Trump’s budget proposal shakes world
U.S. mulls trimming relief funding while millions could starve
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — President Donald Trump’s proposed budget cuts to the United Nations, which runs agencies such as the World Food Program and UNICEF, come at a time when famine is reaching a crisis point in parts of Africa, and children in some countries are dying of starvation.
The timing of the proposed cuts has sent chills through the international aid community, which fears that a retreat by the United States in relief funding could make a bad situation worse.
Just days before Trump’s budget was released, U.N. humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien warned that the globe is facing its worst humanitarian crisis since the end of World War II.
Two years of drought and failed rains across much of Africa have affected 38 million people in 17 countries.
Without a massive donor injection of $4.4 billion, aid officials estimate, more than 20 million people face starvation and famine in Nigeria’s northeast, South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen. The disaster is likely to leave countries fragile for years to come.
The U.S., through its humanitarian aid and support for the U.N., has traditionally been at the forefront of global efforts to avert catastrophes such as famine, and to relieve the effects of drought on some of the world’s poorest people.
The budget process involves negotiations between the White House and Congress that could see changes in Trump’s proposal to slash funding for the State Department, as well as the U.S. Agency for International Development and other international programs, by 28 percent, or $10.9 billion, as he seeks to increase military spending by $54 billion next year.
But Scott Paul, senior policy adviser at the humanitarian agency Oxfam, said Trump’s budget blueprint sent tremors of alarm through the humanitarian community.
“The message that it sends is that the U.S. is no longer interested in leading or being part of global efforts to mitigate suffering in the world,” he said.
Even before Trump’s blueprint was unveiled, there wasn’t sufficient global support for U.N. and humanitarian efforts to stave off catastrophes in South Sudan, Somalia, northeastern Nigeria and Yemen, Paul said.
“Maybe our biggest concern is that looking forward we will see this crisis spiral out of control because the U.S. is stepping away from the table when it comes to the overarching priority of shared prosperity and a stable and peaceful world,” he said.
For decades, the U.S. has been the largest supporter of the World Food Program as part of a bipartisan congressional commitment to averting famine and starvation. In 2016, the U.S. paid 24 percent of the food program’s $8.6 billion budget, or about $2 billion.
But in the future, other countries will have to step up to provide a greater share of disaster assistance, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in Japan last week.
“In 2016 the U.S. contributed $6.4 billion in humanitarian assistance, the largest in the world. Cutting its funding at a time of looming famine in four countries and the world’s largest displacement crisis since World War II is really unconscionable and could really have devastating consequences,” said Bernice Romero, senior director for policy and humanitarian response at Save the Children.
Parts of South Sudan and northeastern Nigeria have already experienced famine in the crisis, with humanitarian agencies warning that Somalia, where half the population is in dire need of help, could be next.
At present levels, the U.S. also funds 40 percent of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, 22 percent of the U.N. Secretariat, as well as 28 percent of the cost of U.N. peacekeeping operations in places such as South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Darfur in Sudan, Mali and the Central African Republic.
The budget proposal caps the contribution to peacekeeping at 25 percent.
Ben Parker, an analyst and editor at IRIN, a news agency specializing in humanitarian issues, said the ability of the U.S. to cut its contribution to the U.N. Secretariat and peacekeeping was limited, because these were mandatory shares worked out on a formula agreed by all U.N. members. But humanitarian spending is discretionary.
Parker said the U.S. humanitarian contribution was large in dollar terms, but in terms of the percentage of its economy, ”the U.S. is not very generous.”
He said the U.S. could default on its obligations to support the U.N. Secretariat and peacekeeping, as it has done in the past, but this would eventually lead to a loss of its voting rights, problematic for one of the five permanent members of the Security Council.
More details of the cuts will emerge in coming months.