U.N. calls for $1.7bn appeal for Ukrainian citizens affected by Russian invasion
![A man carries bottles with water outside the regional administration building, which city officials said was hit by a missile attack, in central Kharkiv, Ukraine, March 1, 2022](https://assets.weforum.org/article/image/_LQ8p_k95a9O2_vYlYw9U1hlLSCCSoEFvy08CCYNaSI.jpg)
The funds would go towards providing shelter, medical support and drinking water. Image: REUTERS/Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy
![A hand holding a looking glass by a lake](/uplink.jpg)
Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale
Stay up to date:
International Security
- An emergency appeal of $1.7bn has been launched for those that have fled Ukraine, and those who are still inside.
- U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the funds would go towards providing shelter, medical support and drinking water.
- The Russia-Ukraine war has already caused around 677,000 total refugees.
U.N. agencies on Tuesday, 1st of March, launched an emergency appeal to respond to the soaring humanitarian needs following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, calling for $1.7 billion to help people who have fled the country and those still inside.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the funds would go towards providing shelter, medical support and drinking water and said the global body would expand and scale up existing programmes and establish new relief ones where needed.
"We must help Ukrainians help each other through this terrible time," Guterres said in a video statement shortly after U.N. agencies launched a flash appeal for Ukraine.
"The crisis has turned very ugly very fast," Martin Griffiths, the U.N. aid chief said at a Geneva press briefing. "We must turn that initial shock and disbelief and uncertainty about the days to come into compassion and solidarity with the millions of ordinary Ukrainians who now need emergency relief."
Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said at the same briefing that 150,000 more people had fled the country in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of refugees to around 677,000 in a trend he described as "extremely worrying".
Around half of those people are in Poland, with another 60,000 people in Moldova, around 50,000 in Slovakia and 40,000 in Romania. The needs could grow significantly in the coming days, especially if strikes on cities intensified, driving people to leave in a hurry with few supplies, he added.
Asked how he expected countries to share the responsibility for hosting them, he said that refugees were currently "self-distributing" throughout Europe. He added that refugees were an international responsibility.
The United Nations already had staff in eastern parts of the country as part of an eight-year programme that was only 9% funded as of last week. Donations have increased sharply since then, including around $1 million of unsolicited, private donations to the humanitarian agency OCHA, Griffiths said.
Don't miss any update on this topic
Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.
License and Republishing
World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
The Agenda Weekly
A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda
You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in our emails. For more details, review our privacy policy.
More on Resilience, Peace and SecuritySee all
Marianna Lillo and James Purcell
August 19, 2024
Mohamed Elshabik
August 9, 2024
Emma Charlton
July 26, 2024
Macarena Torres Rossel and Mariam Soumaré
July 15, 2024
Michelle Nunn
June 28, 2024
Jorge Moreira da Silva
May 29, 2024