The 2026 Humanitarian Finance Summit offers a critical space for senior leaders across public, private, and philanthropic sectors to confront the widening humanitarian funding gap and reimagine financing models that can sustain humanitarian action.

We are entering a new era for international humanitarian response. After nearly 15 years of steady, though insufficient, growth in funding for humanitarian assistance, the sector now faces a sharp and dramatic reversal. Traditional donors are retreating from international norms and cooperation and pulling back funding. This marks an inflection point for the sector, and exposing the fragility of an aid architecture that relies heavily on a small pool of traditional donors.

The collapse in financing profoundly impacts the most vulnerable people and communities and has triggered a wider crisis of legitimacy and morale for the sector. In response, many are calling for a fundamental rethink of how humanitarian action is financed and delivered, with one that embraces equitable partnerships, shifts power to local actors, and harnesses new financial mechanisms capable of addressing today’s complex risk environment.

A call for transformation in how humanitarian financing operates.

It is not only a question of mobilising more money or accessing diversified funding sources. The deeper imperative is to restructure the humanitarian financial architecture: Such as by aligning donor incentives, embedding risk-sharing mechanisms, and integrating humanitarian financing into the broader capital markets.

This Summit provides a platform to:

• Reflect on global shifts in risk, governance, and power, and their implications for humanitarian finance;

• Elevate practical models that show how innovative finance can deliver faster, more predictable, and more locally driven outcomes;

• Confront the political and structural barriers that impede scale, such as value-for-money metrics, risk aversion, and short-termism;

• Explore emerging tools, from pre-arranged finance and insurance-linked instruments to impact bonds and catalytic donor capital;

• Foster partnerships that move from dialogue to deployment, translating concepts into capital flow.

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