We are asking candidates in the key Senate races to commit to supporting humanitarian aid to Africa.

Today, The Caring World is launching Humanitarian Senate Watch 2026.

Over the coming weeks, we will contact candidates in key U.S. Senate races and ask them a series of direct questions about something receiving far too little attention in this election:

What should America’s humanitarian role in the world be?

Will they support restoring U.S. funding and programs that have been cut, withheld or disrupted in the fight against HIV/AIDS, particularly in Africa?

Will they protect and fully fund PEPFAR, the extraordinary bipartisan American program that has helped save more than 26 million lives?

Will they support programs fighting hunger, childhood malnutrition, malaria, tuberculosis and other preventable diseases?

Do they believe one of the wealthiest nations on Earth still has a responsibility to help vulnerable people beyond its borders?

And we’re going to ask a harder question:

If your vote could determine whether lifesaving humanitarian assistance was restored—and your party’s leadership opposed it—would you vote to restore it anyway?

Would you publicly encourage members of your own party to join you?

We’ll ask Republicans and Democrats.

Then we’ll publish their answers.

Where candidates have voting records, we’ll examine them. Where they don’t, candidates will have an opportunity to establish their positions. If someone chooses not to answer, we’ll report simply: No Response.

Later this fall, we’ll publish the Humanitarian Senate Watch 2026 Report Card, followed by a final update before Election Day.

We’re not endorsing candidates. And we’re certainly not suggesting humanitarian policy should be the only issue—or even the most important issue—that determines anyone’s vote.

We simply believe it deserves to be one of them.

Why are we doing this?

Because the people most affected by these decisions have almost no voice in making them.

A child facing starvation in Africa doesn’t have a lobbyist in Washington. A mother trying to protect her baby from HIV doesn’t make campaign contributions. A family whose community has been destabilized by drought, disease or war doesn’t get to vote for a United States senator.

But senators make decisions that can profoundly affect their lives.

At The Caring World, standing up for vulnerable people is our mission.

For decades, the United States did extraordinary work on their behalf. Perhaps no program demonstrates that better than PEPFAR—the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Created under Republican President George W. Bush and sustained with bipartisan support, PEPFAR has helped save more than 26 million lives.

That is an American accomplishment worth being proud of—and protecting.

But there’s another reason to care.

Helping vulnerable populations isn’t only the morally right thing for America to do. It is also a smart thing for America to do.

Extreme poverty, hunger, disease and instability can create conditions in which wars begin, migration accelerates and extremist organizations gain a foothold. Helping communities become healthier and more stable can help address those dangers before they become much larger—and much more expensive—problems.

Foreign assistance also builds something that is difficult to put on a government balance sheet:

Trust.

For decades, American-supported health workers, development organizations and humanitarian programs worked alongside communities around the world. They delivered medicine and food, helped build health systems, educated children and responded when disaster struck.

They showed people an America that wanted to help.

And when America walks away from those relationships, someone else can walk in.

China already is.

As we’ve previously explored at The Caring World, China has spent years building relationships across Africa—investing in railways, power systems, hospitals, roads, mining and other infrastructure.

At the same time, China has built an enormously important position in the critical minerals that will help power the technologies and industries of the future: cobalt, copper, lithium, graphite, rare earths and others.

This isn’t simply generosity.

It’s strategy.

Africa will be home to some of the world’s fastest-growing populations, workforces, cities and markets in the decades ahead. Nations struggling today may become some of tomorrow’s important economic and strategic partners.

America should want those nations to see us as a trusted partner—not simply as a country that disappeared when people needed medicine or food and returned years later because we needed their minerals or their markets.

There is nothing wrong with pursuing America’s economic interests. We should.

But humanitarian leadership and American self-interest aren’t opposites.

They can reinforce each other.

Relationships built now can become partnerships later.

Walking away creates an opening for others.

Humanitarian Senate Watch 2026 will ask the people seeking seats in the United States Senate whether they believe America should continue to show up.

Then we’ll tell you what they said.

The Caring World stands up for vulnerable people.

We want to know which candidates for the United States Senate are prepared to stand up for them, too.