BLOG POST

A Lookback at the Biden Administration’s Development Agenda, Part V: Humanitarian Response

This is the fifth and final in a series of five blogs on the Biden administration’s global development agenda over the past four years. The blogs are based on the Biden administration’s own account of its accomplishments as laid out in the U.S. Strategy on Global Development released by the White House in September 2024, which centered around five key objectives:

  1. Reduce Poverty through Inclusive and Sustainable Economic Growth and Quality Infrastructure Development
  2. Invest in Health, Food Security, and Human Capital
  3. Decarbonize the Economy and Increase Climate Resilience
  4. Promote Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance and Address Fragility and Conflict
  5. Respond to Humanitarian Needs

This final blog focuses on the Biden administration’s record on Pillar 5: Respond to Humanitarian Needs and offers an assessment of how the new Trump administration could affect Biden’s legacy.

The US has historically been the largest provider of humanitarian assistance, which surpassed $49 billion during the Biden administration (See Table 1), a record level, and a significant bump from the first Trump years.

Figure showing a rising pattern in overall US humanitarian aid obligations to FY2022 and then a fall

* The year 2024 is partially reported and will likely be closer to FY23 when completed.

Source: foreignassistance.gov

Humanitarian needs were exceptionally high during Biden’s tenure because of the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and their spillover effects, especially in Africa. Climate-related effects, including droughts and flooding, drove up humanitarian needs up in places like Ethiopia, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In the last year, the UN issued famine warnings for Sudan and Gaza. The US gave generously to both causes but the situations in both places remain desperate.

Given the US government’s vital role as a provider of aid, decisions about the humanitarian budget envelope under the Trump presidency will have profound consequences for the world’s most vulnerable populations. Notably, one of Trump’s first executive orders (EOs) was to pause development assistance for ninety days while programs are reviewed “for programmatic efficiency and consistency with United States foreign policy.” The implications for urgent humanitarian needs are not clear: the EO does allow the Secretary of State to issue waivers but as yet there is no indication if they will be used.

Pillar 5: Respond to Humanitarian Needs

Humanitarian Response Priorities under Biden

During Biden’s presidency, humanitarian priorities shifted after the outbreak of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and the civil war in Sudan, although both Yemen and Ethiopia remained among the top five recipients. The US recently ramped up support for the DRC in response to mass internal displacement stemming from escalating conflict in the east.

Two pie charts showing the changing breakdown of humanitarian support to the largest recipients

* The year 2024 is partially reported

Source: foreignassistance.gov

Africa remained the largest regional recipient of humanitarian assistance, and according to the White House reached nearly $20 billion under the Biden administration. Addressing food security was a high priority, as sharp increases in food and fertilizer prices stemming from the war in Ukraine caused tremendous hardship in the region.

Sudan

Last fall I wrote about the collective failure to respond to the crises in Sudan, which remains mired in a brutal civil war, putting millions at risk of famine and brutality. Little has changed since then. The latest alert under the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification System (IPC), an international initiative that tracks and reports on food security risks, concluded that Sudan is sliding “into a widening Famine crisis characterized by widespread starvation and a significant surge in acute malnutrition,” and warned that half of the population of 24 million is facing high levels of acute food insecurity, marking “an unprecedented deepening and widening of the food and nutrition crisis, driven by the devastating conflict.”

Last-ditch efforts by the Biden administration to alleviate the crisis are unlikely to yield fruit. During Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s last meeting at the UN Security Council, he urged parties not to “look away from the humanitarian catastrophe that is happening in Sudan on our watch, before our eyes,” and announced another $200 million in aid, bringing total US support since the onset of the civil war to more than $2.3 billion. He asserted that “the United States will use every tool, including further determinations and sanctions, to prevent abuses and hold perpetrators accountable,” but refrained from doing just that by refusing to call out the United Arab Emirates for its role in arming the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), one of the two warring factions.

On December 31, The New York Times released a series of videos documenting atrocities, including ethnic cleaning, by RSF commanders, and on January 7 the State Department declared that the RAF had committed genocide, sanctioning its leader and several RAF-owned companies. On January 17, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned the head of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the other warring party, for war crimes.

Gaza

In April 2021, President Biden reversed President Trump’s first term decision to halt aid to Gaza and provided about $100 million in humanitarian assistance between FY 21-23. Funding dramatically increased following Hamas’s invasion of Israel and the subsequent war, reaching a total of $1.2 billion.

Despite this, humanitarian indicators worsened sharply. The IPC issued a report in March 2024 classifying northern Gaza under its highest risk category (Phase 5), projecting famine as imminent. In November 2024, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network issued an alert stressing that “in the absence of a dramatic increase in food supply flows, Famine will become the most likely outcome in North Gaza.” On January 4, 2025, the UN issued a flash appeal for Gaza for $1.7 billion, noting that the entire population of 2.1 million was dependent on this assistance and “precariously close to famine.”

The bulk of donor funding for Gaza is administered by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the specialized agency which has worked in Gaza for decades. A highly charged political environment greatly complicated the logistics of aid delivery. UNRWA officials repeatedly accused Israel of deliberately blocking aid or failing to protect cargo, and Israeli officials claimed that UNRWA had been infiltrated by Hamas, prompting the Knesset to bar UNRWA from operating in Israel after January 2025. In March 2024, Congress banned the distribution of US funds through UNRWA for one year.

In March 2024, President Biden also directed the Defense Department to build a temporary pier to transport food aid to Gaza via sea, ostensibly circumventing the logistical hurdles that plagued the land transport options. However, security and access challenges persisted once the aid was on shore. In addition, the pier suffered weather-related structural damage and shut down after only twenty days of operation.

After a near total blockage of food aid in October 2024, senior Biden administration officials sent a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu giving Israel thirty days to improve access to aid or risk a cut off in weapons sales. At the 30-day mark, the administration decided against pursuing any change in policy, although Israel fell well short of the targets set by the US. For example, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which monitors aid to Gaza, reported a daily average of only 76 humanitarian truck crossings. Israel disputed this figure, claiming a daily average of 185 trucks, still well below the 350 called for by the US.

Under the terms of the cease fire, Israel has agreed to allow 600 trucks per day, and the UN reported a dramatic increase in crossings shortly after the agreement took effect. It is not clear, however, whether UNRWA will be able to operate. No other entity has the capacity to provide aid at scale.

Ukraine

Ukraine also became a major recipient of US humanitarian aid, although the vast majority of US assistance is in the form of military funding (according to the General Accountability Office, about $9 billion out of $183 billion is for humanitarian aid). The UN issued an appeal for $3.1 billion in 2024, which they estimated was needed to assist 40 percent of the Ukrainian population, or 14.6 million people. According to the latest update, 71 percent of the in-country appeal had been met by November, with the US accounting for nearly 30 percent. Although the conflict continues, early indications are that the 2025 appeal for Ukraine will be smaller.

Suffering in Ukraine has been acute, but the country remains prosperous relative to other recipients of humanitarian aid. Notably, the IMF affirmed in December 2024 that despite the devastating toll of the war, the economy had remained resilient “through skillful policymaking by the Ukrainian authorities as well as substantial external support.” This includes over $30 billion in budget support from the US.

Afghanistan

Despite the military withdrawal from Afghanistan, the US continues to be the major provider of international assistance. To avoid enriching the Taliban, funding is provided largely as US dollars and delivered by and to UN agencies and their partners on the ground. Despite assurances that cash does not reach Afghan government officials, the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan recently published a blistering opinion piece in The New York Times on funding for the war, including since the withdrawal, noting his office’s findings that US-funded partners paid at least $10.9 million to Taliban authorities and two State Department bureaus failed to show they had vetted contractors working in Afghanistan to ensure their work was not benefiting terrorist organizations.

The funding is a tiny fraction of the $2 billion that the US has spent since the withdrawal, but the news has had political ramifications; on January 2, Tim Burchett, a Republican congressman from Tennessee, wrote to Trump to bring attention to this issue and urge that he “put an end to wasteful foreign aid spending.”

Legacy Assessment

Humanitarian programs do not tend to confer a legacy because they are intended to be short term, crisis-based interventions. Unfortunately, major humanitarian crises faced during Biden’s tenure continue unabated and will persist into the Trump presidency. In addition, political dynamics around major humanitarian programs like Gaza and Sudan could well undermine Biden’s record as a generous provider of aid. For example, several Biden administration officials left in protest over the war in Gaza.

Looking ahead, humanitarian needs will persist in the context of record funding gaps. In 2024, the UN reported that for the second consecutive second year it fell short of its humanitarian request (nearly $50 billion) by more than half. In 2025, humanitarian needs will also be compounded by reconstruction costs in Gaza, where nine out of ten homes have been damaged or destroyed, as well as Syria, where reconstruction cost estimates range from $250–400 billion.

Initial signs from the Trump Administration are not encouraging. In addition to pausing foreign assistance, the new President also signed an executive order committing to withdraw from the World Health Organization which plays a major in coordinating humanitarian responses. Two other things to watch out for are whether Elon Musk’s DOGE department will target humanitarian aid as part of his budget-cutting exercise and whether Congress will resist foreign aid cuts as they did last time or prove more pliable.

Disclaimer

CGD blog posts reflect the views of the authors, drawing on prior research and experience in their areas of expertise. CGD is a nonpartisan, independent organization and does not take institutional positions.


Image credit for social media/web: USAID