Critical child protection interventions for children have been stalled as a result of aid cuts, highlighted a briefing note from the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action, a global, interagency group. This has directly impacted over 1.1 million children across more than 23 countries.
The recent report Global Impact of Humanitarian Funding Cuts on Children and Their Protection in Humanitarian Contexts revealed alarming evidence of the disastrous effects that continuous funding reductions are inflicting on the safety and welfare of children.
In March and April 2025, the group carried out a data collection exercise to assess the impact of worldwide humanitarian funding cuts on children’s protection during humanitarian emergencies. The survey received responses from over 250 child protection professionals across 55 countries, supplemented by insights from interviews and data provided by five major child protection organizations (four international and one national).
Significant benefactors such as the United States and prominent European nations have significantly decreased humanitarian aid or indicated potential reductions. In 2024, the US provided $14 billion, accounting for 41.8 per cent of the worldwide appeal. The potential or actual funding cuts from the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium and the European Union threaten to exacerbate the crisis further. These reductions occur amid rising conflicts and disasters, which disproportionately affect children.
Aid reductions have resulted in extensive decreases in frontline personnel, including case workers, as reported by 70 per cent of participants. Additionally, 62 per cent have reduced capacity-building efforts and 52 per cent have lost technical advisors.
Eighty per cent of survey participants indicated that funding cuts have severely impacted child protection. Key informant interviews highlighted that Latin America and the Caribbean, along with East, West and Central Africa, are experiencing substantial cuts to child protection services.
Local and national NGOs are among the most affected, with over half of respondents from these organisations reporting a loss of more than 40 per cent of their child protection budgets. The decrease in funding is making children more susceptible to abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence, with the most severe instances leading to life-threatening situations.
In Uganda, a UN agency has noted that several children have had to take on part-time work to help parents and caregivers meet family needs, often working on farms and in host communities as domestic workers.
A national NGO in the Democratic Republic of Congo has indicated that insufficient funding for child protection has adversely affected children's lives and rights. The ongoing armed conflicts in the country's East have compelled numerous children to join armed groups.
Aid cuts have left refugee children in Rwanda without child protection services. In Bangladesh, an international NGO managing child protection cases for Rohingya children in Cox’s Bazar has revealed how funding cuts have placed 107 girls and boys at high or medium risk of significant harm without necessary protection services.
Key informant interviews have underscored widespread and immediate disruptions to programming across various sectors, seriously affecting children. These disruptions include the loss of educational access for girls in Afghanistan, the cessation of integrated child protection and nutrition programmes in Yemen, Nigeria, and Burkina Faso, the shutdown of WASH programmes with community child protection integrated in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the discontinuation of HIV programs for children in Somalia, Uganda, Nigeria, and Ethiopia.