The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is requesting $47 billion (€45 billion) to help 190 million people globally.
The UN humanitarian aid agency will be “ruthless” when prioritising how to spend dwindling funds to help civilians in war zones such as Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine, its new chief said on Wednesday.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) issued its global funding appeal for 2025, seeking $47 billion (€45 billion) to help 190 million people in 32 countries — although it estimates 305 million worldwide need help.
Tom Fletcher, a longtime British diplomat who took up the OCHA post last month, said his agency is asking for less money in 2025 than this year. Its appeal for about $49 billion (€47 billion) this year has only been 43% funded to-date, one of the worst ever rates.
“We’ve got to be absolutely focused on reaching those in the most dire need, and really ruthless,” he said on Wednesday.
“I choose that word carefully, because it’s a judgement call — that ruthlessness — about prioritising where the funding goes and where we can have the greatest impact,” he said. “It’s a recognition that we have struggled in previous years to raise the money we need.”
OCHA and many other aid groups, including the international Red Cross, have seen donations shrink in recent years for longtime trouble spots like Syria, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and newer ones like Ukraine and Sudan.
One consequence of the funding shortfall was an 80% reduction in food aid for Syria, which has seen a sudden escalation in fighting in recent days, according to OCHA.
The biggest demands for 2025 are for Syria — a total of $8.7 billion (€8.3 billion) for needs both within the country and for neighbouring countries that have taken in Syrian refugees — as well as Sudan at $6 billion (€5.7 billion), the occupied Palestinian territories at $4 billion (€3.8 billion), Ukraine at about $3.3 billion (€3.1 billion) and DRC at nearly $3.2 billion (€3 billion).
In response to questions about how much US President-elect Donald Trump — the UN’s biggest single donor — will spend on humanitarian aid, Fletcher said he expects to spend “a lot of time” in Washington in the coming months to talk with the new administration.
Trump did not cut US funding for UN humanitarian budgets during his first term, although some aid organisations have said they fear it could happen during his second presidency.
“It’s not just about America …. we’re facing the election of a number of governments who will be more questioning of what the United Nations does,” Fletcher said.
“But I don’t believe that we can’t make that case to them; I don’t believe that that there isn’t compassion in these governments which are getting elected,” he added.
OCHA highlighted various obstacles it faces, from conflicts lasting longer at an average of 10 years to difficulties in obtaining aid access and growing dangers for humanitarians.
A record number of aid workers have been killed this year, with the war in Gaza the biggest cause of the 282 deaths recorded globally, the UN agency said last month.
