UN Relief Chief calls for US$2.6 billion to support Ukraine's 2025 humanitarian plan

Olena, 85, stands outside her damaged home in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
Olena, 85, stands outside her damaged home in Kharkiv, Ukraine. A May 2024 attack claimed her neighbours' lives and shattered nearby windows. With humanitarian aid, including cash assistance, Olena replaced her windows and stayed warm through the winter. Photo: OCHA/Yurii Veres

Opening remarks at press briefing prior to the launch of the 2025 Ukraine Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan and Ukraine Regional Response Plan by Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator

Kyiv, 16 January 2025 

As delivered

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for being here as we prepare to launch the 2025 action plan. This is our blueprint for support to the Ukrainian people in the coming year. It recognizes that these needs are great, and that we must be here at the side of the Ukrainian people as they respond to the consequences of a devastating war.

Now, unlike my friend and colleague, [UN High Commissioner for Refugees] Filippo [Grandi], this is my first visit to Ukraine as [Under-Secretary-General]. And it was important for me to get straight to the front lines to really see the impact of the war on Ukrainian communities who are fleeing the conflict. And so I’ve been to Zaporizhzhia, I’ve been to Dnipro, Pavlohrad, Pokrovsk, Shevchenkove, Kupiansk, Kharkiv, and now I’m concluding almost a week in Ukraine here in Kyiv.

And what I’ve seen out in eastern Ukraine are a number of things. I’ve seen the importance to our work of this very, very close, unique partnership with the authorities in working out how to deliver humanitarian assistance. I’ve seen our extraordinary partnership with Ukrainian NGOs. It is those NGOs who are leading the humanitarian work here.

And I pay tribute to the humanitarian workers who I’ve met up and down the country. They are heroes of this effort. And they are making Ukraine a humanitarian superpower. I also pay tribute to the local communities that I met on my travels.

And I’m reminded of the head teacher of an underground school that I visited in Dnipro who taught me the Ukrainian word toloka. She described it as the way that a community rallies round in times of trouble, supports each other. And that’s what is happening here in Ukraine, even as we approach this third anniversary of this phase of the war. And it is what we are now asking for from the international community.

The Ukrainian people have shown incredible courage over these years, and we have to respond by showing a real, genuine, sustained international engagement. We have to respond with heart. And when I say sustained, I mean that we will be here with the Ukrainian people for as long as it takes to meet these needs and to support them in this moment.

Now, our plans – and I do encourage you to read the plan – our plans are, of course, practical. They’re concrete. They are based on efficiency, prioritization, work done with our local partners to identify the specific needs that Ukrainians have and respond to those needs.

Our ask, as you’ll see, of the world is for $2.6 billion to fund this campaign and to help us to reach 6 million people. And my friend and colleague, the High Commissioner, will speak more about the work that we’re doing on displaced and on refugees as part of that plan.

You know, for us, we’re dealing with a tough funding environment globally. I’m looking for $47 billion – we’re looking for $47 billion for the humanitarian community to support 190 million people globally. And we’re doing that in an environment where humanitarians are underfunded, overstretched and – here and in many parts of the world – literally under attack. Last year was the hardest year on record to be a humanitarian.

But we are determined not to lose our sense of mission, our sense of purpose. We’re determined to stay and deliver for those in the direst need across the world, and of course, including here in Ukraine. The capacity here is incredibly strong. The Ukrainian NGO movement, Ukrainian civil society, is building a real, long-term legacy of wisdom and experience and delivery on the front lines of this humanitarian effort.

And there will be a time, I believe, when Ukraine will go from being an importer of humanitarian support to being an exporter of that humanitarian support on the front lines of the global effort across the world. But first, we have these immediate priorities that are set out in this plan. They give us a roadmap for delivering the support that our partners have told us that they need.

To get that job done, to save lives – which is our bottom line – we need this plan funded, and that is our call today to our international partners. We need peace, and so we support the efforts towards a just peace. And let me be clear that we will stay as long as it takes. Thank you.