World Humanitarian Day 2024

On August 19, 2003, a bomb attack on the United Nations at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, Iraq, killed 22 humanitarian aid workers, including the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights. Five years later, in December 2008, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution designating August 19th as World Humanitarian Day (WHD) to honor and remember those who lost their lives during their service and to promote awareness about worldwide humanitarian activities.

The United States has a long history of contributing to global humanitarian projects like UNICEF and the World Food Program, which started in 1946 and 1961 respectively.

"There is no escaping our obligations: our moral obligations as a wise leader and good neighbor in the interdependent community of free nations – our economic obligations as the wealthiest people in a world of largely poor people, as a nation no longer dependent upon the loans from abroad that once helped us develop our own economy – and our political obligations as the single largest counter to the adversaries of freedom." – John F. Kennedy, Special Message to the Congress on Foreign Aid, March 22, 1961

President John F. Kennedy identified the need for a single agency to administer aid and promote the social and economic development of foreign countries, and on November 3, 1961, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was born. In 1961, President Kennedy signed the Foreign Assistance Act* into law. 22 U.S.C. 2151 provides the authority and general rules for the conduct of United States Government foreign assistance grant activities and programs.

Article Sources and Additional Resources

• See how the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) gives communities the tools to be resilient to future crises.
• Read more about the history of World Humanitarian Day on the United Nations' website.
• Learn how the Center's for Disease Control (CDC) works to build public health capacity globally during and after humanitarian emergencies.
• ForeignAssistance.gov is the U.S. Government’s flagship website that makes U.S. foreign assistance data available to the public.

*This links to a Statute Compilation, which is a compilation of the public law, as amended, and is an unofficial document and should not be cited as legal evidence of the law. Learn more.