OCHA hopes to reach 190 million people in ‘critical need’ amid the twin blows of conflict and the climate crisis.
The United Nations’ new humanitarian chief has warned that tough choices will be needed as more than $47bn is appealed to deliver aid next year.
Tom Fletcher, the head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said during the annual funding appeal on Wednesday that he was looking to 2025 with “fear” after “donor fatigue” left more than half of the world’s population. The annual call for $50bn was not met.
“The world is burning, and we made it this way,” Fletcher told reporters in Geneva, adding that action was desperately needed as conflicts escalated in such places. Gaza, Sudan And Ukraine, but Climate change And extreme weather is also causing “unprecedented levels of suffering”.
OCHA chiefs pledged to be “ruthless” in prioritizing how to spend the $47.4bn next year. He said plans were being drawn up to channel aid to “the most in need”, which included 190 million people fleeing conflict and struggling with hunger. In total, the UN hopes to reach people in 32 countries next year.
As of last month, only 43 percent of the $50 billion appeal for 2024 had been met, with an 80 percent cut in food aid in Syria, cuts to rescue services in Myanmar and reduced water and sanitation aid in cholera-stricken Yemen, the UN agency said.
The United States is the largest donor, contributing more than $10bn last year. Fletcher, who acknowledged fears that President-elect Donald Trump could cut funding, said he expects to spend “a lot of time” in Washington over the next few months.
Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, who led OCHA from 2003-2006, said the US funding was a “huge question mark”.
“If the US administration cuts its humanitarian funding, it could become more complicated to fill the growing needs gap,” he said.
The 2025 appeal is the fourth largest in OCHA’s history, but Fletcher stressed that it still leaves out about 115 million people whose needs the agency realistically does not expect to fund.
The global humanitarian system is “overstretched, it’s underfunded and it’s literally under attack,” Fletcher said. “We need a surge of global solidarity,” he said.
At least 281 humanitarian workers Places including Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine and the Democratic Republic of Congo have killed this year, the highest number on record.
