Geneva/New York, December 1 – The United Nations is reaching out to generous donors, asking a record $51.5 billion so it can assist 230 million people in 70 countries next year who are directly affected by the war in Ukraine, climate change and Covid-19.

Martin Griffiths, the chief Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, said the needs are “shockingly high” at the launch of the Global Humanitarian Overview 2023 in Geneva.

See more information: Global Humanitarian Overview

“The needs are going up because we’ve been by smitten by the war in Ukraine, by COVID, by climate,” he said. “I fear that 2023 is going to be an acceleration of all those trends, and that’s why we say … that we hope 2023 will be a year of solidarity, just as 2022 has been a year of suffering.”

The background provided by Griffiths and his Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said millions of people in 2022 suffered from the devastation wrought by conflicts, climate shocks, COVID-19 and the socioeconomic repercussions of the war in Ukraine. In addition more than 100 million people are  displaced worldwide.

It said “50 million people were on the brink of starvation. Many households saw family members die due to lack of food, and the number of people experiencing acute food insecurity is expected to climb to more than 220 million by January 2023.”

“Donors have been generous, meanwhile, the number of crises is overwhelming, and the global economic outlook is looking grim. We have more conflicts than at any time since the end of the Second World War.”

The U.N. said climate change has caused unprecedented droughts in the Horn of Africa, massive flooding in Pakistan and Afghanistan, more powerful cyclones in the Caribbean, and more aggressive tsunamis in the Pacific. The war in Ukraine has “exacerbated inflation worldwide and contributed to tighter financial conditions for many donors and magnifying financial vulnerability for fragile states.”

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