The Observer view on a humanitarian calamity in the making
A grim warning from the United Nations last week that a record 339 million people will need some form of emergency relief in 2023 is a reminder to Britain and European countries that Ukraine is not the only crisis zone in a world beset by extreme climate change, unprecedented food shortages and numerous other conflicts.
This is not to minimise the acute distress caused by Russia’s illegal invasion. The UN says nearly half-a-million Ukrainians needed direct winter assistance in recent weeks. Millions more are displaced or lack electricity, heating and water following Russian missile attacks.
There is no league table of suffering, no World Cup of misery. The UN’s predictions speak to a shared trauma transcending national boundaries. The figure of 339 million is 65 million up on 2022, affecting 68 countries. It is roughly the population of the US – or 4% of the population of the planet.
This is not next year’s problem; a human calamity is already unfolding. It is estimated that 222 million people in 53 countries will face severe food shortages by the end of 2022, with 45 million of them at risk of starvation and associated diseases. People are dying avoidable deaths now, every day, largely unremarked.
Five countries – Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Haiti, Somalia and South Sudan – are already experiencing “catastrophic hunger”. To meet this and similar challenges, the UN and partners are seeking $51.5bn (£41.5bn) in 2023 donor funding, up 25% year on year. They will be lucky to get half of that. Only 47% of UN-requested 2022 relief funds materialised.
A global downturn is not the best time to seek additional cash. The effects of the pandemic continue to cause serious economic dislocation, as in China. Entrenched poverty in least developed countries is a longstanding problem. So, too, is the sort of selfishness that led the Tories to slash Britain’s overseas aid budget in 2020.
But such factors do not excuse inaction. Nor are they the fundamental cause of today’s accelerating humanitarian crisis. Manmade climate change and avoidable conflicts are primarily to blame. This year’s extreme flooding in Pakistan, for example, was hardly the product of normal weather cycles. The UN chief, António Guterres, said he had “never seen climate carnage on such a scale”.
The droughts, extreme heat, creeping desertification and crop failures in the Horn of Africa and poorer countries in Africa and Asia are likewise prin
cipally attributable to global warming – triggered, initially, by the countries of the wealthy north. So, more than ever, it is their responsibility to fully fund the UN’s 2023 appeal, especially in the light of the Cop27 “loss and damage” agreement. War and conflict are other big drivers of this global emergency. Yemen provides a tragic example. One of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, its long-running civil war appeared close to ending earlier this year. But a truce collapsed in October and intermittent fighting has resumed.
Yemen’s plight has been exacerbated by climate factors. But it is worsened by external actors, principally Iran and Saudi Arabia. The same holds true in northern Syria, where another Turkish invasion is threatened. Numerous foreign interventions in Syria since 2011 have contributed to food insecurity affecting 60% of the population.
The development minister, Andrew Mitchell, visiting war- and drought-hit Somalia last week, said the world’s neglect of the Horn of Africa was “unacceptable”. He announced £14m in new humanitarian and security aid. But this a drop in a desiccated ocean. Despite their own problems, Britain and its wealthy friends can and must afford to do more.