Humanitarians seek $505 million to assist 4.9 million people in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras in 2023

Geneva, 15 February 2023 - Humanitarian teams in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have launched their Humanitarian Response Plans (HRPs) for 2023, which seek to raise $505 million ($280 million for Honduras, $126 million for Guatemala and $98 million for El Salvador) to assist a total of 4.9 million people with humanitarian needs.

The three countries, home to at least 9.3 million people in need, are facing a challenging reality due to humanitarian impacts related to disasters and the effects of climate change, including the impact of the La Niña phenomenon, high levels of food insecurity, recurring violence and lack of access to basic services such as health and education, among others. “These issues come against a common backdrop of structural poverty, inequality, economic challenges and limited emergency response capacities,” said Mr. Ramesh Rajasingham, Head and Representative of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Geneva, at an event in the Swiss city. “Such conditions are driving more and more people in Northern Central America (NCA) to move within and across borders. Moreover, people on the move from all over the continent and, in fact, the world, are now regularly crossing through the sub-region,” he added.

Speaking at the High-Level Solidarity Roundtable in Support of Northern Central America Humanitarian Response Plans, organized together with the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), the European Commission and the Governments of Canada and the United States of America, and featuring the participation of representatives from the Governments of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, the OCHA representative noted: “As we know all too well, humanitarian needs are rapidly escalating around the world.

Many vulnerable countries are dealing with local crises. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and yearlong conflict in Ukraine are having far-reaching social and economic impacts that are aggravating these crises.” Today, there are at least 7.8 million people experiencing Crisis (IPC Phase 3) or worse levels of food insecurity across the three countries. Some 3.4 million people require water, sanitation and hygiene assistance and 1.25 million people have education needs, while 4.8 million people have protection needs, including from gender-based violence (GBV), a common theme across all three response plans. “There will always be danger, but I cannot live in fear my whole life… I’m trying to finish building something to support my children,” shared a GBV survivor as part of the testimonies presented by NRC at the High-Level Solidarity Roundtable.

Through the HRPs for 2023, humanitarian teams in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras seek to scale up the existing response from the previous HRPs, which received funding, on average, below 40 per cent. The inter-sectoral response supported by the HRPs, which seeks to save lives and build resilience, will be implemented through December 2023.

Press Resources

Humanitarian Response Plans: https://www.unocha.org/latin-america-and-caribbean-rolac/north-of-central-america

Photos:

El Salvador: https://bit.ly/3IoIcLg
Guatemala: https://bit.ly/3S7BqwP
Honduras: https://bit.ly/3XyzI8G

For more information, please contact:
Panama: Véronique Durroux-Malpartida, Head of Information & Advocacy for OCHA ROLAC, durroux@un.org, +507 6674 4740