Humanitarian and geopolitics overview.

Meeting of heads of state and government in London to support Volodymyr Zelenky after his altercation with Donald Trump on February 28 at the White House © European Union, 2025

With this issue 100 of the online magazine Défis Humanitaires, we want to celebrate with our readers this milestone of good editorial hope. Since February 2018, we have been seeking to promote humanitarianism in its geopolitical environment, noting that humanity is at once one and diverse, universal and multiple, with its peoples and their countries.

This is all the more true given that 300 million human beings are in danger for want of help, and 2 billion men, women and children are living in destitution and uncertainty. Yet humanitarian aid, which has already begun to decline, is in danger of falling even further. The future looks more uncertain and dangerous than ever.

Understanding and anticipating events is a prerequisite for effective action. Humanitarian action is a positive response to cruel events. To understand where we are today and where we’re going, let’s take a brief look at the 4 periods that have marked humanitarianism since the 1980s, and draw some useful lessons from them.

Humanitarianism where we come from, 1980-1989.

Contemporary humanitarianism emerged in the 1980s, during the Cold War, when the world was divided into two antagonistic blocs, East and West, the USSR and the USA, and their allies in NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The real wars were fought on the periphery, in what was then known as the Third World. This is where contemporary humanitarianism was born, and where it based its legitimacy and development on field action, often crossing borders without visas to reach populations in danger. At the time, I was involved in this adventure of solidarity in Afghanistan, which also applied to Cambodia and Ethiopia. We created a new model that became a benchmark.

Distribution of briquettes in Kamianka, December 27, 2024. Solidarités International

A world disappears, 1989-2001.

The fall of the Berlin Wall and the disappearance of the USSR in 1989-1991, after a brief period of euphoria and universal peace, ushered in a new era with the first Gulf War and UN Resolution 688 to protect the Kurds of Iraq. Then the break-up of the former Yugoslavia and the war in Bosnia, and the genocide in Rwanda established humanitarian action as an essential international policy, leading to the creation in 1992 of DG ECHO, the European Union’s and the Commission’s humanitarian instrument. Faced with urgent and far-reaching needs, the humanitarian community expanded rapidly, particularly NGOs, which established themselves as a major player in crises.

The turning point of September 11, 2001.

The next turning point came on September 11, 2001, with the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York by the terrorist organization Al Qaeda. We remember George W. Bush’s doctrine of pre-emptive war against terrorism, and the UN Resolution authorizing the United States to intervene in Afghanistan, where it remained for 20 years, with the inglorious end that we know. We remember the American intervention in Iraq to “democratize the Middle East”, which was based on false allegations and had dramatic consequences.

The humanitarian dynamic will grow out of necessity, and will soon be stimulated by the Arab Spring, which will degenerate into civil war in Syria. We remember the Serval operation in Mali in January 2013, against jihadist groups, then in Burkina Faso and Niger. During this period, humanitarian action emerged as one of the essential components of any solution, along with its other security, diplomatic and political aspects. It was at this time that the concept of the Humanitarian-Development Nexus was born and flourished, to which the word peace was soon added.

BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, in October 2024, attended by the UN Secretary-General. The world is reshaping itself! ©Agency brics-russia2024.

Sequel or change of era?

In an article entitled “From geopolitics to humanitarianism” published in Défis Humanitaires on July 24, 2019, I posed the question of whether this period was a continuation of what had gone before or whether, on the contrary, it heralded a new geopolitical and humanitarian cycle. A question all the more necessary given that Donald Trump had been elected in 2016, Vladimir Putin had been re-elected in 2018 as had Erdogan, the Turkish president, and Xi Jinping had been elected president for life of the People’s Republic of China in the same year.

To this question we now have the answer, which is the main focus of this editorial for the 100th issue of Humanitarian Challenges.

From Putin to Trump, or the great leap into the unknown!

The tipping point begins with Russia’s attack on Ukraine on February 24, 2022, and is confirmed with the election of Donald Trump, who takes office on January 22, 2025. Throughout the Cold War and beyond, war had been frozen in Europe. For more than 3 years, the war in Ukraine has meant that borders have been called into question, and the countries of the European continent, which had been slumbering, are rearming because of the threat of a possible extension of a conflict with the Baltic States and Poland, with the risk of a domino effect with NATO member countries.

This is the moment chosen by Donald Trump to propose that Canada become the 51st state of the USA, to invite Greenland to come under his control, to regain control of the Panama Canal and to seek to impose peace on Ukraine with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, while threatening that country and its allies in Europe with abandonment if they do not comply within a week!

Vladimir Putin & Donald Trump in Helsinki July 2018. (Image Credit Kremlin.ru via Wikimedia Commons)

The turning point that history will remember is here, and it’s here to stay. Possible challenges to borders, geopolitical deregulation, the law of survival of the fittest, the race for access to natural resources, the risk of confrontation that could spiral out of control, the weakening of the UN and paralysis of the Security Council.

And what can we say about the undermining of the Climate Agreement, the struggle for control of space, information conceived as a battlefield – the list is long, foreshadowing this change of era.
In this poisonous climate, the guarantee of freedom and independence for some countries, and of power and neo-empire for others, is leading to an exponential increase in defense budgets.

In the latest “Eurobarometer” survey, 66% of people rank protecting people as their top priority. The economy and industry came next (36%), followed by energy resources (27%).

The need for security has just led countries such as Poland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia to decide on March 18, in a joint declaration, to withdraw from the Ottawa Treaty banning anti-personnel mines, ratified by 164 states!

As in previous periods, this will have a major impact on the humanitarian sector!

What about humanitarian aid?

Not only are humanitarian needs still with us, but they are set to increase, both because of the vulnerabilities that are flourishing (conflict, poverty, climate, water resources, demographics in Africa) and because of the drastic decline in resources.

The Trump administration’s dislocation of USAID and freeze on funded programs has caused, despite exemptions, a veritable cataclysm in humanitarian and development aid. All the more so as this shock was preceded by a sharp drop in official development assistance from many European Union and OECD member countries.

The main trend seems to be as follows: a rapid decline in funding, restricted or even inaccessible general access to populations in danger, with a retreat from International Humanitarian Law, more violence against civilians considered as protagonists and stakes in wars, politicization and criticism of humanitarian aid.

Mothers with their children wait at the MSF clinic in the Zamzam camp, 15 km from El Fasher, North Darfur. MSF

Let’s face it, this is a historic step backwards for humanitarian action. Although we started from scratch almost 50 years ago, we’ve been making progress ever since, but for the first time we’re taking a step backwards at a time when we were already struggling to meet the vital needs of populations in danger. The head of a humanitarian NGO recently told me that for his organization, this was a 10-year step backwards! The majority of humanitarian NGOs are having to reluctantly and urgently lay off some of their staff. The UN and its agencies are planning to regroup into 4 large entities, and even to relocate to cut costs.

If the humanitarian aid budget almost doubled between 2012 and 2021, it then briefly stagnated, and now it has been falling since 2023, and will increase and accelerate in 2025. What will happen next? Will there be a reaction, a halt, a stabilization at the very least, or, on the contrary, will the downward slide continue, and to what extent?

And yet, if the shock is conducive to the search for an alternative model, we don’t see a replacement solution on the scale. In any case, we need to acquire more influence and, ultimately, more audacity and imagination to invent the future.

A new mobilization in these changing times.

For the sake of completeness, we need to add to the geopolitics of conflicts, those of more numerous catastrophes and the risk of major epidemics.

How can we act in the face of rising extremes when civilian populations are seen as war targets and treated as enemies to be annihilated? This is the case in Gaza with the use of the weapon of hunger against an entire population; it’s the case in Ukraine with the systematic bombing of towns and villages and civilian infrastructures; it’s the case in the civil war in Sudan. This is the dehumanization of total war, in the face of which humanitarian aid must do everything in its power to fulfill its mission in spite of everything!

I can also see the growing debate between the national priority of security and international aid in its various forms. One is not incompatible with the other. I believe that we can be proud of our own identity, while believing that others can also be proud of their own nationality, while feeling concerned by the misfortune of others by providing them, as partners, with aid, skills, tools and knowledge useful for their development, and also learning from them. A country grows by making these choices of effective and respectful solidarity. This in no way prevents us from promoting the interests of our own people.

This is also why I believe that the ideological and partisan politicization of humanitarian aid will lead to its weakening. Let’s not fall into this trap. Humanitarian aid is indisputable when it is carried out within the framework of its principles of humanity, impartiality, independence and neutrality.
At a time when security is becoming a priority for public opinion and their countries, human security must be associated with it, all the more so as the insecurity of populations fleeing war, disaster and epidemics destabilizes their neighbors from near and far, through a domino effect that will eventually impact us too if we do nothing.

More concretely, there are deadlines that are as much at stake. This is the case in France, with the Finance Bill for 2025 and 2026. Political leaders must, at the very least, stabilize humanitarian and development budgets, or even revitalize them in the spirit of the recent Presidential Council for International Partnerships. Similarly, the 4th European Humanitarian Forum on May 19 and 20 in Brussels should be an opportunity to strengthen DG ECHO’s humanitarian aid, rather than diluting and weakening it. Finally, the Conference on Financing for Development in Seville next June could be the occasion for a new impetus, as well as a demanding “aggiornamento” (updating) to improve efficiency for populations and optimize private initiative for all.

We’ll be back in touch with you in early June with issue 101 of Défis Humanitaires.

Défis Humanitaires, with you.

One hundred editions since February 2018, 152 different authors of articles and interviews whom I’d like to thank here for their contribution, a growing increase in the number of readers, in France of course but also in order in the USA, Burkina Faso, Canada, Belgium, Mali, Switzerland, Senegal, the UK and Cameroon for the first 10. The most widely-read articles focus on humanitarian thinking, the humanitarian-development Nexus, funding and salaries, demographics and philanthropy.

In this chaotic and dangerous international context, Défis Humanitaires, a free and independent magazine, is more topical than ever, and we have many projects to propose to you. I therefore invite you to answer the questionnaire enclosed in this issue, which will be very useful to us, as well as to testify “A vos plumes” for Défis Humanitaires. We’ll be publishing these testimonials in our next issue in June.

Finally, with issue 100, Défis Humanitaires aims to evolve into an information medium with greater visibility and smoother navigation. To achieve this, your support (donate) will be decisive to better inform, alert and mobilize. This has never been as useful as it is today. If we don’t act, we’ll go backwards!

I’d like to thank you personally for your support and for this mutual commitment, which strengthens humanitarianism.

Alain Boinet.

I invite you to read these interviews and articles published in the edition :

Water management issues on the Tibetan plateau

Organised by the Senate’s International Information Group on Tibet, the conference on 3 December 2024 focused on water management on the Tibetan plateau, bringing together three speakers: Palmo Tenzin, researcher and advocacy officer for the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) in Germany, Dechen Palmo, environmental researcher at the Tibet Policy Institute in India and head of the Tibetan government in exile, and Tenzin Choekyi, researcher for the NGO Tibet Watch. This is a summary of the conference.

Although often considered a Chinese province, Tibet is in fact a country annexed by China in 1950. Since then, China has pursued a large-scale policy of erasing Tibetan identity in a number of ways: destroying monasteries, sending Tibetan children to boarding school to learn Mandarin, monopolising their natural resources, etc. Tibet is a water reservoir for the whole of China.

A veritable water reservoir for the whole of South-East Asia, Tibet is regularly referred to as ‘the third pole’, and plays a strategic role in the region’s water balance. An estimated 1.8 billion people depend on water from Tibet. Yet this region is one of the most vulnerable to global warming, and the massive construction of dams by China could have serious repercussions for all the countries in the region in the years to come.

Tibet and the dangers of climate change

Often referred to as the ‘water tower of Asia’, Tibet is the source of eight of Asia’s major rivers, including the Brahmaputra, Yangtze, Mekong and Indus.

These rivers are fed by Himalayan glaciers, which have been melting at an alarming rate for several years. Tibet is experiencing temperature rises 2 to 4 times faster than the rest of the planet, considerably speeding up the melting of the Himalayan glaciers. It is estimated that 75% of these glaciers will have disappeared by 2100.

While these glaciers provide water resources for consumption and agriculture for 1.8 billion people, their rapid melting is leading to unprecedented climatic disasters such as flash floods or, conversely, severe droughts, even during the rainy season.

This vulnerability to climate change is further exacerbated by the massive construction of hydraulic dams by China and the intensive exploitation of water resources in Tibet.

The multiple consequences of China’s damming of Tibet

The International Campaign for Tibet’s report Chinese Hydropower: damning Tibet’s culture, community and environment, published on Wednesday 4 December 2024, gives us an overview of the scale of China’s dam construction in Tibet.

Since 2000, the Chinese regime has launched the construction of 193 hydroelectric dams on the Tibetan plateau. These hydroelectric dams can fulfil 2 functions: storing water in a reservoir for deferred release, or diverting water using turbines. The conclusions of the ICT report reveal that their development has never been so important in terms of scale, scope and speed. In fact, 80% of the projects studied are mega-dams. More than half (59%) are still at the proposal stage (38%) or the preparation stage ( %). If these 193 dams were brought into operation simultaneously, Tibet would have a hydroelectric capacity of more than 270 GW, equivalent to Germany’s energy production in 2022.

The costs of these dams are extremely high, but the Chinese government chooses to ignore or even conceal them.

From an environmental point of view, these constructions are vulnerable to earthquakes, landslides and floods, even increasing the risk of these phenomena. Several earthquakes have already destroyed hydroelectric infrastructure, causing dozens of deaths and irreversible damage to the environment and biodiversity. Dams also increase the human footprint and methane pollution in fragile and isolated ecosystems. They degrade water quality and flow, disrupt aquatic life, affect soils and block nutrient flows downstream.

In human terms, the construction of these dams is forcing many Tibetans from their homes and lands. Studies show that 121,651 people have already been evicted since 2000, and the ICT report estimates that 1.2 million people will be evicted if the 193 hydroelectric dams are built. In addition, many religious sites will be abandoned or even destroyed to make way for these projects.

A small Tibetan monastery with destroyed foundations still standing on the road from Shigatse to Mount Everest in 2009

Although Tibet has considerable hydroelectric potential, Tibetans have no say in how their resources are used. It is the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese energy companies who determine the exploitation of Tibetan energy and the distribution of costs and profits. In reality, the exploitation of Tibet’s water resources benefits the major Chinese cities almost exclusively, while disproportionately and irreversibly harming Tibetans and their environment.

Tibet’s water resources: a major geopolitical and strategic issue for China

The Chinese regime’s long-term objective is to turn Tibet into a powerful energy exporter, supplying not only central and eastern China but the whole of South-East Asia.

By controlling the Tibetan rivers, China is establishing itself as a world leader in the development of hydroelectricity, a strategic lever for increasing its regional and international influence. While China’s hydropower policy is essential to its industry, it also threatens food security in South-East Asian countries.

Xiaowan dam, Lancang River (Upper Mekong), China. © Guillaume Lacombe

The Mekong River is a prime example of the impact of dams on the countries of South-East Asia. This vital river provides water for around 60 million people, but the 11 dams built along the river by the Chinese government have led to a significant drop in water levels in the areas downstream from the dams. The consequences are irreversible: severe droughts even during the rainy season, a drop in fishing and aquaculture, etc. for the countries dependent on the Mekong, which are coming under increasing pressure from China.

According to Dechen Palmo, the countries of South-East Asia are currently dependent on China’s goodwill for their access to water. But as the situation worsens, they will soon be obliged to join forces to confront the Asian giant if they want to escape from this totally unequal balance of power. This imbalance could have disastrous consequences for the future stability of the region if the situation does not change quickly.

Fisherman in the Mekong Delta © Jean-Pierre Dalbéra

The unprecedented mobilisation of Tibetans for respect for their existence and their resources

Since February 2O24, demonstrations have been taking place in Tibet in opposition to the forthcoming construction of the Kamtok dam in Sichuan province. This mega-project will result in the expulsion of over 4,000 Tibetans from their villages and the destruction of 6 monasteries. Since the uprisings of 2008, which were violently repressed, and the 159 self-immolations of Tibetans that followed, protests in the region have become extremely rare. The current demonstrations therefore represent a strong act of resistance to the Chinese regime. Once again, the demonstrators have been severely repressed by the Chinese regime’s security forces. Videos have shown the seriousness of the situation: around twenty Tibetans, including elderly people and a dozen monks, were kneeling in front of CCP security forces, begging them to stop the construction of the dam, which would force them to flee. Many were arrested and some were beaten on suspicion of being the leaders of the demonstrations. Since then, military reinforcements have been sent in and no new images of the Tibetans concerned have been released.

While Tibetan exiles are fighting to raise the profile of their cause and alert the international community, many are wondering whether their action is having any real impact, given that there has been no real improvement and China is continuing with its construction projects. The law does not protect Tibetans but Chinese state-owned enterprises, and Tibetans continue to be arbitrarily arrested in their fight to denounce the illegal exploitation of Tibet’s water resources and the violations that ensue. The evidence they gather and disseminate on the internet and social networks is systematically censored.

If these dams are built, millions of people in Tibet and the rest of China will face catastrophic consequences in the years to come. Tibetans will be the first victims, but the people of mainland China will also feel the effects.

A woman carries a child in Barkhor, Tibet Autonomous Region © UNICEF-Palani Mohan

Possible cooperation?

Despite these challenges, and even if China is for the moment recalcitrant to cross-border governance, there is room for cooperation. Indeed, the IWRM approach could enable the water resources of Tibet to be shared equitably between the various countries of South-East Asia. As defined by the Global Water Partnership, ‘IWRM is a process that promotes the coordinated development and management of water, land and associated resources, with a view to maximising the resulting economic and social well-being in an equitable manner, without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems’[1].

This approach has already proved its worth in the management of the River Niger, which flows through 9 West African countries and stretches over 4,200km. Since 1964, the Niger Basin Authority (NBA) has brought together the states dependent on the river (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Niger and Nigeria) and coordinated water management policies with the aim of preventing conflicts and promoting socio-economic development. The various projects set up by the NBA also enable regional cooperation in the fight against drought, for access to drinking water, the preservation of fragile ecosystems, etc.

The challenges faced by NBA are very similar to those faced by the countries of Southeast Asia. The cooperation that these West African countries have been able to establish should therefore serve as an example for the creation of real cross-border governance between China and the countries of South-East Asia around the rivers that have their source in Tibet.

Recommendations from the speakers

Tibetans must be consulted on development projects, and their rights must be protected.
Renewable energies (solar and wind) should be favoured from now on, as they do not entail the environmental, climatic and social costs of hydroelectric power.
China should sign and accede to the 1997 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, in order to guarantee the fundamental principles of equitable and reasonable utilization and non-detriment in water management.
China should also engage in multilateral forums on transboundary water policy to establish a mutually beneficial management architecture by signing water-sharing agreements and scientific data.
France and Europe must support the international organisations that can act as discussion forums for negotiating these agreements.
France and Europe must put pressure on China and highlight the harmful consequences of these constructions.

[1] Global Water Partnership, Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) Integrated Water Resources Management 2000, TAC Background Papers No. 4, 65p., 04-integrated-water-resources-management-2000-english.pdf

India Hauteville

India Hauteville holds a first Masters degree in International Politics from Sciences Po Bordeaux and is currently studying for a Masters degree in Integration and Change in the Mediterranean and the Middle East at Sciences Po Grenoble. She is the current assistant to the founder of Solidarités International, Mr Alain Boinet.

She is particularly interested in the Syrian conflict and is currently writing a dissertation on the relationship between humanitarian principles and the realities on the ground in Syria, using the NGO Solidarités International as a case study.

I invite you to read these interviews and articles published in the edition :

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