AN ESTIMATED $40 billion (£28bn) is needed annually to help the rapidly growing number of people needing humanitarian aid as a result of conflicts and natural disasters, a UN-appointed panel said yesterday.

One possibility to help fill the $15bn (£10.5bn) funding gap is a small voluntary tax on tickets for football games and other sports, concerts and entertainment events, air travel, and petrol, the panel suggested.

Its report on humanitarian financing, launched by UN secretary-general Ban Ki Moon at an event in Dubai, showed that the world is spending around $25bn (£17.5bn) today to provide life-saving assistance to 125 million people devastated by wars and natural disasters.

“We have an exponentially growing problem,” said panel co-chair Kristalina Georgieva, the European Commission vice-president for budget and human resources.

“The good news is that the world has never been so generous to people in need. The bad news is that never has our generosity been so insufficient.”