UN Launches Multibillion-dollar Appeal For World's Most Vulnerable

Nearly 132 million people will need aid and protection in 2019, a top United Nations official said on Tuesday, opening an appeal for about $25 billion as more and more people are displaced by conflicts and protracted conflicts absorb most of the assistance.

UNITED NATIONS, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 5th Dec, 2018 ) :Nearly 132 million people will need aid and protection in 2019, a top United Nations official said on Tuesday, opening an appeal for about $25 billion as more and more people are displaced by conflicts and protracted conflicts absorb most of the assistance.

Speaking at the launch of a major annual analysis of global humanitarian needs, Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock said that one out of every 70 people on Earth will need assistance next year in seeking an increase in donations of about 10 percent, even though relief agencies are becoming more efficient.

"We need to make it a bigger priority in 2019 to address the underlying causes of crises --insecurity, conflict, poverty, development failures, inadequate adaptation and resilience to climate change,"� he said.

The biggest challenge in 2019 will be the three-year conflict in Yemen, which has driven millions toward famine and has given the country the status of the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Next year, nearly 24 million people � three-quarters of the population � will need some form of assistance, Lowcock said.

Yemen was the most extreme example of a significant rise in hunger. Between 2015 and 2017 the number of people facing a food crisis rose by more than half, to 124 million in 51 countries, the United Nations reported.

The changing climate means that hunger is likely to remain a major concern in 2019, when an El Nino event, the Pacific climate cycle that typically amplifies heat and is usually associated with record-breaking temperatures, is expected, Mr. Lowcock noted. An assessment by the United Nations found that 25 countries were at high risk of drought, tropical cyclones and floods.

The bigger cause of hunger remained conflict and insecurity, which displaced close to 69 million people in 2017 and drove up levels of poverty, malnutrition and disease, while hampering deliveries of humanitarian aid.

In South Sudan, where the situation is among the most dire, five years of civil war had left five million people, or half the population, in need of food aid heading into 2019, the United Nations said.

The horrific ethnic violence in South Sudan, which is estimated to have cost more than 380,000 lives and devastated its fragile economy, underscores another worrying trend: increasingly protracted crises that monopolize ever higher shares of available aid.

In the past five years, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria and Somalia have absorbed more than half of all international humanitarian aid, the United Nations reported. Three years ago, conflicts that had lasted more than five years accounted for less than half the available aid; last year they took more than 80 percent.

The trend is deeply worrying, James Munn, Geneva director of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said in statement. "Humanitarian assistance will never become anything but a band-aid solution,"� he warned, adding that the victims of conflicts need warring parties and countries with influence over them to find political solutions.

The UN's Global Humanitarian Appeal for 2019 amounts to $21.9 billion; it is expected to increase to $25 billion, once Syria's financial needs have been calculated.

As of mid-November, donors have provided a record $13.9 billion in funding, which is about 10 per cent more than at the same time last year, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs(OCHA).