Geneva // The United Nations needs a record $22.2 billion (Dh81.5bn) to cover humanitarian relief projects next year, covering the needs of 93 million people in 33 countries, UN humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien said on Monday.
It’s “the highest amount we have ever requested,” Mr O’Brien said, adding that 80 per cent of the needs stemmed from man-made conflicts, such as those in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Nigeria and South Sudan.
“This is the reflection of a state of human needs in the world not witnessed since the Second World War,” he said.
The global appeal by UN agencies and other humanitarian organisations aims to gather funds to help the 92.8 million most vulnerable of the nearly 129 million people expected to require assistance across 33 countries next year.
The numbers are staggering, especially when considering that Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan alone account for about a third the needs.
The amount appealed for tops the $20.1bn requested last December for 2016 – a year when “humanitarian actors have saved, protected and supported more people than in any previous year since the founding of the United Nations”, Mr O’Brien said.
In the end, the UN broadened its 2016 appeal to $22.1bn, but donors coughed up just $11.4bn for aid projects this year.
“With persistently escalating humanitarian needs, the gap between what has to be done to save and protect more people today and what humanitarians are financed to do and can access is growing ever wider,” he said.
Making matters worse was that “with climate change, natural disasters are likely to become more frequent, more severe”, he said.
Aid needs have been rising steadily for decades. When the UN launched its first global appeal 25 years ago, it estimated that just $2.7bn would cover aid needs around the globe in 1992.
But the situation has worsened dramatically in the last few years.
Globally, “humanitarian needs continue to rise and humanitarian efforts are hampered by reduced access, growing disrespect for human rights and flagrant violations of international humanitarian law”, Mr O’Brien said.
The report highlighted “severely constrained” humanitarian access in places like Syria, Yemen, Iraq and South Sudan, which is “leaving affected people without basic services and protection.”
* Reuters and Agence France-Presse
The Syrian conflict, which has killed more than 300,000 people since March 2011 and forced more than half the population to flee, is set to absorb the biggest portion of the funds.