Impossible Choices: Humanitarian Hyper-Prioritization in Ethiopia

 

Global humanitarian action was already underfunded even before the dismantling of USAID in 2025, which caused a veritable « tsunami » for the humanitarian sector, as Alain Bonet recently wrote in this article.

 

But the United States was only the first. The French, British and German governments have adopted similar cuts, just with less media coverage. Other institutional donors, including European Union humanitarian aid, have maintained comparable levels of funding but have been de facto forced to hyper-prioritize the areas with the most acute humanitarian needs.

 

A study published in The Guardian in May 2026 highlights that cuts to humanitarian aid could lead to around 11.5 million preventable deaths worldwide. Humanitarian actors are increasingly being asked to « do more with less » and, fundamentally, to choose between responding to one crisis and not responding to another.

 

Donors and humanitarian partners must choose between responding to conflict-related population displacement and intervening in areas where malnutrition rates among children under five exceed the emergency threshold of 15%, reaching as high as 30% in some cases.

 

In 2026, and certainly in 2027, people around the world face another challenge: a powerful El Niño event that has already caused severe natural disasters. Food shortages are expected in areas where malnutrition rates are already skyrocketing and where aid is failing to meet the scale of needs.

 

Afar is a clear example: it is among the regions of Ethiopia most vulnerable to climate change, and is heavily dependent on pastoralism and seasonal rainfall.

 

 

In Ethiopia, El Niño-driven droughts have so far caused severe water shortages in some areas and floods in others, along with the loss of pasture and, with it, of livestock.

 

For Afar pastoral communities, livestock is the main source of food security, income and social protection. When livestock die, the consequences quickly translate into increased food insecurity, population displacement and malnutrition, particularly among mothers, pregnant women and children.

 

According to data from the Afar Regional Health Bureau, as of August 2026, global acute malnutrition (GAM) rates have reached critical levels, up to 33% in some districts, well beyond the emergency threshold of 15%.

 

 

Hyper-prioritization: when all needs are urgent

 

Despite global acute malnutrition rates of between 17% and 33%, Afar was not prioritized in recent humanitarian funding allocations.

 

This is because donors are increasingly forced to hyper-prioritize needs, concentrating their resources solely on the most critical situations, at the cost of leaving behind entire communities that nonetheless need assistance.

 

Since the funding cuts of 2025, many national and international organizations have had to halt activities that are essential to people’s survival, including life-saving nutrition services, because of budget cuts and not because needs have decreased.

 

It is normal for an organization to fulfill its mandate, provide assistance during a crisis, and then close its offices once communities have recovered and regained their self-reliance.

 

It is an entirely different situation when we are forced to close programs for lack of funding while humanitarian needs are still present, or even continue to grow, and there is no one left to take over and fill the gaps.

 

 

The humanitarian system has been widely criticized in recent years and is far from perfect. It is sometimes accused of « doing more harm than good » and of fostering dependency.

 

Yet for many people affected by crisis, it represents what they have left when there is nothing else to hope for; in many cases, it is the last safety net for millions of people.

 

Reasons for hope: the Ethiopia Rapid Response Mechanism

 

This mechanism (the Ethiopia Rapid Response Mechanism, or ET-RRM), led by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and implemented through a consortium of 20 national and international partners, demonstrates that coordinated humanitarian funding can still enable rapid responses when emergencies occur.

 

Here is another example from Afar.

 

In early 2026, armed clashes along the Afar-Tigray border displaced 37,565 people from 7,513 households. Families fled leaving everything behind and settled in five displacement sites located in very remote and arid areas, without shelter, access to water or health services.

 

 

Through the ET-RRM, PUI and consortium partners, including Danish Church Aid and the Norwegian Refugee Council, quickly deployed multi-sectoral assistance, including water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) interventions, multipurpose cash transfers, shelter, non-food items, psychosocial support, and protection, education, health and nutrition activities.

 

Through Geographical Area Leads (GALs), the mechanism enables partners to respond quickly, on average within 48 to 74 hours, coordinating with actors present in the affected areas who are able to respond to the needs of affected populations through an integrated approach.

 

The limits of emergency funding

 

Visiting these communities three months after the end of the ET-RRM response was a particularly striking experience.

 

Community leaders welcomed us under a makeshift shelter, in oppressive heat, explaining how grateful they were for the support received, but also that they felt abandoned after the three-month project ended.

 

The responding NGOs, including Première Urgence Internationale, made significant advocacy efforts with various donors to continue the work started through the ET-RRM, but ultimately had to close the project and leave.

 

 

This is not an isolated case. The transition between emergency response and longer-term development or durable solutions remains a major challenge of the humanitarian architecture; hyper-prioritization is an additional obstacle.

 

The Nexus approach, which aims to bring together humanitarian action, development and peacebuilding under a single framework, represents the best vision the sector currently has.

 

On the ground, however, partners often work in silos, without real linkage between emergency responses and more sustainable solutions for protracted crises.

 

 

The causes are many, including a lack of alignment, limited coordination, differing priorities between humanitarian and development donors and partners, insufficient involvement of authorities in bringing all actors together, and, more recently, the hyper-prioritization of needs.

 

Conclusion: a shared responsibility

 

The case of Afar is not unique. It reflects a global trend in which the humanitarian needs of entire populations are neglected and deprioritized.

 

Nationalist sentiment and frustrations accumulated after decades of aid with sometimes limited results have reduced the appetite of traditional donor countries to continue funding protracted crises. Meanwhile, climate vulnerability, conflict and humanitarian needs continue to grow worldwide.

 

Humanitarian action has always involved difficult choices. But a system that regularly forces actors to choose between equally critical humanitarian needs no longer properly fulfills its mission toward the people it is meant to serve.

 

Humanitarian organizations can and must become more effective, more accountable and more locally rooted. But efficiency alone cannot compensate for unprecedented cuts in humanitarian funding. No reform of the humanitarian system can succeed if resources keep shrinking while needs keep rising.

 

Crouching under a makeshift shelter in Yallo, surrounded by curious children, what we saw in the eyes of those elders and community leaders was resignation.

 

The acceptance that no one will come back to provide water, health services or cash transfers. The level of uncertainty in which they live is hard to describe: they do not know whether or when they will be able to return home, nor what the future holds for them and their children.

 

Their needs did not disappear when the project ended. Nor did our commitment to supporting them. But the funding did.

 

 

Mirko Zappacosta.