Press Conferences , Edited News | OCHA
305 million people need lifesaving help next year, says UN’s top aid official
Multiple unending conflicts, climate change and a glaring disregard for long-established international humanitarian law are set to leave a staggering 305 million people in need of lifesaving assistance next year, the UN’s top aid official warned on Wednesday.
“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 and head of the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, in an appeal for $47.4 billion to provide life-saving aid in more than 30 countries and nine refugee-hosting regions.
Impossible choices
Dire as OCHA’s new humanitarian assessment is on behalf of more than 1,500 humanitarian partners, it is expected that of the 305 million in need, only 190 million will be reached.
A lack of funding is just one of the reasons why, in countries where populations have endured decades of violence and instability, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
“In DRC, as with all these conflicts, we are ready to do more, it's our mission to do more,” insisted Mr. 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.”
Doorstepping role
As the UN’s newly appointed top aid official, Mr. Fletcher pledged to visit the capitals of the world “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 UK 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 to 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.
Election changes
Asked about the changing geopolitical landscape in a bumper year of hugely significant national and presidential elections, Mr. 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 that there isn't compassion in these governments which are getting elected.”
In comments to journalists at the unveiling of the Global Humanitarian Overview 2025, Mr. Fletcher confirmed that communities continue to be confronted with multiple crises.
“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.”
Climate crisis accelerator
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 the war – Mr. Fletcher underscored how severe the climate crisis is on already vulnerable people.
“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.”
Latest estimates indicate that some 123 million people have been displaced forcibly by conflict worldwide, Mr. Fletcher continued. “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.”
Challenging aid obstacles
Among his priorities, the top UN aid official insisted that guaranteed aid access remains a key issue that he would 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.”
Wednesday’s Global Humanitarian Overview 2025 launch in Geneva, Kuwait and Nairobi will also be 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 teams who have died in record numbers this year.
“It's not just the ferocity of these conflicts - Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Syria - it's about that wilful neglect of international humanitarian law,” Mr. Fletcher said. And about the fact and as a result, we seem to have lost our anchor somehow.”
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Edited News | UNRWA , WHO
Gaza: SOS messages describe people fainting from hunger; UN health worker detained
Worrying alerts from United Nations staff in Gaza who have been fainting from hunger and exhaustion over the past 48 hours have increased fears for people’s survival in the devastated enclave, UN humanitarians said on Tuesday.
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Press Conferences | IPU , UNRWA , WHO , OCHA
Alessandra Vellucci of the United Nations Information Service (UNIS) in Geneva, chaired the hybrid briefing, attended by spokespersons and representatives of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and the International Parliamentary Union.
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Edited News | UNHCR , UNOG
Over 11.6 million refugees risk losing aid access due to funding cuts, says UNHCR
Approximately one in three refugees and other vulnerable individuals normally supported by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) are expected to lose out from funding cuts, it said on Friday.
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Edited News | OHCHR
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Edited News | OHCHR
“The surge in the number of Afghans forced or compelled to return to Afghanistan this year is creating a multi-layered human rights crisis requiring the urgent attention of the international community,” UN Human Rights spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said on Friday.
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Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk on Friday called for accountability and justice for the killings and other gross human rights violations and abuses in the southern city of Suweida.
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Edited News | OHCHR , UNHCR
Syria: hundreds killed in Sweida, ‘widespread’ violations as civilians flee for their lives
Amid violent clashes in southern Syria’s Sweida governorate, a picture of grave human rights abuses and rising humanitarian needs is emerging by the hour, the UN said on Friday.
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Press Conferences | UNHCR , OHCHR
Rolando Gómez of the United Nations Information Service (UNIS) in Geneva, chaired the hybrid briefing, attended by spokespersons and representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
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Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
At the bi-weekly press briefing in Geneva the UN Human Rights Spokesperson Liz Throssell made the following statement on the latest number of civilian casualties in Ukraine.
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Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
The UN Human Rights Office on Tuesday called for investigations into hundreds of killings of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank by Israeli security forces and settlers, warning against ongoing forced mass displacement of the Palestinian population.
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Edited News | OHCHR , UNRWA
Nearly 900 people have been killed in Gaza in recent weeks trying to fetch food, with most deaths linked to private aid hubs run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Tuesday.
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Press Conferences | UNOG , UNRWA , OHCHR , WHO
Alessandra Vellucci, Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired a hybrid press briefing, which was attended by the representatives and spokespersons of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, and the World Health Organization.