2025: THE NGO YEAR THAT WAS…..

2025. Wow. What a rough year for NGOs everywhere.

Looking back on this difficult time, I feel that the aid world took not just 1 step backwards, but several.

Here’s are my thoughts on looking back on this tumultuous year.

First, the massive cuts to US foreign aid. This took many by surprise, including me. I recall, that the first Trump administration proposed aid cuts in 2016, but they were blocked by congress. But this year would be vastly different. In February the Trump – Musk aid cuts were announced, and forced through. Swiftly the DOGE hatchet men went to work dismantling the massive American aid network that had taken decades to build.

Some European governments also reduced aid for various reasons, but the US foreign aid machine was the most impactful in the world. It’s a fact that over the years, US Aid, and NGOs and programs that they had funded, had helped save millions of lives around the world.

And now, most of it was gone.

As numerous life saving programs closed, the global number of preventable deaths rose and rose. According to a Harvard study, over 600,000 people have already died, most of them children! And that’s the low estimate! Another study from UCLA says it could go as high as 14 million deaths by 2030!

Of course any deaths are a tragedy, and these deaths are the greatest loss. Those people who were injured, and those who lost aid, and had supporting programs close, they continue to suffer and struggle.

As for NGO staffers like us, we all quickly learned the cuts would affect us too. Programs quickly shut, and staff under contract were laid off, as the government grants and donor money were gone. I know 2 people at US Aid that did great work for years, and they were among the many staff there who were quickly shown the door.

On my end, during that time I was interviewing for a European NGO job. Shortly after the US foreign aid cuts were announced, they canceled my final interview. The money to fund the position was gone. C’est la vie. But on to those who who were hurt far worse.

Early in the year in Gaza, there was finally a ceasefire between the Israeli government and Hamas in January. That gave some hope that this terible conflict would finally be ending. But the fragile ceasefire collapsed by March, and the off-and-on conflict still continues as this year ends. It’s telling that this link connects to a live tracker for the total number of deaths in Gaza.

As a seasoned NGO communications pro that has worked several conflict countries, I’ve never in my lifetime seen a war covered so repeatedly in the media, which reported on so many civilian casualties, and then that media coverage, made very little difference in stopping the carnage. Usually, extended coverage of high civilian casualties, has some effects on those in power. Like, pushing them towards a genuine cease fire, or less targeting of hospitals and schools, or more protection of civilians.

In this case, it didn’t seem to matter.

To those of us in the NGO world, we aim to make a positive difference. But in a place like Gaza, I can only imagine the helplessness, anger, and disillusionment that aid workers there must have felt. They have my respect.

Which brings me to the next conflict that deserves mention: Sudan. When I worked in Africa doing NGO Communications, I sometimes struggled to get western media to cover African conflicts. Sudan is a tragic example of that now. Most westerners don’t know, that the war in Sudan is even worse than the Gaza war. Famine was declared in 2 Sudanese states. There have been massive human rights violations and terrible violence. Over 150,000 people have died in the conflict, more than double that of Gaza. Almost 12 million people have fled their homes, either displaced in the country, or as refugees.

I’ve worked in the nearby country of South Sudan, which previously had a famine, and also has an ongoing crisis. The war in Sudan is so bad, that over a million people fled across the border to South Sudan, where conditions are also difficult. Sudan remains the world's worst humanitarian crisis, and so many people in this world don’t even know it.

The outlook may look bleak; I won’t argue that point. I will quote a Phil Collins song here: “So it would seem, that we still have a long, long way to go…..”

But I will still hope. As an experienced NGO staffer and humanitarian, I will hope for peaceful resolutions to these crises affecting so many people.

And I will hope for major increases in foreign aid, not just by the US government, but other affluent nations too.

Skeptics will say that conditions will continue to worsen.

But I will still keep a positive outlook. I think most NGO staffers and humanitarians are optimists too. This world has seen darker days in the past, and then come out of it better for surviving it.

I will hope the same for the NGO world in 2026.