Top UN humanitarian aid official Mark Lowcock will leave his post, he announced on Twitter.
“I’m soon returning to the UK to spend more time with my family,’’ he wrote on Twitter on Monday.
The British aid official had been appointed as the United Nations’ under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator in 2017.
Such senior UN leadership terms usually last five years.
Lowcock, 58, said he would remain in office until UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres chooses a successor.
A record of 235 million people are expected to be in need of humanitarian aid in 2021 because of the pandemic, 40 per cent more than last year, Lowcock’s UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates.
In addition to natural disasters, conflicts and climate change, the pandemic creates additional hardship, as extreme poverty and the risk of famines are rising, according to OCHA in New York.