Displaced Palestinians taking shelter in a UN school in Bureij in the central Gaza Strip, make bread on Nov 21, 2023. (PHOTO / AFP)

GENEVA - The United Nations on Monday appealed for $46 billion in funding for 2024 to help millions of people affected by humanitarian crises around the globe, including in the occupied Palestinian territories, Sudan and Ukraine.

In its Global Humanitarian Overview for 2024, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that nearly 300 million people will require humanitarian assistance next year due to conflicts, climate emergencies and economic factors.

The humanitarian system is facing a major funding crisis, with just over one-third of the $57 billion required to provide aid funded last year, OCHA said in its annual assessment of global humanitarian needs

That includes 74.1 million people in East and Southern Africa, a large portion of whom are affected by the crisis in Sudan.

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"We will target for our specific needs, for the agencies that I represent, 181 million of those 300," said UN aid chief Martin Griffiths.

He said that other organizations, including the Red Cross and national Red Cross societies, had made their own funding appeals.

The humanitarian system is facing a major funding crisis, with just over one-third of the $57 billion required to provide aid funded last year, OCHA said in its annual assessment of global humanitarian needs.

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Griffiths described this as the "worst funding shortfall in years." He said it had been difficult to decrease the appeal for 2024 and ensure aid agencies were "realistic, focused and tough-minded" when assessing needs.

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"I think the Middle East as a whole and Gaza and West Bank in probably going to be the area of greatest need," Griffiths said.