UN projects soaring humanitarian needs in world in 2022

The climate crisis is hitting the world's most vulnerable people first and worst

GENEVA: The United Nations is predicting that a record 274 million people who together would amount to the world's fourth most-populous country will require emergency humanitarian aid next year in countries like Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Syria and Yemen which face a raft of challenges including war, insecurity, hunger, climate change and the Coronavirus pandemic.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in its annual overview of future needs, is projecting a 17% jump in the number of people who will need urgent assistance in 2022, and is appealing to donors to provide a record 41 billion to help 183 million people who are the most in need.

The climate crisis is hitting the world's most vulnerable people first and worst. Protracted conflicts grind on, and instability has worsened in several parts of the world, notably Ethiopia, Myanmar and Afghanistan, said Martin Griffiths, the head of OCHA. The pandemic is not over, and poor countries are deprived of vaccines.

The appeal pulls together needs from an array of UN agencies and their partners, and is likely to fall short of its ambitions. This year, donors provided over 17 billion for projects in last year's Global Humanitarian Overview from OCHA, but funding has been less than half of the UN request for 2021.

This year, Griffiths said, "We reached 70 percent of the people that we wanted to. We're aware that we're not going to get the 41 billion, much as we will try hard."

The overview lays out country-specific plans for 30 countries, half of them in Africa, and most of the rest in the Middle East or Latin America.