The UN exposes its failed humanitarian paradigm

by Ramona Wadi

Palestinians in the city of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza are struggling to rebuild their lives amid the rubble of homes destroyed in Israeli attacks on December 07, 2025. [Abed Rahim Khatib – Anadolu Agency ]

The UN is exposing how its humanitarian paradigm, always destined to failure, has failed. The Global Humanitarian Overview assessment, notes that 239 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance and the financial requirement stands at $33 billion. However, only 135 million people will be collectively assisted, with 87 million people being prioritised. The UN is launching its aid budget funding for 2026 at an immediate $23 billion. The 2025 appeal only reached $12 billion, not only indicating that the major donors are tired of spending on humanitarian aid, but also that those fomenting war and contributing to the humanitarian paradigm prefer to invest in further war. 

The report states, “While these amounts may seem daunting, they pale in comparison to other global expenditures—it is around one per cent of global military expenditure.” It further notes, “The total global appeal could be fully funded if the global top 10 per cent of earners (those making roughly $100,000 or more annually) gave just 20 cents per day for a year.” 

Another way of going around this would be that the humanitarian paradigm could be viable if global military expenditure, foreign intervention, colonial violence, political violence and of course genocide, were halted permanently. But at this point, the UN is chasing the shadows it created, fuelling further global disaster while pretending to make amends through collective action such as global donor funding. 

According to the humanitarian plans for 2026, $4.1 billion will be used for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, with the aim of reaching three million people. 

Meanwhile in Gaza, with further land appropriation under the guise of military and security concerns, no amount of humanitarian aid will be sufficient to halt the repercussions of Israel’s colonial genocide. 

The US has historically been the UN’s largest donor. It is also Israel’s greatest ally. This is the perpetual contradiction that the UN’s humanitarian paradigm is faced with: the oppressors are also donors. And since genocide is more profitable, the humanitarian paradigm remains shackled as countries count costs, particularly the largest donors. How can the UN truly provide humanitarian assistance when its primary concern, for example, is to protect Israel’s security narrative? Had the UN truly wanted to stop genocide, it would have dismantled Israel’s security narrative right from the start. But the UN is composed of representatives of countries that are woven into the imperialist narrative; countries that are former colonial powers and others whose independence is still tainted by dependence and interference. 

Asking for less that the required total of billions in humanitarian aid only shows that the UN is more interested in letting countries and colonialism play out their individual agendas on the global stage. The expectation that international law violations will continue, while demanding less financial accountability from donors also indicate where the world is heading, as well as the UN and its western concept of human rights. Through Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the UN exposed this dynamic completely – the institution stepped away from its failed paradigm to support war and destruction, while relegating rights to symbolic rhetoric compensated by meagre funding.