Rohingya crisis enters tenth year as funding cuts put lifesaving services at risk: Oxfam

As the Rohingya crisis in Bangladesh enters its tenth year, Oxfam is warning that shrinking humanitarian resources risk undoing years of progress and placing already stretched essential services in Cox’s Bazar under even greater pressure.   

Mallika, 36, has lived with her family in Camp 19 in Cox’s Bazar since arriving in Bangladesh in 2017. She said, “When we first came, there was hardly any support, and we suffered a lot. Later, NGOs helped with different lifesaving support and services. But now support is decreasing. I used to buy better food for my children. Now I borrow money for basic needs. It is very difficult to survive.” 

Since the mass displacement of 2017, Bangladesh, host communities and international partners have sustained one of the world’s largest humanitarian responses, providing food, safe water and sanitation, shelter, healthcare, protection, education and disaster preparedness to Rohingya refugees. What began as an emergency response, however, has become a prolonged crisis. 

Nearly 1.2 million Rohingya refugees are living in Bangladesh, including some 150,000 who have fled renewed violence in Myanmar since early 2024. The recalibrated 2026 Joint Response Plan (JRP) asks for $710.5 million – 26 percent below last year's – covering little more than the minimum needed to sustain lifesaving assistance.

Anil Pant, Country Director of Oxfam in Bangladesh, said: 

“The greatest danger is becoming accustomed to this crisis. Funding pressure now threatens systems built over nearly a decade. We must protect lifesaving services, strengthen resilience and local capacity, support host communities, and renew collective action towards sustainable solutions.” 

Funding gaps remain substantial. In 2025, the first year of the 2025–26 Joint Response Plan, donors met just 46 percent of the $934.5 million appeal.  The shortfall is now compounding. The cuts have already gutted vital services in the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), food, health and protection sectors.  

Oxfam’s new report, Holding the Line: WASH Systems, Risk and Resilience in the Rohingya Response, shows what is at stake. Across Cox’s Bazar, emergency WASH interventions have evolved into a vast humanitarian public-health system, including 298 water networks, 320 production boreholes, 768 reservoir tanks, more than 7,000 tapstands, nearly 49,500 latrines, and 167 faecal sludge treatment plants. Yet the publication cautions that scale can hide fragility: ageing assets, dry-season water stress, monsoon exposure, uneven operational control and funding compression are increasing risk. 

For women and girls, that strain is a question of safety and dignity as much as sanitation. Asmat Ara, 24, who lives with six family members in a Rohingya camp in Teknaf, said hygiene supplies have dwindled and safe facilities are scarce, making daily life harder. 

“If it gets very late, I feel afraid to go outside,” she said. “Sometimes boys gather outside and make comments. I never go alone at night; I take my mother with me.” 

She also described the growing pressure on menstrual hygiene support: “The pads should be provided again, and the material could also be improved. We also need more soap.” 

Holding the public-health line, the report argues, now depends on steady financing for critical work, such as maintaining and repairing assets, controlling water quality, treating sewage, clearing waste and drains, keeping access safe, and acting fast when disease emerges.  
 
Since 2017, Oxfam has worked alongside Rohingya and host communities, local partners, government institutions, UN agencies and donors across WASH, protection, livelihoods, food security, gender and community engagement. This work, which ranges from surface-water treatment and faecal sludge management to solar lighting, solid-waste systems, food production for dietary diversification, and skills development, shows that humanitarian assistance can protect lives while strengthening resilience and community capacities.  
 
Oxfam is calling on the international community to provide predictable financing, protect essential services, strengthen locally led responses and build host-community resilience. A decade of international solidarity has saved lives and built critical systems. The tenth year must not become one of retreat but of renewed commitment, shared responsibility and credible action towards a sustainable future.