The UN says that the coronavirus pandemic is rapidly accelerating to record highs the number of people worldwide who need humanitarian assistance to survive.

As a result there has been a sharp increase in extreme poverty in just one year, with 235 million people worldwide now living in extreme poverty.

The largest concentrations are in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia, it said.

“The crisis is far from over,” UN secretary-general António Guterres said. “Humanitarian aid budgets face dire shortfalls as the impact of the global pandemic continues to worsen.”

In 2020, countries gave a record $17 billion for collective humanitarian response, reaching 70% of the people targeted for aid, an increase of 6% compared with 2019, the report said.

But the world body has warned it has raised less than half of the $35 billion it says is needed to stave off widespread famine, fight poverty and keep children in school, and called on wealthy nations for financial contributions.

“The rich world can now see the light at the end of the tunnel,” said UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock. “The same is not true in the poorest countries.”

The report said countries around the world had made steady advances since the 1990s in reducing extreme poverty — defined by the World Bank, a multilateral development lender, as living on $1.90 a day or less.

The UN calculations showing one in 33 people needing assistance compared with one in 45 people this year, already the highest figure in decades, it said, adding that school closures have affected nine out of 10 children worldwide, with almost 24-million at risk of not returning to school in 2020.

As the pandemic impedes food supply systems, hunger is on the rise, and the UN projected that by the end of 2020, as many as 270-million people will lack reliable access to food.

The cost of meeting food aid needs this year was $9bn, up from $5bn in 2015, the report said.

So far, the coronavirus had infected around 63 million people and killed 1.5 million people worldwide.

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