A total of 324.3 million people worldwide were in need of humanitarian aid last year, a number that rose to 363.3 million as of this month with the effects of war, climate change, and the lingering socioeconomic effects of the coronavirus pandemic. This year’s Global Humanitarian Assistance Report by the UK-based non-profit Development Initiatives revealed that humanitarian crises had deepened across the globe in 2022.
According to the report, three-quarters of people in need of humanitarian assistance faced at least two of the three factors of conflict, the climate crisis, or socioeconomic vulnerability. According to data by the UN Humanitarian Coordination Office (OCHA), while 255.1 million people were in need of humanitarian aid in 2021, this surged to 324.3 million in 2022 and 363.3 million in the first eight months of 2023. While $37.64 billion was enough to meet the needs of people in need in 2021, this amount increased to $51.7 billion in 2022 and to $55.21 billion in August 2023, particularly acute malnutrition.
Afghanistan, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Yemen, Pakistan, Myanmar, Ukraine, Syria, and South Sudan were listed as the top 10 countries in need of humanitarian aid. Impacted by years of political and economic crisis, Afghanistan was home to 18.4 million people in need of humanitarian aid in 2021, 24.4 million people in 2022, and 29.2 million people as of the eighth month of 2023. The number of people in need of humanitarian aid in conflict- and drought-hit Ethiopia was 23.9 million in 2021, as were at least 20 million last year, and 28.6 million by August.
In the DRC, where a food crisis continues, the number of people facing humanitarian crisis has risen from 19.6 million in 2021 to 27 million in 2022. However, it fell to 26.4 million as of this month. While 13.4 million in 2021 and 14.3 million in 2022 needed humanitarian aid in Sudan, this number increased to 24.7 million as of August 2023, due to the conflicts between the army and the paramilitary forces that erupted on April 15. In Yemen, where the effects of ongoing civil war between the government and Iran-backed Houthis have been ongoing since 2014, 20.7 million people in 2021, 23.5 million people in 2022, and 21.6 million people as of the eighth month of this year are in need of aid. While 11 million people were affected by the humanitarian crisis in 2021 in Pakistan due to climate-triggered problems, such as floods, this number increased to 20.6 million in 2022 and remained stable in August 2023. While 1 million people in Myanmar needed aid in 2021, that number rose to 14.4 million last year and to 17.6 million by August 2023. Food safety and health issues were major causes of this in the Southeast Asian country.
