The past year saw several deplorable humanitarian benchmarks. More than 76 million people from 31 countries needed assistance. The number of people displaced by conflict exceeded 51 million — the highest number since the Second World War. There were more than 400 natural disasters in 2014, which led to the loss of over 17,000 lives and which cost over $82 billion in damages.
'Level 3' is the UN classification for the most severe, large-scale humanitarian crises. The year was dominated by six level 3 emergencies (Central African Republic, Iraq, Philippines, South Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic and Yemen) and the Ebola crisis.
In response to these crises, new actors have taken a larger part in humanitarian action and various partnership models have arisen, including cash-transfer programmes and remote management of operations by using local organizations and partners to deliver assistance. The rising scale of needs, the persistence of protracted crises and the interplay of new risks have led to a continued global deficit in the capacity of Governments and humanitarian organizations to respond, suggesting a need for a shift in the way in which Member States and the United Nations and its partners prepare for and respond to humanitarian crises towards a more anticipatory approach. As the international community adopted post-2015 development and disaster risk reduction frameworks, it recognized that development cannot be sustainable unless the risk of crises is addressed proactively as a joint priority.
Global challenges, such as climate change, environmental degradation, rapid population growth and unplanned urbanization, are all contributing to people's increasing vulnerability to natural disasters. These trends will alter the landscape of future environmental disasters and humanitarian crises. There is a critical need to help countries and communities to better adapt and quickly recover when such emergencies occur. 2015 marked the launch of post-2015 global agreements on sustainable development, disaster risk reduction and climate change. In 2016, the World Humanitarian Summit will develop the outcomes of these processes, exploring how humanitarian needs can be tackled in a fast-changing world.