For decades, the international humanitarian system has operated on an assumption inherited from the 20th century: Crises are temporary disruptions; states remain broadly functional; and outside organizations can intervene, stabilize conditions, and withdraw. Africa’s 21st-century reality has broken each of those assumptions. Large stretches of the continent now exist in conditions better described as “permacrisis” — where armed conflict, climate shocks, displacement, disease outbreaks, and governance failures overlap for years rather than months.