Warning that global suffering has reached levels not seen in a generation, the United Nations and its partners on 7 December 2015 launched their largest ever humanitarian appeal, calling for 20.1 billion life-saving dollars for 2016, even as the 2015 appeal posts the largest funding gap on record – $10.2 billion.
Hopes and needs 2016. Credit: UN OCHA
“Conflicts and disasters have driven millions of children, women and men to the edge of survival. They desperately need our help,” Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O’Brien said as he launched the Global Humanitarian Overview 2016 in Geneva, calling the outlook for next year grim.
7 December 2015 – The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, saying he was struck by the “enormity of the task” over the next decade to reverse five centuries of discrimination against the 150 million people of African descent in Latin America and the Caribbean, has urged the region to draw on “the untapped potential in hitherto invisible communities.”
Afro-Colombian children displaced from their rural homes, find refuge near the city of Buenaventura
The top UN human rights official made those remarks in a speech to the first Meeting of Latin America and the Caribbean on the International Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024) held in Brasilia, Brazil, last week and which bought together States, regional organizations, national human rights institutions, equality bodies and civil society, particularly those of people of African descent, as well as UN bodies from the region.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 