UN launches record plea

In a bid to address a number of conflict and humanitarian crises taking place across the world, the United Nations has initiated a record plea of $22.5 billion. The organization has noted that this money was urgently needed to help millions of victims globally.

Background

The United Nations is an international organization founded in 1945. It is currently made up of 193 Member States. It began as a replacement for the ineffective League of Nations that failed to prevent World War II.  At its founding, the UN had 51 member states. The headquarters of the UN is in Manhattan, New York City, and is subject to extraterritoriality. The UN has six principal organs: the General Assembly (the main deliberative assembly); the Security Council (for deciding certain resolutions for peace and security); the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC; for promoting international economic and social co-operation and development); the Secretariat (for providing studies, information, and facilities needed by the UN); the International Court of Justice (the primary judicial organ); and the UN Trusteeship Council (inactive since 1994).

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly been critical of the amount of money that the US funnels to the UN. Under his direction, U.N. General Assembly voted in 2017 to cut $600 million from the organization's nearly $8 billion annual peacekeeping budget. The UN had been lobbying for more funds at the time. The US would save $150 million due to the cuts.

The US is currently the largest donor to the UN and Trump has been critical to that fact. The nation contributed $611 million in 2017 to the UN budget of $2.5 billion. Additionally, US contributes more than $2 billion to multiple UN programs including the World Food Program and the UN Peacekeeping. At the time, Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said in a statement “The figures presented would simply make it impossible for the U.N. to continue all of its essential work advancing peace, development, human rights and humanitarian assistance.”

Analysis

In a bid to address a number of conflict and humanitarian crises taking place across the world, the United Nations has initiated a record plea of $22.5 billion. The organization has noted that this money was urgently needed to help millions of victims globally.

One of the main crises unfolding currently is the massive cholera outbreak in Yemen. The region is also in dire need to food supplies, water, and medicines. In addition, there is an ongoing refugee crisis in Myanmar with more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims fleeing the region post August 2017. Critics have said that the situation in Myanmar is tantamount to ethnic cleansing. South Sudan, Syria and Afghanistan are the other countries who are in urgent need of international aid and resources. According to the UN, at least 135 million people need aid. In Nigeria, 14.5 million people, particularly women, need aid and protection because of fighting between the military and armed groups.

Mark Lowock, UN humanitarian chief said, “The situation in Yemen is atrocious. The number of people in need out of a population of 28 million is approaching 20 million. Seven or eight million of those people are right on the verge of famine and starvation. We need to get the ports fully open so that the fuel to run the water systems can get in. The fuel to get the food around the country can get in.”

Assessment

Our assessment is that despite the increased number of humanitarian crises across the world, it is unlikely that the UN will be able to raise the intended amount to funds for aid. In 2017, the agency was able to raise 52.5 percent of their original appeal. In addition, a lot of Western nations like the US have become adopting more protectionist policies that will play a role.