The need for humanitarian emergency aid is greater than ever. But since the outbreak of the Ukraine war, numerous countries have cut aid or even paid it to themselves. Instead of redistribution, an increase is needed – for the sake of our own security.
While the war in Ukraine characterizes political, media and public debates on a daily basis, other conflict areas are in danger of being forgotten – even though the humanitarian needs there are immense.
On August 30, 2021, shortly before midnight, American Christopher Donahue boards a plane in Kabul. A blurred image of the scene, captured through night vision goggles, is featured in newspapers and TV shows around the world the next day. Because the two-star general Donahue made history. His boots are the last “boots on the ground” worn by an American soldier in Afghanistan. They put an end to a twenty-year unsuccessful war against the Taliban and for Western interests.
Six months later, on February 24, 2022, about 150,000 Russian soldiers put their boots on Ukrainian soil, ordered there by Russian President Vladimir Putin. It is the prelude to what has now been a nine-month, largely unsuccessful war against Ukraine and for Putin’s power-political interests.
While the events in Ukraine continue to shape the political, media and public debates every day nine months after the start of the war, things became pretty quiet about Afghanistan after just a few weeks. And this despite the fact that the Taliban are constantly expanding their reign of terror, thousands of Afghans are fleeing to Europe and country a hunger crisis threatens.
There are many good reasons why Ukraine is rightly more of our concern than Afghanistan. But the fact is that both countries are still in dire need of international assistance. While this flows freely in Ukraine, there is a risk of it dwindling in other regions of the world. This is a risk, not least for the West.
The dark side of solidarity
Aid funds are controversial, unpopular, and in some cases even demonstrably ineffective. Especially in the area of development aid, where there is sometimes a claim to help whole regions of the world economically, a lot of well-intentioned money disappears in a thicket of bureaucracy and corruption. However, development aid must be distinguished from humanitarian emergency aid – money that goes directly to where people have to fear for their survival due to crises, disasters and conflicts. These payments are not a panacea, but they are immensely important.
Ukraine is currently showing impressively what concerted international solidarity can achieve. Thanks to humanitarian, financial and military aid worth more than $90 billion so far, the country is successfully resisting Putin’s imperial appetites. The generosity of the mostly Western donor countries is right and important, because it also serves to protect their own security. NATO and the EU have not been as united and strong as they are today for a long time. But solidarity with Ukraine also has its downsides. It means that less aid money is made available for other crises in the world or that it is redistributed to other needs.
This can be seen most clearly in Great Britain. Two years ago, then-Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak slashed the ODA budget – which includes emergency aid – by £4 billion as a result of the pandemic. The remaining £11 billion budget will become 2022 expected £3.5bn to house Ukraine refugees aflow on the island. Great Britain is thus making itself the largest recipient of its own aid.
It is not forbidden to include the accommodation of refugees in the aid budget. But Great Britain is one of the handful of countries that have booked these costs in full to this budget since the outbreak of war. Accounting is done in a similarly creative manner in Sweden, which diverts almost 20 percent of the funds to the asylum system in this way. A “significant increase in the share of asylum costs” in the aid budget is also expected for Switzerland, as the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) reports on request. Exact figures will not be available until spring.
The Swiss emergency aid for Ukraine is mainly financed through additional credits. At the beginning of December, Parliament approved a further CHF 100 million for winter aid. In addition, according to Deza, there is also an “internal reallocation of various budgets”. This redistribution primarily affects funds that have not yet been allocated, but not existing projects.
The Ukraine war as a crisis multiplier
The timing for cuts in emergency aid is extremely bad. The year 2022 is characterized by two worrying developments: Firstly, there have never been so many people fleeing as today. For the first time it gives way information from the UN more than 100 million refugees and displaced persons worldwide – 15 percent or 13.6 million more than last year. 230 million people are dependent on humanitarian emergency aid.
On the other hand, there is a risk of a record high financing gap for this emergency aid. Only 47 percent of the needs estimated by the UN for the current year are covered, which corresponds to a new negative record. The differences between individual countries are enormous: Ukraine’s humanitarian needs are 67 percent funded, while those of Afghanistan are at least 55 percent. In Venezuela, on the other hand, it is only 36 percent, in Mali 34 percent and in Burkina Faso 35 percent.
The situation is paradoxical: in 2022 more funds were made available than ever before, while at the same time the need is growing faster and faster. And the situation is likely to get worse. The United Nations estimates humanitarian needs of $51.5 billion for 2023 – a new high. “The humanitarian needs are shocking,” said UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths.
The consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, natural disasters, climate change, inflation, political crises, armed conflicts – all of this contributes to the fact that more and more people are in need, suffering from hunger and having to flee. In this mixed situation, the Ukraine war becomes a crisis multiplier by also having a negative impact on the financial markets, energy supply and grain deliveries. Everything has become more expensive for the donor countries in the crisis year 2022.
“One crisis at a time” is not enough
Despite growing fiscal pressure, however, in times of crisis like these it is essential to continue to provide urgent emergency aid to those countries that are not currently the focus of international empathy. It is often forgotten that these funds are not only used to demonstrate compassion and humanity. Rather, it is also an investment in security, stability and prosperity in the First World; an insurance against migration flows and spillover effects of regional crises. It is all the more important that we do not only pay the price for our peace to Ukraine.
“One crisis at a time” – that’s not enough. If the West neglects the rest of the world in the face of the Ukraine war, it will bring more and more problems to its own door in the medium and long term. The calculation is simple: the more people enjoy food security and live in safe conditions, the less reason they have to flee to the West or join terrorist groups.
It’s true: the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, even though development aid had been provided in the country for decades. This has rightly been frozen since August 2021 so as not to support the new regime. But emergency humanitarian aid continues to flow because there is no alternative. Without them, a catastrophic famine and an even larger flight would probably have long been a fact.
It is an illusion to think that the donor states could bring economic growth, equality and political stability to the crisis regions of the world with donations of money. Such an attitude not only ignores the individual responsibility of the states concerned, but in the worst case even weakens the incentives to bring about lasting change.
But that is not the goal in emergencies. Rather, the priority is to stabilize the humanitarian situation so that it does not get out of control. It should therefore not be taboo to temporarily make funds from low-priority development projects available for urgently needed emergency aid.
But that won’t be enough. In order to close the growing funding gaps, humanitarian funds need to be increased overall. Yes, the costs are high and the fiscal leeway is narrow – but doing nothing would be even more expensive in the long term. It’s high time we took our peace bounty more seriously.
Incidentally, Christopher Donahue, the last American soldier in Afghanistan, is also facing another major task. At the US Army’s European headquarters in Wiesbaden, Germany, he now coordinates the training and equipment of Ukrainian troops.