UN: Over 300 Mln to Require Humanitarian Aid in 2023

On Thursday, The UN’s annual Global Humanitarian Overview released estimates that around 339 million people worldwide will need humanitarian assistance and protection in 2023.

This represents a 24% increase of 65 million over 2022 when that figure was 274 million this year. The latter figure is equivalent to the population of the US or four percent of the total world population.

The UN and its partners, who aim to help 230 million people in desperate need of aid in 68 countries, said they would need $51.5 billion in aid funding.

“It’s a phenomenal number and a depressing number,” UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths told reporters in Geneva on Thursday, adding that it meant “next year is going to be the biggest humanitarian program” the world has ever seen.

The UN has also said that the world is seeing the “largest global food crisis in modern history.”

“Five countries already are experiencing what we call famine-like conditions, in which we can confidently, unhappily, say that people are dying as a result,” Griffiths said.

These countries - Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Haiti, Somalia and South Sudan - have seen parts of their populations face "catastrophic hunger" this year, but have not yet declared nationwide famines.

The UN has pointed to multiple reasons behind the disaster apart from the COVID pandemic, including the situation between Russia and Ukraine.

It has also been argued that outbreaks of monkeypox, Ebola, cholera, and other diseases, as well as drought in the Horn of Africa, exacerbated the situation.