Approximately 24.2 million people are in need of humanitarian health assistance across the Region
Countries in the Americas face a complex landscape, with the growing risk of outbreaks and epidemics, the persistence of communicable diseases, the rise of non-communicable diseases, exposure to a wide range of natural hazards of increasing scale and frequency, the accelerating impacts of climate change, and everchanging socio-economic challenges. The Region also faces significant inequalities between and within countries and an accelerated demographic transition in Latin America and the Caribbean. In this context, the prolonged COVID-19 crisis exacerbated pre-existing vulnerabilities and worsened cumulative humanitarian needs throughout the Region, fueling some of the main drivers of internal displacement and migration.
The socioeconomics challenges resulting from the pandemic, and the measures adopted in response to it, generated significant setbacks in health progress achieved up to now, jeopardizing health gains and amplifying the risk of new emerging public health threats. They also drove people to seek better living conditions for themselves and their families elsewhere, resulting in increasing and evolving migration flows in the Region as well as growing protection risks and humanitarian health assistance needs.
PAHO’s Health Emergencies Appeal 2023 highlights the regional priorities of the Organization to support the protection of communities and populations affected by acute, prolonged, and protracted health emergencies throughout the Americas, starting with individuals in situations of vulnerability.
Download the full version of the Appeal below or swipe down to view the five focus countries’ appeals.
Saving lives together and protecting communities in situation of vulnerability
With adequate funding, rapid interventions and coordinated actions, we can protect the health and wellbeing of the people impacted by emergencies - saving lives, supporting recovery efforts, preventing the spread of diseases within countries and across borders, and ensuring that communities have the opportunity to rebuild prosperous futures, without leaving anyone behind.
What does this appeal cover? +
PAHO’s 2023 Health Emergency Appeal highlights the regional priorities of the Organization to support the protection of communities and population affected by acute, prolonged and protracted health emergencies throughout the Americas, starting with individuals in situation of vulnerability. The Appeal outlines the funding requirement to sustain and scale up health emergency and humanitarian assistance in the Region, with focus on five priority countries currently facing prolonged humanitarian crisis and/or recovering from recent acute emergencies: Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, and Venezuela.
This Appeal is fully aligned with PAHO’s mandate and role in health emergency and humanitarian assistance within the UN and the Interamerican Systems. It contributes to the Organization’s Strategic Plan 2020-2025, its principles, priorities, and strategies and the World Health Organization’s Health Emergency Appeal for 2023.
Due to the unpredictable nature of health emergencies, the appeal is a snapshot of projected needs for all the emergencies that PAHO is currently responding to as well as readiness efforts for highly probable emergency scenarios based on risks assessed and forecasted. To ensure adequate response at all times, PAHO has worked over the years towards developing and standardizing appropriate skillsets and capacities across all levels of the Organization to fulfil its critical function of leadership, information management, technical expertise, and core services when responding to emergencies with health consequences.
Response Strategy and Regional Priorities +
The objective of PAHO’s strategy for health emergency in the Americas is to protect and save lives and mitigate the disproportionate impact of emergencies and humanitarian crisis on the health and wellbeing of local populations and societies. Regional emergency response priorities for 2023 focus on:
• Supporting and scaling-up operational response capacities of national authorities and health partners and strengthening humanitarian logistics networks
• Strengthening national capacities for preparedness and readiness for health emergencies, including the development of policies, legal and normative instruments to implement IHR core capacities in countries.
• Improving sectoral and intersectoral coordination among response partners to optimize interventions and address the most acute needs of vulnerable communities.
• Building resilience and improving coping strategies at community level to protect the most vulnerable population groups.
Health Threats and Challenges +
Latin America and the Caribbean is the world’s most economically unequal region and the second-most disaster-prone region. It is exposed annually to a wide and diverse range of hazards, emergencies, and disasters of increasing scale and frequency. These events harm the populations’ health and therefore challenge countries’ goal of achieving their citizens’ highest attainable health standards. Recent years have brought intensified outbreaks and health emergencies caused by natural phenomena and vector proliferation. These have tested and challenged established national response capacities and highlighted various limitations, culminating in 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Main Threats & Humanitarian Health Challenges in the Americas
Increasing burden of infectious diseases
Exacerbated inequities and disproportionate risks faced by fragile and vulnerable population
Rising levels of violence and multiplication of complex “polycrisis”
Resurgence of vaccine preventable diseases
Accelerating mass migration phenomenon
Focus Countries Appeals
The Appeal focus on five priority countries currently facing a prolonged humanitarian
crisis and/or recovering from recent acute emergencies.
Colombia
Chronic challenges have been aggravated by a series of recent shocks, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Increasing population trends, primarily as a result of mass migration movements, and the persistence of armed conflicts create access barriers to essential health services, mobility restrictions and forced displacement.
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6.3 PEOPLE IN NEED |
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1.7 M TARGETED PEOPLE |
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16.2 M REQUIRED (US$) |
El Salvador
El Salvador is among the 20 countries in the world at the highest risk of disasters. The number of people facing food insecurity rose from 620,000 prior to the pandemic to about 1,043,6611 as a result of the profound economic crisis caused by COVID-19 and the repeated impact of extreme climate events and structural challenges.
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1.9 M |
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900 K TARGETED PEOPLE |
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5.3 M REQUIRED (US$) |
Guatemala
According to the World Risk Report 2020, Guatemala is the tenth country with the highest level of exposure to disaster in the world. The UN estimates that approximately 5 million people in Guatemala are in need of humanitarian assistance, including urgent medical care. Sustained mass migrant flows and increasing violence and social disturbance additionally impact the health system negatively and pose additional challenges to the delivery of essential health services, particularly to the most vulnerable populations.
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2.4 M PEOPLE IN NEED |
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735 K TARGETED PEOPLE |
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6.3 M REQUIRED (US$) |
Haiti
For the past years, Haiti has been engulfed in a socioeconomic, political, and humanitarian crisis that has reached critical levels since mid-September 2022 with the intensification of gang violence and social unrest. According to the last Humanitarian Response Plan (2022), nearly half of Haiti’s population is facing high levels of acute food insecurity.
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4.5 M |
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1.8 M |
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36.6 M REQUIRED (US$) |
Venezuela
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused major disruptions in the provision of health services and treatment of medical conditions resulting in the worsening of pre-existing conditions and increases in preventable morbidity and mortality. Less than 50% of the population is vaccinated with two doses of COVID-19 vaccines.
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7.1 M |
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3.5 M TARGETED PEOPLE |
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155 M REQUIRED (US$) |
Financial contributions are one of the most valuable and effective forms of support to the health emergency response. The resources obtained can be used in a fast and efficient way, responding to the most acute needs, and ensuring that the actions funded are fully aligned with the local priority public health actions.
PAHO coordinates in-kind donations of goods and services to guarantee coherent priorities, minimize gaps and duplication in the health response, and ensure quality assurance of the goods offered. Contributions to this Appeal will be reported on PAHO’s webpage to acknowledge and give visibility to donors’ generosity, report on funding received as well as remaining financial gaps.
Donate today
Generous donations from the international community allow PAHO to deliver its technical cooperation and deploy its operational and logistics support to address existing and emerging public health challenges impacting the countries and territories of the Americas.
To make a donation, please contact Julie Mauvernay (mauvernj@paho.org).
