Five weeks into the Gaza-Israel crisis, the UN’s top emergency relief official on Wednesday reiterated growing international calls for the warring parties to de-escalate, while expressing solidarity with hundreds of thousands of Gazans displaced by bombardment and an order from the Israeli military to leave the north of the enclave.
As humanitarian needs spiral across the world, political will and funding are required to address war, climate change and other drivers, the UN relief chief said on Monday.
Fifty-one point five billion dollars: that’s the staggering amount that UN relief chief Martin Griffiths has asked donors for, to help 230 million extremely vulnerable people in nearly 70 countries next year.
Although relief needs are growing, Mr. Griffiths is under no illusion that less than half of what he’s requested will be provided.
Which is why he’s convinced that the money should come from other sources, including non-earmarked development funding, and even a windfall tax on energy companies, as he explains to UN News’s Daniel Johnson.
As UN relief chief Martin Griffiths warned of an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe on Monday, the World Food Programme (WFP) announced that it is delivering more food aid to Somalia than ever before.
United Nations Security Council sanctions are no longer the “blunt instrument” they once were, having transformed since the 1990s into “a vital tool” that minimizes negative consequences for civilians, and States that are not directly being targeted.
“Needs are growing faster than generosity” in the central Sahel, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs told a group of senior officials on Thursday, meeting to discuss the worsening humanitarian situation across the vast African region.
About $150 million from the United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), the largest allocation ever, was released on Thursday to boost underfunded humanitarian operations across 13 countries.
Growing conflict, insecurity, COVID-19, and a failing economy, has rendered some three million Burmese in in need of life-saving humanitarian assistance across Myanmar, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator said on Monday.
A major funding appeal for Afghanistan is due to take place on Monday, 13 September. Ahead of the launch, Martin Griffiths, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, took part in an interview with UN News, in which he reiterated his belief that the country’s new Taliban leaders understand the significance placed by the international community on upholding women’s rights, and on providing guarantees so that aid agencies can function.
