Humanitarian needs will surge in 2022 amid pandemic, conflict

THE UN warned yesterday that the need for humanitarian aid was rocketing worldwide, as the pandemic continued to rage, and climate change and conflicts pushed more people to the brink of famine.

The UN’s humanitarian agency Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that 274 million people worldwide would need some form of emergency assistance next year, up 17% on a record-breaking 2021.

That means one in 29 people will need help, marking a 250% increase since 2015 when one in 95 needed assistance, OCHA found in its Global Humanitarian Overview report.

The number of people in need “has never been as high as this”, UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said.

Providing aid to so many “is not sustainable, but it has to be sustained”, he said.

The annual appeal by UN agencies and other humanitarian organisations said that providing aid to the 183 million most vulnerable people across 63 countries next year would require $41 billion (about R654bn) – up from the $35bn requested this year and double what was asked just four years ago.

The report presented a depressing picture of soaring needs brought on by conflicts and worsening instability in places.

Natural disasters and climate change also drove up displacement and humanitarian needs, as did the continuing Covid-19 pandemic, it found.

Pandemic fallout

It pointed out that the impacts of Covid-19, which has killed more than five million people globally and probably many times that, along with measures aimed at reining in the virus, had pushed some 20 million more people into extreme poverty.

It has also devastated health systems worldwide, with testing for HIV, TB and malaria, for instance, plunging 43%, and 23 million children worldwide missing basic childhood vaccines this year.

On Wednesday, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres described widespread travel bans imposed on southern African countries over fears of the Omicron variant as “unacceptable,” likening the restrictions to apartheid.

“When we have now this virus everywhere, what is unacceptable is to have one part of the world that is one of the most vulnerable parts of the world economy condemned to a lockout, when they were the ones that revealed the existence of a new variant that, by the way, already existed in other parts of the world, including in Europe, as we know,” Guterres said during a news briefing, CNN reported.

“We have the instruments to have safe travel. Let’s use those instruments to avoid this kind of, allow me to say, travel apartheid, which I think is unacceptable,” Guterres added.

Dozens of countries have imposed travel restrictions on the southern African nations since the Covid-19 mutation Omicron was discovered.

The new Omicron coronavirus variant has been confirmed in 23 countries and their number is expected to rise, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had said.

Climate and famine

Meanwhile, climate-related disasters are becoming more frequent, the report said, warning that by 2050 as many as 216 million people could be forced to move within their own countries due to the effects of global warming.

Famine remains a “terrifying prospect” for 45 million people living in 43 countries, as extreme weather caused by climate change shrinks food supplies, the UN said in the annual appeal, which reflected a 17% rise in annual funding needs.

“Without sustained and immediate action, 2022 could be catastrophic,” it cautioned, pointing out that as many as 811 million people worldwide were undernourished.

Conflict zones

Conflicts are also taking a devastating toll across a range of countries.

Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia and Sudan are the five major crises requiring the most funding, topped by $4.5bn sought for Taliban-ruled Afghanistan where “needs are skyrocketing”, the UN said, tripling its request from a year ago.

Afghanistan is in the grip of multiple crises that have been exacerbated since the Taliban swept back into power in August and international aid dried up.

The UN’s appeal yesterday also warned that more than 24 million people – 65% of the Afghan population – needed aid, including around nine million people expected to be on the brink of famine.

“We are in the business in the UN of trying to urgently establish, with support from the World Bank as well as the UN system, a currency swop initiative which will allow liquidity to go into the economy,” Griffiths said.

“The absence of cash in Afghanistan is a major impediment to any delivery of services,” he said.

“I am hoping that we get it up and running before the end of this month.”

Billions of dollars were also requested to help the many millions of people impacted by the drawn-out conflicts in Syria and Yemen.

And the appeal highlighted swelling needs in Ethiopia, where thousands have died and millions have been displaced since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent troops into the northern Tigray region more than a year ago.

Guterres renewed his call for an immediate to halt to fighting in Ethiopia.

It estimated that 26 million people there need humanitarian aid, including 400 000 people on the brink of famine.

Griffiths said the situation in Ethiopia was perhaps the world’s “most alarming”.

But he stressed there were many other dire situations, with violence and unrest continuing to force millions to flee their home.

According to UN numbers, more than 1% of the global population is displaced.

Despite the devastating picture painted in the report, Griffiths stressed that humanitarian aid often managed to contain the worst consequences of crises.

Last year, the humanitarian organisation provided aid to around 107 million people – 70% of those they had wanted to reach – including helping bring half a million people in South Sudan back from the brink of famine.