🍚 Food
Your family's entire food budget: $48 a month.
That's not a grocery run. That's everything. No restaurant meals, no snacks, no backup. The World Food Programme provides cash assistance that Rohingya families use to buy all their food. In 2026, that dropped to as little as $7 per person per month for many families — while the rest of the world watched foreign aid budgets get slashed.
Average American household
Monthly food budget
Rohingya household
$48
per month for 4 people
($12/person — best case scenario)
Average American household
$1,400
per month for 4 people
(~$350/person — USDA 2024 estimate)
Rohingya household food budget
$48
American household food budget
$1,400
Source: WFP Bangladesh (April 2026); USDA Thrifty Food Plan 2024
Daily calories per person
Rohingya household — WFP daily food basket
2,100 kcal
The minimum emergency standard. Just enough to survive — not thrive.
Average American daily intake
3,400 kcal
Source: USDA Economic Research Service
"It is very difficult to understand how we will survive now with only $7. Our children will suffer the most."
— Mohammed Rahim, camp resident, Cox's Bazar (April 2026, via Associated Press)
For your family of 4, this is what food actually looks like.
Your household's $48/month is the equivalent of a single dinner out for most American families — but for your Rohingya household, it has to cover breakfast, lunch, dinner, and every snack for 30 days. And it can't go further: Rohingya people are not legally allowed to work to supplement it. The food is what it is. There is no plan B.
In 2026, after global aid cuts, 17% of Rohingya households saw their support fall to just $7 per person per month — below what it costs to buy enough food in the local market.
💧 Water
Your family gets 96 liters of water a day. To do everything.
That's drinking, cooking, bathing, brushing teeth, washing clothes, and flushing the toilet — for your entire household. Rohingya families collect an average of 24 liters per person per day. That's it. No tap you can turn on a second time. No shower. No washing machine.
Average American household
Daily household water (liters)
Rohingya household
96 L
per day
(24 L/person — April 2026 average)
Average American household
1,400 L
per day
(~350 L/person — EPA estimate)
Rohingya household daily water
96 L
American household daily water
1,400 L
Source: JRP WASH Sector (ISNA 2025); US EPA WaterSense
What does 24 liters actually look like?
🚿A 2-minute shower uses 15–20 L
🚽One toilet flush uses 6–12 L
🍳Cooking a meal uses 3–5 L
💧Drinking water needs: 2–3 L/person/day
24 liters per person covers drinking and cooking. Everything else — bathing, sanitation, laundry — is what's left over. In the camps, latrines are shared: 20 people share one functional toilet.
If WASH funding is cut, "the camps would become virtually uninhabitable within weeks."
The 2026 Joint Response Plan warned that without sustained WASH investment, the equivalent of two Olympic-size swimming pools of waste and three pools of sludge are produced every week across the camps. In 2025, WASH partners cut shallow tubewell maintenance, reduced water quality monitoring, and stopped recycling waste. Communities are now responsible for their own latrine repairs — with no tools and no funding.
🏥 Health & Education
Your family sees a doctor twice a year. And that's the plan.
Not because of distance or cost — because that is the entire service level the humanitarian system can fund. Two outpatient visits per person per year is the 2026 target in the camps. When a child gets sick in November and December, there are no more visits. And in 2026, the health budget was cut by 47%.
Rohingya household
8
doctor visits per year (entire family)
Target: 2 per person
Average American household
16
doctor visits per year (estimated)
~4 per person (CDC, 2023)
Source: JRP Health Sector (2026); CDC National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey
If your family gets sick, here's who the system can see this year
Each circle = one person. Pink circles = covered by 2 annual visits.
Health sector budget change, 2025 → 2026
The 2026 health budget is the "absolute minimum" needed to keep facilities open. Mobile clinics, medicine stockpiling, and physiotherapy have all been cut.
2 of your children need school.
The system can only reach 1.
In Cox's Bazar, 64% of children who need education can access a learning center. These aren't traditional schools — they're community learning centers, often in deteriorating shelters, where children share textbooks. Volunteer teachers are the backbone, and in 2026, even their small incentive stipends are at risk.
Children in Rohingya camps accessing education
64%
552,954 children in need — 237,247 still have no learning opportunity
US public school enrollment
~96%
Source: National Center for Education Statistics (2023–24)
These children aren't failing school. School is failing them.
The funding shortfall in 2026 means fewer volunteer teachers, shared textbooks, and crumbling learning centers. The cost per child was cut from $160 to $120 per year — less than a third of what American schools spend per pupil per month. BRAC is one of the organizations working directly in these camps, running education and protection programs that reach tens of thousands of children. But BRAC cannot do this without sustained international support.
