A decade after the famine of 2011, which cost the lives of more than 250,000 people in East Africa, the region is again on the verge of humanitarian disaster. The international community was committed to a solemn “never again”. Never again famine in the region, early alert and preventive action systems had to be implemented. However, almost twelve years later, Somalia and Ethiopia were with Afghanistan at the top of the Emergency Watchlist 2023 of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), with more than 20 million people affected by the hunger in the context of the worst drought in recent decades in East Africa.
A few weeks ago, we went to the region to meet our teams and the populations affected by crises. We have noticed how the lives of millions of people were upset by climate change, economic crises and armed conflicts. What we have seen is a disastrous illustration of the way the international community abandons the most vulnerable populations.
The IRC emergency list identifies the twenty countries most at risk of humanitarian degradation in 2023. But its main teaching is that humanitarian disasters are the result of choice and not fatality. When we examine the twenty countries there, it is clear that armed conflicts, the climate crisis and economic shocks are the combined engines that change a minority but increasing part of the world’s population in an increasing crisis deep. Globally, humanitarian needs have quadrupled over the past decade at the same time as they have focused. 90 % of the 340 million people who will be in need of humanitarian assistance next year, and 81 % of all displaced and refugees, live in these twenty countries representing barely 1.6 % of the global gross product. p>
abuse of the right of veto at the UN
The conclusions we present in the emergency list explain why. The local and international ramparts supposed to protect the populations affected by the crises and prevent them from switching to the precipice erude. These are for example the resolutions of the UN Security Council intended to protect civilians in wartime and which are no longer adopted due to the abuse of the right of veto. Social protection nets and national basic services weakened by the debts crisis in poor countries. The under-funded humanitarian responses, except for Ukraine, where international mobilization is fortunately there to help the population harshly experienced by the conflict and war crimes.
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