The report released Sunday in Dubai also recommended tapping into Islamic social finance and mandatory alms-giving, or zakat, as well as improving the transparency of relief operations to cut costs.

More wars and natural disasters in the past decade have sent the cost of global UN aid efforts skyrocketing, from $2 billion in 2000 to $ 24.5 billion in 2015, according to the nine experts who drafted the report.

At the same time, the United Nations is struggling to meet its funding appeals.

Last year, a funding shortfall forced UN agencies to cut food rations to 1.6 million Syrians living in refugee camps, a move now seen as having partly triggered the mass exodus of refugees to Europe.