The United Nations announced Wednesday it was still seeking $8.6 billion of the record $12.9 billion it needs to help 73 million people engulfed in crises around the world this year.
The United Nations announced Wednesday it was still seeking $8.6 billion of the record $12.9 billion it needs to help 73 million people engulfed in crises around the world this year.
"Millions of people remain in bad need of help," UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos told reporters in Geneva, providing an overview of the situation halfway through the year.
In December last year, her agency appealed for $8.5 billion for emergency aid to 57 million people in 2013, but the ever-expanding crisis in Syria especially has forced it to increase its appeal to nearly $13 billion (10 billion Euros) as the number of people in need has reached 73 million.
"Halfway through the year, the donors have provided $5.1 billion so far," covering just 40 percent of the needs, Amos said.
She also pointed out that the amount raised would have been impressive in a normal year -- her agency had raised just $6.0 billion for all of 2012.
"But this is an extraordinary year, and extraordinary circumstances require extraordinary measures," Amos added, noting that her agency still needs to raise $8.6 billion by the end of the 2013.
"I have no idea how to do it," she acknowledged.
Nearly 1.8 million Syrians are registered as refugees in neighboring countries.
Yet aid needs for Syrian refugees have so far only been around 35 percent funded, the United Nations revealed.
The humanitarian situation has exacerbated in other countries as well, such as the Central African Republic and Mali, while funding plans have been revised to reflect better-than-expected situations in places such as Kenya, Mauritania and South Sudan, Amos said.
Aid organizations regularly lament that funding fails to offer long-term solutions to enduring problems.
"The planning horizons and concept of humanitarian assistance is short term," said Judith Randel, director of Development Initiatives, a British-based organization which tracks aid spending.
