Report
This year marks a turning point for the humanitarian system. In January, USAID—and donor governments that quickly fol- lowed—gutted the global aid system. USAID canceled 83% of all grants, and the cuts are now structural, not temporary. The impact is stark: millions of people will lose access to healthcare and millions of children may be pushed out of school as vital lifelines shut down—from stabilization centers for malnourished children to classrooms for children whose families fled from conflict.
Yet amid these shifts, we have more evidence than ever before on what works—and what it costs to deliver impact at scale. For more than a decade, Airbel Impact Lab, the IRC’s research and innovation team, has been leading the charge to generate and apply this evidence: we’ve led 20% of all impact evaluations and 25% of all cost analyses in the sector. This gives us the evidence to refine and scale solutions that deliver better outcomes for every dollar spent. We are putting proven solutions into practice. This ranges from our Remote Early Learning Program (RELP) in Lebanon, which the Syrian government is now considering for scale, to our simplified malnutrition protocol, which is gaining government adoption—in Somalia, implemented across 8–10 districts, and in Mali, formally incorporated into the national protocol. And we have the platform to do so: the IRC operates across 40 countries, reaching more than 35 million people.
But dollars must now go even farther. We must continue to push the sector forward through new innovation. The disruption of this year creates a rare opportunity to rebuild smarter—to design a humanitarian system that is stronger, more adaptive, and more resilient. That means identifying where we can break from the status quo, integrating the most effective innovations wherever they exist—from AI-driven tools to low-cost hardware—and unlocking new capabilities, new actors, and new financing models to accelerate impact.
This report highlights five ideas that are guiding what we’re innovating and why. They are the signals in the noise— markers of where the future of humanitarian aid is heading, and how we can build a smarter, stronger, and more sus- tainable system together.
