Food Insecurity breeds national insecurity: The World Food Program USA launched the emergency-relief-fund in March of 2025 in an effort to raise more than $25 million in private sector and individual donor support in the United States to help fill funding gaps for WFP programs that provide lifesaving assistance to 58 million people on the brink of starvation. However, food insecurity persists in politically volatile countries such as Haiti. For example, the WFP warned in October that rising violence by armed groups in Haiti’s capital is restricting humanitarian access and pushing families deeper into hunger as extreme funding shortfalls. A staggering 1.3 million people have been forced to flee their homes in search of food and shelter, wfp.org/news. Haiti is the only country in the Americas, and one of only five countries globally, with people facing catastrophic (www.ipcinfo.org) levels of hunger equivalent to famine-like conditions. It remains one of the world’s most severe food crises with 5.7 million people facing acute food insecurity. In Kenya, WFP food rations provided to 720,000 refugees has decreased significantly, only amounting to a mere 28% of a standard ration by June, refugees-kenya.  

In Nigeria, WFP reports that no fewer than 1.3 million people in the northeastern part of the country are at risk of being deprived of food aid, and 150 nutrition centres serving 300,000 children could close, unric.org. Both countries face a range of national security threats in the shape of armed terrorist activity, cybersecurity threats and political violence which places at risk humanitarian workers on the ground, many of whom are American staffers. Additionally, such national security threats could easily escalate into threats to American security. 

Donor countries replicate US aid retreat: The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is working under a severely reduced budget and forced to prioritise to serve those caught up in the deadliest humanitarian crisis. Choosing between which war and which climate-induced disaster is worse in order to inform intervention strategies has been a heartwrenching process as it erodes against the core mission and focus of the OCHA which is to save all lives, at risk in diverse humanitarian disasters. OCHA announced that it was seeking $29 billion in funding for 2025,Brutal cuts mean brutal choices warns UN relief chief, launching ‘survival appeal’ | UN News a significant drop from the $44 billion originally requested in December of 2024. Following the dismantling of USAID and replaced by a new US Agency for International Humanitarian Assistance with reduced funding priorities www.politico.com has witnessed a general retreat by donors. This implies that U.S. retreat from humanitarian aid has had a ripple effect on the humanitarian aid priorities of several donor countries at a time when the need for assistance is most acutely felt and experienced by the most vulnerable populations, thenewhumanitarian.org. 

The Policy at Stake: Humanitarian assistance remains a critical form of soft power to monitor and eradicate terrorist threats across the globe. There has to be a review of emerging global security threats assessed through the lens of shrinking humanitarian aid in fragile contexts.   

Recommendation: The Alliance for American Leadership urges Congress to prioritize funding to address food insecurity particularly in politically and economically fragile contexts.

Image Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sudan_Envoy_-_USAID_and_WFP_Aid.jpg