Advocacy Resource Pack: Positioning Child Protection in Humanitarian Action Amid Funding Cuts, Shifting Priorities, and Humanitarian Reform © The Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action

This Advocacy Resource Pack has been developed by the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action to support members in advocating for child protection amid funding cuts, shifting priorities, and humanitarian reform. It is a live document and regularly updated to reflect the evolving context. The information provided is based upon ongoing analysis of the situation and critical information shared by our members and partners. For more information contact Elspeth Chapman (elspeth.chapman@alliancecpha.org) and advocacywg@alliancecpha.org.

We’ll keep updating this Advocacy Resource Pack, so check for the 🆕 label to stay up to date.

Contents

1. Updates - Humanitarian Sector Reform
2. Impact of Funding Cuts on Child Protection
3. Guidance on Advocacy and Next Steps
4. Useful Resources

Updates - Humanitarian Sector Reform

Humanitarian Reset

In a nutshell: In response to severe funding constraints, the Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC) has initiated a humanitarian reset to enhance the efficiency, effectiveness, and sustainability of humanitarian action. The reset centres on the following priorities: focusing on the greatest needs, shifting power to affected communities, ensuring faster and lighter context-specific coordination, defending humanitarian principles and protecting humanitarian space, and enabling change through stronger partnerships, innovative and broader financing, and streamlined systems.

Updates

March 2025: A letter from ERC Tom Fletcher is sent to the IASC Principles announcing a Ten Step Plan for the Humanitarian Reset.

Q2 2025: A process of stricter prioritisation of Interagency Response Plans begins, culminating in the June publication of the updated Global Humanitarian Overview (GHO). The “hyper-prioritised” GHO now requires US$32.6 billion to reach 114.4 million people facing the most life-threatening needs—just 38.3% of the 298.9 million in need globally and 64% of the 178.7 million originally targeted. Eight contexts will transition out of HRPs.

June 2025:

• IASC Principals meeting is convened and recommendations for Humanitarian Reset workstreams presented. This includes the final proposal on the Cluster Simplification process which can be found here.
• A paper is released for the IASC Principals by OCHA on “Aligning OCHA-Managed Pooled Funds with the Humanitarian Reset: Assessment Summary & Emerging Recommendations”.
• The ERC and Chair of IASC Tom Fletcher released a Statement proposing Phase Two of the Humanitarian Reset (circulated on 19 June). Also of note is a new paper on “Empowering Humanitarian Leadership”, authored by Denise Brown in her capacity as the ERC Special Advisor on the Humanitarian Reset.

🆕 Q3 2025: The Humanitarian Programme Cycle (HPC) for 2026 begins.

🆕 September 2025: IASC publish interim messages to country operation on cluster simplification. This includes the following implications for the Protection Cluster in the 2026 HPC at country level, including:

• The Protection cluster has one consolidated chapter in HPC 2026 template with PIN, severity and target for the entire cluster and funding needs and breakdown per Area of Responsibility (including Child Protection, GBV, Mine Action and Housing Land Property (until its integration with CCCM/Shelter)). The PIN, severity and target per AoR will be included in the narrative.

🆕 October 2025: Principals meeting where operational roadmap for the Reset is expected to be approved.

UN 80 Initiative

In a nutshell: In the lead-up to the UN’s 80th anniversary (UN80), this flagship initiative is aimed at streamlining the UN in response to the persistent funding challenges it faces. As part of this, workstream three of this initiative focuses on “Changing Structures and Realigning Programmes”.

Updates

• March 2025: UN80 Reform Initiative is launched.
• July 2025: UN80 proposals submitted to the Secretary General and being refined to present at UNGA.
• 🆕 August 2025: The progress report for workstream two ‘Mandate Implementation review’ published and can be accessed here.
• 🆕 September 2025: The progress report on workstream three “Changing Structures and Realigning Programmes” published and sets out possible structural changes and programme realignments across the United Nations system, and all pillars of its work. It can be accessed here.
• 🆕 A new Alliance briefing note on how various reforms, including the UN80 and the humanitarian reform and funding cuts impacting the CAAC agenda, can be accessed here.

Broader Funding Impacts

🆕 ERC Tom Fletcher announced during a press conference in UN General Assembly that only 19% of 2025 GHO has been funded (a 40% drop on the funding level this time last year).

🆕 Global Funding Cut estimates, as shared in an OCHA briefing to member states:

• The Steering Committee for Humanitarian Response (SCHR) shared that global development and humanitarian funding faces planned cuts of an estimated $84.5 billion over the next 2–3 years, led mainly by the US but affecting most donor countries.
• A sense of the scale: SCHR members alone (9 large international humanitarian organisations) will have lost approximately $2.6 billion in annual funding in 2023 and 2024.
• While public donations remain strong, they cannot offset institutional reductions, with overall funding projected to fall by 40–50% by 2026 unless donor policies change.

🆕 Education: A recent report ´Futures Cut Short: The devastating impact of foreign aid cuts on education for children and youth in emergencies´ by global education actors (the Geneva Global Hub for Education in Emergencies (EiE Hub), the Global Education Cluster (GEC) and the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE)) finds that aid cuts are having devastating impacts on education in crisis contexts, with education facing steeper cuts (33%) than most other sectors.

This Advocacy Resource Pack includes the latest updates. All past updates can be found here.

Impact of the Funding Cuts on Child Protection

Global Snapshot

Through our open survey, the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action gathered insights from nearly 200 child protection practitioners across 43 countries — including:

• 148 working at sub-national and country levels
• 83 from local or national NGOs

Here’s five key things we’ve learned from respondents:

1. Funding cuts are severely undermining children’s protection in crisis settings: 83% say funding cuts have significantly or very significantly affected children’s protection, with the most severe impacts on children being reported at the country and local levels.
2. Essential child protection services are being dismantled: 71% report that funding cuts have severely impacted their ability to meet Child Protection Minimum Standards. These cuts are affecting key interventions such as group activities for child wellbeing, family and caregiving support, community-level approaches, case management, and prevention of harm.
3. Child protection is being hit hard by widespread funding losses: 85% have experienced funding cuts, with 62% reporting losses of more than 40% of their child protection funding. Additionally, 30% say child protection funding cuts have been higher than in other sectors.
4. Child Protection Staffing and Capacity is rapidly shrinking: Funding cuts have led to reductions in frontline staff (reported by 71% of respondents), cancelled or reduced capacity strengthening (reported by 63% of respondents), and reductions in technical advisers (reported by 52% of respondents).
5. Cuts across humanitarian sectors are increasing risks to children’s protection and well-being: Funding cuts across sectors are affecting children's protection, with the biggest impacts, in addition to protection, being flagged across education, health, and GBV.

Full results of the survey and interviews with five leading child protection agencies can be found in this Briefing Note here.

Guidance on Advocacy and Next Steps

Advocacy Plan

The Alliance has drafted an initial advocacy plan outlining priority objectives, strategic approach and potential priority actions to take to implement them. The document can be accessed here with topline objectives set out below.

Objectives:

1. Child protection is prioritised by key agencies, Alliance members and humanitarian leadership.
2. Organisations stand firm against potential roll back of humanitarian principles and standards.
3. The centrality of children and their protection is central to efforts to reform the humanitarian architecture.

Useful Resources

The development of this Advocacy Resource Pack was made possible by generous funding support from the Government of Norway, the Government of Canada, and Education Cannot Wait (ECW).