A total of 274 million people are expected to be in need of emergency assistance next year, or one in 29 people worldwide.
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The UN will need at least $ 41 billion in 2022 to help 183 million of the most vulnerable people, in a world destabilized by Covid-19, conflict and climate change. A total of 274 million people are expected to be in need of emergency assistance next year, or one in 29 people worldwide, explained. the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on Thursday 2 December. This represents a jump of 17% compared to an already record year 2021.
Never the number of people needing help “was not so high”, underlined Martin Griffiths, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, during a press briefing in Geneva (Switzerland). According to him, providing help to so many people “cannot last, and yet it has to last”. Where $ 41 billion will be needed in 2022 to help highly vulnerable people across 63 countries, it was $ 35 billion in 2021 and half as much four years earlier.
The Covid-19 has thrown 20 million people into extreme poverty over the past year, the report points out. At the same time, climate change and its attendant natural disasters could force 216 million people to seek refuge elsewhere in their own country by 2050. “Without lasting and immediate action, 2022 could turn out to be catastrophic” in a world where 811 million people are already malnourished. In 2021, OCHA provided aid to 107 million people – 70% of those the organization wanted to reach.