A World Adrift: Wars, Famine, adn Aid Cuts Signal a Global Crisis
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As the year closes, a disturbing reality emerges: the long-held belief that history bends towards justice feels increasingly distant. Global aid agencies report a stark reversal, with escalating conflicts, widespread famine, and a dramatic pullback in financial assistance from wealthy nations creating a “new world disorder.”
Record Conflict and Opportunistic Violence
In 2024, the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) documented 61 active wars across 36 countries – the highest number as World War II. This isn’t a temporary surge, but a “structural shift,” according to one researcher at the institute.The escalation continued into 2025,with conflicts dragging on and their devastating effects amplified.
The prolonged nature of these wars creates fertile ground for exploitation.Aid workers report that desperate factions are increasingly trading weapons and resources for access to land, actively obstructing peace efforts.This opportunistic violence further destabilizes already fragile regions.
A Looming Hunger Crisis
The consequences of conflict are tragically clear: mass displacement and widespread food insecurity. In Sudan, the situation is particularly dire. According to the World Food Programme (WFP), more people are facing famine – Phase 5 – then in Gaza prior to the ceasefire.
Delivering aid to Sudan is a logistical nightmare. The U.N.’s 2025 Sudan Humanitarian needs and Response Plan requires $4.2 billion for aid within Sudan and an additional $1.1 billion for Sudanese refugees in neighboring countries. Much of the aid must be transported via a treacherous “donkey track” – a 45-mile route over a mountain range from Chad, taking trucks three days to complete.
“The sheer number of people who are being displaced on an ongoing basis means that the scale of our operations is very large, and the complexity of the locations we’re working in is off-the-charts complex,” Kitchen explains.”Everything has to be provided because they have nothing, and they have almost no coping capacity after what they’ve been through.”
Climate Change and withdrawing Support
Compounding the issue of war is the growing impact of climate change. Analyses from the Famine Early Watch System Network (FEWS NET) predict that up to 3.5 million people in Kenya and 5 million in Somalia will require humanitarian food assistance through at least May 2026 due to record-breaking temperatures and rainfall deficits.
Adding to this already dire situation is a notable reduction in humanitarian and development funding from wealthier nations. In 2025, the American foreign-assistance agency, USAID, was effectively shut down, with its responsibilities transferred to the State Department. Similar cuts were announced by the U.K., Canada, Austria, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Belgium, New Zealand, Finland, Switzerland, and Sweden – countries collectively representing 43% of global economic output.
The Impact on the Ground
The consequences of these funding cuts are already being felt. The WFP is now able to feed only about 110 million people – just over a third of those in need. Oxfam estimates the USAID shutdown could leave 95 million without access to basic healthcare and 23 million children out of school. Mercy Corps was forced to shut down 42 programs, impacting 3.6 million people.
The impact is particularly devastating in lower-middle-income countries. In Kenya, Maurine Murenga, head of the community institution lean on Me, reported a surge in new HIV infections among children following the closure of standalone HIV clinics due to aid cuts. Pregnant women are now directed to general hospital outpatient departments, where specialists are lacking. Similar increases in infections are being reported in uganda and among victims of sexual violence in Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Despite these alarming signals, the international community remains largely unresponsive. The Sudan response Plan received only a third of its requested funding. The WFP has announced it will reduce food rations to 70% for communities facing famine and 50% for those at risk, with a complete collapse of funding expected by April. as the year draws to a close, the world faces a stark and sobering reality: the arc of history, for now, appears to be bending in the wrong direction.
