The World Health Organization (WHO) announced today that it requires $1.5 billion in the year 2024 to provide essential aid to tens of millions of people facing health emergencies, including those in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip.
The UN organization anticipates that nearly 300 million people worldwide will need humanitarian assistance and protection this year.
Among these, “about 166 million people will require life-saving humanitarian health assistance,” according to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in Geneva.
He added that the agency aims to reach about 87 million of the most vulnerable individuals and will need $1.5 billion to do so.
“With the start of 2024, the WHO has responded to 41 health crises, including 15 of the most severe crises,” he said.
He warned that people living in such crises “are facing a painful start to a new year after 2023, which was in itself a year of immense suffering that could have been avoided.”
He also mentioned that one in every five children in the world either lived in a conflict area or fled from it in 2023, citing the crises witnessed worldwide during the past year, including wars in Ukraine, Sudan, and Gaza.
He pointed out the worsening climate crisis, especially in 2023, which saw record-high temperatures ever recorded, approaching for the first time a full year of the threshold set in the Paris Agreement, at 1.5 degrees Celsius of climate warming.
The WHO Director-General warned of “serious health consequences” due to this, starting with “catastrophic hunger” resulting from drought in the African Horn and the spread of deadly diseases due to changing climate patterns.
In 2023, funding appeals for providing health assistance in various places received only an average of 12% of the required funds, according to Tedros.
He stated, “The situation is heartbreaking and avoidable. Therefore, we must act in 2024.”
