United Nations:
Reductions in U.S. foreign aid under President Donald Trump have created a “seismic shock” to global humanitarian efforts, the head of a UN agency warned on Wednesday, stating that “many will die” as a consequence.
Tom Fletcher, the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), estimated that 300 million or more people globally require humanitarian assistance, and “the pace and scale of the funding cuts we’ve experienced are, of course, a seismic shock to the sector.”
“Many will die because that aid is drying up,” he said during a press conference.
Since Trump resumed office in January, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been a primary target of his administration’s efforts to cut government spending, with ripple effects already being felt worldwide.
After suspending all foreign aid for review, the U.S. State Department announced last week that it would terminate 83 percent of USAID contracts.
“Across the UN family and our partners, we’re faced with difficult daily decisions about which lives we must prioritize, which lives we must try to save,” Fletcher said, acknowledging that “we have been… overly reliant on U.S. funding.”
In December, the UN estimated that $47.4 billion would be needed for humanitarian aid in 2025, though this amount was only sufficient to assist an estimated 190 million people in need.
Without U.S. funding, which Fletcher said “has saved hundreds of millions of lives,” the scope of UN humanitarian aid has been further reduced.
“I have colleagues in Geneva right now working to determine how we can prioritize saving 100 million lives and what that will cost us in the coming year.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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