3 February 2026
By Eileen
Travers
“This appeal is a call to stand
with people living through conflict, displacement and
disaster to give them not just services, but the
confidence that the world has not turned its back on
them,” WHO
Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
The
2026 appeal seeks to respond to 36 emergencies worldwide,
including 14 “grade
3” crises requiring the highest level of
organizational response at a time of stinging funding cuts
as humanitarian and health financing is experiencing its
sharpest decline in a decade, the agency said.
“Around
one quarter of a billion people are living through
humanitarian crises that have stripped away safety, shelter
and access to healthcare [while] global defence spending now
exceeds $2.5 trillion a year,” Tedros said
at the launch in Geneva.
‘Not
charity’
With the requested resources, WHO can
sustain lifesaving care in the world’s most severe
emergencies while “building a bridge towards peace”,
said the lead agency for health response in humanitarian
settings, which coordinates more than 1,500 partners across
24 crisis settings globally, ensuring that national
authorities and local partners remain at the centre of
emergency efforts.
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“It is not charity,” the WHO
chief said.
“It is a strategic investment in
health and security. Access to healthcare restores
dignity, stabilises communities and offers a pathway toward
recovery.”
Priority response areas
As global
humanitarian financing continues to contract, the 2026
appeal comes at a time of converging global pressures as
protracted conflicts, escalating climate change impacts and
recurrent infectious disease outbreaks drive increasing
demand for health emergency support.
WHO’s priority
emergency response areas will include Afghanistan,
the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Myanmar, the
Occupied Palestinian Territory, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan,
Syria, Ukraine and Yemen.
Efforts will also
address ongoing outbreaks of cholera and
mpox.
‘Forced to make difficult
choices’
“Renewed commitments and solidarity are
urgently needed to protect and support the people living in
the most fragile and vulnerable settings,” WHO
said.
With shrinking funding, WHO and other
humanitarian partners have been “forced to make difficult
choices” to prioritise the most critical interventions,
the UN agency said, adding that what remains are the most
impactful activities, including:
- keeping
essential health facilities operational - delivering
emergency medical supplies and trauma
care - preventing and responding to
outbreaks - restoring routine
immunisation - ensuring access to sexual and
reproductive, maternal and child health services in fragile
and conflict-affected settings.
Emergency
services reach millions
Early, predictable investment
enables WHO and partners to respond immediately when crises
develop, reducing death and disease, containing outbreaks
and preventing health risks from escalating into wider
humanitarian and health security emergencies with far
greater human and financial costs, the agency said.
In
2025, WHO and partners supported 30 million
people funded through its annual emergency appeal.
These resources helped to:
- deliver lifesaving
vaccination to 5.3 million children - enable 53
million health consultations - support more than 8,000
health facilities - facilitate the deployment of 1,370
mobile clinics
Last year, humanitarian funding
fell below 2016 levels, leaving WHO and partners able to
reach only one third of the 81 million people originally
targeted to receive humanitarian health
assistance.
