One in every 23 people needs humanitarian aid

A record $51.5 billion is needed to help 230 million of the world’s most vulnerable people in nearly 70 countries next year, the UN said on Thursday.

According to the report, UN 2023 Global Humanitarian Overview report, revealing that 339 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian aid - the highest caseload in history

The size of the appeal – 25 per cent higher than this year’s - reflects the fact that the total number in need is 65 million more than in 2022, the UN and partner organizations noted.

Oxfam’s Global Humanitarian Director Marta Valdes Garcia said, “One in every 23 people around the world –the equivalent of nearly half of the entire population of Europe– is now in urgent need of humanitarian aid. This news must be an immediate wake-up call”.

“The humanitarian needs are outstripping the aid system’s ability to respond.  We have to rethink not only how we try to meet those needs, but what the failures are of global systems that are leading to such rapidly growing inequality in the first place” She said.

Garcia also said Humanitarian aid is flatlining but, again, we’re seeing the UN appealing for even more resources, from the same pool of donors, to help even more desperate people trying to cope in a crisis. Again, those most in need will receive only a pittance of what they are asking for.

On the other hand, speaking in Geneva at the launch of the Global Humanitarian Overview report 2023, UN’s top emergency relief official, Martin Griffiths described the appeal as a “lifeline” for people on the brink.

He explained that numerous countries had been hit by lethal droughts and floods, from Pakistan to the Horn of Africa. In addition, the war in Ukraine had “turned a part of Europe into a battlefield.

He added More than 100 million people are now displaced worldwide. And all of this on top of the devastation left by the pandemic among the world’s poorest.

“The global humanitarian system is already overwhelmed. We know that people are being made homeless, hungry and sick by climate change, conflict, poverty and inequality and economic failures – but these are not isolated issues, they’re the same endemic crisis” Garcia said.

“We must not wait any longer. We need a radical overhaul of how our global systems work, putting the dignity and rights of people in crisis first”, Garcia added.

Garcia said we must both immediately respond to this unprecedented humanitarian need and find ways to change a runaway global financial system where the few are benefiting at the cost of the many. How can we have hundreds of new food and energy billionaires yet we cannot fund basic humanitarian needs to stop millions of people from starving? 

 “National governments must also tackle the root causes of poverty and inequality that worsen the blow of disasters on those already suffering. One key way this can be done is by injecting resources into global public goods, from climate adaptation to social protection” She said.

On the other hand, Mr. Griffiths said that he expected it to be “very difficult” to achieve the full amount requested from donors both national and private, whose generosity was unable to keep up with growing demands.

This year’s UN-led Global Humanitarian appeal is only 47 per cent funded – a sharp drop from earlier years where funding levels used to reach 60 to 65 per cent, he explained.

In Ukraine, the UN official explained that 13.6 million people had received assistance and that a total of $5.7 billion had been requested for the country and wider region next year. “As we go into the winter, this ain’t getting any easier, or less,” he said.