Global Humanitarian Overview 2023

Asia

The increasing impacts of climate change and natural hazards continue to be the main drivers of humanitarian needs in the region, exacerbated by the increasing number of complex and protracted conflicts, and economic, political and social crises. Globally, some 70 per cent of people affected by natural disasters live in the Asia-Pacific region. From 2015 to 2021, natural disasters affected more than 800 million people across the region, resulting in 53,000 deaths, 3.5 million people losing their homes, and damages totalling US$397 billion. Asia-Pacific also remains the region most vulnerable to environmental degradation and climate change impacts due to its densely populated coastal areas and high rates of poverty, and its dependence on natural resources and agriculture sectors. Five sudden-onset humanitarian crisis response plans were issued in the past year, seeking $1.2 billion to aid and protect 15.1 million of 33.5 million people in need due to typhoons, floods, violence and multidimensional crises in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and Sri Lanka.

The frequency and severity of climate-related disasters of meteorological, climatological and hydrological nature, including heatwaves, droughts, floods and tropical cyclones, continue to intensify across the region. Notably, Super Typhoon Rai (Odette), which first made landfall in the Philippines in mid-December 2021, strengthened from Category 1 to Category 5 within just hours, precluding adequate preparedness efforts while swiftly creating immense humanitarian need through torrential rains, violent winds, floods, landslides and storm surges. The 2022 IDMC report indicates that disasters displaced 5.7 million people in the Philippines in 2021, just behind China (6 million people) and ahead of India (4.9 million people). In 2022, unprecedented rainfall due to severe monsoons caused the largest floods in Pakistan and Bangladesh in decades, including in areas typically more prone to drought and unprepared for flooding. This highlights the threat posed by increasing departures from usual seasonal weather patterns. These climate catastrophes have severe consequences: In Pakistan, the monsoon rains and floods affected 33 million people and damaged or destroyed 2.2 million houses, while flooding in Bangladesh affected another 7.2 million people.

Humanitarian Response Plans

Conflict, displacement and violence persist in the region, which hosts 4.2 million refugees and asylum-seekers and 4.7 million internally displaced people, including in the world’s largest refugee settlement in the Cox’s Bazar District of Bangladesh. Asia-Pacific is home to several protracted crises, and despite typically localized conflict contexts and limited cross-border impacts, these crises have intensified vulnerabilities and pushed millions of people into reliance on humanitarian assistance and protection. The most significant recent deteriorations in the region’s security situations occurred in Afghanistan and Myanmar in 2021, with humanitarian repercussions continuing to reverberate within the affected countries and in neighbouring nations. Smaller escalations in violence also continue to be observed, such as in Papua New Guinea from May to June 2022, and ongoing conflict in Mindanao, the Philippines, where over 110,000 people remain displaced at the end of September 2022, mainly due to cycles of armed conflict, generalized crime, and violence and natural disasters.

Multidimensional crises with drivers other than natural disasters and conflicts represent a growing concern in Asia and the Pacific. In 2022, economic collapse triggered humanitarian support needs for 7 million people in Sri Lanka in a crisis compounded by food insecurity, threatened livelihoods, shortages of vital and essential medicines, and rising protection concerns. Regional vulnerability to such crises is heightened by factors including rising global inflation and high food prices, as well as the impacts of shocks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, which are eroding coping capacities and increasing people’s vulnerability to the effects of natural and human induced disasters.

The pandemic’s impact continued in 2022, with the socioeconomic impacts particularly felt in livelihoods, household income and poverty, food insecurity, health care and protection concerns. Following the pandemic declaration, countries in Asia-Pacific experienced some of the most severe mitigation measures, with a commensurately large impact on vulnerable communities that have yet to recover. By the end of 2022, pandemic-related restrictions had been relaxed in most of Asia-Pacific, restoring access to domestic and international travel in much of the region. Strict measures remain in place in some countries, including China and particularly the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), where borders have remained closed since January 2020.

Projected situation in 2023 and beyond

In 2023, it is likely that multidimensional compound disasters will continue to impact many countries in Asia and the Pacific, exacerbated by global inflation, global supply chain disruptions and mounting risk of recessions in major economies. A joint WFP and FAO report on global hunger hotspots highlights three Asia-Pacific countries as being hotspots for acute food insecurity: Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. In Lao PDR, the pandemic’s economic consequences and the recent global crisis of food, energy and financing have had a particularly severe impact on the most vulnerable groups. Acute food insecurity has increased in Lao PDR since early 2022 and is expected to continue into 2023. Other countries also identified as being at risk of increased food insecurity include Myanmar and DPRK. Economic crises are expected to drive worsening food insecurity in Pakistan and Sri Lanka and potentially in other countries facing commodity inflation and increasing debt.

The region also remains highly vulnerable to large-scale sudden-onset disasters that may overwhelm national and in-country response capacities and resources, requiring the provision of international humanitarian assistance. This could be in countries with lower existing in-country coping capacities, as well as in better-resourced countries struck by disasters of inordinate magnitude or impact. While preparatory actions are taken where possible, climate change-driven variations in seasonal weather patterns mean that disasters deviating from historical precedent in terms of location, scale, speed and intensity of occurrence may become increasingly common, increasing need and undermining traditional resilience.

Afghanistan

  • Current People in Need
    29.2 million
  • Current People Targeted
    21.3 million
  • Current Requirements (US$)
    $3.23 billion
People in Need at launch (Dec. 2022)
28.3 million
People Targeted at launch (Dec. 2022)
23.7 million
Requirements (US$) at launch (Dec. 2022)
4.6 billion
Total Population
43.1 million
Income level
Low income
INFORM Severity Index
8.1 / Very High
Consecutive appeals
2009 - 2023

Analysis of the context, crisis and needs

Following the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan and the establishment of governance by the de facto authorities (DfA) in August 2021, there has been a major, broad-based deterioration of the humanitarian situation across the country, with both rural and urban areas in crisis. While conflict levels have dropped significantly, security incidents and attacks by non-State armed groups continue, and the human rights situation, particularly for women and girls, has continued to deteriorate under the policies of the DfA. The legacy of decades of war continues to impact the population; Afghanistan now has some of the world’s highest levels of disability and contamination from unexploded ordnance.

Afghanistan is also in the grips of a climate change-induced crisis. The continuation of drought has drastically undermined rural livelihoods, while the loss of jobs in cities means there are no safe havens for displaced people. Unseasonal flooding during the summer and a major earthquake in June have compounded needs and damaged infrastructure further. Finally, the economic crisis has continued, with high levels of unemployment and severe inflation of commodity prices. As a result, the proportion of income that people spend on food increased from 65 per cent to 73 per cent over the year, indicating protracted reduced expenditures on other basic needs.

Despite the major scale up of assistance in 2022, levels of aid have been sufficient to prevent catastrophe but not to move people out of crisis or into stability. The percentage of households that report having received humanitarian assistance has approximately tripled since last year, while 12 per cent of women and female-headed households report that humanitarian assistance is their main source of income.

Projected situation in 2023 and beyond

A staggering two thirds of Afghanistan’s population will need humanitarian assistance in 2023. The country will enter its third consecutive year of drought-like conditions and its second year of crippling economic decline, all while people have been unable to recover from the devastating impact of the recent earthquake and floods, and decades of conflict-driven vulnerability. It is estimated that a record 28.3 million people will need humanitarian and protection assistance in 2023, up from 24.4 million in 2022 and 18.4 million at the beginning of 2021.

Overall, 32 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces are in extreme severity levels of need, up from 30 provinces last year. The spread of the crisis to urban areas is particularly notable, with 27 out of 34 major urban areas/provincial capitals in extreme severity of need, including urban Kabul, which has malnutrition rates higher than the World Health Organization’s emergency threshold.

The main drivers of the increase are the continuing climate change-induced drought, with 30 out of 34 provinces in severe or extreme indicators for water quality. As per the latest available forecasts, a third consecutive La Niña has been declared (the first of the 21st Century) as well as the first consecutive years of negative Indian Ocean Dipoles, creating a compound effect that is predicted to create lower than average precipitation over the critical winter period. The other major driver of need has been the worsening of the protection situation, particularly the restrictions on women’s and girls’ participation in society, including the exclusion of most secondary-school girls and women from education. At the same time, the food security and malnutrition situation remains one of the worst in the world, with the forecast for the lean season being 20 million people in IPC 3+ (crisis), with over 6 million people in IPC 4 (emergency).

Response priorities in 2023

To improve efficiency and effectiveness, the humanitarian response will focus on several areas. First, an increased focus on seasonal packages to reflect changing needs and allow for response efficiency. For example, there will be integrated packages for winter, with increased support for heating, shelter, food pre-positioning etc. Food rations will be adjusted with increased support during the lean season and offset by reductions in the number of people targeted for food during the harvest time. Three regular seasonal plans under the Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) will allow humanitarian partners to respond in real time vis-à-vis emerging trends and events. Second, the response will focus on multisectoral packages and underserved areas to address specific challenges, including an integrated WASH-Health response to cholera, an integrated approach to addressing malnutrition, and other areas.

Afghanistan HRP

Despite the continuing declines in the availability of basic services, the HRP remains focused on core humanitarian programming. However, emergency repairs to core infrastructure and support to core enabling functions, such as primary health care, are still required until basic service delivery is stabilized.

Despite challenges, humanitarian partners stayed and delivered during 2022. The significant decrease in military operations and kinetic activities since September 2021 has enabled partners to reach previously inaccessible areas. However, other forms of access impediments have increased, including meaningful access to women and girls in need due to movement restrictions imposed on female humanitarian staff.

Fundamentally, the only sustainable way to address the intertwined climactic, economic and political crises in Afghanistan causing the humanitarian emergency is through greater investments by the DfA and the wider development system in services addressing basic needs and critical infrastructure.

Analysing needs across Afghanistan    

Afghanistan
Bamyan, Afghanistan

As conflict has reduced in Afghanistan, humanitarian partners are now able to reach previously inaccessible areas. In 2022, the humanitarian community improved and scaled up its assessments and monitoring approaches. This enabled the first truly national analysis of needs in Afghanistan in many years. Two Whole of Afghanistan assessments reached every province and a proportional level of female-headed households. For the first time in seven years, a National SMART nutrition survey was completed and humanitarian assessments were expanded, covering urban and rural areas. All these actions have allowed a comprehensive multisectoral analysis, despite the challenges of working under the de facto authorities and their restrictions on women.   

The analysis has led to a more granular understanding of the changing needs in Afghanistan and an increased understanding of the situation in areas not previously reached. It also revealed the severe impacts of climate change-induced drought, including food insecurity and the worsening protection situation, particularly for women and girls.  

Myanmar

  • Current People in Need
    17.6 million
  • Current People Targeted
    5 million
  • Current Requirements (US$)
    $886.7 million
People in Need at launch (Dec. 2022)
17.6 million
People Targeted at launch (Dec. 2022)
4.5 million
Requirements (US$) at launch (Dec. 2022)
764 million
Total Population
56 million
Income level
Lower middle income
INFORM Severity Index
6.8 / Very High
Consecutive appeals
2013 - 2023

Analysis of the context, crisis and needs

The people of Myanmar continue to face an unprecedented political, human rights and humanitarian crisis that is posing grave protection risks to civilians, limiting access to vital services including health and education, and driving deep food insecurity. Humanitarian needs have worsened across the country as conflict continues to rage, causing displacement, destruction of property and explosive ordnance contamination, especially in the Northwest and Southeast, creating protection risks for civilians. Forced recruitment – including of children – is increasingly reported. The use of heavy weapons, including air strikes and artillery fire, continues to claim lives and pose risks to the safety and security of civilians. Raids, random searches and arrests are of grave concern.

The spread of conflict has driven unprecedented displacement, with the number of IDPs steeply increasing to 1.4 million as of 24 October 2022. This is nearly 1 million more IDPs than at the same time last year. The destruction of civilian properties, particularly homes, combined with the protracted fighting, is also prolonging the displacement of existing IDPs and further degrading people’s fragile living conditions. The monsoon in the second and third quarter of 2022 has been a miserable time for the hundreds of thousands of displaced people living in informal sites and in the jungle or forest without proper shelter.

Despite the dire humanitarian situation facing affected people, including IDPs, the de facto authorities continue to control and limit the transportation of rice, medicine and fuel, as well as humanitarian actors’ access to people in need throughout many parts of the country, but particularly in the Northwest.

A combination of gross underfunding of the response, inflation, access restrictions and interruptions to services has resulted in many needs going unaddressed and worsening over time. Since the military takeover, many children are still not attending school. More than 4 million children — half of Myanmar’s school-aged children — have not accessed formal education for two full academic years. While efforts are under way to support alternative education solutions, this is currently reaching only a fraction of children. This situation places children at much higher risk of negative coping mechanisms, such as child labour, trafficking and early marriage, and the longer it goes on, it increases the likelihood of permanent disengagement from education. The health sector is facing similar strain, with interruptions due to conflict, attacks on health structures and staff, poor funding, lack of availability of medical supplies and social pressure on people not to use public services. This is contributing to the worsening of maternal and child health outcomes, missed routine immunizations and poor emergency care for pregnant women. Ethnic and community health organizations and alternative private services are working to cover gaps, but the response capacity is not commensurate with needs. Private providers are also too expensive for many people amid the current economic distress.

Projected situation in 2023 and beyond

Conflict dynamics are expected to remain at the same level or worsen in 2023, especially in the Northwest and Southeast. There will be continued protection risks leading to higher vulnerability and needs in the hard-to-reach conflict areas. As a result, the rate of new displacement is expected to continue at similar or higher levels compared to 2022. Due to limited access and support, conditions in protracted IDP sites will likely worsen. While some opportunities for safe return may be seen, these are likely to remain modest, geographically limited, and hampered by landmines, explosive remnants of war and property destruction in places of origin. The possibility of forced premature returns is a serious concern.

The operational space is expected to contract further, amid continued bureaucratic constraints and increased scrutiny of all actors. Looming national elections in 2023 could be a major trigger for increased unrest, violence and additional displacement.

The economic situation remains fragile and has been further undermined by inflation. Livelihoods and coping mechanisms will continue to be severely strained as prices for basic goods continue to outstrip incomes. Continued interruptions to people accessing public health and education services due to the civil disobedience movement, and a lack of funding for public service provision are anticipated. The overall food security outlook is grim, especially given the surge in inflation, the reduction in food production, ongoing access constraints and the high level of unmet needs from 2022. Households are reporting having no food to eat, particularly IDPs in hard-to-reach areas and non-displaced stateless households. The main shocks to food insecurity include higher food and fuel prices, conflict and lower-than-normal rainfall. Mental health care remains a critical need in conflict areas. WASH needs are high among stateless people and IDPs, who are enduring undignified living conditions. Shelter needs will remain high, with more than half of IDPs lacking proper shelter and items. Protection needs are also expected to remain severe: 40 per cent of IDP households have been affected by explosive ordnance in the last year.

Response priorities in 2023

In 2023, humanitarian partners will work towards the following strategic objectives:

  1. Protection risks and needs are identified, monitored, mitigated and met for 2.1 million people, while the centrality of protection is upheld across the humanitarian response including through promotion of respect for human rights, international humanitarian law and humanitarian principles.
  2. Suffering, morbidity and mortality is reduced and prevented among 3.1 million displaced, returned, stateless and other crisis-affected people experiencing or at risk of food insecurity, malnutrition and health threats.
  3. At least 2 million displaced, returned, stateless and other crisis-affected people have safe, tailored, timely and dignified access to essential services and support to ensure their survival and prevent deterioration of their humanitarian needs.

Myanmar HRP

The HRP target has been tightened from 6.2 million people in 2022 to 4.5 million in 2023, based on a realistic analysis of possible responses within a challenging access and funding environment, as well as the restarting of some development activities. The 2023 response will focus more strictly on life-saving activities in conflict-affected areas. Most resilience needs have been moved outside the plan and will now be addressed via nexus and development activities. This recalibration includes moving the bulk of the peri-urban response under the UN Socio-Economic Resilience Response Plan as part of a strengthened nexus response. At the end of 2022, many development partners are restarting paused programmes, which allows humanitarian partners to shift their focus back to core life-saving responses, especially in rural areas. While nearly all clusters have reduced their target number to a small degree, the Health Cluster has expanded its target significantly from 1.4 million people to 2.3 million. The health response is more ambitious in 2023 given the disintegration of the public health system and the reality that alternate modalities of delivery are scaling up.

While there have been modest access openings in 2022, these were very localized. The overall access environment is expected to remain heavily constrained, requiring a strong reliance on and risk sharing with low-profile local responders. The humanitarian operating space is under increasing threat from bureaucratic blockages imposed by the de facto authorities around registration, travel, banking and visas. Continued advocacy will be required around the impacts of these constraints on the humanitarian operation. Humanitarians will continue to engage with all parties in a bid to secure access, promote principled responses that are based on needs and raise civilian protection issues.

Pakistan

  • Current People in Need
    20.6 million
  • Current People Targeted
    9.5 million
  • Current Requirements (US$)
    $344 million
People in Need at launch (Dec. 2022)
20.6 million
People Targeted at launch (Dec. 2022)
9.5 million
Requirements (US$) at launch (Dec. 2022)
344 million
Total Population
229.5 million
Income level
Lower middle income
INFORM Severity Index
6.1 / High
Consecutive appeals
2015 - 2023
Multi-year requirements (US$)
816.3 million (2022-2023)

Analysis of the context, crisis and needs

Heavy rains and a combination of riverine, urban and flash flooding led to an unprecedented climate-induced disaster in Pakistan that started in June 2022, causing widespread fatalities, killing livestock, and damaging and destroying public and private infrastructure across the country. Rain-induced landslides and floods also damaged agricultural land and forests, impacting local ecosystems. The heavy rains and floods affected around 33 million people, including at least 7.9 million people who have been displaced.

More than 2 million houses have been affected, comprising over 767,000 houses destroyed and nearly 1.3 million houses damaged. Eighty-nine per cent of this is in Sindh Province, where more than 683,000 houses were destroyed, and more than 1.1 million houses were damaged. As of early October, some 598,000 people were living in informal sites, relief camps or tent cities, often with limited access to services. Since then, people have been gradually returning to their places of origin, but often finding their homes, farmland and assets destroyed. The impact on farmland and agriculture has been immense, with more than 1.1 million livestock reportedly killed. The Food and Agriculture Organization assesses that some 9.4 million acres of crop area in Pakistan were potentially flooded in August 2022.

Vulnerability is likely to heighten as a direct result of the floods. The Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) report released in late October 2022 indicates that the national poverty rates will increase from 3.7 to 4.0 percentage points, potentially pushing between 8.4 million and 9.1 million more people below the poverty line. Even before the floods, Pakistan was already facing macroeconomic pressures and low economic growth due to challenging global economic conditions. According to the PDNA, the immediate impact on people’s lives and livelihoods will come through the loss of household income and assets, shortages of food and loss of human capital due to the ongoing public health situation. Women are especially vulnerable to poverty, with only 22.6 per cent of women in Pakistan active in the labour market, and the income of an average woman in Pakistan around 16 per cent of that of an average man.

Despite its very low carbon footprint, Pakistan is globally one of the 10 countries most affected by extreme weather events, according to the Global Climate Risk Index 2021 and Climate Watch. As highlighted in Pakistan’s National Climate Change Policy issued in 2021, the effects of global climate change in Pakistan are already evident through the melting and receding glaciers; increased frequency of droughts, flooding and erratic weather behaviour; changes in agricultural patterns; reduction in fresh water supply; loss of biodiversity; and increase in the formation and outbursts of glacial lakes. August 2022 was the wettest August in Pakistan since records began, with the national rainfall more than 243 per cent above average.

Out of the US$816 million requirement for the flood response plan, only $130 million (about 16 per cent) is funded as of the end of October 2022. This leaves significant response gaps across all sectors.

Projected situation in 2023 and beyond

An estimated 20.6 million people will continue to need humanitarian assistance in 2023, largely driven by a lack of access to clean water and health services, and increased food insecurity and malnutrition rates.

Widespread standing floodwaters and damaged water, sanitation and hygiene facilities will continue to pose heightened public health risks to communities in flood-affected areas. Cases of malaria, dengue, acute watery diarrhoea and cholera will continue to be common among flood-affected communities, posing a particular threat in areas where floodwaters will remain the longest. Damage to drinking water supply systems and to more than 1,460 public health facilities and their contents have already reduced access to safe and clean water. This will continue to inhibit the provision of health services at a time of increased need.

The widespread loss of livestock, crops, livelihoods and income, as well as the damage to critical transport infrastructure for supplying agricultural outputs to markets that has occurred, is expected to exacerbate the already frail food security situation and drive even more people into crisis and emergency levels of food insecurity. This is compounded by ongoing price increases in Pakistan coinciding with a surge in global inflation, which is further contributing to increasing the unaffordability of food and other commodities in the market. Preliminary results from updated IPC analysis after the flooding indicate that around 8.62 million people were food insecure (in IPC Phases 3 and 4) from September to December 2022, of whom 6.02 million are estimated to be in IPC Phase 3 (Crisis) and 2.59 million in IPC Phase 4 (Emergency).

The onset of winter, typically lasting from November to March in Pakistan, brings new challenges for flood-affected people, particularly those who have been displaced and who are living in camps and informal settlements, and people who may have moved back into damaged houses that are exposed to the cold. The impact of floods has also eroded the coping capacity of communities in flood-affected areas, further increasing their vulnerability.

Pakistan will continue to be vulnerable to climate-related emergencies, including floods and drought, beyond 2023. Humanitarian response and recovery efforts need to build in preparedness and risk reduction measures to increase communities’ resilience to these emergencies.

Response priorities in 2023

Until May 2023, humanitarian partners plan to reach 9.5 million people, with a total requirement of $816 million. The focus of the response is on the 34 most affected districts in Balochistan, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab. The prioritization of the districts was based on the number of houses damaged and destroyed, available projections of water-level changes, and the number of displaced people in the districts. The focus of the response is on the provision of urgent and life-saving humanitarian assistance and protection. Limited Early Recovery components are integrated, especially livelihoods and agriculture support, as those are considered being critical to prevent the further erosion of positive coping strategies, and to enable the affected population to regain self-sufficiency more swiftly. Urgent life-saving efforts were particularly prioritized for the first six months of the plan, while limited Early Recovery activities are foreseen for the entire nine-month period of the plan.

The PDNA that was completed in October 2022 provides a basis for a national recovery strategy/plan. The PDNA estimates total flood damage at $14.9 billion, total loss at $15.2 billion and total recovery needs at $16.3 billion. Implementation and financing of this plan will likely only come later in 2023. Therefore, humanitarian support will still be critical in the larger part of 2023.

Pakistan