TWN Info Service on UN Sustainable Development (Jun25/01)
18 June 2025
Third World Network

UN: $29 billion appeal unveiled amid “cruel math” of brutal funding cuts
Published in SUNS #10244 dated 18 June 2025

Penang, 17 Jun (Kanaga Raja) — In the wake of the deepest funding cuts ever to hit the international humanitarian sector, the United Nations and its humanitarian partners on 16 June launched a “hyper-prioritized” global appeal for US$29 billion, aimed at helping 114 million people facing life-threatening needs across the world.

In an online post, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the hyper-prioritized plan highlights the most urgent elements within the ongoing Global Humanitarian Overview 2025, with a funding requirement of US$29 billion.

“We have been forced into a triage of human survival,” said Mr Tom Fletcher, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, in an OCHA press release.

“The math is cruel, and the consequences are heartbreaking. Too many people will not get the support they need, but we will save as many lives as we can with the resources we are given,” he added.

In a separate post on 16 June on the social media platform X, Mr Fletcher elaborated that: “Six months ago, we launched a ruthlessly prioritized humanitarian appeal to help some of the most vulnerable people on the planet.”

“Today, we’re having to prioritize even further. We’re having to hyper-prioritize. Brutal funding cuts have left us with the cruel math of doing less with less,” said the UN relief chief.

“Even as the world around us remains on fire, and as people die because we don’t have the resources to save them.”

“In the face of this affront to our shared humanity, this special edition of the Global Humanitarian Overview is our collective and clear-eyed account as a humanitarian movement of what must happen now,” he pointed out.

“Through it, we’ve identified 114.4 million people who are facing the most life-threatening needs and who most urgently need our help. And we’re appealing for $29.1 billion to do this.”

“These hyper-prioritized figures represent the most time-sensitive and critical aspects of our broader global appeal, which itself remains intact, just as we launched it in December with 177.6 million people targeted and $44 billion required to reach them,” said the UN relief chief.

“Let’s be clear. Our appeal for less money does not mean there are fewer needs. The opposite. So, today, I make a plea for responsibility, solidarity and a future built on humanity,” he concluded.

According to OCHA, the Global Humanitarian Overview 2025 covers more than 70 countries and aims to assist nearly 180 million vulnerable people, including refugees.

It currently calls for US$44 billion, but nearly halfway through the year, just US$5.6 billion – less than 13 per cent – has been received, it said.

OCHA said when re-prioritizing the individual country plans, the focus has been on two key goals: first, to reach the people and places facing the most urgent needs, using a scale that ranks the severity of humanitarian need.

It said areas classified as level 4 or 5 – indicating extreme or catastrophic conditions – were the starting point.

Second, it prioritized life-saving support based on the planning already done for the 2025 humanitarian response.

OCHA said this will ensure that limited resources are directed where they can do the most good – as quickly as possible.

Humanitarian partners have kept protection at the heart of the re-prioritized response plans. Rather than limiting lifesaving aid to a fixed list, they have focused on meeting the most urgent needs in ways that respect the dignity of affected people, it added.

According to OCHA, this includes cash assistance where possible, allowing people to choose what they need most.

“CRUEL MATH” OF AID CUTS

Meanwhile, according to the “hyper-prioritized” Global Humanitarian Overview 2025, published on 10 June, by the end of May 2025, nearly 300 million people around the world were in urgent need of humanitarian assistance and protection.

In the first months of the year, conflicts and violence intensified in multiple countries – deepening needs and driving many people to the brink of death – while natural disasters wreaked havoc on the lives of millions of people, it said.

The report said that in the first five months of 2025, multiple major donors reduced funding, triggering a seismic contraction in global humanitarian action.

The United States of America – which funded 45 per cent of the global humanitarian appeal in 2024 and up to 70 per cent in some parts of the world such as Latin America and the Caribbean and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) – announced a suspension and subsequent termination of many humanitarian contracts, with sudden and widespread consequences around the globe, it noted.

It said this came on top of reductions announced or instituted by other major donors, including Germany and the United Kingdom, and on the back of a reduction in humanitarian aid from 2023 to 2024.

According to the report, at least 79 million people in crisis will no longer be targeted for assistance and this is likely a significant underestimate.

Providing some examples, the report said a dramatic reduction in humanitarian funding has meant that protection services and prevention efforts have been reduced, increasing the probability of gender-based violence (GBV), sexual violence, and child abuse, and removing access to vital services for survivors.

For instance, it said that funding cuts for women-led organizations have hit GBV prevention and response, and protection efforts hardest.

In the DRC, under-funding – combined with an upsurge in violence – means that 250,000 children will miss out on GBV prevention, it pointed out.

In Yemen, funding suspensions have already forced 22 safe spaces to close, denying services and support to over 11,000 women and girls in high-risk areas.

The report also said the risk of preventable disease and mortality has risen as health and water, sanitation and hygiene services (WASH) are curtailed.

For example, it said in Syria, hospitals serving over 200,000 people in Deir ez-Zor are at risk of closing in May 2025 and over 170 health facilities in the north-west of the country risk running out of funds.

In Somalia, over a quarter of one NGO’s health and nutrition facilities will stop services in June 2025, affecting at least 55,000 children, while in the DRC, 100,000 children are projected to miss out on measles vaccination in 2026 alone, it added.

“In Afghanistan, approximately 420 health facilities have closed, denying three million people access to primary health care.”

The report said cuts in food rations and emergency assistance are jeopardizing the lives and well-being of people facing acute food insecurity.

For instance, it said that the World Food Programme (WFP) estimates that it may reach more than 16 million people less (21 per cent) with emergency food assistance in 2025 compared to the 80 million people assisted in 2024, with the biggest impact being felt in Yemen.

Already, prior to 2025, financing for food, cash and emergency agriculture was well below what was required, from Haiti to Mali and South Sudan, it added.

“In Bangladesh, one million Rohingya refugees who rely on food assistance will see their monthly food rations halved without additional funding.”

The report said that in Haiti, which has just entered the Atlantic Hurricane Season and where food insecurity is rampant, WFP, for the first time ever, has no pre-positioned food stocks, nor the cash liquidity to mount a swift humanitarian response in the case of a hurricane.

Furthermore, the report said that malnourished children face heightened risk of severe malnutrition and death.

It said disruptions to nutrition support and services due to global funding cuts are expected to affect 14 million children, including more than 2.4 million who are already suffering severe acute malnutrition and at imminent risk of death.

In Afghanistan, 298 nutrition sites (out of 3,455) remain closed, depriving 80,000 acutely malnourished children, pregnant women, and new mothers of treatment, posing a serious risk of increased mortality, it warned.

The report also said that more than 1.8 million children will miss out on learning due to aid cuts impacting one NGO’s education programmes in over 20 countries.

Meanwhile, cash and voucher assistance (CVA) – including multi-purpose/unrestricted cash – has been drastically reduced in multiple countries, it pointed out.

CVA is projected to drop precipitously in 2025, after already decreasing in 2024 as a proportion of humanitarian assistance. In Ukraine, for example, cash assistance for people fleeing the frontlines was reduced due to funding cuts, said the report.

It also said services for refugees are being jeopardized. In Rwanda, under the DRC regional refugee plan (RRP), cash assistance for food decreased by 50 per cent.

In Uganda, moderately vulnerable refugees (82 per cent of the settlement refugee population) have had their food rations reduced to approximately a quarter of the full amount, it noted.

Significantly, the report said that around the world, budget cuts are forcing humanitarian partners to reduce their operations, presence and services.

At least 12,000 humanitarian staff contracts have been cut and at least 22 organizations have had to completely close their offices in the relevant countries, it noted.

Separately, almost half (47 per cent) of women-led organizations surveyed are expecting to shut down within six months, if current funding levels persist, and almost three-quarters (72 per cent) report having been forced to lay off staff, the report further said.

Moreover, it said that funding cuts have also affected humanitarian programmes for persons with disabilities: 76 per cent of survey respondents reported an impact on humanitarian programmes on disability inclusion, 81 per cent reported an impact on the delivery of assistance to address basic needs, and 95 per cent reported an impact on work to address barriers faced by persons with disabilities to access humanitarian assistance.

As of 10 June 2025, only 12 per cent of the funding required under the 2025 Global Humanitarian Overview has been received, said the report.

Yet, it said, this “devastating under-funding of humanitarian action comes amid an exponential rise in military expenditure.”

In 2024, military expenditure reached over US$2.7 trillion in 2024; more than 100 times the amount galvanized for humanitarian appeals globally (US$24.91 billion).

The report said this was the steepest year-on-year rise in military expenditure since at least the end of the Cold War, with European military expenditure accounting for the main increase.

The magnitude, gravity and suddenness of funding cuts in the first quarter of 2025 have forced the humanitarian community to hyper-prioritize its response efforts, it pointed out.

This hyper-prioritization has identified 114.4 million people who are facing the most life-threatening needs to be most urgently targeted with assistance and protection, said the report.

This represents just 38.3 per cent of people in need of humanitarian assistance globally (298.9 million) and only 64 per cent of the total people targeted for humanitarian assistance in 2025 (178.7 million).

“This hyper-prioritization required painstaking deliberation and decisions by humanitarian leaders and partners, who had already exerted extensive efforts to tightly define their 2025 humanitarian plans and appeals.”

The report said to reach these people, US$29.1 billion – out of the total US$44 billion currently required under the Global Humanitarian Overview – urgently needs to be mobilized.

Yet, it said that as of 10 June, just US$5.5 billion has been received, amounting to 18.5 per cent of the funding immediately required to respond to the most life-threatening needs in the world, and just over 12 per cent of the total humanitarian funding required in 2025 through the Global Humanitarian Overview (US$44 billion).

“Brutal funding cuts leave us with brutal choices,” Mr Fletcher said. “All we ask is 1 per cent of what you chose to spend last year on war. But this isn’t just an appeal for money – it’s a call for global responsibility, for human solidarity, for a commitment to end the suffering,” he added. +