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Amid rising needs, UN relief chief condemns '$1 billion-a-day' cost of war in Middle East

The UN’s emergency relief chief on Wednesday condemned the “$1 billion-a-day” cost of the war roiling the Middle East, at a time of severe cuts to the global body’s humanitarian work in emergencies and “soaring” needs.

“We're seeing the consequences spread faster than we can respond,” warned the Under-Secretary-General for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Tom Fletcher.

Speaking in Geneva, he highlighted that a $23 billion appeal announced last December to help 87 million of the world’s most vulnerable people remains around two-thirds underfunded.

“We still need over $14 billion now to deliver this plan, and this is at a time when conflict in the Middle East is costing $1 billion a day,” he said. “Even just $1 billion would allow us to save millions of lives. So, the choice is there: are we going to close this gap?”

Mr. Fletcher insisted that without additional support, “millions of people will die”, in a call to donors to deliver on their pledges quickly: “We need those who have more funds available to get those funds moving fast towards this plan in the first half of the year, not the second half, to allow us to deliver where support is most needed.”

While the number of people in need of assistance globally far outnumbers the 87 million identified in the “hyper-prioritized plan” unveiled at the end of last year, Mr. Fletcher explained that these were the people “in greatest need”.

The plan involves some 2,000 humanitarian organizations of which 60 per cent are local partners and organizations. In January, the initiative made it possible for more than seven million people facing the most severe needs to receive lifesaving support, “in the most hard-to-reach places across 17 of our operations”, he said, stressing the need to support crises in Haiti, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan.

“In Sudan alone, we reached almost two million people in January, despite the security and logistics challenges we face. Imagine delivering that same result every month this year,” he said.

Given the scale of continuing needs, the UN aid chief highlighted the launch of a global appeal to fund the shortfall and save “one life at a time: 87 million lives.” To date, it has received $60 million from foundations, corporations and individual donors. “We cannot rely on governments alone,” Mr. Fletcher noted.

Turning to the ongoing war across the Middle East, now into its twelfth day, Mr. Fletcher expressed deep concerns about the shipping near-standstill on the Strait of Hormuz, which carries around 20 per cent of the world’s oil. “I'm really worried about food costs, energy costs…fertilizer costs,” he said. “I'm worried that actually further escalation will damage other supply routes. All of this has a direct impact on our humanitarian supplies, including going to areas of key need in sub-Saharan Africa.”

The use of drones in the conflict is also an indication that “the world has decided that it's far more interested in spending enormous amounts of money developing these increasingly deadly weapons than it is on saving lives”, Mr. Fletcher maintained.

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UN relief chief press conference - Tom Fletcher

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