February 03, (THEWILL) — The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that nearly $1 billion is urgently needed to save lives in the world’s deadliest humanitarian crises.
In 2025, WHO and its partners provided support to 30 million people through the annual emergency appeal. These efforts delivered 5.3 million child vaccinations, enabled 53 million health consultations, supported more than 8,000 health facilities, and deployed 1,370 mobile clinics to hard-to-reach areas.
The 2026 appeal targets 36 emergencies worldwide, including 14 Grade Three crises, the highest level of WHO response. These emergencies include both sudden-onset disasters and long-term humanitarian crises where urgent health intervention is critical.
WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, described the appeal as “a call to stand with people living through conflict, displacement, and disaster, to give them not just services, but the confidence that the world has not turned its back on them.” He emphasised that this is “not charity, but a strategic investment in health and security”, noting that access to healthcare restores dignity, stabilises communities, and paves the way toward recovery.
Dr Ghebreyesus warned that the protracted conflicts, escalating impacts of climate change, and recurrent infectious disease outbreaks are driving unprecedented demand for humanitarian health support, even as global funding continues to decline. In 2025, humanitarian financing fell below 2016 levels, enabling WHO and its partners to reach only one-third of the 81 million people originally targeted for assistance.
The 2026 appeal aims to ensure millions of people affected by conflicts, disasters, and health emergencies can access essential health care. It prioritises emergency response in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Myanmar, the occupied Palestinian territory, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen, alongside ongoing outbreaks of cholera and mpox. WHO coordinates more than 1,500 partners across 24 crisis settings, ensuring national authorities and local organisations remain central to the emergency response.
Speaking at the launch, Ambassador Noel White, Ireland’s Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva, said: “Every humanitarian crisis is a health crisis”, and praised Ireland’s support through flexible funding to WHO’s Contingency Fund for Emergencies.
Ms Marita Sørheim-Rensvik, Deputy Permanent Representative of Norway to the UN, described WHO as indispensable in today’s most complex emergencies, protecting health, upholding humanitarian law, and delivering life-saving care where few others can operate. She urged member states to strengthen support for WHO to sustain essential interventions, prevent outbreaks, and maintain health services in fragile and conflict-affected areas.
According to Sørheim-Rensvik, predictable early investment allows WHO to respond immediately to crises, reducing death, containing outbreaks, and preventing localised emergencies from escalating into broader health disasters.
“With the requested resources, WHO can sustain care in the world’s most severe emergencies while building a bridge toward peace”, she said.
