Welcome
Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on the publication of the Global Humanitarian Overview
Foreign Minister Heiko Maas issued the following statement today (1 December) to coincide with the publication of the Global Humanitarian Overview:
In the coming year, 235 million people will be dependent on humanitarian assistance – that’s almost three times as many as live in Germany. The figures paint a grim picture of global need. They are a call to action. In the long term, we will be able to make our humanitarian efforts yet more effective and efficient by shifting the focus from response to prevention. It should be our aim to intervene before a crisis occurs. Germany thus invested 30 million euro in preventive humanitarian actions this year.
Background information:
The Global Humanitarian Overview (GHO) is published annually. It is the key work of reference used by Germany and other international donors to determine with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) what humanitarian assistance will be needed in the year to come. This time, Germany is focusing its efforts on the humanitarian impact of climate change and anticipatory humanitarian action. Germany has doubled its spending on humanitarian assistance over the past four years – to 2.1 billion euro for the year 2020.