The UN has appealed for $16.4bn (€13.4bn) to provide aid to nearly 60 million people worldwide next year, with almost half of this record amount aimed at helping victims of Syria's drawn-out conflict.
"The rising scale of need is outpacing our capacity to respond," warned United Nations humanitarian chief Valerie Amos, stressing that 2014 has been marked by a sharp rise in the number of people affected by violent conflicts.
Ms Amos added some 102 million people worldwide were in need of aid at the end of November.
The global appeal from UN agencies and other humanitarian organisations aims to gather funds to help at least 57.5 million of the most vulnerable people across 22 countries.
However, the appeal does not include the needs in Djibouti and the nine countries in Africa's Sahel region, including Nigeria and Mali, which will be addressed in a separate appeal in February, the UN said.
$7.2bn (€5.8bn) of the amount requested for 2015 will be aimed at helping an estimated 18.2 million people victimised by Syria's bloody civil war, which erupted in March 2011.
The appeal is calling for $2.8bn (€2.3bn) to help 12.2 million people inside the war-ravaged country next year, including 7.6 million people who have been internally displaced.
Another $4.4m (3.6m) will be needed to help more than three million Syrian refugees and around three million vulnerable people in overwhelmed host communities in neighbouring countries, the appeal said.
Helping millions of people affected by other crises will also require a large cash injection next year, with Syria's neighbour Iraq figuring high on the list.
The crises in the Central African Republic and South Sudan are also listed in the appeal, as is the spiralling conflict in eastern Ukraine.
Other situations in Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Palestine, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen will also require funds next year.
The amount requested for 2015 dwarfs the $12.9bn (€10.5bn) requested last December in the initial appeal for 2014.
Throughout a year that has seen millions more people flee violence and become dependent on aid to survive, those need estimates have since swelled to $17.9bn (€14.6bn) to help over 76 million people.
Only 52% of that updated appeal has been funded, the UN said, highlighting a growing gap between needs and the resources available to cover them.
However, Ms Amos announced that an emergency appeal to the public had closed a $64m (€52m) funding shortfall that caused the UN World Food Programme last week to suspend food aid to 1.7 million Syrian refugees.
