Dailymaverick logo

Newsdeck

This article is more than a year old

Humanitarian aid

UN earmarks $100 mln for poorly funded humanitarian crises

GENEVA, Feb 20 (Reuters) - The United Nations said on Tuesday it was allocating $100 million to support poorly funded humanitarian crises in seven countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Sudan and Syria.
Reuters
Refugees shelter in Bulengo displaced persons camp near Goma, DRCRefugees who fled fighting tend to their needs inside the Bulengo camp for displaced persons near Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), 16 February 2024. The intensification of fighting between the M23 Movement rebels and the pro-government Wazalendo militias has triggered a massive movement of population, sending on the road thousands of refugees fleeing the town of Sake in Masisi territory. According to the UNHCR, in 2024, as a result of continuing insecurity and an alarming resurgence of violence generated by non-state armed groups in the past two years, nearly six million people are internally displaced across the eastern provinces of Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu and Tanganyika. EPA-EFE/MOSE KASEREKA

The funding, drawn from the United Nations' Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), is among the smallest in recent years as aid organisations are grappling to attract donations amid a flurry of humanitarian crises.

"This reflects the reduced funding that CERF received in 2023, its lowest since 2018, and the dire reality that donor funding is failing to keep up with soaring humanitarian needs," the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which manages the emergency fund, said in a statement.

Global aid needs reached a high of almost nearly $57 billion in 2023 as conflicts, including the war between Israel and Hamas, erupted around the globe, according to OCHA.

It said last month that the disparity between financial needs and resources had reached an unprecedented level of $35 billion in unmet appeals for financial support.

In addition to the DRC, Sudan and Syria, the emergency fund allocation will also be used to fund the crisis response in Chad, Niger, Lebanon and Honduras.

(Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

Comments

Loading your account…

Scroll down to load comments...