Holding onto hope as we mark World Humanitarian Day.

When the merchant vessel Razoni sailed from Ukraine's Black Sea port of Odesa earlier this month with more than 26,000 tons of corn for global markets, she was rightly the subject of intense attention.

Her passage was the result of months of negotiations between Russia, Trkiye, Ukraine and the United Nations, including UN humanitarian staff, logisticians and legal experts.

For the first time since the war in Ukraine began five months earlier, sea exports of Ukrainian crops were to resume, giving much-needed hope to millions of people beaten down by rising food prices and declining supplies, pushing many into hunger and even famine conditions.

And hope is so rare these days.

Conflicts. Hunger. The climate crisis. Droughts. Poverty. A pandemic. In more than 40 years of aid work, I don't remember the world being so overwhelmed with problems and in such urgent need of action to solve them.

Right now, a record 303 million people need humanitarian aid.

A glimmer of hope

But despite this grim picture, I still hold on to hope. Why? Because over the years, I have seen that while conflicts and other crises bring out the worst, they also inspire the very best in humanity.

Even in the depths of despair and division, there are glimmers of hope - from new solutions to seemingly intractable problems, to acts of generosity and kindness that bring solace to the suffering.

Delivering hope and standing in solidarity are at the very heart of humanitarian action. Today, on World Humanitarian Day, we want to celebrate this spirit, for in some of the bleakest situations it may be all that people have.

There is a phrase 'It takes a village to raise a child.' Likewise, it takes a village to help a community in crisis.

This village is made up of affected communities themselves, who are always first to respond when crisis strikes, backed up by a support system of national emergency services, local businesses and civil society, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), UN agencies, and the Red Cross and Red Crescent family. Many are international aid workers, but the vast majority of humanitarians are from the crisis-affected countries themselves.

Every hour of every day, this humanitarian 'village' steps up to organize relief deliveries, distribute cash, set up mobile health clinics and schools, build water pumps, airlift nutrition supplies, provide counselling support and so much more, supporting millions of people balancing on the edge of survival.

This village is...