This year, grinding conflict, the deadly climate crisis and health epidemics, including cholera and COVID-19, caused record levels of hunger and displacement, worsened poverty, and put equality for women and girls increasingly out of reach. As a result, one out of every 23 people now needs humanitarian relief, more than double the percentage just four years ago.
It’s no wonder that the humanitarian response system is being tested to its limits. But the higher the pressure, the more determined humanitarians are in facing the challenge.
Thanks to donors’ generosity, we mobilized just over US$24 billion in aid for 216 million people in 69 countries.
This translated into ambitious operations. Assistance to the tune of $4 billion reached people in Ukraine and the region, whose lives were upended by war, while $2.4 billion was channelled to alleviate people’s suffering in Afghanistan. Other countries were less fortunate and some were critically underfunded, with less than 24 per cent of their requirements met.
Some crises received funding, but late. The Horn of Africa faced a historic drought, and as all indicators flashed red, humanitarians scaled up to save lives, reaching 17 million people with assistance. But the famine warning in Somalia remains in place.
While suffering worsened in many places, successful humanitarian negotiations were achieved in others.
In April, a truce in Yemen brought a glimmer of hope for millions of people. That truce must be extended and expanded.
In July, the UN facilitated a ground-breaking agreement between the Russian and Ukrainian authorities, facilitated by the Government of Türkiye, to clear the passage of grain through the Black Sea to reach people all over the world.
And in November, a ceasefire agreement for Ethiopia’s Tigray Region brought the possibility of peace and better humanitarian access, which I hope can be sustained.
Everywhere we work, we will continue to expand our efforts to negotiate the safe passage of aid.
However, as we continue to respond, I believe that the most important contribution we can make is to put people in crisis at the centre of everything we do. Accountability to affected people should move from “customer satisfaction” to being the prism through which all our work is considered. Humanitarian assistance is not a question of charity but of affected people’s rights. That change will not be easy, and there’s no straight line to that goal. But we are committed to making it a reality.
The 2023 Global Humanitarian Overview is ambitious, and we call on donors to be generous. In 2022 we received 47 per cent of what we needed. This year, with your full support, I hope we can do much better.
Immense challenges lie ahead. But as this Global Humanitarian Overview shows, our ambition will not falter.
Martin Griffiths