Tag: aid financing
Humanitarian chisel effect, risk or reality!
An Editorial by Alain Boinet.
The chisel effect is an economic phenomenon in which the amount of resources and the amount of costs evolve in opposite ways. Regarding humanitarian aid, after a continuous growth of humanitarian budgets, does not the increase of the needs facing a decrease of the means illustrate a dangerous humanitarian chisel effect. Is it a simple pause or the beginning of a ebb? This is an essential question for humanitarians.
It was a ebb that occurred in 2023, according to OCHA, when faced with growing humanitarian needs, we experienced declining funding. Indeed, to help 245 million people, we needed 56.7 billion USD. But only USD 19.9 billion has been mobilized, or 35% of the needs, where the usual average was 51 to 64% for 10 years (2013-2022)!
The immediate consequence is that we were able to rescue only 128 million people out of the 245 million planned in 2023! What happened to the other 117 million human beings left behind because of lack of resources? Would the chisel effect have closed in on them.
At the 3rd European Humanitarian Forum, on 18 and 19 March 2024 in Brussels, Janez Lenarcic, European Commissioner for Humanitarian Affairs with ECHO, said: «Make no mistake, the humanitarian lifeboat is sinking»! The message is clear and must be taken seriously on the eve of the June European elections in the Member States with this autumn a new presidency, a new college of commissioners, a new budget for the next 5 years. The stakes are high as some institutional humanitarian budgets decline.
What will happen in 2024 to OCHA’s appeal to rescue 180 million people with an expected budget of USD 46.4 billion? 180 million people at risk in 2024 compared to 230 million in 2023 following a new methodology for needs analysis. In the face of dwindling resources, the number of people to be rescued has been reduced thanks to JIAF 2.0, which “sets global standards for estimating and analyzing humanitarian needs and protection risks.” The coincidence with the chisel effect is unfortunate. It will be necessary to question this new methodology to the definition of which United Nations agencies and NGOs have contributed in particular.
This methodology may have the merit of greater precision and division of responsibilities between the major players in international aid. But we must also ask ourselves what has become of the people “out of the ordinary” excluded from humanitarian aid. Have development agencies supported them? Or, on the contrary, have these vulnerable people remained alone on the verge of solidarity?
In this context, the key word that currently mobilizes the humanitarian ecosystem is the prioritization of aid. Prioritization is a selection and it cannot fail to make us think about the sorting of wounded in war surgery when we can not save everyone and must choose!
So, precisely, what will be the vital humanitarian needs for the populations victims of wars, disasters and epidemics in the coming years?
When the butterfly effect comes to challenge the scissors effect.
We asked ourselves this question in these columns in March. Could the butterfly effect of conflicts lead to a «domino effect» the «20 years of chaos» that some fear?
The reason I highlight the geopolitical causes of humanitarian consequences is that I have experienced them during more than four decades of humanitarian aid around the world. There are of course also the growing causes related to climate and major epidemics that we will come back to. But we know that the vast majority of humanitarian needs result from conflicts in all their forms and that these seem to be entering a historical phase of expansion.
We remember that Raymond Aron declared the time of the cold war «Impossible peace, improbable war». Perhaps it is necessary to say today with regard to international tensions «Improbable peace, possible war»!
Speaking to the European press on 29 March, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said, “We must get used to the fact that a new era has begun: the pre-war era. I’m not exaggerating.” “If Ukraine loses, no one in Europe will feel safe.” «War is no longer a concept of the past in Europe, now entered the era of the pre-war». “The most worrying thing right now is that absolutely all scenarios are possible.”
If, at the beginning of the Russian military offensive in Ukraine, we could ask ourselves the question of the responsibilities on the various causes of this war, two years later, faced with a high intensity war that will last, faced with the risk of a defeat of Ukraine, the question arises otherwise. What consequences would a defeat of Ukraine entail while Vladimir Putin plays his game and opposes us another political model, like his Chinese ally. Have we not, without yet knowing it, entered into the beginning of a more general war which will sooner or later necessarily lead us to war economy with what consequences on needs as on humanitarian means?
The tone is also rising in Asia with the edition of the standard map of China in the daily Global Times, quasi-official organ of the Chinese Communist Party. This map now includes the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, southern part of Tibet, and Aksai Chin. Similarly, the famous 10-row line around the South China Sea threatens all neighboring states: Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia and Taiwan. A map is an object of power and projection on the world. Can we believe that this will never go further and what would be the consequences of the alliance game in the event of a Chinese coup?
Closer to home, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been facing the rebellion of the March 23 Movement (M23) supported by Rwanda for two years according to several UN reports. In an interview given on Friday, March 29 to several media, the president of the DRC, Félix Tschisekedi, was questioned on the risk of a «declaration of war in Rwanda», alerting that the mission of Joao Lourenço, President of Angola and mediator appointed by the African Union, represented «the way of the last chance»!
What can humanitarians do?
Filippo Grandi, High Commissioner for Refugees of the United Nations launched «It is a indictment against the state of the world» when the figure of 110 million refugees and displaced was reached on June 14, 2023. To measure this figure, remember that they were 43.3 million in 2010, 60 million in 2015, 79.5 million in 2019! There is no reason for this figure to stop climbing, quite the contrary!
The risk is real to see the chisel effect of increasing humanitarian needs crossing the decrease in resources.
This is not already the case for the 17 million people in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger who need humanitarian assistance this year. In 2023, humanitarian appeals received only about a third of the necessary funds.
Despite the commitments made at the European Humanitarian Forum, on 18 and 19 March, in Brussels, despite the hope of seeing the European Union and the Member States confirm their commitment to humanitarian action, faced with the demobilization of other major actors, far from any wait-and-see, It is essential that humanitarian organizations mobilize to recall the responsibility to protect and the duty to provide humanitarian assistance.
Ways and means are not lacking, not only to sanctuarize humanitarian budgets, but also to index their evolution on the level of the vital needs of populations in danger. These initiatives include:
- Act with States and European and international organizations to raise awareness of the disastrous consequences that a possible chisel effect would have.
- Mobilize public opinion to support this great humanitarian cause and to develop the generosity of individuals.
- Accelerate all forms of innovation that reduce costs and increase aid effectiveness.
- Optimize the double Humanitarian Nexus – development and encourage development agencies to support the most vulnerable in fragile or crisis countries.
Humanitarian aid is undoubtedly at a new historic turning point and it must once again ensure and demonstrate its ability to carry out its mission to save lives.
The humanitarian must say loud and clear that reducing humanitarian budgets is not to make virtuous savings, but on the contrary to multiply the risks of mortality, despair, radicalisation, of migratory movements which in turn will cause harmful effects from step to step like an epidemic. Without forgetting the essential, without solidarity, what will we be and what will happen?
Alain Boinet who thanks you for your support (MakeaDonation).
Alain Boinet is the president of Défis Humanitaires, an association that publishes the online journal http://www.defishumanitaires.com. He is the founder of the humanitarian association Solidarités International, of which he was Managing Director for 35 years. In addition, he is a member of the Humanitarian Concertation Group at the Crisis and Support Centre of the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, member of the Board of Directors of Solidarités International, the French Water Partnership (PFE), Fondation Véolia, Think Tank (re)sources. He continues to visit the field (North-East Syria, Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh and Armenia) and to testify in the media.
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