Multiple unending conflicts, climate change and a blatant disregard for long-established international humanitarian law (IHL) will leave a staggering 305 million people in need of humanitarian aid next year, the UN's top aid official warned on Wednesday, as the United Nations launched an appeal for US$47.4 billion to provide life-saving relief in more than 30 countries and 9 refugee-hosting regions.
“The world is on fire […] We are dealing with a polycrisis right now globally, and it is the most vulnerable people in the world who are paying the price. We are dealing with the impact of conflicts - multiple conflicts - and crises of longer duration and of more intense ferocity,” said Tom Fletcher, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC) and head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
The 2025 Global Humanitarian Overview (GHO) outlines carefully prioritized humanitarian and refugee response plans on behalf of more than 1,500 humanitarian partners to provide critical assistance to 190 million of the 305 million people in need.
In 2024, the Global Humanitarian Overview called for $49.6 billion in requirements, but as of November, only 43 percent - $21 billion - of the amount had been met. According to OCHA, these massive funding shortfalls have impacted crises around the world, especially those that are chronically underfunded.
To date, the UN and its partners have reached nearly 116 million of the 180 million people targeted worldwide this year, providing vital food, shelter, health, education and protection services. But the consequences of underfunding are stark. 2024 saw an 80 percent reduction in food assistance in Syria, cuts to protection services in Myanmar, reduced water and sanitation assistance in cholera-prone Yemen, and escalating hunger in Chad.
Lack of funding is just one of the reasons why so many people have not been reached in countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where populations have endured decades of violence and instability.
“In DRC, as with all these conflicts, we are ready to do more, it's our mission to do more,” insisted Fletcher.
“My people are desperate to get out there and deliver because they really are on the frontline. They can see what is needed but we need these resources. That's our call to action and we also need the world to do more; those with power to do more, to challenge this era of impunity and to challenge this era of indifference.”
As the UN's newly appointed top aid official, Fletcher pledged to visit the world's capitals “to bash down doors” of government in search of new partnerships and solidarity for the world’s most vulnerable people.
“I've got to find ways to reframe this argument in a way that will resonate with the public at large,” he added.
Citing his past roles as a British ambassador with experience in conflict and peace-building, from Kenya to Lebanon and Northern Ireland, the new OCHA chief stressed the need to ensure that aid continues to flow where it's needed most.
“I have a very clear mission around humanitarian delivery,” he said, before paying tribute to the “extraordinary entrepreneurial humanitarian diplomacy” of his predecessor Martin Griffiths, who stepped down in June for health reasons.
Asked by journalists about the changing geopolitical landscape in a bumper year of hugely significant national and presidential elections, Fletcher insisted that “it's not just about America…we're facing the election of a number of governments who will be more questioning of what the United Nations does.”
“[…] But I don't believe that we can't make that case to them; I don't believe that there isn't compassion in these governments which are getting elected.”
In his comments to journalists at the launch of the Global Humanitarian Overview 2025, Fletcher warned that climate-related disasters are devastating communities, destroying food systems, and driving mass displacement.
Meanwhile, older crises remain unresolved, with the average humanitarian appeal now lasting a decade.
“It's not just the fact of so many conflicts at the same time, it's the duration of those conflicts; the average length is 10 years,” he said.
“We're not closing off conflicts before the next ones are starting. And the fact that those conflicts are so ferocious and the impact on civilians is so dramatic. I mentioned Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine as examples of that, with this disregard of international law and in every case, obstruction of our work.”
While stressing how many lives have been shattered by conflict around the world - not least in Sudan, where the new UN relief chief spent last week visiting and talking to people uprooted by war - Fletcher underscored how severe the climate crisis is for already vulnerable people.
“We know the world is perilously close to reaching 1.5°C warming. But already, we are seeing the devastating effects of climate change; […] Everyone is affected, but it is the most vulnerable people on the planet who are shouldering the lion’s share,” he said.
2024 is expected to be the hottest year on record. It has been marked by even more extreme weather-related disasters.
“But the damage goes much further than that caused by the extreme weather events. The climate crisis is also wreaking havoc on agriculture and food systems, it undermines livelihoods and deepens food insecurity”, the OCHA chief said.
“The dread I have is that those two huge drivers of need are now combining,” he said.
“And that's what makes our job so difficult. And they're often combining in areas that have already suffered huge levels of poverty and inequality.”
According to the latest estimates from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), some 123 million people around the world have been forcibly displaced by conflict, as war and armed conflict increase in frequency and brutality.
“And among that group, violations against children are also at record levels and I saw this of course in Sudan; one in every five children is living in a conflict zone right now,” Fletcher said.
Among his priorities, the UN's top aid official insisted that guaranteed access to aid remains a key issue he will seek to address.
“I talked to our teams in the field every day, and they are facing multiple obstructions to getting the basics of humanitarian aid through,” he noted.
“Our job is to get the humanitarian support through, checkpoint by checkpoint, border by border, it's what I was doing in Sudan […] Arguing truck by truck for that humanitarian delivery. That's our mission.”
The launch of the Global Humanitarian Overview 2025 in Geneva, Kuwait and Nairobi on Wednesday is also an opportunity to push for greater respect and understanding of the laws of war and international humanitarian law by combatants to protect civilians and aid workers, who have been killed in record numbers this year.
The single most important obstacle to assisting and protecting people in armed conflict is the widespread violation of international humanitarian law. 2024 is already the deadliest year for humanitarian workers, with 282 killed, surpassing last year's toll of 280. The vast majority of the fatalities are national aid workers.
“It's not just the ferocity of these conflicts - Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Syria - it's about that willful neglect of international humanitarian law,” Fletcher said.
“And about the fact, and as a result, we seem to have lost our anchor somehow.”
“We need a new level of global solidarity to fully fund these appeals, and bold political action to uphold international law,” he said.
UN Secretary-General AntĂłnio Guterres echoed Fletcher's call in a written message today.
“We cannot help the people enduring these nightmares with less than half the help required. Today’s growing crises need more support, not less”, Guterres stressed, referring to this year’s underfunding.
“In addition to a surge of funding, we need a surge of political will to ensure adherence to international humanitarian law, invest in development, resilience and climate action, and protect civilians and aid workers as they carry out their life-saving task.”
He warned that 2025 must be different.
“Let’s make 2025 a year in which we ease human suffering, heal divisions and make progress to a better, more peaceful and hopeful future for all people,” Guterres said.
Further information
Website: Global Humanitarian Overview 2025, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
https://humanitarianaction.info/
Full text: Global Humanitarian Overview 2025, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), report, abridged version, released December 4, 2024
https://reliefweb.int/attachments/e6636504-e955-4a56-9f03-cc178b4b82da/Global%20Humanitarian%20Overview%202025%20%28Abridged%20Report%29.pdf