The United Nations on Wednesday appealed for $47 billion in aid by 2025 to help some 190 million people fleeing conflict and fighting hunger, as this year’s appeal is less than half met and officials Western states, including top donors, fear cuts. The United States
Faced with what new UN aid chief Tom Fletcher described as “an unprecedented level of suffering”, the UN hopes to reach people in 32 countries next year, including war-torn Sudan. , including Syria, the Middle East and Ukraine.
“The world is on fire, and this is how we put it out,” Fletcher told reporters in Geneva.
“We need to reset our relationship with the people most in need on the planet,” said Fletcher, a former British diplomat who last month headed the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Work had started.
The appeal is the fourth largest in OCHA’s history, but Fletcher said that leaves about 115 million people whose needs the agency cannot realistically hope to fund:
“We have to focus on reaching the people who are most in dire need and are really ruthless.”
The United Nations cut its 2024 appeal to $46 billion from $56 billion last year as donors lost appetite, but it is still only 43 percent funded, one of the worst rates in history. . Washington has given more than $10 billion, receiving nearly half of the funds.
Aid workers have had to make tough choices, OCHA said, with an 80 percent cut in food aid in Syria and cuts to water services in cholera-stricken Yemen.
Aid is only a fraction of the total spending of the United Nations, which for years has been unable to cover its core budget due to unpaid dues from countries.
Incoming President Donald Trump maintained the UN’s aid budget while freezing some UN spending during his first term. This time, aid officials and diplomats see cuts as a possibility.
Global sentiment is against overseas humanitarian aid.
“The U.S. is a huge question mark,” said Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, who held Fletcher’s position from 2003-2006. “I fear that we may be deeply disappointed because the global mood and national political developments are not in our favor.”
Project 2025, a set of conservative proposals whose authors include some of Trump’s advisers, aims to “increase wasteful budgets” by the US aid agency USAID. The incoming Trump administration did not respond to a request for comment.
Fletcher cited “the breakdown of our system for international solidarity” and called for a broadening of the donor base.
Asked about Trump’s influence, he said: “I don’t believe there’s a lack of compassion in the governments that are being elected.”
One of the challenges is that crises are now lasting longer – 10 years on average according to OCHA.
Mike Ryan, the World Health Organization’s emergencies chief, said some states were entering a “state of permanent crisis”.
The European Commission – the EU’s executive body – and Germany are two and three donors to the UN’s aid budget this year.
Charlotte Salente, secretary general of the Danish Refugee Council, said that Europe’s contributions are also in doubt as funds are diverted to defence:
“It’s a more fragile, unpredictable world. [than in Trump’s first term]With more crises and, if the US administration cuts its humanitarian aid, filling the gap of growing needs may become more complicated.”