The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has announced that humanitarian partners will require $4.7 billion in 2024 to assist 20.9 million vulnerable individuals in Nigeria, Chad, and five other African countries.
This information was revealed in the 2024 Humanitarian Needs and Requirement Overview report, published on the OCHA website on Thursday.
The Sahel region, spanning Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal, faces a complex web of crises, including instability, deteriorating security, and the impacts of climate change. These crises are leaving 32.8 million people in need of humanitarian assistance and protection services.
OCHA has urged the international community to contribute generously to ensure that the region’s humanitarian response plans can be fully implemented by the end of the year. The UN agency highlighted that growing violence and conflict in the Sahel are threatening lives and livelihoods, forcing families to flee their homes and hindering access to basic social services.
In Nigeria, 7.9 million people from Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states are in need of assistance. The agency aims to target 4.4 million people with the necessary funding of $926.5 million. The report also noted that 2.2 million children in the region are deprived of education due to school closures, 1,263 health centers are closed, and the area hosts two million refugees and asylum seekers, in addition to 5.6 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), many of whom have faced multiple displacements.
“Humanitarian partners require $4.7 billion in 2024 to meet the urgent needs of 20.9 million people in Burkina Faso, Cameroon’s Far North Region, Chad, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria’s Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe states,” the report stated. OCHA warned that lives are at risk unless sufficient resources are provided to respond to these crises and support the most vulnerable populations.
As of April 30, 2024, Burkina Faso and Nigeria each host over 2.1 million internally displaced persons. Chad hosts the highest number of refugees and asylum seekers, with 1.2 million as of the same date. The resurgence of conflict in Sudan has driven more than half a million Sudanese to seek refuge in neighboring Chad, with this number expected to rise unless the situation stabilizes.
Charles Bernimolin, the regional head of OCHA, emphasized the critical role of humanitarians and international partners during crises, noting that inadequate resources remain a significant challenge in addressing the humanitarian situation. He expressed confidence in the ability of international partners to intervene, stating, “Humanitarians across the Sahel are doing extraordinary work, often in the most challenging circumstances. But the tangled web of crises faced is more complex than ever. Yet without the resources needed to respond to their needs, these crises will continue to escalate and spread, eroding resilience and putting the lives of vulnerable children, women, and men at risk.”
Bernimolin also called for sustained engagement from international partners to create durable solutions that will reduce future humanitarian needs, acknowledging that humanitarian action alone is not a long-term solution.
In 2023, humanitarian partners provided lifesaving assistance and protection services to more than 15.6 million people across the Sahel. However, millions were left without essential aid as only 41 percent of the required funding was received last year. As of June 3, 2024, only 16 percent of the humanitarian funding requirements for the six country response plans had been met. The UN warned that the collapse of aid operations would threaten millions of lives across the Sahel.
