UN’s humanitarian work is ‘underfunded, overstretched, and under attack’

Speaking on Monday to journalists at UN Headquarters in New York, Tom Fletcher, who heads up the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said "we have only 19 per cent of what we need."

The international community is currently dealing with multiple humanitarian crises across the world, including conflict-driven crises in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gaza, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen.

Other crisis hotspots include Afghanistan, Haiti, Myanmar and the Sahel.

The Global Humanitarian Overview 2025 (GHO), which is an annual assessment of global humanitarian needs and responses, was launched last December and covers 180 million vulnerable people across 70 countries.

The GHO calls for $44 billion, but latest figures show that just under $15 billion has been received to date.

So far in 2025, three crises in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Ukraine and Sudan have received almost a quarter of all funding.

The top five donors according to OCHA's Financial Tracking Service have been the European Commission, the United States and the United Kingdom, followed by Japan and Germany.

Aid cuts

According to Mr. Fletcher, hundreds of aid organizations have shut down, and the humanitarian sector has contracted to just one-third of its size from 10 months ago.

Meanwhile, OCHA has lost 20-25 per cent of its staff over the past year.

In June, OCHA made a "hyper-prioritised" appeal for $29 billion to reprioritise individual country humanitarian plans with the the goal of saving 114 million lives.

The $29 billion represents just one per cent of what the world is projected to spend on defense this year, according to Mr. Fletcher, who asked "What does this say about our collective priorities?"

Humanitarian needs grow

This year alone, six million more children are out of school globally, according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), while officials at the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), warned that 11 million refugees may no longer get the help they need.

In Gaza, over half a million people are currently facing extreme hunger, a figure expected to rise above 640,000 by the end of the month, according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report. "We need a ceasefire now," said the humanitarian chief.

Sudan, facing the world's largest humanitarian crisis, is expected to be a major topic of discussion at the forthcoming meeting of world leaders at the UN from 22 September. Haiti is likewise under the spotlight, where sexual and gang violence remain widespread.

"Women were taking contraception in advance when getting to checkpoints, anticipating acts of sexual violence," said Mr. Fletcher.

Fight for what must be saved

The year 2025 also marks a record for aid workers killed in the line of duty, with over 270 killed compared to 380 last year.

We need to see "more anticipatory, more preventive, more efficient, and more local approaches," highlighted Mr. Fletcher.

At a time when it is "unfashionable to be defending institutions, defending structures, hierarchies, and order - the alternative is disorder and chaos," he said.

"We must grieve for what has gone, we must fight for what must be saved, and we must imagine what we can be in the future."