Mr. Ramesh Rajasingham, Director, Coordination Division, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Remarks at the launch of the Global Humanitarian Overview 2024: Transforming Humanitarian Action: What it Means to Have a Women and Girls-Centred Approach

Excellencies, Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Welcome. It is a great pleasure to be here in Addis Ababa, for the third and last of three consecutive events marking the release of the Global Humanitarian Overview for 2024.
I want sincerely to thank the African Union and Commissioner Ambassador Minata Samate Cessouma for hosting this event, for the second time. It demonstrates the African Union’s unwavering commitment to supporting effective humanitarian action, not just in Africa, but worldwide.
I do not need to remind any of you in this room that 2023 has been yet another monumentally challenging year. As we approach 2024, almost 300 million people around the world are in need of humanitarian assistance and protection. 47 per cent of these are in Africa representing the largest geographic share of the Global Humanitarian Overview.
And we all know the causes:
New and resurgent conflicts around the world with deep and long-lasting consequences. This year we have seen the outbreak of yet more devastating wars: notably in Sudan, in April, and then in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory in October. These wars show how conflict appears to be intensifying – just look at Gaza for example, where more than 16,000 civilians have reportedly been killed, the majority of them women and children, in the space of just two months. And they only added to the myriad other unresolved conflicts that have kept millions of people in a state of prolonged need: in Ukraine, in Syria and in Yemen, to name only a few.
The global climate emergency has continued to spiral out of control, leaving a trail of destruction in its path. 2023 has been the hottest year on record, and we have seen multiple, concurrent climate disasters, like Tropical Cyclone Freddy in Southern Africa, to wildfires in Europe, and the devastation wrought by Storm Daniel in Libya.
This continent is, of course, shouldering a disproportionate share of the burden of the climate crisis. A crisis that so many of its countries have done little to cause, and which is contributing to 140 million people in need of humanitarian assistance and protection across Africa in 2024.

And in addition to this persistent, unequal, economic pressures continue to overlap with conflict, climate disasters, disease outbreaks and other factors, as a significant driver of poverty and humanitarians needs.

The result is that across the world, more people are displaced than at any time since the beginning of the century – 1 in every 73 people, a ratio that has more than doubled in the past 10 years.
Tragically, nearly 1 in 5 children are either living in or fleeing from conflict. And with this comes a loss of quality education which will have a long-term impact on the world. 260 million people across the world are facing acute food insecurity. Africa is facing a hunger crisis. At least 1 in 5 Africans go to bed hungry and an estimated 140 million people in Africa face acute food insecurity. Around 20 per cent of people in Africa are facing chronic hunger.

And disease outbreaks continue to cause significant loss of life, with deadly cholera outbreaks in 29 countries, fueled by overstretched health systems, shortages of vaccines, lack of access to clean water and sanitation, and the presence of multiple, parallel disease outbreaks.
In the face of these immense challenges, the humanitarian community once again showed its mettle this year, providing some form of assistance to 130 million people worldwide, 62 million of them here on this continent – which is a heroic effort.
These efforts saved lives and made a decisive difference. In Somalia, for instance, the efforts of local communities and the scale-up of humanitarian assistance – plus the arrival of better rains – meant famine was averted following a record-breaking drought. But we all know that this is a tenuous gain: the success in averting famine could easily be derailed if there is no improvement in the underlying drivers of the crisis.
And across the humanitarian community, we persisted in efforts to make humanitarian action more efficient, effective and accountable to those we serve.

This year, OCHA launched the Flagship Initiative – a three-year pilot project in four countries – including two on this continent, in Niger and South Sudan – that aims to empower affected people and devolve more direction and decision-making to the local level, to the people that know best.

And we have expanded our use of faster, more dignified and more cost-effective anticipatory responses to predictable crises. Twice this year, for example, the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund has released urgent funding to prevent and contain the spread of a cholera outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

But these efforts have taken place against the backdrop of a severe and ominous funding, as the Secretary-General has just said. In 2023, we have so far received just over one third of the US$57 billion required, making this the worst funding shortfall in years. For the first time since 2010, we will have received less funding than in the previous year. The top ten forgotten crises for the year ‘2021-2022’, are all in Africa. These crises are forgotten in terms of media attention humanitarian funding and overall priority.

The result is that many people – around 38 per cent of those targeted through country-specific plans – did not get the humanitarian assistance we aimed to provide. And throughout the year, humanitarian agencies had to make increasingly painful decisions, including cutting life-saving food, water and health programming.
We just cannot allow this trend to continue into next year.

In preparing the Global Humanitarian Overview for 2024, we, the humanitarian community, have done our part to ensure that we reach the people and places that need us most in 2024.
We have worked tirelessly to design robust, evidence-based appeals, anchored in comprehensive analyses of needs, with an even more disciplined and rigorous focus on the most urgent needs.

The result is that we will be targeting fewer people in 2024 than in 2023, and we are appealing for less money.
However, this in no way shows that there is a reduction in needs, on the contrary, we have been much more disciplined about our prioritization.

Overall – on behalf of more than 1,900 humanitarian partners, the majority of them local and national NGOs – our ask for 2024 is $46.4 billion to provide assistance to nearly 180 million people in need.

In return, today, we are appealing for donors to do their part: To dig deeper in the coming year, and to fully fund these robust and rigorous plans. And we are also issuing a wider call to action. Humanitarian assistance cannot be the entire solution: everyone needs to share the load.

We are saying that it is time for much more development and other financial investments in fragile settings and marginalized communities.

And we are calling on the international community to redouble efforts to address the root causes of humanitarian need: conflict, climate change and economic dynamics.
Humanitarian action at best can only stem the crisis.
More than ever, it is time to put everyday people, particularly the most vulnerable and those affected by crises, at the centre of our discourse, diplomacy and decision-making.

Excellencies, colleagues,
This brings me to the theme of today’s meeting: “Transforming Humanitarian Action: What it Means to Have a Women and Girls-Centred Approach.” We know – but it is too infrequently part of our discussions – that crises have specific and often disproportionate impacts for women and girls.
For instance, women and children are more than 14 times more likely to be killed by climatedisasters than men.
Across crises, women and girls are at much greater risk of gender-based and sexual violence, particularly in displacement settings. And sexual violence – in all its forms – continues to be used as a tactic of war at horrifying levels, with women and girls constituting the majority of victims and survivors.

Women and girls too often face gendered barriers that impede their access life-saving services, including sexual and reproductive health care.
They are more likely to die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth, and pregnant and breastfeeding women and girls continue to be the most impacted by climate-driven food insecurity and malnutrition.
And girls’ education is much more likely to suffer as a result of economic hardship, with girls often called upon to assume duties at home instead of attending school and to experience a rise in negative coping mechanisms, such as child marriage. This is just one of many crisis-related factors that entrenches and deepens gender inequality. What should this mean for transforming humanitarian action?

We need to get better at acting on gender-specific analyses that strengthen our ability to meet the diverse and distinct needs of all the people we serve.
We need far greater investment in protection and other services in humanitarian settings that are tailored for women and girls.
And most importantly, we need to get better at investing in women’s expertise when it comes to building and shaping better, more fit for purpose humanitarian responses.
Let me refer to just one example: women account for between 40 and 80 per cent of the world’s agricultural workforce. Yet on average, only 15 per cent of land is owned by women and they receive only 10 per cent of total aid for agriculture, forestry and fishing. This must change. By investing in women – including by supporting the participation and leadership of women-led organizations in the food security sector – there would be a multiplier effect that benefits everyone.
I hope today’s and future discussions can address these and many other pragmatic solutions to putting women and girls at the centre of humanitarian responses – to everyone’s advantage. I very much look forward to hearing the insights of our distinguished panel members today.
Thank you.