The UN appealed Wednesday for more than $47 billion to deliver vital aid next year, warning surging conflicts and the climate crisis will leave hundreds of millions of people in need.

“The world is on fire,” the United Nations’ new humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told reporters in Geneva, acknowledging he was looking ahead to 2025 with “dread”.

With brutal conflicts spiralling in places like Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine, and as climate change and extreme weather take an ever-heavier toll, the UN estimated that 305 million people globally will need some form of emergency assistance next year.

(FILES) In this picture taken on August 9, 2022, an Afghan woman walks with school girls going to their primary school in Kabul. – Sequestered at home in a remote Afghan town, 18-year-old Shekiba often roams the house hunting for the tenuous mobile internet signal that is her last link to an education. Boys and men will return to classes when the Afghan new year starts in late March, but girls and women will be left behind again by a Taliban government education blockade that is part of a raft of restrictions the United Nations has labelled “gender apartheid”. (Photo by Wakil KOHSAR / AFP) / TO GO WITH: AFGHANISTAN-EDUCATION-ONLINE-WOMEN, FOCUS BY AYSHA SAFI AND SUSANNAH WALDEN – TO GO WITH: Afghanistan-Education-Online-Women, FOCUS by Aysha Safi and Susannah Walden

“We are dealing with a poly-crisis right now globally, and it is the most vulnerable people in the world who are paying the price,” Fletcher said, warning that swelling inequality combined with the convergence of conflict and climate change had created a “perfect storm” of needs.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi visits the Jdeidat Yabus border crossing in southwestern Syria as displaced people arrive from Lebanon on October 7, 2024. – The head of the UN refugee agency warned on October 6 that civilians in Lebanon were caught in the crossfire as Israel’s intensified bombardment campaign forced many to flee while others were trapped under fire. (Photo by LOUAI BESHARA / AFP)

Launching the Global Humanitarian Overview, Fletcher acknowledged that the UN and its partners would not be able to reach all of those in need.

The annual appeal by UN agencies and other humanitarian organisations is seeking $47.4 billion for 2025 — slightly less than the appeal for this year — which it said was enough to provide assistance to the 189.5 million most vulnerable people.

“There’s 115 million that we won’t be able to reach” with this plan, Fletcher acknowledged.

Climate activists stage a protest inside the COP29 venue to demand a phase out of fossil fuels during the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku on November 15, 2024. (Photo by Laurent THOMET / AFP)

– ‘Ruthless’ –

Pointing to significant “donor fatigue” hitting humanitarian operations around the world, he stressed the need to lay out a “realistic” plan, which will require prioritisation and making “really tough, tough choices”.

“We’ve got to be absolutely focused on reaching those in the most dire need, and really ruthless,” he said.

As of last month, only 43 percent of the $50-billion appeal for this year had been met.

Underfunding has this year seen an 80-percent reduction in food assistance in Syria, cuts to protection services in Myanmar, and diminished water and sanitation aid in cholera-prone Yemen, the UN said.

This handout picture taken on August 24, 2024 by Marina Calderon and released by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) shows Sister Rosita Milesi, the Global Laureate of the 2024 UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award, holding baby Daniel Jose Milaro, who has just arrived from Venezuela with his mother Jenifer Milaro and siblings, at the Casa de Acolhida Sao Jose, a temporary shelter for refugees and migrants in Pacaraima. (Photo by Marina Calderon / UNHCR / AFP)

The single biggest barriers for assisting and protecting people in armed conflict, though, were the widespread violations of international law.

2024 has already been the deadliest year for humanitarian workers, surpassing last year’s toll of 280 killed.

The global humanitarian system “is overstretched, it’s underfunded and it’s literally under attack”, Fletcher said.

“We need a surge in global solidarity.”

Fears meanwhile abound that Donald Trump’s looming return to the presidency in the United States — the world’s biggest humanitarian donor — could see aid agency budgets cut rather than raised next year.

A woman cleans the floor in front of the logotype at the venue for the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku on November 11, 2024. (Photo by Alexander NEMENOV / AFP)

Fletcher said he planned to “spend a lot of time in Washington” in coming months to engage with the new administration.

– ‘Unconscionable’ –

The “much tougher global climate (was) not just about America”, he said, adding he planned “to bash down doors” around the world and make the argument about the need to step up.

A record 123 million people were living displaced from their homes due to conflict by mid-2024, while one out of every five children globally is currently living in or fleeing conflict zones, according to UN figures.

Canadian soldiers stand guard in front of their embassy in Port-au-Prince on March 28 2024. – The situation in chaos-wracked Haiti is “cataclysmic”, with more than 1,500 people killed by gang violence so far this year and more weapons pouring into the country, the UN said Thursday. In a fresh report, the United Nations rights office detailed how “corruption, impunity and poor governance, compounded by increasing levels of gang violence (had) eroded the rule of law and brought state institutions… close to collapse”. (Photo by Clarens SIFFROY / AFP)

“The suffering behind the numbers is all the more unconscionable for being man-made,” Fletcher said.

“Wars in Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine are marked by the ferocity and intensity of the killing, the complete disregard for international law, and the deliberate obstruction of our humanitarian movement’s effort to save lives.”

Numerous old crises meanwhile remain unresolved and simmering, with average humanitarian operations now spanning a decade, the UN said.

Residents carry their salvaged belongings on a motorcycle in Maiduguri on September 10, 2024. – Flood water from an overflowing dam has destroyed tens of houses in Maiduguri, the capital city of Borno state in northeast Nigeria, with emergency officials fearing the situation could get worse.
An epicentre of more than a decade-long jihadist insurgency, Maiduguri serves as the hub for the responses to the humanitarian crisis in the northeast region.
The United Nations refugee agency in Nigeria (UNHCR) said on its X account that it is the citys worst flooding in 30 years. (Photo by Audu MARTE / AFP)

“The longer they last, the bleaker the prospects,” Fletcher warned, pointing out that “life expectancy drops, vaccination rates plummet, education suffers, maternal mortality skyrockets, and the spectre of famine grows”.

Even more worryingly, he said, was how conflicts were increasingly converging with the climate-induced disasters that are ravaging communities, devastating food systems and driving mass displacement.

“The dread I have is that those two huge drivers of need are now combining,” he said.

AFP