Two thousand and twenty-two has been a year of suffering, says the United Nations, as it hopes 2023 will be “a year of solidarity.” The UN said it would need $51.5 billion to help 230 million of the world’s most vulnerable people in nearly 70 countries, including Nigeria, in 2023.

UN’s top emergency relief official, Martin Griffiths, said the needs were “shockingly high,” warning that it was very likely that this year’s emergencies would continue into 2023.

“The needs are going up because we’ve been by smitten by the war in Ukraine, by COVID-19, by climate,” he said. “I fear that 2023 is going to be an acceleration of all those trends, and that’s why we say … that we hope 2023 will be a year of solidarity, just as 2022 has been a year of suffering.”

Mr Griffiths described the appeal as a “lifeline” for people on the brink. He explained that numerous countries had been hit by lethal droughts and floods, from Pakistan to the Horn of Africa. In addition, the war in Ukraine had “turned a part of Europe into a battlefield.”

According to him, more than 100 million people are now displaced worldwide, “and all of this on top of the devastation left by the pandemic among the world’s poorest.”

“If the humanitarian outlook for 2023 is so grim, it is in large part because relief demands are already so high. At least 222 million people… will face acute food insecurity in 53 countries by the end of this year,” stated the UN official.

Turning to the threat of famine, he said that five countries “are already experiencing what we call famine-like conditions, where we can confidently and unhappily say that people are dying as a result – and it tends to be children – of displacement, food insecurity, lack of food, starvation.”

In 2023, 45 million people in 37 countries risk starvation, according to the Global Humanitarian Overview.

It highlighted that vulnerable communities also face pressure on several fronts, including health, as medical providers struggle to recover after COVID-19, as the mpox and other vector-borne diseases continue, along with Ebola and cholera.

Mr Griffiths said climate change is also driving up risks and vulnerability, in line with concerns that extreme heat could claim as many lives as cancer by the end of the century.

To help communities on the front line of the climate emergency, the UN emergency relief chief maintained that humanitarians should play a bigger role in international climate discussions to secure resilience funding for those in most need.

“In 2023, the humanitarian community, I think, needs to be a lot more organised and indeed vocal about how to be more transparent about climate promises, be more quick about the decision to disburse, and getting the money that’s promised to the people for whom it’s promised,” the top UN official added.

Mr Griffiths said he expected it to be “very difficult” to achieve the full amount requested from national and private donors, whose generosity was unable to keep up with growing demands.

(NAN)