In July 2025, HU launched a global survey to better understand how peacebuilders working at all levels have been impacted by recent government, philanthropic, and bilateral cuts to their work.
In January 2025, the Trump Administration began a series of actions and executive orders that would lead to USAID’s closure, leaving communities that benefitted from essential international assistance to navigate the aftermath. These cuts are against a global backdrop of severe philanthropic and bilateral cuts to peacebuilding and human rights funding.
In July 2025, Humanity United launched a global survey to better understand how peacebuilders working at the national, regional and local levels have faced acute funding cuts, program cancellations and loss of resources. While the survey scope represents a snapshot of the global peacebuilding sector rather than the field in its entirety, the results provide a stark picture of civil society in crisis, with more and more NGOs at risk of closure and communities seeing an erosion of trust and increase in volatility in recent months.
Humanity United is publishing this Survey Brief now to call attention to the striking and immediate impacts of these cuts, particularly over the next few months. The survey results will inform Pathways to Peace: An Engagement Framework for the Next Evolution of Peacebuilding, a new report coming October 2025 that contends with these devastating recent shifts but will also present a new vision of peacebuilding as a locally led and context specific endeavor, built to be equitable and sustainable for the long-term.