The United Nations said on Monday that it was drastically scaling back its global humanitarian aid plans due to the \u201cdeepest funding cuts ever\u201d \u2014 leaving tens of millions of people facing dire straits.<\/p>\n
The UN\u2019s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said it was seeking $29 billion in funding for 2025 compared to the $44bn originally requested in December, in a \u201chyper-prioritised\u201d appeal.<\/p>\n
UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, said later on Monday that it would have to terminate 3,500 jobs, cutting 30 per cent of its workforce costs, as aid funding evaporates.<\/p>\n
Since US President Donald Trump returned to office in January, the United States \u2014 the world\u2019s top donor \u2014 has heavily slashed foreign aid, causing havoc in the humanitarian sector across the globe.<\/p>\n
Drastic US funding cuts have had dramatic consequences for emergency aid, vaccination campaigns and the distribution of drugs to fight AIDS.<\/p>\n
Other major donor countries have also cut back their contributions in the face of an uncertain economic outlook.<\/p>\n
\u201cBrutal funding cuts leave us with brutal choices,\u201d OCHA chief Tom Fletcher said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll we ask is one per cent of what you chose to spend last year on war.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Cruel\u2019, \u2018heartbreaking\u2019
\nIn late April, while visiting a hospital in Kandahar in Afghanistan, Fletcher warned: \u201cThe impact of aid cuts is that millions die.\u201d<\/p>\n
Almost halfway through 2025, the UN has received only $5.6bn out of the $44bn originally sought for this year \u2014 a mere 13pc.<\/p>\n
In total, the original plan covered more than 70 countries and aimed to assist nearly 190 million vulnerable people.<\/p>\n
Even so, that plan acknowledged that there were 115 million people the UN would not be able to reach.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been forced into a triage of human survival,\u201d Fletcher said on Monday. The mathematics \u201cis cruel, and the consequences are heartbreaking\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cToo many people will not get the support they need, but we will save as many lives as we can with the resources we are given,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Aid will now be directed so that it can \u201creach the people and places facing the most urgent needs\u201d, with those in \u201cextreme or catastrophic conditions\u201d as the starting point, said Fletcher.<\/p>\n
\u2018Red alert\u2019
\nFletcher\u2019s call came as the UN\u2019s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP) issued a joint early warning report identifying worsening hunger in 13 hotspots.<\/p>\n
Sudan, the Palestinian territories, South Sudan, Haiti and Mali have communities \u201calready facing famine, at risk of famine or confronted with catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity\u201d, said the report.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe devastating crises are being exacerbated by growing access constraints and critical funding shortfalls,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
Yemen, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar and Nigeria are now considered of very high concern and requiring urgent attention to save lives, it added, with Burkina Faso, Chad, Somalia and Syria the other hotspots.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The United Nations said on Monday that it was drastically scaling back its global humanitarian aid plans due to the \u201cdeepest funding cuts ever\u201d \u2014 leaving tens of millions of people facing dire straits. The UN\u2019s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said it was seeking $29 billion in funding for 2025 compared […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10056,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10055"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10057,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10055\/revisions\/10057"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}