Humanitarian organizations worldwide are facing severe financial difficulties at a time of increasing needs. In 2023, the UN appealed for a record sum of $51.5 billion to assist 339 million people, an unprecedented request. So far, only 38.6% of the requested funding has been raised. This represents the largest funding gap ever faced by the humanitarian system: between 2016 and 2022, UN appeals received an average of only 58% of the requested funds. Despite a steady increase in funding for UN relief operations over the period, last year saw a total decrease, from $30 billion in 2022 to just over $21 billion in 2023.
The UN report starkly illustrates the human cost of the funding shortfall. In Afghanistan, for example, the number of people receiving food aid dropped from 13 million to 3 million over the course of 2023. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, 600,000 malnourished children are without adequate care. Somalia, ravaged by conflict, was on the brink of famine due to a lack of necessary funds, leading to the starvation deaths of over 43,000 people. The World Food Programme (WFP) has had to reduce food rations in many crisis-hit regions, including Yemen, South Sudan, Syria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and elsewhere.
Conflicts are the main driver of the increase in humanitarian needs. Not only have new conflicts erupted in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, but wars are also lasting longer, causing greater economic damage, destroying infrastructure, and requiring longer and more expensive relief responses. The effects of the climate crisis further compound this instability. Periods of drought in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel, combined with devastating floods in Pakistan, South Sudan, and Libya, have created new emergencies and worsened existing conditions. Indeed, 70% of wars occur in countries heavily impacted by the climate emergency.
The legacy of Covid
Countries with fragile economies in Asia and Africa are struggling to cover health, education, and welfare costs due to additional debts incurred during the pandemic. Moreover, rising global fuel and food prices, caused by the war in Ukraine, strain public budgets. Global humanitarian needs are set to increase. In 1999, the humanitarian aid system required $1.7 billion in funding; it is expected that by 2027, over $100 billion will be needed. Experts question whether the global humanitarian system is experiencing not only a financial crisis but also a structural crisis.
The humanitarian community is divided on how to address the new nature of humanitarian crises.
Some emphasize the need to “return to basics” and focus on short-term support in emergency situations, while others, in light of the climate crisis, insist on the need for more long-term “resilience” work to address extreme weather conditions.
However, there is a general consensus that the system needs to undergo changes.
In January 2016, a UN committee identified a lack of transparency, financial inefficiency, and difficulty in assessing the impact of work as key problems in the humanitarian aid sector. Despite this, little has been done to address these issues, and the commitment to increase the percentage of aid provided to local humanitarian organizations from 0.4% to 25% by 2020 has not been met.
Currently, only 3.3% of aid is directed to national NGOs, despite studies showing their greater cost-effectiveness, agility, and efficiency in some contexts compared to large international agencies.
