Aid to Somalia: how much, from whom, and the 2025 to 2026 cuts

Three kinds of aid

Aid reaches Somalia in three main ways:

1. Grants to the government budget. In 2025 the federal government received $516 million in grants, 96 percent of it from multilateral bodies such as the World Bank (Central Bank of Somalia, Annual Report 2025).
2. Development projects, mainly through the World Bank, whose Somalia portfolio is about $2.34 billion, including regional projects (World Bank, Somalia).
3. Humanitarian aid through UN agencies and NGOs, for food, water, health and shelter. NGO transfers into Somalia through banks and transfer companies were $936 million in 2025 (Central Bank of Somalia, Annual Report 2025).

The humanitarian plan for 2026

On 26 January 2026 the federal government, the UN and aid partners launched the 2026 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan. It asks for $852 million to help 2.4 million people, 40 percent less than the year before (UN Somalia).

How much of each year's plan was funded:

• 2024: 57.7 percent.
• 2025: about 27 to 29 percent.
• 2026 (by late April): about 15 percent, the lowest level on record at that point in the year.

Sources: Save the Children, via ReliefWeb; UN Geneva, December 2025.

What the cuts mean

• More than 300 health facilities had closed or stopped working because of funding shortages by mid-2026, according to OCHA (Dawan Africa).
• Federal social benefit spending fell 88 percent in 2025 (Central Bank of Somalia, Annual Report 2025).
• Bilateral grants to the federal budget reached only $19 million in 2025, against $170 million planned (same source).
• The UN's emergency fund (CERF) released $16 million for Somalia in 2026 to fill part of the gap (Dawan Africa).
• The World Bank and IMF both name aid cuts as a main reason growth is slowing in 2026 (World Bank, May 2026; IMF, October 2026).

How aid reaches people

Much aid now goes to families as cash on their phones. Hormuud's EVC Plus is used by more than 145 aid groups to pay people (TechCabal, June 2026). The national safety net programme Baxnaano, run by the government with World Bank funding, has reached more than 3.7 million people with regular cash (World Bank).

Climate money

The Green Climate Fund has 7 projects in Somalia worth $182 million, covering farming, clean energy and early warning of drought and floods (Green Climate Fund, Somalia).

Aid compared with other money

Money sent home by Somalis abroad is larger than all aid. Families received $3.13 billion from relatives abroad in 2025 (Central Bank of Somalia, Annual Report 2025). In 2023 remittances were already larger than all development and humanitarian aid combined (Hiiraan Online). As aid falls, families lean even more on relatives abroad.

Local groups

Somali aid groups are asking for a larger share of aid to go directly to local organisations. The 2025 Country Humanitarian Forum in Baidoa took up this "Somali-led" approach (Dawan Africa).