The UN releases $160 million for 12 crises, with Yemen, Gaza and Afghanistan at $18 million each

The United Nations on Friday released $160 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund for 12 underfunded crises. Yemen, the occupied Palestinian territory and Afghanistan each receive $18 million. Somalia and Sudan receive $16 million each. The rest of the country list runs from $15 million for South Sudan down to $4 million for Cuba.

Tom Fletcher, the UN relief chief, said the money is part of a wider attempt to reach 87 million people facing the most severe needs this year. He also said money will not move aid by itself. Leaders, he said, have to open access and remove obstacles. The line is a direct comment on places on this list where convoys are stopped, taxed or shelled, not a general appeal.

The split, published by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, is worth reading as a ranking of gaps rather than of suffering. Afghanistan, the occupied Palestinian territory and Yemen sit at the top, at $18 million each. Somalia and Sudan follow at $16 million. South Sudan is at $15 million. Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger are at $10 million each. Chad is at $9 million, Cameroon at $6 million, Cuba at $4 million. Of the $160 million, $150 million is tied to those 12 responses. A further $10 million is reserved for people with disabilities inside the same crises.

That disability tranche is the part most wire stories skip. CERF is pairing it with the UN Global Disability Fund, which will add up to $4 million and technical support through an Inclusion Catalyst Hub. The stated aim is to get local organisations of persons with disabilities into the response, not only to buy ramps. In a camp where aid is distributed from a truck bed, a person who cannot reach the truck is not counted in the ration line. The $10 million is small against the country envelopes, and it is the only slice earmarked for a group rather than a place.

Friday's release takes CERF allocations for 2026 to $483 million. The fund is managed by OCHA and is built to move faster than a pledging conference. Underfunded-emergency grants rest on more than 100 indicators and on consultation with agencies already in the country. That process is why Cuba appears on a list dominated by Sahel states and by wars in Sudan, Gaza and Yemen. The Cuban envelope is the smallest, at $4 million, and it sits next to a separate Havana decision this week to let foreign firms handle wholesale distribution. The two facts are not the same policy. One is emergency cash for a crisis OCHA has scored as underfunded. The other is a trade rule.

The Sahel cluster is the other pattern in the table. Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger each get $10 million, and Chad gets $9 million. Those four envelopes total $39 million, more than any single country on the list. OCHA has treated the central Sahel as one access problem for several years: military juntas, closed roads, and aid agencies pushed out of rural districts. A equal $10 million grant does not reopen a road. It pays for what can still be reached.

Fletcher's office did not publish a delivery date for each envelope. CERF grants are obligations, then agency plans, then procurement. In Yemen and Gaza, the constraint he named is access. In Afghanistan it is both access and the rules placed on women aid workers. The $18 million figures will not change those rules. They do fix, in public, how OCHA ranked the gaps on 2 October 2026.