Acknowledging a decline in donor support at a time when humanitarian needs are at an all-time high, the UN on Monday called for an aid budget that is just half of what it had planned for this year.
By its own admission, the $23 billion U.N. appeal would block out tens of millions of people in urgent need of help since declining financing has pushed it to select just the most destitute.
The financial reductions are on top of other difficulties that aid organizations face, such as lack of access and security threats to employees in war areas.
U.N. assistance head Tom Fletcher told reporters, "In the end, it's the cuts that are forcing us into these tough, tough, brutal choices that we're having to make." "We are overstretched, underfunded, and under attack," he stated."
And we move the ambulance in the direction of the fire. In your honor. However, we are now also being requested to extinguish the fire. Additionally, the tank's water supply is insufficient. We're also getting shot at.
The U.N. requested almost $47 billion for 2025 a year ago; however, this amount was later reduced when the extent of aid cuts by U.S. President Donald Trump and other major Western donors, like Germany, became apparent.
According to data from November, it had only received $12 billion thus far the least in ten years covering little more than 25% of its demands.
The $23 billion plan for next year identified 87 million individuals whose lives are at risk and are considered priority cases. However, it claims that some 25 million people require immediate aid, and if it has the resources, it will try to serve 135 million of them at a cost of $33 billion.
The occupied Palestinian territories are the subject of the largest single appeal, totaling $4 billion. The majority of that is for Gaza, where the two-year Israel-Hamas conflict has left almost all of its 2.3 million residents homeless and reliant on handouts. Sudan comes in second, then Syria.
According to Fletcher, humanitarian organizations had to deal with a dire situation that included rising rates of starvation, disease, and violence.
"(The appeal) is laser-focused on saving lives where the shocks hit hardest: wars, climate disasters, earthquakes, epidemics, crop failures," he stated.
The United States is by far the largest historical donor to U.N. humanitarian organizations, which rely heavily on voluntary contributions from Western donors.
Despite Trump's cuts, it maintained its top rank in 2025, according to U.N. data, although its portion had decreased from more than a third of the total to 15.6% this year.
