2023 was yet another immensely challenging year. It began with devastating earthquakes in Syria and Türkiye. In April, intense conflict erupted in Sudan, plunging millions of people into disaster and despair. Then in October, catastrophic war broke out in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Alongside these events, unresolved conflicts, instability, climate change, disease and economic inequality continued to keep millions of people in a state of protracted crisis – from Ukraine, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa, to Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and beyond.
By the year’s end, almost 30 million more people needed humanitarian assistance than at the start.
Displacement, acute food insecurity and malnutrition continued to reach historically high levels.
And, as always, women and girls bore a disproportionate burden, suffering gender-based violence on a huge scale and persistent challenges to gender equality.
The humanitarian community did everything it could to respond.
When crisis called, we activated enhanced humanitarian action in Syria and Türkiye, Sudan, Haiti and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
We negotiated the safe passage of aid. When Security Council authorization for cross-border UN assistance into north-west Syria lapsed, we reached bilateral understandings to ensure it could continue. Diplomatic efforts allowed the re-establishment and expansion of operations in Sudan. And those efforts continue non-stop in relation to Gaza.
We persisted in efforts to lighten the humanitarian programme cycle, and to make humanitarian action more efficient, effective and accountable to those we serve. This year, I launched the Flagship Initiative – a three-year pilot project in four countries that aims to empower affected people and devolve more direction and decision-making to the local level.
And through anticipatory action, we continued to mitigate impacts and reduce the cost of responding to predictable disasters.
But the humanitarian system is facing a severe funding crisis. In 2023, we received just over one third of the US$57 billion required. This is the worst funding shortfall in years. Yet, we still managed to deliver life-saving assistance and protection to 128 million people around the world.
The sharp decline in resources has forced humanitarian agencies to make increasingly painful decisions, including cutting life-saving food, water and health programming.
I am deeply concerned about what this means for humanitarian action in 2024. Without adequate funding, we cannot provide life-saving assistance. And if we cannot provide that assistance, people will pay with their lives.
This year, we have taken extremely difficult decisions – many of which keep us up at night – in order to more tightly define our financial ask and to focus our responses on those people most urgently in need. However, this should not by any means be misconstrued as an improvement in the global humanitarian situation. Rather, we have ruthlessly prioritized to highlight where we, as a humanitarian community, believe funds should be targeted. Now, we need our donors to dig deep and fully fund these robust and rigorous plans.
The situation is also a wake-up call. Humanitarian assistance cannot be the entire solution; we need to share the load. It’s time for much more development and other financial investments in fragile settings and marginalized communities. And it’s time to redouble efforts to address the root causes of humanitarian need: conflict, climate change and economic dynamics.
The challenges are immense, but I believe that together we can turn the tide.
Martin Griffiths
GHO 2024 - Message by UN Secretary-General António Guterres
2023 saw human suffering on an epic and heartbreaking scale. Brutal conflicts and climate chaos are making life a hell on earth for millions of people around the world. But within this whirlwind of crisis, you can find glimmers of hope. The women and men of the humanitarian community are staying and delivering in some of the world’s most dangerous places.