On Thursday, the United Nations launched an appeal to raise $51.5 billion to help 339 million needy people around the world over the next year.
This came in a report by the organization called “Overview of Global Humanitarian Action for 2023”, which was launched today, Thursday.
The United Nations said that the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance next year will reach 339 million people in 68 countries, an increase of about 65 million people over the year 2022, according to the report.
The report indicated that the estimated cost of the humanitarian response for the year 2023 amounts to 51.5 billion dollars, which represents an increase of 25 percent compared to the needs of the current year.
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On Wednesday, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, stressed at a press conference in Geneva that humanitarian needs are “shockingly high and increasing” due to the war in Ukraine, the coronavirus and climate change.
He added, “I fear that the year 2023 will accelerate all these trends.”
The UN official expressed his hope that the year 2023 would be “a year of solidarity, just as 2022 was a year of suffering.”
Griffiths described the UN appeal as a “lifeline” for people on the brink.
He explained that many countries were subjected to deadly droughts and floods, from Pakistan to the Horn of Africa, in addition to that the war in Ukraine “has turned part of Europe into a battlefield.”
Griffiths emphasized that more than 100 million people are currently displaced around the world, in addition to the devastation left by the pandemic among the world’s poorest countries.