Red Cross seeking to raise a record $1.6B in donations

Organization says crises growing in number, severity.

GENEVA — Under pressure from the number and intensity of humanitarian crises, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Thursday it was trying to raise a record $1.6 billion to fund its 2015 operations.

The new budget, which is 25 percent higher than the initial budget for 2014, is needed “to meet the needs and fit our response to the changing nature of armed conflict,” the organization’s president, Peter Maurer, said in a statement. “We are witnessing new kinds of crises, in new combinations, often with a regional dimen

sion. We are no longer simply facing traditional internal or international armed conflict.”

Maurer cited the conflicts in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia as examples.

The ICRC, respected for its neutrality and humanitarian mission, said it is increasingly challenged in trying to gain access to people in need and that it was facing growing security constraints, highlighting a growing danger to all humanitarian aid workers in conflicts.

Medical personnel, facilities and transport are being targeted by armed groups in several countries, Maurer said.

“Not only does this violence hinder access to health care but it also weakens the health services themselves,” he said.

Three international staff members have died in conflicts this year, in the Central African Republic, Libya and Ukraine, the organization reported, and 40 members of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, its main partner coordinating humanitarian aid operations, have been killed since the start of the civil war in Syria nearly four years ago.

“It’s been a very tough year for us,” said Dibeh Fakhr, a spokeswoman for the ICRC.

The organization said its biggest operation in 2015 would remain Syria, accounting for about a tenth of the total budget. The group also plans big outlays in South Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Its other major areas of activity include Israel and the Palestinian territories, Mali, the Central African Republic and Ukraine.

With 86 percent of the budget assigned to field operations, the ICRC said its priorities in 2015 included increasing surgical care for the wounded, health care for people in detention and reinforcing its response to the humanitarian needs of migrants and those displaced by conflict. Another priority is strengthening its response to sexual violence in Africa, Central America and parts of the Middle East, it said.

But the “overriding challenge now,” Maurer said, is to find more innovative ways of bringing aid effectively and rapidly to those in need, and to take into account their own views on what they need.