing women's rights and gender equality, found that 84% of women's organizations reported increased demand for their services since January 2025. That month, Donald Trump re-entered the White House and implemented sweeping cuts to US foreign aid.
According to the report, nearly nine in 10 organizations said they can no longer meet current levels of need, and two in five organizations surveyed expect to shut down, either temporarily or permanently, within the next year. The findings are based on responses from 855 women-led and women's rights organizations across 52 crisis- and conflict-affected countries.
Impact on frontline organizations
"The women's organizations at risk of being shut down are on the frontlines of the world's most severe humanitarian crises," said Sofia Calltorp, chief of humanitarian action at UN Women. "In countries including Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Haiti, they operate where international actors cannot and stay long after global attention has moved on."
Calltorp added: "Every dollar withdrawn from women's organizations is a dollar withdrawn from survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, displaced mothers, girls forced from school and communities struggling to survive."
Global funding reductions
The report comes as humanitarian agencies worldwide grapple with deep funding reductions. Over the last year and a half, many UN agencies have cut staff, reduced budgets and scaled back operations after drastic funding cuts in foreign aid from the US, as well as reductions from other international donors including the United Kingdom, France and Germany.
Recent data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), cited in the report, found a "historic decline in foreign aid" between 2024 and 2025. According to the OECD, the US alone drove three-quarters of the decline, with US foreign assistance falling by more than 50% in 2025 compared to 2024.
US response and policy shift
Since returning to office in 2025, the Trump administration has cut billions in US foreign aid and dismantled the US Agency for International Development (USAID). In May, the Associated Press reported that US support for UN humanitarian programs was currently at $3.8 billion across 21 countries, described as a "fraction of what the US has contributed in the past."
In a statement to the Guardian, a senior White House administration official said that "the United States provides more foreign aid than any country in the world" and that "we're going to do more than anyone in the world again this year, but we're going to do it the right way: holistically and as part of an integrated foreign policy."
Asked about the UN report and OECD data showing the US share in the global decline, a senior Trump administration official described it as a "ridiculous insinuation." Foreign assistance is to be "delivered with more accountability, strategy and efficiency," the official added. "It is imperative to remember that the American taxpayer was never meant to bear the full burden of taking care of every person on Earth – whether that be with food, medicine or otherwise."
Consequences already visible
In the news release for the UN Women report on Friday, the agency said the consequences of recent global funding cuts are "already visible," noting that "half of women's organizations have introduced waiting lists or are turning away women and girls in need."
The report also found that 92% of organizations have seen rising levels of poverty among the women they serve, while 82% reported seeing more girls dropping out of school. In addition, the report warned that conflict-related sexual violence doubled in 2025, "just as the systems designed to protect survivors are collapsing."
Call for sustained investment
UN Women called for "sustained investment in women's organizations as indispensable first responders, defenders of women's rights, and the foundation of peace and recovery."
"Without immediate action, the organizations that have kept women and girls alive through the world's worst crises risk becoming another casualty of war," Calltorp said.
