China plays an increasingly important role in international humanitarian efforts as the global aid system undergoes a painful "reset" marked by shrinking resources and rising needs, a senior British researcher has said.

Hugo Slim, director of the Las Casas Institute for Social Justice at Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford, told China Daily that China has developed good practices and genuine South-South solidarity in emergencies, as it often sends important supplies such as medicines and vaccines to people in need.

China has been actively engaging in global humanitarian action through both bilateral assistance as well as contributions and collaboration with relevant United Nations organizations.

At the beginning of this year, China provided emergency cash assistance to South Africa, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique, which were hit by severe flooding, according to the China International Development Cooperation Agency.

In addition, China has extended emergency humanitarian assistance to countries affected by the latest round of conflict in the Middle East, including Iran, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq.

In 2025, China worked with the United Nations Development Programme to help establish an early warning system for climate disasters for the Maldives and Pakistan.

Slim believes such long-term capacity-building efforts should be the next focus of China's humanitarian engagement.

By sharing its experience and working with partner countries to strengthen national systems for disaster warning and prevention, as well as build institutions for emergency management, China could help enhance their long-term capacity for self-reliance, he said.

Speaking about the current difficulties facing the global humanitarian system, Slim said the world is witnessing budget cuts of roughly 35 percent in humanitarian funding, mass job losses across humanitarian crisis relief agencies, and the scaling back of health, education and life-saving programs worldwide.

According to a global humanitarian overview for 2026 issued by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, nearly 240 million people will require aid in 2026, yet global funding has fallen by more than half.

The British scholar attributed the decline in aid to political and economic shifts in major donor countries.

The current government of the United States, which, as Slim said, regards foreign aid as "unnecessary" and "expensive", has shut down the US Agency for International Development, reduced or even halted funding to UN-related bodies, and withdrawn from dozens of multilateral organizations and mechanisms.

Meanwhile, major donors, including Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, have also cut aid and redirected resources toward defense spending due to security concerns stemming from the Ukraine crisis, he said.