The state of the world is stark, according to a new assessment from the United Nations.

Each year the UN considers how much help is needed to stave off disaster in the most vulnerable countries.

Last year the body projected that 168m people would need assistance in 2020.

For 2021 the number is 40% higher: a record 235m. The UN says it will need $35bn to support the neediest 160m of these—about four in five of them in Africa and the Middle East—across 56 countries. Extreme poverty has risen for the first time in 22 years. Women and young people are the hardest-hit.

The main cause of the increase is covid-19—its toll on economies, public-health systems and food supplies. But two longer-term factors are also pushing up humanitarian stress: climate change and conflict