Humanitarian needs and requirements

The world faces a public health crisis unlike any in the modern era. On 25 March 2020 the UN Secretary General launched a Global Humanitarian Response Plan for the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 Global HRP is a joint effort by members of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC). It aggregates relevant COVID-19 appeals and inputs from WFP, WHO, IOM, UNDP, UNFPA, UN-Habitat, UNHCR, UNICEF and NGOs. NGOs and NGO consortiums have been instrumental in helping shape the plan and conveying local actors’ perspectives, and they will play a direct role in service delivery. This ensures complementarity, synergy, gaps and needs identification, and a coordinated response.

The Global HRP identifies the most affected and vulnerable population groups in priority countries, including countries with an ongoing Humanitarian Response Plan, Refugee Response Plan or multi-country/subregional response plan, as well as countries that have requested international assistance, such as Iran. However, the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbates existing humanitarian needs in many countries around the world. Notwithstanding the public health emergency, nearly 168 million people were already projected to need humanitarian assistance and protection in 2020.

This represents 1 in about 45 people in the world, and is the highest figure in decades. Addressing the most pressing of their pre-existing humanitarian needs will require funding of $28 billion in 2020, in addition to the $2 billion requested for the COVID-19 GHRP. The situation will keep getting worse unless climate change and the root causes of conflict are better addressed. On current trends, projections show that more than 200 million people could be in need of assistance by 2022.