Myanmar Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2026 [EN/MY]

Crisis overview

Myanmar’s humanitarian crisis has continued to deepen due to intensifying conflict, recurrent natural disasters, and steady economic collapse. In the first half of 2025, Myanmar ranked second globally for conflict intensity and fourth most dangerous country for civilians, with more than half of the population exposed to conflict. The security situation for civilians is deteriorating, protection risks are severe, and the resilience of communities is stretched to breaking point.

In March 2025, a devastating earthquake struck central Myanmar. The disaster impacted key agricultural regions, destroying crops, irrigation systems, and grain stores—threatening food security for 2 million newly affected people. The earthquake damaged or destroyed tens of thousands of houses, dozens of roads and bridges, and nearly 70 health facilities, severely disrupting access to essential services.

An estimated 3.6 million people have been displaced by conflict and earthquake, with 1.7 million in the hardest-hit regions in the Northwest, Rakhine, and Southeast, the highest figure on record. Most conflict-displaced people have fled their homes multiple times and often end up in informal shelters with limited access to food, healthcare, and clean water.

The significant underfunding of the response combined with inflation, access restrictions, and interruptions to services have resulted in many essential needs going unaddressed and worsening over time. Based on an in-depth analysis of the humanitarian shocks and its related impacts, the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) has focused the scope of analysis for 2026 on the two-thirds of the country affected by two primary shocks—conflict and earthquake.

In total, 16.2 million people—more than 45 per cent of the population within the scope of analysis—require life-saving assistance and protection services, including 5 million children. The reduction of people in need relative to 2025 is entirely the result of a more shock-informed scope of analysis consistent with the ‘Humanitarian Reset’ and downward adjustments made to baseline population projections, and by no means indicates any improvement of the humanitarian situation.

Response priorities and financial requirements for 2026

In spite of the high level of needs, the Myanmar 2026 HNRP target has been set at 4.9 million people, a 27 per cent decrease from 6.7 million in 2025. The reduction in target is proportional across most clusters and largely a reflection of diminished response capacities foreseen for 2026. The 2026 target amounts to 30 per cent of the total PiN figure of 16.2 million. The funding required to implement the plan amounts to $890 million, a 36 per cent decrease from the $1.4 billion requested in 2025. There is a high correlation between the intensity of conflict-related incidents and earthquake impact, the severity of needs, and subsequent targeting decisions under the HNRP. Prioritized within the 2026 HNRP are 2.6 million people at a cost of $521 million.

Given the magnitude of the PiN, funding landscape and capacity constraints, the HCT prioritized the response according to severity of needs, partners’ operational capacity and funding projections with:

• More focus on IDPs, returnees/resettled/integrated IDPs, and non-displaced stateless people and less on other shock-affected people.
• More focus on hard-to-reach rural areas and those with the most severe needs, while being realistic about potential reach given access and capacity constraints.
• Removal of resilience, disaster risk reduction, prevention and basic social services-type activities and elimination of any overlap between planned activities and caseloads identified in the UN Transitional Cooperation Framework (TCF).

The 2026 HNRP prioritizes life-saving and protection activities. Each cluster defined quantifiable needs and severity thresholds at township level to inform response priorities – accounting for people's preferences – while ensuring that targeting remains realistic and feasible. However, unless development partners step in and support the most vulnerable people, no longer targeted under the HNRP with rebuilding their livelihoods, humanitarian needs will persist.

The upcoming elections could potentially trigger increased tensions, outbreaks of conflict, displacement, and further access restrictions. While there have been modest access openings in 2025, such as localized progress to facilitate the earthquake response in Mandalay and Sagaing, the overall access environment is expected to remain heavily constrained, requiring strong reliance and risk sharing with local responders, who are the backbone of the response. The 2026 HNRP will integrate key components of the ‘Humanitarian Reset’ agenda with a particular focus on community involvement, simplified and locally-led coordination structures and pooling of resources in support of a more efficient, targeted, and localized response.