New York, NY, June 8, 2026 —  The International Rescue Committee (IRC) today released The New World Disorder: More Shocks, Fewer Shock Absorbers, its 2026 Emergency Watchlist Midyear Update, documenting that far from slowing down, the crises forecasted in December have only intensified – while the systems meant to contain them are breaking down. 

The IRC’s 2026 Emergency Watchlist Report identified the 20 countries at greatest risk of worsening humanitarian crises this year. At the time, 117 million people were forcibly displaced, nearly 40 million faced catastrophic hunger requiring urgent action to save their lives, and more conflicts underway than at any point since the Second World War. 

Since then, those crises have accelerated. 

David Miliband, President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee, said: “Six months ago, the IRC warned that a New World Disorder was emerging. Since then, disorder has not only grown but accelerated. A war with Iran. A million people have been forced to flee their homes in Lebanon. A brewing global food security catastrophe that risks plunging millions more people into acute hunger. An expanding Ebola outbreak. Defanged diplomacy and collapsing aid budgets. These are not separate crises — they are the New World Disorder in practice: more shocks, fewer shock absorbers.”  

The Iran war is the clearest example of how modern crises now cascade rapidly across economies, supply chains, and aid operations far beyond the immediate conflict zone — and of the widening gap between the cost of conflict and the resources available to respond to it. The first two months of U.S. strikes on Iran are estimated to have cost $25 billion: five times the cost of treating every child suffering from acute malnutrition worldwide. 

The Ebola outbreak now spreading through eastern DRC is another testament to the New World Disorder —  a viral infection aggravated by the toxic mix of conflict, displacement, and the devastating impact of aid cuts that have collapsed global health spending to a 15-year low. 

In the Midyear Watchlist Update, the IRC identifies five interconnected shocks driving global disorder— a world with more crises and fewer means to contain them.

Conflicts are spreading and exposing more people to harm. In Lebanon, more than 1 million people have been displaced by renewed conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. In South Sudan, over 400,000 people were displaced between January and April 2026 alone as the country deteriorated toward a new chapter in an enduring civil war. Drone technology — cheap, accessible, and poorly regulated — is expanding the reach and lethality of modern warfare with devastating consequences for civilians: in Sudan, drone strikes accounted for more than 80% of civilian deaths between January and April 2026. 

The same shocks are simultaneously fracturing the humanitarian logistics intended to respond. Disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz have driven the IRC’s operational costs up 50%, halved air freight capacity on key routes, and pushed freight and insurance on some shipping routes up 300%. The humanitarian hub in Dubai — one of the world’s most critical — has been severely disrupted, delaying a shipment of essential medical supplies for Sudan by two months.

A global food catastrophe is unfolding. The IRC warned earlier this year of a food security timebomb triggered by Strait of Hormuz disruptions — and that warning is materializing. 363 million people are now at risk of acute hunger in 2026, including 45 million additional people because of the Middle East conflict. Fertilizer prices are projected to rise 31% this year; energy prices 24% — the highest since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In Sudan, two in five people face crisis or worse levels of hunger, and nearly 200,000 are in catastrophic conditions where people are starving to death every day. Food insecurity will worsen further from mid-2026 as El Niño comes into effect.

Economic shocks are hitting Watchlist countries and other conflict-affected states hardest. An additional 18.2 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty as a result of the Iran war’s economic fallout, if the UN’s worst-case projections are realized. Half of all people facing extreme poverty already live in fragile and conflict-affected states — countries that cannot shield their populations from sudden price increases because of entrenched underdevelopment and because they spend so much on repaying debts. Watchlist countries collectively spent $67.6 billion servicing debt in 2024 alone. Any further disruption to maritime chokepoints like the Bab el-Mandeb Strait could amplify crisis conditions across already-fragile settings.

Aid cuts are both intensifying these crises and gutting the world’s capacity to respond to them. Following funding cuts, the IRC nearly halved the health facilities it supports in Ituri province, at the heart of the Ebola outbreak. In Sudan, funding cuts will force the closure of 34 IRC-supported health facilities by July, cutting off nearly half a million people from healthcare. The share of Official Development Assistance reaching fragile and conflict-affected states has fallen from 43% in 2013 to just 25% in 2024 — a collapse in the global support system at precisely the moment disorder is accelerating.

The IRC is calling on governments and institutions to act immediately on five fronts:

NOTES TO EDITORS

The 2026 Emergency Watchlist Midyear Update: The New World Disorder: More Shocks, Fewer Shock Absorbers is available at www.rescue.org/report/watchlist-midyear-update-2026. 

The IRC's 2026 Emergency Watchlist report, New World Disorder, published December 2025, used 74 quantitative and qualitative variables to identify the 20 countries at greatest risk of humanitarian crisis in 2026.