Don’t Let the Lights Go Out: Africa’s Women and Girls Left in the Dark by Humanitarian Aid Cuts

As wars rage on and climate disasters mount, humanitarian crises across Africa are becoming more frequent, more protracted, and more devastating. Yet, at the very moment when support is most needed, international aid is drying up. The result? Health clinics shutter their doors, midwives are forced to turn women away, and safe spaces for survivors of violence vanish. A new warning from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) makes one thing painfully clear: the lives and futures of millions of African women and girls are on the line.

According to UNFPA’s statement released on 19 May 2025, humanitarian funding cuts are already having a catastrophic impact in neglected crisis zones. The agency’s response plans for 2024 were funded at less than 30 per cent. This year, the situation is set to worsen. Without urgent intervention, UNFPA warns, “the lights risk going out” not just on critical health services, but on the hopes of women and girls across Africa’s most fragile regions.

A Silent Emergency Across the Continent

Africa is home to many of the world’s most underreported emergencies. In Sudan, renewed conflict has displaced millions, collapsing health systems and putting pregnant women at increased risk. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, decades of unrest have left women highly vulnerable to gender-based violence, with few places to turn for support. In the Sahel region, climate shocks, armed insurgencies, and poverty collide, pushing communities into deeper insecurity.

UNFPA data shows that 60 per cent of preventable maternal deaths occur in countries affected by crisis. Meanwhile, women in humanitarian settings are twice as likely to experience gender-based violence as those in stable environments. These statistics are more than numbers they reflect lives lost to childbirth complications, trauma left untreated, and dreams dashed by violence and neglect.

The Cost of Neglect

When funding is slashed, the consequences are swift and brutal: fewer midwives, fewer medicines, and the closure of life-saving services. For women and girls in crisis-affected parts of Africa, these are not abstract losses they are a matter of life and death.

In 2024, UNFPA’s humanitarian programmes across several African countries operated with less than one-third of the funding needed. The impact on the ground is visible: pregnant women arriving at clinics only to be told there’s no one to help them; survivors of sexual violence being turned away from shelters because they’ve shut down; children born into displacement camps with no postnatal care for their mothers.

“The needs are growing, but the resources are not,” said UNFPA in its campaign announcement. “When funding is cut, it is often women and girls in fragile settings forgotten by the headlines, overlooked in budget decisions who pay the highest price.”

Lighting the Way Forward

The Don’t Let the Lights Go Out campaign launched by UNFPA is a call to the global community not just to act, but to prioritise women’s health, safety, and rights in the face of growing instability. Central to this campaign is the Humanitarian Thematic Fund, which provides flexible, long-term funding to crises where needs are greatest. Critically, 80 per cent of the funds go directly to local and women-led organisations the very groups with the trust, knowledge, and capacity to serve the most vulnerable.

These organisations are often the first responders in African crises, delivering maternal care, counselling for survivors, legal aid, and protection services. Yet, they remain chronically underfunded. As seen in recent UN Women findings, women-led groups in crisis zones are being pushed to the brink 47 per cent globally expect to shut down within six months if current trends continue. Africa is no exception.

Women as Leaders, Not Victims

There is an urgent need to change the narrative. Women and girls in crisis are not passive recipients of aid they are leaders, caregivers, organisers, and survivors. From South Sudan to Burkina Faso, African women are rebuilding communities, negotiating peace, and driving resilience at the grassroots.

To support them is to invest in stability, dignity, and hope. As UNFPA puts it:

Together, we can keep health centres and safe spaces open, ensure midwives are present when lives are on the line, and protect the rights and dignity of every woman and girl.

Take Action

• Support local, women-led initiatives: Donate to organisations working on the front lines. UNFPA and UN Women work with hundreds of African women’s groups in emergencies.
• Speak up: Amplify the stories of women and girls in neglected crises. Awareness drives funding and policy change.
• Pressure policymakers: Advocate for sustained, flexible funding to underfunded humanitarian settings especially those affecting women and girls.

If the lights go out on women and girls in Africa’s forgotten crises, it won’t just be a failure of funding. It will be a failure of will.

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