The United Nations celebrates its 80th anniversary amidst a 'storm'.

At a refugee camp in northern Kenya, Aujene Cimanimpaye awaits a hot lunch of lentils and sorghum served to her and her nine children — all born during her time receiving UN assistance since fleeing her violence-ravaged homeland in Congo in 2007.

"We can't go home because people are still being killed," said the 41-year-old woman at the Kakuma camp, where the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN refugee agency are assisting more than 300,000 refugees.

Her family moved from the Nakiale Refugee Resettlement Area in neighboring Uganda to Kenya three years ago, which is now home to more than 1 million refugees from conflict-affected East African countries.

A few kilometers away, at the Kalobeyei refugee resettlement area, another Congolese refugee, Bahati Musaba, a mother of five, said that since 2016, "UN agencies have supported my children's education — we receive food, water, and medicine," as well as cash assistance from the WFP to buy food and other necessities.

This year, those cash advances — and many other UN aid activities — have stopped, threatening to disrupt or endanger the lives of millions of people.

As the United Nations celebrates its 80th anniversary this month, its humanitarian agencies are facing one of the biggest crises in its history: its largest donor — the United States — under the Trump administration and other Western donors have drastically cut international aid spending. Some want to use that money to build up their defense capabilities.

A diplomat from a leading donor country, speaking on condition of anonymity to allow for free comment on the financial crisis facing some UN agencies, said that some UN agencies are increasingly critical of each other as they vie for a shrinking fund.

Humanitarian groups say such pressures undermine the crucial role of the United Nations and its partners in efforts to save millions of lives — by providing tents, food, and water to those fleeing instability in places like Sudan and Syria, or by helping to eradicate smallpox decades ago.

"In my 40 years as a humanitarian worker, this is the most abrupt disruption to UN humanitarian work to date," said Jan Egeland, former UN humanitarian aid director and now head of the Norwegian Refugee Council. "And it will widen the gap between explosive needs and aid contributions even further."

"Devastation" cuts to humanitarian aid programs.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has asked heads of UN agencies to find ways to cut staff by 20%, and his New York office has put forward sweeping reform ideas that could significantly reshape how the UN distributes aid.

Humanitarian workers often face danger and go to places many others don't—to slums to gather data on emerging viruses or drought-stricken areas to deliver water.

The United Nations says 2024 will be the deadliest year on record for humanitarian workers, largely due to the war in Gaza. In February, the organization suspended aid operations in the Houthi stronghold of Yemen, where the Houthis have held dozens of UN and other aid workers hostage.

Supporters say that UN aid operations have helped millions of people around the world affected by poverty, disease, conflict, famine, and other problems.

According to AP, critics argue that many initiatives have become cumbersome, rife with bureaucratic privileges and a lack of accountability, and far removed from real needs. They say that post-colonial Western funding has fostered dependence and corruption, stifling nations' ability to develop themselves, while UN-backed aid programs, which should ideally have specific timeframes, drag on for years without a clear end point.

In the case of the WFP, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization, and the United Nations agencies on refugees and migration, the U.S. accounted for at least 40% of their total budgets, and the Trump administration's cuts of approximately $60 billion in U.S. foreign aid dealt a severe blow. Each UN agency had to cut thousands of jobs and review its aid spending.

"What has happened is devastating," Egeland said, referring to the cuts that have shaken the global aid community. "However, it has forced us to prioritize... what I hope is that we will be able to direct more resources to the front lines of humanity and have fewer people sitting in offices talking about this."

With the divisions within the UN Security Council over the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East hindering its ability to prevent or end conflicts in recent years, humanitarian efforts to vaccinate children against polio or provide shelter and food for refugees were once a bright spot in UN operations. But now, that bright spot is fading.

It's not just about cutting funding...

In addition to the cuts and dangers faced by humanitarian workers, political conflict has sometimes overshadowed or hindered their work.

UNRWA, the Palestinian refugee relief agency, has provided a range of services to millions of people—food, education, employment, and more—in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan, as well as in the West Bank and Gaza, since its founding in 1948.

Israel claims that its schools spread anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli ideology, a claim the agency denies. Israel says Hamas siphons off UN aid in Gaza for its own gain, while UN officials maintain that most aid goes directly to those in need.

"UNRWA is like one of the foundations of your house. If you remove it, everything will collapse," said Issa Haj Hassan, 38, after a health checkup at a small clinic in the Palestinian refugee camp Mar Elias in Beirut.

UNRWA paid for the man's diabetes and blood pressure medication, as well as his wife's heart medication. The United States, Israel's leading ally, has stopped contributing to UNRWA; previously, it provided a third of the agency's budget. Earlier this year, Israel banned the aid group, although they have persevered in their work.

Ibtisam Salem, a 50-year-old single mother of five who lives in a small one-room apartment in Beirut with relatives who sleep on the floor, said: "Without UNRWA, we would starve... They helped build a house for me, and they provided healthcare. My children attended their school."

Especially when it comes to food and hunger, global demand is increasing even as funding to address them shrinks.

"This year, we estimate that around 343 million people are experiencing severe food insecurity," said Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the WFP. "That's a threefold increase compared to four years ago. And this year, our funding is down 40%. So, obviously, it's not an easy equation to solve."

Claiming to be the world's largest humanitarian organization, the World Food Programme (WFP) has announced plans to cut approximately a quarter of its 22,000 employees.

The aid landscape is changing.

One question that arises is how the United Nations can maintain its role as an aid provider when global cooperation is declining and national interests and self-defense are gaining prominence.

The United Nations is not alone: ​​many of its aid partners are also feeling the pressure. Groups like GAVI, which strives to ensure equitable vaccine distribution worldwide, and the Global Fund, which spends billions of dollars annually to help combat HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria, have been impacted by the Trump administration's budget cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Several government-backed private groups are also stepping in, including the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Fund, which has provided some food to Palestinians. But violence has erupted as crowds try to reach distribution sites.

No private donor or wealthy nation — including China and the oil-rich Gulf states often mentioned by aid groups — has filled the significant gaps left by shrinking spending by the U.S. and other Western countries.

The future of UN aid, according to experts, will depend on where it belongs — the organization's 193 member states.

"We need to bring that debate back to the countries, to our capitals, because it is there that you can empower the United Nations to act and succeed — or you paralyze it," said Achim Steiner, director of the United Nations Development Programme.