The African Union (AU) Commission and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) have launched the Global Humanitarian Appeal for 2023 with a record $51.5 billion required to reach 230 million people in crisis.
The AU Commission and the UNOCHA co-hosted the official launch of the Global Humanitarian Overview 2023 (GHO-2023) at the headquarters of the AU in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, the AU said in a statement issued on Friday.
The GHO-2023 outlined record levels of humanitarian need with 339 million people in need of life-saving assistance and protection across 68 countries — in which one in every 23 people on the planet requires emergency assistance to survive, according to the AU.
Some 145 million of these people are said to be living in Africa.
The GHO-2023 calls for 51.5 billion U.S. dollars to respond to the needs of the most vulnerable 230 million people worldwide.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, addressing the launching event in a video, emphasized the need for humanitarian aid and protection to save the lives of millions of people worldwide.
“2022 has been a year of extremes. Conflict brought misery to millions of people. The climate crisis is causing deadly drought and unprecedented floods, global hunger reached record levels,” an AU statement quoted Guterres as saying.
The GHO-2023 is said to serve as an urgent appeal to donors to support the response to displacement, hunger, disease, gender-based violence, and economic collapse in crises around the world.
The launch of the GHO-2023 follows the successful AU Extraordinary Humanitarian Summit and Pledging Conference, which took place in May 2022 in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea.
The summit, among other things, considered the humanitarian challenges caused by health pandemics, as is the case of Ebola and COVID-19; climate change and disasters such as drought and famine; effects of conflicts, terrorism, political instability, and unconstitutional changes of government in Africa, according to the AU.
MG/as/APA