The UN yesterday appealed for record funds for aid next year, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine and other conflicts, climate emergencies and the COVID-19 pandemic push more people into crisis, and some toward famine.
The UN’s annual Global Humanitarian Overview estimated that 339 million people worldwide would need some form of emergency assistance next year — a staggering 65 million more people than the estimate a year ago.
“It’s a phenomenal number and it’s a depressing number,” UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland, adding that it meant “next year is going to be the biggest humanitarian program” the world has ever seen.
Photo: AP
If all the people in need of emergency assistance were in one country, it would be the third-largest nation in the world, after China and India, he said.
The new estimate means that one in 23 people would need help next year, compared with one in 95 in 2015.
As the extreme events seen this year spill into next year, Griffiths described the humanitarian needs as “shockingly high.”
Photo: AFP
“Lethal droughts and floods are wreaking havoc in communities from Pakistan to the Horn of Africa,” he said, also pointing to the war in Ukraine, which “has turned a part of Europe into a battlefield.”
The annual appeal by UN agencies and other humanitarian organizations said that providing aid to the 230 million most vulnerable people across 68 countries would require a record US$51.5 billion.
That was up from US$41 billion requested for this year, although the sum has been revised up to about US$50 billion during the year — with less than half of that sought-for amount funded.
“For people on the brink, this appeal is a lifeline,” Griffiths said.
The report presented a depressing picture of soaring needs brought on by a range of conflicts, worsening instability and a deepening climate crisis.
“There is no doubt that 2023 is going to perpetuate these on-steroids trends,” Griffiths said.
The overlapping crises have left the world dealing with the “largest global food crisis in modern history,” the UN said, adding that at least 222 million people across 53 countries were expected to face acute food insecurity by the end of this year, with 45 million of them facing the risk of starvation.
“Five countries already are experiencing what we call famine-like conditions, in which we can confidently, unhappily, say that people are dying as a result,” Griffiths said.
Those countries — Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Haiti, Somalia and South Sudan — have seen portions of their populations face “catastrophic hunger” this year, but have not yet seen country-wide famines declared.
Forced displacement is also surging, with the number of people living as refugees, asylum seekers or displaced inside their own country passing 100 million — or more than 1 percent of the global population — for the first time this year.
“And all of this on top of the devastation left by the pandemic among the world’s poorest,” Griffiths said, also pointing to outbreaks of mpox, previously known as monkeypox, Ebola, cholera and other diseases.
Conflicts have taken a dire toll on a range of countries, not least on Ukraine, where Russia’s full-scale invasion in February has left millions in dire need.
The global humanitarian scheme would aim to provide US$1.7 billion in cash assistance to 6.3 million people inside the war-torn country, as well as US$5.7 billion to help the millions of Ukrainians and their host communities in surrounding countries.
More than 28 million people are considered to be in need in drought-hit Afghanistan, which last year saw the Taliban sweep back into power, while another 8 million Afghans and their hosts in the region also need assistance.
More than US$5 billion has been requested to address that combined crisis, while further billions were requested to help the many millions of people impacted by the years-long conflicts in Syria and Yemen.
The appeal also highlighted the dire situation in Ethiopia, where worsening drought and a two-year-conflict in Tigray have left nearly 29 million people in desperate need of assistance.
Faced with such towering needs, Griffiths said he hoped that next year would be a year of “solidarity, just as 2022 has been a year of suffering.”
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