International Rescue Committee (IRC) President and CEO, David Miliband, addressed the launch of the Emergency Watchlist Africa in February 2026:

The Watchlist began as an internal planning tool, designed to anticipate which crises were most likely to deteriorate. We use 74 quantitative and qualitative variables and layer on insights from IRC experts—many in the room today. For more than a decade, it has correctly identified between 85 and 95 per cent of the countries that would face worsening humanitarian crises in the year ahead.

The world today looks very different to when the IRC released its first Emergency Watchlist in 2014. Back then, around 50 million people were forcibly displaced and 100 million people were in humanitarian need. Today, both have more than doubled. And in the last year, global humanitarian aid has halved. The Center for Global Development estimated the USAID cuts to African country programs alone amount to $4 billion.

As this year's Watchlist explains, beyond the numbers, we are seeing that something deeper has shifted. There is an unprecedented pace of change and uncertainty. We are witnessing hyperconnection, fragmentation and a technological revolution. This is a world with more rivals and more risks; shifting alliances; and power-based deal-making. There is a fraying of the rules-based international system that many of us once took for granted.

What we refer to as the New World Disorder.

Africa in the New World Disorder

Leading analysts see a world where global and regional powers compete for spheres of influence. In that world, Africa is too often seen not as a priority, but as a playing field.

For us at the IRC, Africa is not peripheral. It's central.

Across this continent, the IRC works in 16 countries, employs 3,757 people and operates more than 85 field offices. That reflects not only the scale of need, but the depth of our commitment.

Alongside conflict, poverty, and hunger lies extraordinary potential.

Africa is undergoing the fastest expansion of a working-age population anywhere in the world—set to add more than 620 million workers between now and 2050. It has the highest share of adults engaged in entrepreneurial activity, often driven by necessity, but also by ingenuity.

Growth is returning. Average GDP growth is forecast to accelerate toward 4.4 per cent in 2026–27, above global averages, with East Africa expected to be the fastest-growing region in the world.

When the US withdrew its funding this time last year, Nigeria, Ghana and Ethiopia worked to fill gaps where they could. As western governments tighten asylum policies, Uganda continues to keep its borders open, now hosting nearly two million refugees.

But many countries simply lack the fiscal space to do so. Public debt across Africa is at its highest level in more than a decade. Interest payments absorb nearly 15 per cent of public revenue. External debt now stands at more than a quarter of the continent's combined GDP.

As Africa is rising, parts are still struggling.

For the 7th year running, more than half of the countries on the IRC's Emergency Watchlist are in Africa. This year, 11 African countries feature in our Watchlist.

Those 11 countries account for just 8 per cent of the global population, yet are home to a third of the world's forcibly displaced people, a third of those living in extreme poverty, and a third of people in humanitarian need. Two-thirds of the world's extreme poor live on this continent.

What can be done: three priorities

This year's Watchlist does more than offer a stark message of surging crisis and collapsing support. It sets forth solutions that are applicable in the 40 countries around the world where IRC works. I want to highlight three priorities.

First, reform the aid system to invest in what works.

Proven, high impact solutions save lives. IRC leads on testing what works. Although just 2 per cent of the aid sector, we had conducted 30 per cent of the total impact evaluations. I was glad to hear last month this number dropped to just 20 per cent. Glad not because we are doing less, but because our insistence on its importance has encouraged others to do more.

Here are three such interventions we have tested and know can scale.

The Gavi REACH program vaccinates low and zero dose children at almost $2 a shot. Since the program started in 2022, the IRC and its partners have delivered more than 25 million doses in some of the world's hardest to reach areas. Our teams are now delivering an average of 1.5 million doses a month across Sudan, South Sudan, Chad, Nigeria, Somalia and Ethiopia.

45 million children are suffering from acute malnutrition. IRC has tested and proven a simplified protocol, which treats all forms of acute malnutrition with a single product, at a single point of care—as opposed to the current bifurcated system. It has the same efficacy and reduces costs by up to 30 per cent, yet still today four of five malnourished children in conflict settings do not get any treatment.

Cash is a proven, dignified and cost-effective way to help people in crisis. If half of humanitarian assistance in 2024 were given as cash, instead of the less than 20 per cent that was, 2.7 million additional people could be reached. The prevalence of cash in the sector has gone down. IRC is trying to reverse that. It should be a sector wide effort.

Second, hold the line against growing impunity, especially for violence against civilians.

The rise in the number of conflicts has coincided with a rise in civilian deaths. The Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights' War Watch reported that well over 100,000 civilians were killed in each of the two previous years. In Ukraine, more civilians were killed last year than any previous. Health centers have not been spared—in the first six months of 2025, nearly 1,000 people were killed while seeking medical care, almost 60 times more than during the same period the year before. The UN recently reported an 87 per cent increase in conflict-related sexual violence in just two years. Experts have said in conflicts like that in the DRC, there is "an epidemic of such violence."

We see the consequences of the impunity in places like El Fasher, where experts estimate that around 60,000 people were killed in a matter of days. Instead of signs of contrition, fighters posted videos of their crimes on social media. With no accountability, our teams fear a repeat of the situation in the Kordofans. When violations go unanswered, they are repeated and spread.

Part of the response needs to focus on breaking the cycle of conflict economies. This means increasing financial and reputational pressure on those who profit from war. Global and regional tools—from the Financial Action Task Force to targeted sanctions and gray-listing—can raise the cost of laundering conflict minerals and illicit goods. These tools work. They should be used.

The other part is a reinvestment in diplomacy and peacemaking—the third priority. While this sits beyond the remit of humanitarian organisations, every humanitarian emergency we face today is, at its core, a political emergency.

Instead of adding accountability, international involvement often exacerbates conflict. Internal wars that have become internationalized last 30 per cent longer and are 4 times less likely to end. In Sudan, the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, nearly all its neighbors and several more states are involved.

With 49 vetoes in the past decade alone compared to 19 the decade before, the Security Council is no longer a source of security. Initiatives like the French-Mexican proposal to suspend the veto in cases of mass atrocity deserve serious backing.

And in the meantime, regional and neutral actors—including the African Union and IGAD—must act earlier and more decisively to prevent horrors from spreading and to hold perpetrators to account.

Conclusion

This is where the Watchlist matters most. Not as a forecast of crisis, but as a blueprint of action. For the countries on this list, the risks are clear and the solutions exist. We know where conflict is metastasizing, where hunger is deepening, where displacement is accelerating. The real question is not whether the warnings are clear, but whether there is will to act on them. Early action is cheaper than late response; prevention is more humane than repair; political engagement more effective than its humanitarian substitution. Ignoring these lessons does not make crises disappear. It makes them deadlier, longer, and harder to resolve.