Staying resilient in the face of increasing risk: 2025 in review, 2026 ahead

January 19, 2026

2025 was a defining year in Africa—a year where shrinking budgets, political volatility, and climate shocks pushed organisations to operate with more uncertainty than ever before. At Maravi, we spent last year as we will this one: helping our clients rethink how they protect their people, programmes, and long-term mission in an environment where risk evolves faster than funding cycles. Here, we take a look at those challenges, and how to tackle them head-on in 2026.

Political and security volatility

Elections, regulatory shifts, and shrinking civic space have added layers of unpredictability across multiple countries, from East to West Africa. For the journalists, lawyers, civil servants and anti-corruption organisations that we support, it means constantly reassessing the risks, sometimes to themselves directly as well as in their operational environment. Understanding the political landscape, navigating new visa rules, and adapting to travel restrictions all contribute to keeping staff mobile and safe. Risk assessments cannot be infrequent exercises; they needed to be living processes with actionable results.

Aid cuts and operational pressure

For NGOs in particular, the continued reduction of donor funding affected nearly everything in 2025. Losing a donor often means losing more than programme money, it can also mean losing access to secure facilities, logistical support, or emergency infrastructure. Many organisations were forced to scale back preparedness training, IT security, or business continuity planning, despite these being the very tools that keep staff and assets safe and organisations resilient. We’ve worked with our clients to find a way around these cuts as much as possible. But as well as the personal and programmatic impacts on organisations and their teams, aid cuts have also affected the structure and resilience of local economies, with suppliers and local communities all facing continued cuts too.

Cybersecurity and online exposure

While physical threats remain front of mind, 2025 showed again how exposed all organisations are to cybercrime. Remote work, limited IT budgets, and valuable donor and government data made NGOs prime targets last year. Even small investments—staff training, secure backups, simple access controls—can make a big difference. We also advise our clients on keeping their staff safe online, particularly those in sensitive roles.

The humanitarian and climate dimension

Droughts, floods, and extreme weather are increasing threats to staff, assets and programmes. For NGOs working in conservation, food security and health, climate risk became inseparable from operational risk. Supply chains broke down, transport routes closed and, in wildlife regions, resource scarcity fuelled poaching, trafficking and community tensions.

Key Lessons from 2025: Several themes emerged repeatedly across the organisations we support:

1. Prioritise staff safety, wellbeing, and digital literacy
2. Build in-house capabilities for organisational resilience
3. Strengthen local partnerships for security insights and access.
4. Diversify funding and reduce dependence on single sources
5. Maintain operational reserves and invest in core safety, security and safeguarding infrastructure

How we support our clients:

Our focus remains simple: helping organisations stay operationally safe and resilient. Whether it’s crisis management, conducting risk assessments, strengthening contingency plans, improving cybersecurity, or providing on-the-ground training and support, we work with clients to build systems that last—even when funding or conditions do not.

2026 will bring new challenges, but with preparation, adaptability, and the right partnerships, our clients continue to deliver impact while protecting their staff and communities. Maravi Group stands ready to help make that resilience possible.

As part of our commitment, we’ll be offering a free course to NGOs in 2026 to enable them to take aspects of their duty of care in-house – more information to follow next year!