Here are 10 Global Crises Too Big for Trump to Ignore
As the Trump Administration moves to slash foreign aid by a third or more, the International Rescue Committee’s emergency specialists have assembled a list of 10 crises too big for the administration to ignore.
In a move to put “America First,” the Trump administration has put forward a budget proposal that aims to cut funds to foreign aid by a roughly a third — endangering not only U.S. values, but U.S. interest, abroad.
With 65 million people displaced and 93 million worldwide in need of assistance, the world faces humanitarian need of unprecedented scale. Here are 10 global crises the Trump administration simply cannot afford to ignore. The lives of those displaced by conflict, the stability and economic prosperity of our allies and global security hang in the balance.
Join the IRC in calling on Congress to defend foreign aid here. As we face deep cuts to this essential lifeline, your support to beating back famine by clicking here is needed more than ever.
1. SYRIA
Syria has become the defining humanitarian crisis of our time, a conflict of unprecedented brutality that has put into question the architecture of international assistance and destabilized an entire region- and beyond. As the crisis enters its seventh year, the country faces continued conflict on two fronts: a civil war between government forces and rebel groups, and the fight against ISIS. Violations of international humanitarian law remain common by parties to the conflict, further complicated by the increasing role of international actors involved in the conflict. Attacks against humanitarian facilities, such as hospitals, and convoys further complicate the delivery of internal and cross-border aid.
There are approximately 5 million Syrian refugees and at least 6 million IDPs. Over 13.5 million Syrians remain in dire need of humanitarian assistance, with nearly 5 million in inaccessible and/or besieged areas.
The knock-on effects on Syria’s neighbors, as well as Europe, have been enormous. From Turkey, to Jordan, to Lebanon — which has become the highest per-capita refugee host in the world, as a quarter of the population is refugee — to Europe, economic and political pressure has risen to unprecedented levels. It will only deteriorate with an increasingly insufficient international response — and leaving other, and potentially more hostile, international actors to fill the void.
2. THE FAMINE
6 years have passed since the world collectively shouted “never again” before the horrors of the famine in the Horn of Africa, which claimed the lives of at least 250,000. Half of them were children under 5. In total, 13 million people were on the brink of starvation as the international community struggled to respond to early to a predictable, devastating crisis.
Yet as we write, 30 million are on the brink of starvation as the world scrambles to respond to what the UN has called the biggest humanitarian crisis in its history across Somalia, Yemen, South Sudan and Northeastern Nigeria. UN Humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien has not minced words: “without collective and coordinated global efforts,” — if the UN and NGOs do not receive the funding necessary to reach them, “people will simply starve to death”.
While regional drought conditions have devastated crops and collapsed livestock, this crisis is also man-made. What’s more, famine begets conflict and displacement — and vice-versa. Violence and insecurity in South Sudan, for example, has spurred a displacement crisis (with Uganda receiving up to 5,000 refugees a day) but it is also the cause of a famine that was declared in Unity State in February. Those who have fled to Kenya from Somalia — another combination of violence, insecurity and climate stress — find a country struggling to cope, as half the country’s counties have declared themselves in the throes of a “natural drought disaster.”
As families engage in negative coping strategies to survive — pull children out of school, sell assets, resort to less nutritious food — the famine destroys not only lives, but bright futures. The lack of opportunity — as is the case for many of the crises on this list — is fodder for terrorist recruitment.
3. IRAQ
The situation in Iraq remains unstable and dangerous. 10 million people — more than the population of New York — are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance. Around 3 million Iraqis are currently displaced, with more than one million still living under ISIS rule.
As we approach the final stages of the battle to retake Mosul, civilians are fleeing in ever larger numbers — with over 250,000 alone displaced in the battle to retake Mosul — from the west of the city to avoid getting caught up in fierce fighting. People living in areas still under ISIS control, including the towns of Tal Afar and Hawija, continue to be out of reach of aid, with many struggling to afford food and access health care as well as the continuing threat of violence.
The risk of sectarian violence remains a concern across Iraq, which could undermine the reconciliation that will need to occur to bring an end to the cycles of violence seen in the country. In Iraq, failure to meet basic and growing humanitarian need will only further destabilize the nation and region — including Syria — and allow for the insurgency to gain control and influence among a beleaguered civilian, and especially youth, population.
4. AFGHANISTAN
Afghanistan remains one of the most protracted humanitarian emergencies in the world. Widespread violence and insecurity continues as Afghan national forces, the Taliban, and other militant factions vie for territory. The ongoing conflict has resulted in over 11,400 civilian deaths and injuries — the highest the UN has recorded. Internal instability is only aggravated by increasing returns from Pakistan- home to millions of Afghan refugees for decades — and increasing pressure to return Afghan asylum-seekers in Europe.
Increased displacement and heightened food insecurity is anticipated as well as an uptick in conflict-related civilian casualties. This will in part be due to repatriated refugees — hundreds of thousands, if not millions, pushed increasingly from their pluridecennial home in Pakistan as well as failed asylum-seekers in Europe — returning to an active war zone. The government and humanitarian community are in dire need of funding to respond the continued numbers of internally displaced, estimated at over 1.6 million.
The influx of returnees is expected to bring the number of people in need of support to an unprecedented 9.3 million. It is not clear if, or how, the humanitarian community — let alone a country increasingly crippled by declining security and vanishing development gains — will cope with such incredible need.
5. LAKE CHAD BASIN
The governments of Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad continue to battle Boko Haram, one of the deadliest groups in the world that has pledged allegiance with ISIS. Hostage-takers of the Chibok girls, Boko Haram engages in a “scorched earth” policy, attacking schools, torching villages, killing innocent men, women, and children along their way — destroying lives and livelihoods in their wake.
Out of the 17 million people living in the Lake Chad Region, over half — nearly 11 million — are in critical need of food, water and shelter. Displacement has tripled over the last two years alone, as nearly 2.5 million flee their homes in neighboring states for safe haven. As thousands flee the ravages of Boko Haram, we witness all the more the need to address the causes and symptoms of instability that threaten the security of Nigerians and Americans alike.
In Nigeria alone, spurred by political insecurity and if the situation does not change, 205 children will die each day of severe acute malnutrition. Yet, the UN humanitarian response to the crisis in Lake Chad Basin is only 1.4% funded. Child mortality of such preventable nature will only increase with a further financial withdrawal.
Lake Chad faces a lost generation — a generation of children who, even if they make it to their fifth birthday, will be emotionally and physically stunted; who will not have the opportunity to go to school, get a job, and live in a safe and stable environment. There is no better way for Boko Haram to recruit than within a context of impossible choices.
6. SOUTH SUDAN
Half of the population in South Sudan is in need of humanitarian assistance. One million face famine. One in every four people has been forced from his or her home since December 2013: with almost 2 million either internally-displaced or seeking safe haven in neighboring Uganda, DRC, and other states, South Sudan is Africa’s largest refugee crisis — and now its fastest-growing.
The world’s newest country struggled from inception to lead the country harmoniously. This power struggle culminated in large-scale fighting in Juba in July 2016, which included targeting of civilians as well as rampant sexual violence. Displacement and the destruction, closure and occupation of schools means that more than half of children are out of school- the highest proportion of any country in the world.
Calling for unhindered humanitarian access to the affected regions can save lives and help organizations that have the experience, the will, and the capacity to provide assistance to do so. None will be possible without addressing the enormous resource gap — over 1.3 billion USD — and the situation will only deteriorate should US cuts impact this already-fragile country, with impacts on the stability, displacement, and food security of the country’s fragile and refugee-hosting neighbors.
7. YEMEN
Almost two years into the conflict in Yemen, a child dies every 10 minutes of preventable causes as the largest single humanitarian crisis in the world unfolds. A third of the country — almost 19 million people — require urgent humanitarian and protection assistance. Seventeen million people in Yemen are critically food insecure, which is more than the total of those who are food insecure in South Sudan (5m), Somalia (3m) and northeast Nigeria (5m) combined.
Amidst civil violence and terrorist attacks, restrictions on food and fuel imports, and lack of functioning health facilities continue to leave the Yemeni population in a humanitarian emergency. Civil war and a struggling economy has disrupted Yemen’s agricultural sector, plummeting the population in an already unstable region into famine and a total reliance on food imports for people’s survival.
An immediate ceasefire so that aid agencies can access all areas of Yemen, unimpeded, to provide lifesaving humanitarian aid is critical at a time when the United States plans to cut foreign aid by nearly one third -while the UN response plan faced a massive shortfall of US$1.9bn. An urgent boost in funding is required to meet the desperate needs of the population, in a country already enmeshed in a region in peril.
8. LIBYA
Libya is in turmoil. Following the 2011 revolution, which ended the 42-year regime of Muhammar Gaddafi, civil war erupted in 2014 and the oil-rich nation has been engulfed in economic chaos, general lawlessness, and violent militias vying for power — including ISIS — ever since. Despite international pressure, political reconciliation between rival governments in the east and west remains a distant prospect.
The civilian population is caught in the middle. Basic public services — health care, education, electricity, banking, among others — are degraded or absent, and violence is constant. Over 700,000 people have been displaced from their homes alongside an estimated one million migrants. Restoring medical services is perhaps the most pressing need in Libya, as 1.3 million people — a third of whom are children — lack access. However, funding for Libya is already woefully low, making the job of humanitarian agencies to meet need especially given the security conditions extremely difficult.
What’s more, there are an estimated one million migrants in Libya — which remains a major transit country from the fragile Sahel and Sub-Saharan nations of Africa across the Mediterranean and towards Europe, already under unprecedented strain. Over 180,000 migrants fled Libya for Italy in 2016, a perilous sea journey costing nearly 5,000 lives in that year alone.
9. THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE
In recent years, the region known as the “Northern Triangle,” composed of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras — have seen a dramatic escalation in violence by organized criminal groups. There are important differences among the three countries, but there are common roots behind the violence in all three: gang presence, disappearances, sexual exploitation, forced recruitment into gangs, kidnappings and the illegal drug market.
Since 2008, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported a nearly fivefold increase in Northern Triangle asylum-seekers coming to the U.S., which its report calls “a staggering indicator of the surging violence shaking the region.” All three countries, however, feature national homicide rates that dwarf the international average — approximately 6 homicides per 100,000 — to terrifying extremes: 90 in Honduras, 82 in El Salvador, and 40 in Guatemala. There are an estimated 700,000 across Central America internally displaced as a result of this violence, with numbers expected to be much higher not only due to continuing conflict between criminal gangs and security forces, but also due to under-reporting by the displaced for fear of reprisal.
Asylum-seekers unsurprisingly cite rising tides of criminal violence; desperate for safe haven, and matched with the Administration’s halt on refugee admissions in the latest Executive Order, more and more vulnerable Central Americans will attempt the illegal and treacherous journey to the US via Mexico.
10. GLOBAL ALLIES AND STABILITY
A decline in US foreign assistance will exacerbate global harbingers of instability, as insufficient humanitarian and development response sustains and begets crises. Global threats — from Ebola to ISIS — gather strength in countries marred by poverty, instability and poor governance, and in need of redoubled international investment.
American allies like the EU and other developed nations will struggle to fill the gap posed by a withdrawal from the world’s single most important humanitarian donor, while simultaneously faced with the world’s largest famine and the greatest number of displaced individuals since the Second World War. Meanwhile, just ten low and middle-income frontline states — accounting for less than 2.5% of global GDP — shelter 88% of the world’s 21 million refugees, as wealthy nations resettle less than 1%. Syria’s neighbors — Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon, some of America’s most critical allies in the Middle East — face growing political and economic unease as they shoulder the disproportionate burden of five million refugees and counting, and with already inadequate international support; the EU is facing similar destabilizing pressure.
The stability of governments worldwide, their ability to contain problems before they spread and to stand by America’s side as able and willing partners are at stake. What’s more, where the US retreats, others will move in — with potentially more hostile nations who threaten the immutability of US allies and interests left to fill the void — with Syria as the clearest example.
