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Info Service on UN Sustainable Development (Dec25/01) Penang, 9 Dec (Kanaga Raja) — The United Nations and its partners have launched a global humanitarian appeal, initially seeking US$23 billion to deliver urgent lifesaving assistance to 87 million people worldwide affected by wars, climate disasters, epidemics, earthquakes, and crop failures. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), framed as the immediate priority of the Global Humanitarian Overview 2026 (GHO), the plan ultimately aims to mobilize US$33 billion over 2026 to reach 135 million people across 23 country operations and six refugee and migrant response plans, underscoring the scale of global solidarity needed to confront mounting humanitarian crises. OCHA said the highly prioritized appeal follows a year when humanitarian lifelines strained and, in some places, snapped due to brutal funding cuts. Funding for the appeal in 2025 – $12 billion – was the lowest in a decade and humanitarians reached 25 million less people than in 2024. The consequences were immediate: hunger surged, health systems came under crushing strain, education fell away, mine clearance stalled and families faced blow after blow: no shelter, no cash assistance, no protection services, it added. Amidst this devastation, civilians were exposed to utter disregard for the laws of war and more than 320 aid workers were killed, the vast majority local staff, said the UN agency. “This appeal sets out where we need to focus our collective energy first: life by life,” said Tom Fletcher, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator. “The Global Humanitarian Overview 2026 is grounded in reform, evidence and efficiency. We’re shifting power to local organizations, putting more money directly into the hands of the people who need it, and behind it all, we are renewing and re-imagining humanitarian action with idealism, humility and hope,” he added. Speaking at a media briefing in New York on 3 December prior to the launch of the GHO, Mr. Fletcher said that right now, a quarter of a billion people are in urgent need of humanitarian help, yet the funding against the last humanitarian overview was only US$12 billion – the lowest in a decade. “In 2025, hunger surged. Food budgets were slashed – even as famines hit parts of Sudan and Gaza. Health systems broke apart. Thousands lost access to essential services. Disease outbreaks spiked. Millions went without essential food, healthcare and protection. Programmes to protect women and girls were slashed, hundreds of aid organizations shut. And [last year] over 380 aid workers were killed – the highest on record.” “So, as you’ve heard me say before, we are overstretched, underfunded and under attack. Only 20 per cent of our appeals are supported,” the UN relief chief pointed out. Highlighting three “hard truths”, he said: “First, we’ve assumed for a generation that global development and stability lift all boats. The argument was that economic progress was the best way to reduce humanitarian need. But the retreat from global order and humanitarian action now reverses that equation. The humanitarian crises that as a consequence lie ahead of us will themselves have negative consequences – mass migration, pandemics, conflicts – for global development and stability.” “A second hard truth: the public hasn’t rallied to our defence. They’ve been misled that 20 per cent of their money goes on foreign aid, rather than much less than 1 per cent.” The third “hard truth”, Mr. Fletcher said, is “the money to save these lives is not coming back unless we make and win afresh the argument for humanitarian solidarity. So we must respond, and we respond not as acronyms and institutions, but as humans.” He said that despite the challenges, “the humanitarian community reached 98 million people with our support.” The relief chief said the priority for 2026 is to save 87 million lives, and that the plan includes 29 more detailed plans covering 50 countries. This includes $4 billion to reach 3 million across the Occupied Palestinian Territory, $2.9 billion for 20 million people in Sudan – the world’s largest displacement crisis – and $2 billion for the 7 million Sudanese forced to flee, as well as $1.4 billion to save 4.9 million lives in Myanmar and those fleeing crisis there, and much, much more. “And I know budgets are tight right now. Families everywhere are under strain. But the world spent $2.7 trillion on defence last year – on guns and arms. And I’m asking for [less than] 1 per cent of that. The total global appeal could be fully funded if the global top 10 per cent of earners – that’s everyone earning over $100,000 – gave just 20 cents a day,” he added. Mr. Fletcher pointed out that 87 million lives are more than those who died in the Second World War, the horror of which led to the creation of the UN. “So is the UN dead? Tell that to the relatives and the friends of the hundreds of our colleagues who died saving lives this year. Tell that to the 87 million lives that we will set out to save next year. To those under the bombs. And to those who are losing most in a rules-free, transactional, violent world,” he said. As regards the next stage, the relief chief said “over the coming 87 days – one for each of the million lives that we will set out to save – we will take this plan to the Member States. We will challenge them to back the simple, prioritized appeal that they have asked us to produce. Member States must also, of course, protect humanitarians, not with statements of concern, but by holding to account those killing us – and those arming those killing us.” “I will then aim after 87 days to share the numbers with you again of the Government commitments that we have received, and answer a simple question: did your Governments show up for this plan or not? The answer to that question will define who lives and who dies,” he concluded. WORLD AT BREAKING POINT According to the 2026 Global Humanitarian Overview, as 2026 begins, just over 239 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance and protection amidst entrenched conflicts that are more violent against civilians and lasting longer than at any time since World War Two, and a climate crisis that is escalating unabated. From Haiti to Myanmar, Ukraine to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Sudan to the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), horrifying violence, hunger, displacement and disease are tearing people’s lives apart – killing and maiming civilians, waging war on the bodies of women and girls, separating families, forcibly uprooting people from their land and livelihoods, fueling the spread of diseases and devastating their mental and physical health, it said. It highlighted the two main drivers of urgent humanitarian needs globally – conflict and climate change – both of which are man-made and could be reversed with concerted and collective action. Noting that conflict is the main cause of death, displacement and hunger, the GHO said civilians are enduring a record number of armed conflicts marked by the increased flagrant disregard for international humanitarian and human rights law, including mass atrocities and attacks on health and learning facilities. At least 56,000 civilians were killed in conflict between January and mid-October 2025. More than two years into the Israeli offensive in Gaza, OPT, 69,785 people have been killed, according to Ministry of Health figures, while a recent study estimated that the violent death toll is likely more than 100,000 people, it said. In Sudan, a 500-day siege was followed by the killing of thousands of civilians in El Fasher by the Rapid Support Forces, while similar dynamics are playing out in Kordofan entering 2026, with lack of respect for civilian life and freedom of movement, it added. The GHO noted that in 2025, three out of every four civilian fatalities in conflict worldwide has occurred in countries with a humanitarian plan or appeal. It said in Myanmar, increased killings, razing of villages, and mass forced displacement have been reported. The spread and intensification of cholera outbreaks have also been driven by conflicts, notably in Chad, DRC, Sudan and South Sudan. According to the GHO, as wars increasingly move into cities, the rising use of explosive weapons in populated areas is having catastrophic consequences. Civilians continue to make up 90 percent of those harmed by explosive weapons in populated areas and civilian casualties from explosive weapons rose by 69 percent in 2024 compared to 2023, predominantly due to the war in Gaza, OPT, it said. Meanwhile, the report said that the withdrawal of the Member States from the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Ottawa Convention and the Convention on Cluster Munitions – which ban anti-personnel mines and cluster munitions, respectively – marks a dangerous retreat from international humanitarian law and weakens fundamental norms for the protection of civilians, adding that globally, over 84 per cent of landmine victims are civilians. The GHO also said that the accelerating integration of emerging technologies into armed conflict is amplifying already intensifying risks. The use of drones is making conflict more accessible and more asymmetric: between 2022 and 2024, the number of companies making drones has exploded from six to over 200. Drone attacks in conflict settings increased by 4,000 percent between 2020 and 2024, and more than quadrupled between 2023 (4,525 attacks) and 2024 (19,704), it added. The GHO said the proliferation of drones is also threatening life-saving humanitarian aid. Until 2022, fewer than 10 drone-related incidents affected healthcare or aid delivery each year, while in 2024 there were over 300 such incidents. Meanwhile, “Artificial Intelligence has significant implications for the way wars are waged. If algorithms are trained in overly permissive targeting rules, the result will be death and destruction among civilians at greater speed and on a larger scale.” The GHO further found that more than 295 million people face high acute food insecurity (IPC/CH Phase 3 and above) across 53 countries and territories – a sixth consecutive annual increase and nearly three times the number recorded in 2016. “Famine (IPC Phase 5) re-emerged, driven by conflict in Gaza, OPT and parts of Sudan in 2025, with a risk of Famine emerging in parts of South Sudan.” Around 1.2 million people faced catastrophic levels (IPC/CH Phase 5) of acute food insecurity in 2025 across six countries and territories, primarily in Gaza, OPT and Sudan, followed by Haiti, Mali, South Sudan and Yemen. Afghanistan, DRC, Myanmar, Nigeria, Somalia and Syria are of very high concern with deteriorating conditions and large populations already facing Emergency levels of acute food insecurity, said the GHO. “Conflict represents a principal driver of food insecurity for 14 out of 16 hunger hotspots where acute food insecurity is likely to worsen. It plays a major role in driving the catastrophic or extremely severe conditions affecting people in hotspot countries at the highest concern level.” The GHO said that food insecurity significantly undermines protection; when individuals or communities lack reliable access to sufficient and nutritious food, they may resort to harmful strategies such as child labor, child marriage, or transactional sex to survive. It also said that over 117 million people are forcibly displaced by conflict and violence, including 42.5 million refugees. The GHO said Sudan remains the world’s largest displacement crisis, while internal displacement doubled in Haiti from September 2024 to October 2025 and rose significantly in Myanmar and South Sudan. Lack of respect for international humanitarian law (IHL) is fueling mass arrivals of refugees in certain places: Chad hosts 1.47 million refugees, of whom almost 900,000 have arrived since the conflict in Sudan started in 2023 and some 260,000 in 2025 only. While the global number of people forcibly displaced has dropped due to an increase in returns, including to and within the DRC, Syria, Sudan and Afghanistan, those making long and fraught journeys home require assistance and risk mitigation, support and solidarity during their travel and upon arrival, the GHO said. Some 676 million women now live within 50 kilometres of deadly conflict, the highest level since the 1990s and conflict-related sexual violence increased by 87 per cent in two years, it added. It said that in Haiti, nearly two-thirds of the cases of sexual violence involve gang rape. In the DRC, children accounted for up to 45 per cent of nearly 10,000 reported cases of rape and sexual violence in just two months (January-February 2025), during which time, “a child was raped every half an hour.” The GHO also said that climate change is worsening disasters and geological events are impacting communities already in crisis. The world is perilously close to 1.5 degrees C warming and it is expected that 2025 will be the second or third hottest year on record after 2024, marked by weather extremes: floods in West Africa and Asia, drought in South America, and heatwaves and wildfires across the globe, it added. Hurricane Melissa, which made landfall across Cuba and Jamaica in October 2025, was one of the most powerful landfalling hurricanes ever recorded. A hurricane such as this is approximately four times more likely to occur in today’s climate as compared to a pre-industrial time, the GHO pointed out. As of November 2025, 2,192 weather-related disasters were recorded, affecting at least 49 million people and causing thousands of deaths. Meanwhile, the GHO said geological events – especially earthquakes – are increasingly impacting communities already in crisis. For instance, it said that in Afghanistan, on 31 August 2025, a 6+ magnitude earthquake and several aftershocks struck Nangarhar and Kunar provinces in the east, killing over 2,150 people and causing widespread destruction of homes along the mountainous slopes and valleys. Meanwhile, in Myanmar, two devastating earthquakes struck on 28 March 2025, killing 3,800 people, injuring 51,000, destroying thousands of homes and disrupting communications, water access and electricity supply. Globally, three in four people who are forcibly displaced live in countries facing high-to-extreme exposure to climate-related hazards, and weather-related disasters have caused some 250 million internal displacements -equivalent to around 70,000 displacements per day – over the past ten years, said the GHO. RESPONSE IN 2026 Amidst this devastation, humanitarians have worked incisively to identify just over 239 million people in 50 countries who have been hardest-hit by crises and face the most severe needs, requiring humanitarian assistance and protection in 2026, said the GHO. In 2026, humanitarians will aim to collectively assist 135 million people, out of 239 million people in need, with the immediate priority being to save 87 million lives. The Global Humanitarian Overview 2026 remains ambitious while simultaneously grounded in the harsh reality facing humanitarian action after a year in which thousands of staff were laid off and tens of offices were closed around the world, it pointed out. In 2026, humanitarian partners aim to assist almost 20 per cent more people (117 million) than were reached in 2025 (nearly 98 million people) through country-specific responses. The GHO includes 29 plans and appeals, covering 50 countries: 20 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plans, 3 Flash Appeals and 6 refugee and migrant response plans that cover an additional 27 countries. The GHO said to do this, humanitarians are appealing for US$33 billion through the GHO, of which US$23 billion is required immediately to respond to the most life-threatening needs. While these amounts may seem daunting, they pale in comparison to other global expenditures – it is around one per cent of global military expenditure. The total global appeal could be fully funded if the global top 10 per cent of earners (those making roughly $100,000 or more annually) gave just 20 cents per day for a year, it added. Highlighting the funding requirements by region, the GHO said with a significant increase in funding required to respond to the catastrophic crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territory ($4.1 billion), and major requirements for the Syria crisis ($6 billion for Syria and the region) and Yemen ($2.5 billion), the Middle East and North Africa region now requires $12.5 billion, accounting for 38 per cent of the GHO. The world’s largest displacement crisis, Sudan, has generated significant requirements both in the country ($2.9 billion) and in refugee-hosting nations ($1.5 billion), with neighbouring South Sudan the second largest appeal in the region ($1.6 billion), followed by Somalia ($850 million) and Mozambique ($347.6 million). Southern and Eastern Africa now requires $7 billion, just over 21 per cent of the GHO. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) continues to be one of the largest humanitarian appeals globally ($1.4 billion), largely due to conflict and violence ravaging the east of the country. It is followed by Chad ($975 million), Burkina Faso ($662 million), Mali ($551 million), Nigeria ($516 million), Niger ($449 million), Cameroon ($308 million) and Central African Republic (CAR, $264.2 million), bringing the total requirements for West and Central Africa to $5.1 billion, over 15 per cent of the GHO. Meanwhile, the GHO said Afghanistan requires $1.7 billion, following a year in which the country was struck by two earthquakes and an historic drought, while Myanmar now needs $890 million to respond to the intensifying conflict and earthquake-driven needs and another $698.4 million is required to support Rohingya in the region. Pakistan requires $65 million and Viet Nam requires $22.8 million to complete the responses to historic flooding in 2025, bringing the total required for Asia and the Pacific to $3.4 billion, just over 10 per cent of the GHO. Across Latin America and the Caribbean, humanitarian partners are calling for $2.6 billion (8 per cent of the GHO), including for the escalating crisis in Haiti ($893 million) as well as the Venezuela situation (requiring $1.4 billion in the country and across the region) and $384 million for Colombia. In 2026, the Ukraine response will require $2.3 billion, while the regional refugee response requirements have been transitioned out of the GHO as the response in neighbouring countries now focuses on longer-term action. +
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