The 2026 Humanitarian Finance Summit offers a critical space for leaders across public, private, and philanthropic sectors to confront this widening gap and reimagine the financing models that can sustain humanitarian action.

We have entered a new era for international humanitarian response. After years of continuous growth in funding, the sector has experienced a sharp and dramatic reversal. With globalisation in retreat, traditional donors are also pulling back from co-operation and international norms, marking an inflection point for the sector, and exposing the fragility of an aid architecture that relied heavily on a small pool of donors.

The changed approach and collapse in financing have profound implications for the most vulnerable people and communities and has triggered a wider crisis of legitimacy and morale for the sector. In response, many are calling for a fundamental rethink of how humanitarian action is financed and delivered, with one that embraces equitable partnerships, shifts power to local actors, and harnesses new financial mechanisms capable of addressing today’s complex risk environment.

A call for transformation in how humanitarian financing operates

The challenge is not only to mobilise more funds or diversify financing, but to reform the humanitarian financial architecture — aligning donor incentives, embedding risk-sharing, and linking humanitarian finance to broader capital markets.

This Summit provides a platform to:

• Reflect on global shifts in risk, governance, and power, and their implications for humanitarian finance;

• Elevate practical models that show how innovative finance can deliver faster, more predictable, and more locally driven outcomes;

• Confront the political and structural barriers that impede scale, such as value-for-money metrics, risk aversion, and short-termism;

• Explore emerging tools—from pre-arranged finance and insurance-linked instruments to impact bonds and catalytic donor capital;

• Foster partnerships that move from dialogue to deployment—translating concepts into capital flow.

Tickets are available for purchase here. Contribute to the agenda by submitting a compelling, field-tested case study to events@hfforum.org