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Disasters, conflicts, climate change and now the corona virus have plunged millions of people into misery. Famines even threatened, warned UN emergency aid coordinator Mark Lowcock. The UN expects that next year more people will need help and support than ever before: a total of 235 million people, an increase of 40 percent within one year. A year ago the figure was 168 million, the year before 146 million people.
Next year, the UN wants to help 160 million people in 56 countries. The others are taken care of by aid organizations like the Red Cross. The planned UN programs to provide food, shelter and medical aid will cost a total of 35 billion dollars (a good 29 billion euros). This year, the need for several supplements was almost 39 billion dollars, partly because of the coronavirus pandemic. By the end of November, however, just under 45 percent of this had been collected.
More people need help, but the UN estimates less money. The spokesman for the UN Emergency Aid Office (OCHA) Jens Laerke explains it like this: “When appeals for donations are made, priorities are increasingly set and they are becoming more and more efficient. There may be more people in need in 2021, but that does not mean that they need the same help as in 2020”.
Deepest recession since the 1930s
“The results of decades of development have been overturned by the coronavirus,” the report says. For the first time since the 1990s, the number of people who are extremely poor will increase. Life expectancy will fall in many countries.
Not only the virus itself, but above all the consequences of it had hit the countries: The closure of businesses, the deepest global recession since the 1930s, higher food prices, falling incomes, the decline in remittances from relatives abroad, interrupted vaccination programs for diseases such as measles and school closures.
hp, Source: ORF.at/agencies. picture: pixabay.com
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