The United Nations and its humanitarian partners released the 2026 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan (HNRP) for Burkina Faso on Tuesday, supporting the country's national humanitarian efforts. The HNRP requests US$658.5 million for key sectors, including food security, health, and essential services, as approximately 4.5 million people require humanitarian assistance.
Burkina Faso continues to face a multifaceted humanitarian crisis driven primarily by insecurity, displacement, and climate-related shocks that exacerbate vulnerabilities nationwide. This year, the UN and its partners aim to support 2.7 million people in the 13 regions where needs are most severe.
However, funding shortfalls continue to affect the scale of humanitarian assistance. In 2025, only one-third of the necessary funds were received, forcing aid agencies to make difficult — and sometimes impossible — choices. Last year, less than half of those targeted for assistance were reached.
Without additional donor support, humanitarian organizations warn that hard-won progress could be reversed, which would undermine resilience and recovery efforts.
Access remains challenging, especially in remote areas where assistance often relies on air transport or escorted convoys, which drives up operational costs. Other humanitarian challenges include increased pressure on host communities due to the influx of internally displaced persons (IDPs), insufficient resources, and unmet protection needs.
Despite these challenges, aid agencies have made significant efforts to supply areas with high concentrations of vulnerable people, including those in difficult-to-access areas and areas of return.
Insecurity, climate shocks such as floods and strong winds, as well as health emergencies, undermine the resilience of communities. Such factors increase the vulnerability of the most at-risk groups: women, children, people with disabilities, and the elderly.
The Central Sahel region, particularly the Liptako Gourma area bordering Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, is affected by a complex crisis involving organized crime, non-state armed groups, growing competition over scarce resources, climate shocks, and high levels of poverty.
This crisis has triggered major internal displacement in the affected countries, affecting over 2.7 million IDPs. Approximately three-quarters of IDPs — over 2 million — reside in Burkina Faso. The most vulnerable include IDPs, hosts communities, returnees, asylum seekers, and refugees.
In a related development, also on Tuesday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that nearly 290,000 returnees in Burkina Faso’s Koulsé region need urgent support.
According to OCHA, approximately 288,888 IDPs have returned to their areas of origin in the Koulsé region and require urgent humanitarian assistance. Since 2019, many returnees have been displaced and are now returning to areas where homes and basic infrastructure have been damaged or destroyed. Access to essential services remains limited in these areas.