UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : OCHA Press Conference: Launch of the Global Humanitarian Overview 2024

But I would like now

to ask Martin Griffiths to speak a bit about

the global humanity and overview that we are launching

on Monday, 11 December.

The information of this part of the briefing is embargoed,

as is the press release that I have shared with you and and

the abridged version of the document that I sent to you earlier today.

So,

Martin, back to you,

Thank you very much.

Perhaps if I may start

by perhaps what might be in

appetite claim,

but one that's relevant to this

particular global humanitarian overview I represent

for my sins

the global humanitarian agencies,

not just the United Nations agencies, but many, many far beyond Not all of them,

um, but most of them

and I am honoured

to lead many of them in their advocacy and co ordinate them in their operations.

And I will speak on

their behalf now when I talk about

the humanitarian picture for next year

and let's start with

the stark numbers because I think that that is the best description.

There will be 300 million people in need,

300 million people in need

across the world

in 2024 this figure

has been arrived at

by a process in every single country where we operate,

where humanitarian agencies operate

by

looking at the levels of need, counting the populations in need,

compiling lists,

analysing them, seeing who's in need of what

and the arrival is 300 million people in need.

Importantly,

that is less

than the number for 2023

which was 363 million.

And I want to explain that

because this is because there has been an enormous effort made

by humanitarian agencies in every single one of those countries

to limit

our focus

on the very, very direst needs.

And we do this because we have had, as you know,

gaps between funding

and needs.

And we are not

innocents abroad.

We are. We are.

We know, that we need to reflect

available funding

as well as be honest

about assessment of need.

So the 300 million people in need around the world

a sizable number

say the very least,

but less

than the 363 million people for this year 2023

we will target

for our specific needs for the

agencies that I represent

100 and 81 million of those 300 million people

and the difference between the two

is not about need. But it is about that.

There are other organisations, notably the Red Cross and

the National Red Cross societies Medecins

Sans Frontieres and others

who go out with their own appeals

and their own responses.

And of course,

a great greater part of that.

Assistance to those 300 million will come from

host governments.

It's easy to forget that host governments and local

governments perhaps local communities in particular probably the largest

donors of humanitarian assistance around the world

everywhere you see displacement

and I have the chance to see it in many different parts of the world.

The first donor to a displaced group are local communities

they give of themselves, so that's where that difference comes from.

We will be looking

four

a total of $46

billion

for 2024

and that compares

with $57 billion for 2023

so quite a considerable reduction.

You can imagine what hard work it has been to reduce

those numbers to persuade agencies to come down to be realistic

to be focused

to be tough minded

about what we are really going to be able to achieve.

So bringing it down to 46 billion from 57 billion

has been an effort,

a

gigantic effort led by I'm proud to say

my office led here out of Geneva,

but also particularly led by

humanitarian co ordinators in the field.

This overview the global humanitarian Overview which has all these numbers,

covers 72 countries in total

26 crisis countries themselves

and 46 neighbouring countries that have received refugees. You know in Sudan

we're all familiar with the phenomenon of the needs of the people in Sudan,

but equally of the needs of refugees

in neighbouring countries and their host communities.

Whether in Chad, in Central African Republic, south Sudan

or Ethiopia, it is the same in many places. Syria produces a diaspora of refugees

which is also included in this overview.

So those are the figures.

Still, a massive ask $46 billion is going to be no easy task

with the kind of cost of living

worries that many countries have many donors have.

We're still relying on a very small number of top donors

and we expect the following.

We expect climate

to only increase

its impact on our work.

We've already seen it very clearly this year, haven't we? We've already seen

from the beginning of the year the earthquakes in Syria. In Turkey

we saw

what happened in Morocco. We saw what happened in Libya.

We've seen the droughts and the floods. By the way,

in the Horn of Africa,

we've seen what happens in the Sahel.

Now

we will be. We have just come out of cop where we have had some success

in making arrangements for climate funding

to come through some of our funding mechanisms to spend on resilience

for communities facing climate shocks.

But there is no doubt about climate being

confronting,

competing

with conflict as the driver of need.

If I'm right,

it is the case

that

climate

displaces more Children

now

than conflict.

It was never thus before

and climate will grow.

Climate will grow.

We will need to invest

in new ways of programming for climate shocks.

We will need to learn

programming how front line humanitarian aid workers will actually

use climate data

to know where best to spend. For example, water planning

and so forth.

We will need to be agile just as the climate community has been agile.

So that's number one.

Number two

conflict In its resolution,

I speak as a former mediator. I

was in Yemen for some years.

Yemen

has been until recently and hopefully still is. Hopefully still is

one of the rare opportunities for peace

but the durable solutions by which I mean solving the problems of IDPs,

peace by which I mean stopping wars and stopping

conflict and returning countries to where they should be.

This is as rare as hen's teeth

these days.

These are rarities.

We used to expect 1020 years ago

peace agreements in Latin America

and elsewhere. We hoped for Syria

to be moving towards a more peaceful situation. It is not.

It is still back in war,

and

the statistics on resolving conflicts give us very little comfort.

So conflicts and intractable conflicts

will continue

like number three.

We will need

to be very, very clear

about

the efficient use

of the rare

dollar

money that we are given

and the efficient use of that

dollar

includes, first of all,

and of paramount importance.

Listening to what the front line communities tell us are their priorities.

If you want to spend money wisely,

ask the people whose needs you're trying to resolve.

Ask any shopkeeper anywhere in the world and

they will tell you that this is a banality

in the retail business. It should be a banality

in the humanitarian aid business.

We need to make sure that it is these people who tell us what they want

and by the way, when they're telling us

they should not be telling simply the humanitarians,

they should be telling our partners, our development partners,

we should be sitting there and we plan to do so and we have been talking

to the World Bank and Development Agencies.

True partnership with development

parties comes not from formal

agreements negotiated in New York with high level

panels of the leaders of these organisations and

exciting discussions

in the margins of

annual committees of these organisations. It comes from

listening to the same people when they tell us what they want

because they will not be looking at us as

a development person or as a humanitarian person.

They'll be looking at us and saying we need a road,

I

don't care who gives us a road. We need a road. We need a clinic, we need some shelter.

So let's start with improving the efficiency

of our money through listening to people.

That's not easy. That's not simple.

We need to do it much better. We are actively involved in doing so at

the moment.

But we cannot do this job

that we are going to face in the coming year

without

true partnership

with development agencies. True partnership.

Now look

beyond that.

What we need is a reminder

of the obligations of states.

Gaza, God help us has reminded us of this, as has Sudan.

We need to remind member states

of the obligations of international humanitarian law

and protection of humanitarian

aid workers

and of their delivery.

What can you imagine

are the statistics

of the response to the killings of humanitarian aid workers? One of my predecessors

was killed in 2003.

The people who killed him have not been investigated

and certainly not indicted.

And he's just one of many, many as we know in Gaza. We have lost over 100 and 10 and more,

and I don't suppose for a minute there is. There are investigations.

There need to be investigations.

Number two.

There is a pandemic

of attacks

in conflict

on

hospitals and clinics and places with that Red Cross, which signified safety

but which now signifies target practise.

We have to remind

the world

of the obligations

that comes under the

Geneva Conventions

that comes through international humanitarian law

that have to protect us

to enable us to do the job with a little money available.

Without these protections and this support,

we will not be able to change the day and one final point

if I may.

And that is this.

And I say this as we come out of the cop.

The climate community

is a community of enormous activism and energy.

It is a community insists on its rights

and the importance of its objectives

existentially for the world.

We need to be like that. We need to partner with them. We need to learn from them.

We need the humanitarian community to be as activist and as insistent

and and unrelenting

as those who promote

climate change.

We need that. So we need money,

we need safety,

we need international humanitarian law

and we need

activism

to remind people

that actually,

humanitarian operations

are a sign

and a signal and a symptom of the greatest humanity. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

We will take questions in the room now,

and I can see there are some hands going up already to raise your hand online,

and we will get to your questions.

So first here in the room.

Thank you.

Where do you see the needs being the most acute in 2024.

And secondly,

are there any countries or situations that you feel are

going under the radar and should be in the spotlight a bit more than they are?

Thank you.

I don't have a list of the countries in front of me,

and yes, I do, but

deeply involved in the paper about the specifics of the totals.

But we could get that to you.

But the countries of the greatest need

in 2024 I am quite sure are going to be

that

the Palestinian people,

Sudan and Sudan westwards

Ukraine

turned over yet,

Afghanistan. We worry a lot

because of the increase in instability and the possibility of outflow.

and I think the ones that have that are being forgotten

are parts of Africa

which are traditionally

you know in the front of our attention.

Syria,

Yemen,

the Middle Eastern countries will continue to play their

important role. I think the needs for

S

in the last year have been about $10 billion

for the year.

I

expect it's gone down a little bit, but not much.

That's including the regional needs.

So I think the Middle East as a whole adding Gaza and West Bank in

is probably going to be the area of greatest need.

But Ukraine is going to go, is going,

is going through

a desperate winter

and a war that will restart in full swing next year

and it will need a lot of attention.

There are some countries, I hope Venezuela is one

where

the P,

the political dialogue

that has been existing between

the opposition groups and the opposition platform and the Maduro government

unlocks

Venezuelan assets, frozen assets for the people. For the people of Venezuela,

it could be a really good example of

where dialogue actually leads to welfare rewards Afghanistan

if we can pay attention

to the issues of business and economic investment and economic

prospects without losing sight of the needs of rights.

We could make Afghanistan also a place

where we need to invest less to defeat potential famine.

Very worried about Myanmar.

Because, of course,

its war is increasing a

great deal. And it is so far away from us

that we rarely think about it.

But I still think the epicentre is going to be

the Middle East, the greater Middle East now,

and Sudan

and Sudan westwards.

Thank you. Uh, Martin, we have, uh, Yuri Ala

from R

RIA

Novosti. Uh,

online, please. Over to you, Yuri.

Yes, thank you,

Jen. But my question is not about the appeal.

It's a question about Gaza.

So if someone has a question about the appeal, I will wait.

If not, I can ask it right now. As you want.

OK. Thank you, Rory. That that's very kind of you.

Actually, uh, let me just finish up with this,

and then we might take a question on on on, um, on gas after that,

but, uh, LA

Yeah, I'd like to come back on that enormous effort, uh, that you mentioned,

and that was made by by the different, uh, organisation to reduce the appeal.

Uh, Don't you fear that there might be, um,

comments within the governments

to say, Why did you didn't you

do that before? And and and, uh, that you might not be able in the future

to increase much the the the volume of of appeal you're gonna you're gonna launch,

uh, if needed because of that.

And and then quickly,

just as a follow up.

So now we have we have seen, uh, this year,

much of public attention around a few crisis that means Sudan, Ukraine,

and now the Middle East.

Is that correlation between

that and and, uh

uh,

the

difficulty in the future to attract funding for the other crisis?

It's

There are about five.

No, there are about 10 top donors who provide about 60 to 80% of the total amount.

They have been very clear with us,

as you might imagine in recent times

to try to bring the totals down

somewhere closer to the amounts that they're able to give

so that we don't go around the world saying

you're only 35 per cent funded and good luck

with that

because it doesn't help anybody.

So we have heeded them

to answer your question. We have heeded them

and what we have been doing, in fact,

which is by no means an easy or simple thing. As you could imagine,

as we've been saying to our colleagues in the field,

what you have to do is to

narrowly focus on the most key life saving.

It needs life saving.

And there has been a long discussion

in our community

between the virtues and values and priorities between life saving,

which is, of course, the classic

focus of humanitarian operations

and the need for resilience.

The need for support for livelihoods

and what we have been forced to do

in the past years is take up some of the needs of

resilience and livelihoods because nobody else has been there to do it.

We have started to take over and do some of the sorts of things

that development agencies are actually much better at doing them than we are.

Afghanistan was very much a case in point, not the only one.

But as you know, there was a big debate

about who's going to run the hospitals and so forth.

So what we're doing is we're saying OK, we'll focus right down on life saving.

But let's be very clear

if we do this, first of all,

you need to respond as well.

You need to make an effort just as much as we have. And secondly,

you need to help us make sure that we

have what I was describing earlier as that living partnership

with

host governments, host communities,

national governments and development partners.

Otherwise it it

it it won't work.

I personally feel very strongly

having visited many, many, many ID P camps. For example,

that

when you talk to people who have been in those camps for 1012 years

and there are many of those

such people I was in, I was in Myanmar in August and talked to some Rohingya

in one of those camps had been there for 12 years.

And they say to you, we've had no help with livelihoods,

but with resilience more broadly,

and you know that they want that because it's a sign of respect

for their own agency, for themselves.

It's very difficult

to walk away from that.

It's very difficult to say Sorry. I'm sorry. We're just going to do life saving.

It means that

we can't

have an optional partnership with the development community. It means that

we have to have a necessary

complete partnership. I'll make one more point.

Don't know, remind me on the second question in one second

I make one more point, which is this,

what we discover in places of crisis,

where there are pariah regimes

where there are difficulties of access,

where it's not easy to move from a to B to get structures moving

to get basic services going again.

We're often told by many very good donors

who would say we will protect humanitarian aid.

Don't worry about it.

But of course we cannot provide development assistance.

And for every humanitarian

who hears that,

that is exactly not the answer they want.

Development assistance is as necessary in crisis

as humanitarian,

and we can't wait for it

if you go to Syria

these days.

As I was being told by my colleague who

runs the UN in Syria the other day,

you will find

that even civil servants in Syria, in other words, people who have a salary, a rare,

a rare and wonderful thing in Syria,

are barely able

to afford transport to their Children, to school

because the

cut, the amount of money that they're receiving

is so much less now because the

way in which their economy has contracted and contracted and contracted

Syrian

the levels of poverty in Syria as a result of this

contraction of the economy as a result of lack of development assistance

and other reasons

the war and so forth

means that

there is no

safety net for people

and what happens? They join

the queue to get aid from us,

whereas in fact they'd be a lot better off never coming anywhere near us

and keeping

going with people who are on basic services. Better.

ICRC

in Afghanistan

You'll remember this about a year ago

had decided because of lack of choice, really

to start funding a number of hospitals in Afghanistan,

because after the Taliban came in,

where development funding stopped completely. Do you remember that?

And

ICRC and who

and UNICEF

all went in to start

paying for that?

ICRC

recently had to stop doing it

because the money wasn't there.

It wasn't sustainable.

It's for sustainable funding.

Don't look to the humanitarian community because

that's not what we're supposed to do.

Look to these others. So we have to do partnership. The second question was,

Yeah, Laurent, do you wanna

repeat the second question, please?

It was just about the correlation between the fact that we have three big

crises with public attention and the ability to attract funding for other crises.

Good.

Good question. Sorry. Excuse me for,

um

that II I remember saying

when the Ukraine War started

in its first months, that

the immediate impact of the Ukraine war on other crises

was not actually financial.

In terms of humanitarian aid, it was a 10.

Well, you know that

I mean you, you live, you live it daily.

We can't get Sudan onto the news.

It's impossible

to get Sudan

stories out

because it's competing

with

Gaza now. Ukraine, before

even in Ukraine now

has a bit of difficulty getting on the news. So

the first casualty

of these

spinning of crises is attention

and without attention, you don't get support

and

it's become more and more difficult to get attention.

It's become

and this is an invidious thing for me to say.

It has become

like a hit parade

of Where's the worst place

now?

Do you remember tea? Grey?

22 years ago, wasn't it? It was all T grave. I remember I went there myself.

Nobody's talking about what's happening in Ethiopia at the moment and

there is a lot happening in Ethiopia at the moment.

The Horn of Africa never quite made it. Why?

Because it didn't declare famine. Thank God it didn't declare famine because

it didn't come.

But it's very it is very difficult to get to, to get attention

to the places of the greatest need

and to spread it out. And that does have ultimately a financial impact.

It does. It does indeed.

It means that we are very underfunded in Sudan.

Ukraine is much better funded than elsewhere.

I mean, we still need more money in Ukraine. Don't get me wrong. We still need funding

increased there.

We're still

how many? What's our 30 per cent funded? I think in Gaza for the

flash appeal,

despite all the attention.

So

we

we do need to think creatively ourselves speaking to the humanitarian community

of ways in which we are able to draw the attention of the world

to places where money can be wisely spent.

That's why I mentioned the climate community

they've actually blazed a trail

clearly in cop this year,

in which they have achieved great things

in terms of moving the world towards where they wanted to be only at the beginning.

Don't don't get me wrong

but it's an extraordinary achievement.

And we need

we need some of that talent

to shine a light on these other countries.

Thank you very much. I don't think there are more questions on this. So

Juri, thank you very much for your patience.

We will go back to you now for your question on the situation in Gaza.

Yes. Thank you, Jens.

More than 132 UN employees have been killed since

October 7th in Gaza.

Do we know if Hamas is responsible for the death of some of them?

Or is Israel the only one responsible?

Have you obtained any guarantees that the UN

sites and employees will no longer be targeted by Israel

and especially schools and shelters?

And will the UN demand for those responsible

for these attacks on the organisations betrayed?

Thank you.

Uh,

as I said earlier. Fortunately, I'm not a lawyer

and I'm not in the business of

as a as a humanitarian coordinator not in the business

of

finding those culpable for those killings.

I don't know who killed those 132

people,

Um, whether it's Hamas or Israel,

we hope and we have discussed this together

with UN

R a.

Obviously

that there will be an investigation

of those crimes

and that somebody will be

indicted.

And as I said earlier,

I think this should become an international

issue.

The head of a very large

nongovernmental organisation,

an international nongovernmental organisation,

came to me the other day and he said we lose about three or four people every month

to deaths to killings

and kidnapping

three or four people on average every single month of the year.

Medecins

Sans Frontieres, as you know,

has a tragic history

of killings, of kidnappings,

of trying to find the people where they are trying to find the people who did it

and almost no occasion.

Are there any formal investigations and indictments?

So I don't know who did those killings?

whoever did it

has nothing

but contempt from people like me.

And we hope

that once circumstances obtain

that there will be an investigation

of those crimes, but of course.

Those killings

are only a small number of the killings of civilians

in Gaza. And let us also not forget

of the numbers

allegedly now close to 16,000

Palestinians who died of all those who died on October the seventh. I have seen

the videos of that day, the shocking videos of that day

of what happened on October the seventh, and they are deeply shocking.

Two months ago today

we have seen

and estimated the numbers of Palestinians who have died.

We have seen the pictures you have shown them

of

the youngest of Children

burrowing their even younger

siblings,

a five year old boy putting his four year old brother

into the ground.

I don't understand

how humanity can contemplate that.

So I hope these crimes will indeed

be discovered,

indicted

and punished.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you, Martin.

You

either. I think there was a second

part to your question about guarantees from Israel.

If you don't mind just to repeat that

Yes,

yes. Thank you.

It was just to know if Israel gave any guarantees that

at least strikes against the schools and shelters of the UN

in the south or even in the north in Gaza would

not be striked if you had any guarantees about that.

Well, we've had lots and lots of discussions with the Israeli authorities,

UNRWA in particular

throughout the entire

two months

of the sanctity, if you like,

of United Nations institutions UNRWA with its UN flag

planted in the middle of its institution as places of safety

for people to go to.

We have had many such discussions.

We have also had many discussions with the Israeli

authorities and others about the idea of so called safe zones which we oppose.

We do not believe

in the United Nations. The secretary general is particularly clear on this

in

the safety of safe zones. Safe zones for a start require both sides all sides

to agree to their safety.

For example,

we have had some occasions and certainly true

and I don't want to underestimate for one minute

Israeli promises of safety and people have survived

for periods of time in these places identified as de conflicted

and as de conflicted with Israel, Israel has honoured

precisely those promises.

The state of the war

has moved on

from that, and that's what worries us

as we look at the south of Gaza where we thought we could establish a

whole series of places

under U NRW A's institutional oversight of safety for people.

And we find now that we can't.

But Israel has indeed honoured

a great deal of deconfliction

notifications from the UN system,

as it has done for many, many years in Gaza. This is not new

to this conflict.

We're just worried at the moment.

No such places

exist

and no such cases can be counted on

to be assured of safety.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Martin, for coming. I will not take more of your time.

Thank you very much to all of you here and online just for clarity.

This last question on Gaza

and the replies is not under embargo that you can use. However, everything that was

talked about before on the global humanitarian

overview is under embargo until Monday.

Six o'clock. Thank you very much. Everyone

OCHA Press Conference: Launch of the Global Humanitarian Overview 2024 - 07 December 2023