The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that halfway through 2024, only 18 percent - or US$8.8 billion - of the US$48.7 billion needed to help people in need around the world this year has been received. This is far less than at the same time last year, when there was already a massive shortfall. At the same time, more than 300 million people around the world are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.
In the first six months of 2024, humanitarian needs worsened in several countries, while new crises hit other regions and countries, causing global humanitarian needs to rise from $46.4 billion in January 2024 to $48.7 billion in June 2024, according to the mid-year update of the Global Humanitarian Overview 2024 released on Wednesday.
According to OCHA, new appeals and plans have been launched in Bangladesh, Burundi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, with the Global Humanitarian Overview (GHO) now targeting 188 million people - up from 147 million at the start of the year - in 72 countries through 41 coordinated plans.
Following the worst funding shortfall in years in 2023, the UN has worked hard for 2024 to better define its financial needs and focus assistance on the most vulnerable populations. In the face of major global funding cuts, the humanitarian community prepared for 2024 by making difficult decisions about who and what to include and exclude from humanitarian appeals around the world.
Due to the severe lack of funding and pressure from donor countries, aid agencies implemented this more targeted response in 2024, with a focus on assisting women, men and children in "extreme" and "catastrophic" need, meaning that the severe needs of millions of others remain unmet due to anticipated underfunding.
As a result, the number of people estimated in need has been radically reduced from 363 million at the end of last year, and the percentage of people targeted has been reduced from 68 percent to 49 percent. As a result, tens of millions of people in desperate need have no chance of receiving humanitarian assistance.
“Sadly, however, halfway through the year, we have received less than 20 percent of the US$48 billion required. This is 18 percent lower, in absolute terms, than we had received at the same time last year,” said Joyce Msuya, UN Assistant Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, Wednesday.
Msuya was speaking at the Humanitarian Affairs Segment of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) during a session on underfunding.
“This lack of funding, combined with other factors such as obstructed access, is forcing the UN and our humanitarian partners to make even tougher decisions about who receives aid. Full programs have had to be halted or severely cut back.”
The UN says these funding gaps are having a real impact on the lives of millions of people and urges donors to continue to contribute generously to humanitarian response plans. OCHA warns that the consequences of underfunding are particularly acute in the nine most underfunded crises: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Haiti, Honduras, Mali, Myanmar and Sudan.
This is in spite of the fact that in six of these nine crises there has been a significant increase in humanitarian needs over the past year: Burkina Faso, Chad, DRC, Haiti, Myanmar and Sudan.
Cuts in food aid due to underfunding are putting people at risk of starvation in places like Burkina Faso, South Sudan and Yemen.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has had to reduce or abandon assistance to people facing crisis levels of acute food insecurity in order to focus on those facing emergency, catastrophic or famine levels of hunger. This disastrous development risks pushing even more people into these higher levels of extreme food insecurity and hunger.
“In Syria, where people are facing their worst humanitarian situation in 13 years of conflict, WFP had to suspend its emergency food assistance for several months. Thankfully this assistance has since resumed, but only to one third of people who need it,” Msuya said, noting that in Burkina Faso, 1.3 million people will be left without assistance to face acute levels of food insecurity during the upcoming lean season.
“And for refugees in South Sudan, WFP has had to reduce rations to 70 percent for those facing catastrophic hunger conditions, and by 50 percent for those facing emergency levels of food insecurity,” she said.
Health care is also suffering. In Syria, for example, where about two-thirds of hospitals and half of primary care facilities are out of service, nearly 15 million people are at risk of losing access to health and nutrition services due to lack of funding. Lack of funding for basic health services directly translates into increased risk of noncommunicable diseases, worsening maternal and child mortality, and loss of mental health and psychosocial support.
When water, sanitation and hygiene assistance is not adequately addressed, people are at an increased risk of illness and disease. In Afghanistan, for example, a lack of funding has led to a spike in acute watery diarrhea and cholera, with more than 25,000 cases in the first quarter of the year, mostly affecting children under five.
“We are facing the same troubling consequences of underfunding and inaction across all areas of humanitarian action, including education, gender-based violence services, and cash support for internally displaced people and refugees,” Msuya said.
She noted that underfunding and access challenges in the first half of the year meant that only 27 percent - 39.7 million - of the people targeted in the 2024 Global Humanitarian Overview - 147 million - had received assistance.
From Gaza to Sudan to Myanmar and beyond, the first half of 2024 has been marked by extreme challenges, from attacks on health, education, and water and sanitation facilities that have left millions without access to the services they need to survive and thrive, to the killing, injuring, and detention of aid workers.
In many contexts, conflict and the lack of respect for international humanitarian law (IHL) - including horrific attacks on aid workers - as well as the imposition of bureaucratic obstacles by warring parties, have hampered the ability of humanitarians to respond and affected people's ability to safely access services and assistance.
The combination of underfunding and access barriers has devastating consequences for millions around the world. When people cannot reach - or are not reached by - humanitarian assistance, protection and services, their lives and livelihoods are at risk.
While the UN continues to work with partners, including through the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), to increase the availability of development financing in emergencies and fragile situations to ease the burden on humanitarian agencies to deliver basic services, this alone is not enough.
“[…] as we go into the second half of the year, the unavoidable reality is that nothing fully replaces the need for donors to step forward with outstanding funding – funding for our partners, for our country appeals, for country-based pooled funds, for the Central Emergency Response Fund,” Msuya said. "Every cent matters."
Further information
Full text: Global Humanitarian Overview 2024 Mid-year update, OCHA, report, published June 26, 2024
https://humanitarianaction.info/document/global-humanitarian-overview-2024-mid-year-update
Full text: UN deputy relief chief: Funding shortages force tougher aid decisions, Remarks by Joyce Msuya, Assistant Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, at the ECOSOC Humanitarian Affairs Segment, OCHA, speech, released June 26, 2024
https://www.unocha.org/news/un-deputy-relief-chief-funding-shortages-force-tougher-aid-decisions