Research & Analysis November 16, 2025
Grandi's Final Briefing: The Numbers That Confirm System Collapse
On November 6, 2025, UNHCR High Commissioner Filippo Grandi delivered his final briefing to the UN General Assembly's Third Committee, presenting figures that document the most severe contraction of the humanitarian system in modern history. This analysis examines the operational and financial implications of Grandi's briefing, synthesizing data from UNHCR internal assessments, OCHA's Financial Tracking Service (FTS), and the 2025 Global Humanitarian Overview (GHO) to document a structural break in humanitarian financing rather than a temporary funding shock. The findings reveal a 53% collapse in global humanitarian funding over two years (from
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20.3 billion in 2025), with UNHCR operating at 2015 funding levels while displacement has doubled to 117 million people. The system now operates at 26% coverage—the lowest in recorded history—with critical sectors falling below operational viability: child protection (14% funded), WASH (14% funded), and camp coordination (11% funded). Geographic analysis reveals brutal prioritization, with bottom-tier contexts effectively abandoned: Honduras (10% coverage), Vietnam (5.5%), and Venezuela regional response (8.4%). This paper argues that the humanitarian system is not undergoing reform but regression, reverting to 1990s-era transactional programming while the donor architecture fractures without replacement. The analysis challenges the prevailing "efficiency" narrative, documenting how a 30% workforce reduction, consolidation of 185 offices, and systematic sector collapse represent managed decline rather than strategic repositioning. Drawing on Grandi's explicit rejection of efficiency rhetoric and extensive field testimony, this paper calls for honest acknowledgment that current funding levels cannot sustain the humanitarian model built over the past two decades. Keywords: humanitarian financing, UNHCR, refugee crisis, aid funding, system collapse, donor architecture, Global Humanitarian Overview, multipurpose cash assistance, protection programming, humanitarian reform
Research & Analysis September 16, 2025
How to Use Stablecoins in Humanitarian Aid: A Practical Framework — Mapping MiCA’s Legal Clarity to ECHO’s Cash and Voucher Assistance Categories
This preprint explores how regulated stablecoins can be classified and used in humanitarian cash and voucher assistance (CVA). It maps the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) onto ECHO’s humanitarian CVA framework, introducing a “Liquidity & Redemption Test” to distinguish between cash and vouchers. Drawing on case studies in Afghanistan (HesabPay), Myanmar (Coala Pay), and Sudan (NRC & Coala Pay), it illustrates how stablecoins can function both as direct-to-beneficiary transfers and as treasury rails for NGOs. The framework provides clarity for donors and implementers by showing that stablecoins are not a new modality, but rather digital rails that can make existing CVA faster, cheaper, and more resilient.