As of 31 January, United Nations Coordinated Appeals and Refugee Response Plans within the Global Humanitarian Overview (GHO) require US$22.5 billion to meet the humanitarian needs of 93.5 million crisis-affected people in 33 countries. Needs and financial requirements have increased due the finalisation of five additional Humanitarian Response Plans (HRPs). Seventeen HRPs have been published so far. Together the appeals are funded at $77.2 million, leaving a shortfall of $22.4 billion.
Timely funding is required to meet pressing needs in several countries. In Afghanistan, deepening conflict has resulted in a 13 per cent increase in the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance, now at 9.3 million people. Funding is urgently required early in the year to support the return of Afghans from Pakistan and of others displaced by conflict. Some 2.2 million people, or almost half the population of Central African Republic (CAR), urgently require humanitarian assistance, amid continuing insecurity and a steep decline in funding. Humanitarian partners are withdrawing from central CAR because of funding shortages and in the absence of funding, agencies may be forced to suspend food distributions in February.
Continued low funding is hampering humanitarian partners’ ability to respond to the humanitarian needs of an estimated 3.7 million people in Mali. In Nigeria, aid organizations require funding to step up life-saving assistance in areas previously held by Boko Haram, where new needs are being revealed. In Somalia, drought-driven food insecurity and malnutrition could plummet to "famine" levels in the coming months. A new drought in the lowlands and in southern and eastern parts of Ethiopia is placing some 5.6 million Ethiopians at risk of hunger, threatening 300,000 children with malnutrition, over 9 million people with zero access to safe drinking water and 2.4 million farmers and herders with unsustainable livelihoods.
Please see icon overleaf for information on other urgent funding needs.In January, the Emergency Relief Coordinator released $100 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to sustain aid operations in critically underfunded operations in Cameroon, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Libya, Madagascar, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia and Uganda. These allocations will reach more than 6 million alarmingly vulnerable people in the throes of poorly funded crises. CERF also allocated $1.1 million to Mongolia to provide emergency agricultural and multi-purpose cash assistance for 3,500 herder households living the consequences of a particularly harsh winter. A further $6 million was allocated to the CAR to provide emergency food assistance to 36,800 people recently displaced by violence. CERF received $14.8 million in contributions for 2017, with $255.5 million in pledges.
In 2017, OCHA aims to increase the amount of humanitarian appeal funding channelled through Country-Based Pooled Funds (CBPFs) to 15 per cent, in keeping with the UN Secretary-General’s Agenda for Humanity. As of 31 January, seven countries had already pledged a combined $65 million to CBPFs, including $25.3 million for the Syria crisis (through CBPFs in Jordan, Syria and Turkey) and $24.4 million for Afghanistan.