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Aid Funding Reductions and Suspensions are Aggravating the Fragile Protection Situation across the Central Sahel
According to OCHA, the number of humanitarian organizations working in the Central Sahel region dropped by 13% in the last few months (from 310 in December 2024 to 269 in June 2025). In 2025, the sudden global funding suspensions have aggravated the progressive and multi-factored reductions in funding allocated to the Central Sahel over the past few years. As a result, humanitarian, development and peace-building communities are forced to hyper-prioritize, downsize and interrupt their response efforts, leading to drastic aid capacity decline. Such funding suspensions and reductions are having a profound effect across the Central Sahel, where conflict-induced and protracted forced displacement keeps threatening lives. The number of people in urgent need, as of July 2025, has witnessed a nearly 3 million increase in comparison to July 2024. Meanwhile, plans developed to coordinate the humanitarian response in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, are only funded at 14% on average.
Despite limited capacities, and thanks to its localized partnerships and community networks, Project 21 continues to collect and provide insightful data for informed actions. The 19,359 interviews conducted in the Central Sahel between January and June 2025, more than doubling last year's count, show increasing denial of resources, opportunities, and services (incl. humanitarian assistance) and gender-based violence. Consequently, affected communities are reporting rising food-seeking displacements (+15%), as well as child and forced marriage (+10%). Tensions over resources (+`´21%) and pressures on services (+17%) challenge peaceful coexistence between displaced and host communities.
Project 21 findings urge the international community to jointly reprioritize programming and funding to address, brake and reverse the negative impacts of funding reductions and suspensions. First: by capitalizing on the favorable legal frameworks that allow the Central Sahel states to generously host and assist displaced populations.
Second: by focusing on protection-oriented assistance, community & infrastructural investment, national system strengthening, as well as conflict mediation.