Donor Fatigue and the Economics of the Rohingya Crisis

Nearly eight years after the mass displacement of Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh, the humanitarian system sustaining life in Cox’s Bazar faces a growing challenge: the gradual withdrawal of international attention and funding. The crisis remains one of the largest refugee emergencies in the world, yet the global response has steadily weakened. Aid appeals are increasingly underfunded, services are being scaled back, and basic assistance programs are under pressure.

This phenomenon is often described as donor fatigue. The term refers to a pattern observed across long-running humanitarian crises: as time passes and new emergencies emerge elsewhere, political urgency fades, media coverage declines, and financial support diminishes.

In the Rohingya camps of Cox’s Bazar, donor fatigue is no longer an abstract concern. It is reshaping the economics of survival for more than one million refugees and the communities that host them.

The Humanitarian System Sustaining the Camps

The Rohingya response in Bangladesh operates through an extensive humanitarian coordination structure built around the Joint Response Plan (JRP). The JRP brings together the Government of Bangladesh, United Nations agencies, international organizations, and non-governmental groups to coordinate services across sectors such as food security, health, education, water and sanitation, and shelter.

Each year, the plan outlines the resources required to sustain assistance for refugees and affected host communities. For 2025, humanitarian agencies requested approximately $934.5 million to maintain essential services across Cox’s Bazar and Bhasan Char.

These resources support a complex system that provides daily food assistance, health services, education programs, sanitation infrastructure, and shelter maintenance for nearly one million refugees.

Yet despite the scale of this need, funding has consistently fallen short.

The Funding Gap

Humanitarian appeals for the Rohingya crisis have struggled to reach their targets in recent years. Data from the Rohingya response coordination platform show that by mid-2025, the Joint Response Plan had received only about 35 percent of its requested funding, leaving hundreds of millions of dollars unmet.

Even by the end of the year, the response had secured only around 46 percent of the required funds. This means that more than half of the resources needed to maintain services remained unavailable.

Such funding gaps force humanitarian agencies to make difficult choices. When available resources decline, programs must be reduced or eliminated.

The consequences of these decisions ripple across the camps.

Food Assistance Cuts

One of the most visible effects of declining funding has been the reduction in food assistance.

The World Food Programme, which provides food support to Rohingya refugees through electronic vouchers, has been forced to reduce monthly assistance levels due to funding shortages.

Food rations have fallen significantly over time. Assistance once valued at around $12.50 per person per month has been reduced to $6 in some periods as agencies attempted to stretch limited funding across the refugee population.

Such reductions may appear small in absolute terms, but their effects are substantial for families who depend almost entirely on humanitarian aid.

With fewer resources available, refugee households must adjust their diets and spending priorities. Aid workers report that families often shift toward the cheapest staple foods such as rice and lentils while reducing consumption of vegetables, protein, and other nutritious items.

These adjustments increase the risk of malnutrition, particularly among children and pregnant women.

In camps where economic opportunities are limited and movement restrictions constrain access to outside markets, food assistance functions as the foundation of household survival.

When rations shrink, the entire household economy becomes more fragile.

The Economics of Aid Dependence

Humanitarian assistance in Cox’s Bazar is not only a relief system; it is also a major economic engine for the region.

Aid flows support employment for humanitarian workers, procurement of goods and services, and local markets that supply food, construction materials, and transportation. Host communities near the camps benefit from the economic activity generated by humanitarian operations.

Research examining the economic impact of declining aid highlights how reductions in funding can affect both refugees and local residents. When assistance decreases, refugee households lose purchasing power. This reduces demand in local markets, affecting businesses that rely on humanitarian spending.

At the same time, aid reductions can strain relations between refugees and host communities. When resources become scarce, competition for employment opportunities, services, and environmental resources can intensify.

Humanitarian funding therefore serves not only as emergency relief but also as a stabilizing economic mechanism.

Service Reductions Beyond Food

Food assistance is only one part of the broader humanitarian system. Funding shortages have also affected other sectors.

Health services have faced constraints as medical facilities operate with reduced budgets. Some clinics have had to scale back services or reduce staff capacity due to declining financial support.

Education programs, which provide schooling to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya children through learning centres, have also been threatened by funding cuts. When resources decline, classrooms close and teachers lose stipends.

Water and sanitation systems require continuous maintenance to prevent disease outbreaks in densely populated camps. Funding shortfalls can delay infrastructure repairs and upgrades.

Shelter maintenance presents another challenge. Many refugee homes are built from bamboo and tarpaulin materials originally designed to last only a few months. Years of exposure to monsoon rains and seasonal storms have weakened these structures.

Without sufficient funding for shelter upgrades, refugees remain vulnerable to fires, landslides, and extreme weather.

Humanitarian services form an interconnected system. When one part weakens, the entire structure becomes more fragile.

Global Competition for Humanitarian Funding

The funding challenges facing the Rohingya response are part of a broader trend affecting humanitarian operations worldwide.

Global humanitarian budgets have come under increasing pressure as new crises emerge across multiple regions. Conflicts, climate disasters, and displacement emergencies in other parts of the world compete for the same pool of donor resources.

As international attention shifts toward newer crises, older emergencies risk being overshadowed.

Humanitarian agencies warn that the Rohingya crisis is particularly vulnerable to this dynamic. The displacement has persisted for years, and the absence of a clear political solution makes it difficult to sustain donor enthusiasm.

The crisis is no longer new, yet it remains unresolved.

Media Attention and Political Momentum

Donor fatigue is not purely a financial issue. It also reflects changing political priorities and media narratives.

Humanitarian crises often receive intense global attention during their initial phases. Images of displacement and violence mobilize international sympathy and funding. Over time, however, media coverage declines as new stories capture public attention.

When coverage fades, political urgency can weaken as well. Governments may redirect funding toward crises that dominate international headlines.

For the Rohingya crisis, this pattern has been visible in the declining proportion of humanitarian appeals that receive full funding.

The camps remain crowded. The needs remain urgent. But the global spotlight has dimmed.

The Risks of Aid Decline

Humanitarian organizations warn that continued funding shortages could produce serious consequences for the Rohingya population.

Reduced food assistance increases the risk of malnutrition. Cuts to health services can weaken disease prevention efforts. Interruptions to education programs may leave children vulnerable to exploitation and early marriage.

Security concerns may also rise if economic conditions deteriorate within the camps. Limited livelihood opportunities combined with shrinking aid can create incentives for participation in informal or illicit economies.

These risks do not remain confined within the camps themselves. Instability in large refugee settlements can affect surrounding communities and regional security.

Sustained humanitarian support is therefore not only a moral imperative but also a practical necessity for maintaining stability.

Bangladesh’s Burden

Bangladesh has repeatedly emphasized the strain of hosting nearly one million refugees within a relatively small geographic area. The country has provided land, security oversight, and administrative coordination for the camps since the initial arrivals in 2017.

While international donors finance many services, the presence of the camps has broader implications for Bangladesh’s economy and environment. Deforestation, pressure on local infrastructure, and social tensions have emerged in some areas near the refugee settlements.

Humanitarian funding helps offset these pressures by supporting programs that benefit both refugees and host communities.

When funding declines, these balancing mechanisms weaken.

The Long-Term Challenge

The Rohingya crisis illustrates the difficulty of sustaining international support for long-running humanitarian emergencies.

Displacement that persists for years requires a shift from short-term relief to long-term management. But donor systems often remain structured around annual funding cycles that assume temporary crises.

This mismatch creates structural vulnerability. Humanitarian programs depend on continuous fundraising rather than stable long-term financing.

As donor fatigue grows, the gap between needs and resources widens.

Beyond Humanitarian Economics

Ultimately, donor fatigue reflects a deeper issue: the absence of a political solution to the Rohingya crisis.

Humanitarian assistance can alleviate suffering, but it cannot resolve the underlying causes of displacement. Without progress toward safe and voluntary repatriation, the camps will continue to require large-scale support.

The longer displacement persists, the more expensive and complex the humanitarian system becomes.

Aid can sustain life. It cannot substitute for political resolution.

Conclusion

The economics of the Rohingya crisis reveal a troubling reality. The humanitarian system that sustains daily life in Cox’s Bazar depends on international attention and donor commitment that are gradually weakening.

Funding gaps have already forced reductions in food assistance and threatened essential services such as education and healthcare. If this trend continues, the consequences will be felt across refugee households and host communities alike.

Donor fatigue is often described as an inevitable feature of prolonged crises. Yet inevitability does not diminish its consequences.

More than one million Rohingya refugees continue to rely on humanitarian assistance for survival. The question facing the international community is whether support for this population will remain consistent enough to prevent the erosion of the fragile systems that sustain life in the camps.

Without sustained commitment, the Rohingya crisis risks becoming not only a humanitarian tragedy but also a cautionary example of how the world gradually turns away from protracted suffering.

---

References

1. Joint Response Plan 2025–2026 for the Rohingya Humanitarian Crisis.
2. Rohingya Response Funding Updates (FTS).
3. World Food Programme food assistance reductions.
4. Reuters reporting on humanitarian funding risks and ration reductions.
5. ODI Humanitarian Practice Network analysis of WFP ration cuts.
6. Research on economic and food security impacts of declining humanitarian funding in Cox’s Bazar.
7. Associated Press reporting on humanitarian infrastructure vulnerabilities in Rohingya camps.