The United Nations has released $110 million from an emergency fund to help neglected crises around the world, including Sudan, after donors such as the United States ordered major cuts.

The UN has predicted that funding levels, which had been declining since before US President Donald Trump ordered a freeze on foreign aid in January, will fall to their lowest levels this year.

The Trump administration announced last month that it would cancel nearly 10,000 foreign aid grants and contracts, ending about 90 percent of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s global missions, worth nearly $60 billion.

As countries face increasing pressure to increase defense spending, other donors, such as Britain, have also announced cuts.
“For countries affected by conflict, climate change and economic turmoil, brutal funding cuts do not mean humanitarian needs will disappear,” said Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator.

The UN is seeking $45 billion to help the estimated 185 million people fleeing conflict and fighting hunger by 2025, which it described as “unprecedented levels of suffering.” So far, it has received only 5 percent of this.

The money released from the Central Emergency Recovery Fund will go to address funding shortfalls and neglected crises across Africa, Asia and Latin America, the UN report said. A third of the money will go to Sudan, where nearly two years of civil war have caused massive displacement and a hunger crisis, and neighboring Chad has taken in more than a million Sudanese refugees.

Other recipients include Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Niger and Somalia.