UN cuts global aid appeal to $46 billion to help 180 million in 2024 as it faces funding crisis
abcnews.go.comThe United Nations is targeting fewer people and seeks less money in its 2024 global humanitarian appeal as it faces a severe funding crisis
UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations is targeting fewer people and seeking less money in its 2024 global humanitarian appeal launched on Monday as it grapples with a severe funding crisis.
U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told the launch that the U.N. has cut its appeal to $46 billion, to help 180 million people with food and other essential aid despite escalated needs.
The reduction was made after the U.N. received just over one-third of the $57 billion it sought to held 245 million people this year, “making this the worst funding shortfall … in years,” Griffiths said.
Through “a heroic effort,” 128 million people worldwide received some form of assistance this year, but that means 117 million people did not, he added.
Almost 300 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance and protection in 2024 — a figure that would amount to the population of an entire country that would rank as the fourth most populous nation, after India, China and the United States.
Griffiths pointed to new and resurgent conflicts as adding to the need for aid, including the latest Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, as well as Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine, the fighting between rival military leaders in Sudan, and the civil wars in Yemen and Syria, where the World Food Program will end its main assistance program in January. He also cited the global climate emergency, disease outbreaks and “persistent, unequal economic pressures.”
Griffiths said there are more displaced people since the beginning of the century, and that nearly one in five children live in or fleeing from conflict. He said 258
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