Tom Fletcher, UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief co-ordinator, has warned the Iran war could increase pressure on richer countries to cut their overseas aid budgets.
Speaking about donor attitudes at a pledging conference for Sudan last week in Berlin, he said even countries that had refused to cut aid donations were on their guard about their contributions.
Almost half the money for Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) has been wiped out in budget cuts, Mr Fletcher said.
"The knock-on effect of the Strait of Hormuz crisis, whatever happens in the Red Sea, supply chain crises and so on will be that all the other countries become less generous," he told a panel at Chatham House in London on Monday.
Mr Fletcher cited the example of a donor country in Berlin that proceeded with a contribution but banned the planned publicity. "They said they didn't want any publicity because they were facing protests on [domestic] fuel prices," he said.
Singling out a decade of "circular firing-squad politics" in the UK, under which foreign aid spending of 0.7 per cent of gross national income has been abandoned, he urged other nations not to join the trend.
"We continue to defend, really robustly, our principles and values," Mr Fletcher said. "Don't compromise on those principles around needs-based humanitarian response. It's very difficult now because it's so politicised."
With his own aim for a budget of $23 billion that could be used to save 87 million lives, Mr Fletcher added the sum amounted to one per cent of arms spending globally.
He added that some incremental progress was being seen as the US-brokered Gaza ceasefire holds. "Until a couple of days ago, we only had one of the five key crossings [open into Gaza], so that's already a big restriction on what we can bring in," he said.
"We're still facing a lot of restriction on dual-use items, wheelchairs and so on, and school materials that we can't get in at the scale we need. Our NGO colleagues are still facing massive registration issues – we really rely on those NGOs."
