UN seeks $47 billion for aid in 2025, warning ‘world on fire’

Displaced Palestinians line up to receive a meal in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on November 29, 2024 (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)
Displaced Palestinians line up to receive a meal in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on November 29, 2024 (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

The United Nations seeks $47 billion in aid for 2025 to help around 190 million people fleeing conflict and battling starvation, at a time when this year’s appeal is not even half-funded and officials fear cuts from Western states including the top donor, the US.

Facing what the new UN aid chief Tom Fletcher describes as “an unprecedented level of suffering,” the UN hopes to reach people in 32 countries next year, including those in war-torn Sudan, Syria, Gaza and Ukraine.

“The world is on fire, and this is how we put it out,” Fletcher tells reporters in Geneva.

“We need to reset our relationship with those in greatest need on the planet,” says Fletcher, a former British diplomat who started as head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) last month.

The appeal is the fourth largest in OCHA’s history, but Fletcher says it leaves out some 115 million people whose needs the agency cannot realistically hope to fund:

“We’ve got to be absolutely focused on reaching those in the most dire need, and really ruthless.”

The UN cut its 2024 appeal to $46 billion from $56 billion the previous year as donor appetite faded, but it is still only 43 percent funded, one of the worst rates in history. Washington has given over $10 billion, about half the funds received.

Aid workers have had to make tough choices, cutting food assistance by 80% in Syria and water services in cholera-prone Yemen, OCHA says.

Aid is just one part of total spending by the UN, which has for years failed to meet its core budget due to countries’ unpaid dues.

While incoming president Donald Trump halted some UN spending during his first term, he left UN aid budgets intact. This time, aid officials and diplomats see cuts as a possibility.

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