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Opinion

The next UK government must defend the humanitarian system

Published on 25 June 2024

Philip Proudfoot

Research Fellow

Lewis Sida

Honorary Associate and Co-Director of the Humanitarian Learning Centre

After the 4 July general election, a new government will face a global aid system struggling to meet needs. There are more crises, lasting longer, with aid workers asked to do far more than provide “life-saving assistance.”

A scene of men walking through rubble of demolished buildings, with heavily damaged buildings still standing in the background. A group of people in orange vests in the background appear to be carrying a stretcher.
Palestinian Civil Defense searches for survivors after an Israeli raid in the city of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, October 17 2023. Credit: Shutterstock/Anas-Mohammed

At the turn of the millennium, global humanitarian funding was about $1.7bn. By 2027, it’s estimated that number will reach $100bn. The average crisis now lasts over nine-years stretching the system far beyond its ‘emergency’ mandate. Meanwhile, impunity to International Humanitarian Law (IHL) is at an all-time high. Israel has killed nearly 200 UN staff in its war on Gaza – the largest number of deaths in its 79-year history, with deconfliction protocols ignored, and aid routinely blocked. In Sudan, the government and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have created the world’s largest man-made hunger crisis, and the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine is ongoing after two-years.

The UK has an important role to play not only in financing but also defending the humanitarian system. Despite the cuts to Overseas Development Assistant (ODA), the UK is the fourth largest humanitarian donor, and is a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Since 2007, the position of UN aid chief has also been allocated to a British official.

The next government must help reform aid financing, encourage innovation, and defend the universal application of IHL, up to and including by investigating our own complicity in crimes against humanity.

Rising needs

In 2023, the aid system reported its largest ever funding gap, receiving just one-third of the $57bn required. For 2024, the Global Humanitarian Overview requested $48.65bn, but as of May 2024, funding amounted to just $7.85bn – 20 percent less than the same time last year.

Multiple factors are causing this acceleration of needs; chief among them are conflict and climate. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Israeli war on Gaza, alongside a resurgence in civil wars in Sudan and Ethiopia have led to massive destruction and disruption of (global) economic life. Climate change is making matters worse, causing rapid onset emergencies, with droughts across the Sahel, and floods in Pakistan, South Sudan, and Libya. These drivers are often interlinked: 70 percent of climate-vulnerable countries are at high risk of conflict.

Yet not all emergencies are equal. While humanitarianism professes to be “needs-based,” donor allocation rarely reflects that fact. Following the Russian invasion, in July 2022, the UN-coordinated appeal for Ukraine was 80 percent funded, while Afghanistan was only 38 percent funded, Yemen’s 27 percent, and Sudan 20 percent.

The UK is not isolated from global crises. ODA contributions were reduced, in part, due to the “cost-of-living” crisis – a crisis itself accelerated by the war in Ukraine. At the same time, refugee channel crossing has brought displacement to England’s shores. Both Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer have pledged to “stop the boats.”   The former, through illegal deportation flights to Rwanda, and the latter through “smashing the criminal gangs.” Both are indicative of short-term thinking and if a new government is serious about displacement, than they must address its root causes.

Reforming the System

Rising needs are not only the result of global fiscal constraints but a humanitarian system increasingly struggling to respond to a situation where it has become the de facto instrument of international engagement.

There was once an imagined neat division of labour between development and humanitarianism, but even if today’s crises clearly demand they be cohered together – reality has outpaced reform. By our estimate, the UN is spending more on ‘humanitarian’ crises than all other functions (peace, security, normative functions, development) together.

South Sudan exemplifies the new normal – with a humanitarian appeal ($2bn a year) every year since independence – roughly a quarter of its GDP ($8bn a year) – dwarfing any development flows. Meanwhile, In Yemen, the humanitarian international system has become a ‘substitute state,’ managing hospitals, maintaining education systems, and keeping basic infrastructure running.

Aid is now an expensive global crisis management system, short term in nature, and increasingly asked to tackle problems that are ultimately structural, with periodic acute crisis.

Part of the system recognises the problem. The outgoing UN aid chief, Martin Griffiths, launched his ‘flagship initiative’ to focus on what communities are telling humanitarians, again and again: they want structural problems fixed alongside acute issues, and they want to be involved in decision-making.

The UK government’s policy heft, funding weight, and long history of humanitarian engagement mean it is well placed to promote these long overdue shifts.

Impunity

Impunity to humanitarian law is growing everywhere. Yet the next UK government will face distinct charges of hypocrisy in Gaza. Since 7 October 2023, Britain has continued to supply fighter jets components used by Israel to bombard the strip, striking humanitarian workers and UN facilities.

This hypocrisy places the humanitarian enterprise in danger and risks further normalising grave breaches of IHL. The government’s aid watchdog, ICAI, noted many other countries have suspended arms shipments to Israel. However, the (current) administration has declined to publish its assessment on IHL breaches, while diplomatic efforts to improve aid access have repeatedly failed.

Impunity matters. In violent contexts, the UN flag is associated with ‘safety.’ But safety does not come from blast walls but respect for humanitarian laws. Journalists refer to displaced Gazans as “sheltering” in UNRWA schools or hospitals. But without any explanation of humanitarian protection, this creates a false impression they are materially shielded. But there is no reinforced concrete – only laws. Laws that Israel has been accused of consistently violating.

In theory there is a vast catalogue of treaties, laws, and customs to guide the conduct of war and protect aid workers, humanitarian facilities, and refugee camps. These range from the Geneva and Hague Convention to The Rome Statute, and specific UN treaties (notably not ratified by Israel) directly protecting UN staff. ​​ UNRWA and others have also followed standard deconfliction procedures, providing geolocations, movements, and activities using the Humanitarian Notification System. Yet, “Israel has continued to hit such sites,” including killing three British aid workers.

If Israel’s hospital sieges, the targeting of civilian infrastructure, and forced displacement go unpunished, belligerents in other conflicts may be less motivated to comply with humanitarian norms. The rest of the world – especially Russia – will press home this point. The UK will be unable to bring others to account without answering charges of hypocrisy. For the Global South, it readily appears that self-presenting stalwart defenders of humanitarian action elsewhere have no issue with the violations in Palestine.

Priorities

For an incoming UK government, we see several clear priorities:

  • Financing: Restore ODA from 0.5% to 0.7%, increasing to 1% when fiscally viable. With the current scale of needs, the aid system needs a substantial cash injection which, when well directed, can help address the underlying causes of rising displacement. An increase will also help restore Britain’s international reputation. Support aid financing reform through pooled funds, specifically Central Emergency Reform Fund. These can serve as humanitarian “treasuries” with funding allocated based on need rather than political choices.
  • Reform: Support humanitarian change processes that put people at the centre of the system and localise aid, putting into practise the commitments made at the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016 but never actioned. In the medium term, the system should be overhauled entirely to acknowledge the reality of protracted crises.
  • Conflict: Enact pro-peace diplomacy; cease bombing Yemen; stop all arms sales to Saudi Arabia, Israel, and other repressive regimes; place diplomatic pressure on conflict belligerents. Ending conflict is the responsibility of political leadership – including the UK. It will not be possible to continue managing conflicts through aid rather than finding political solutions.
  • Impunity: Fully support the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice; publish the legal recommendation on arms sales to Israel and conduct a review into compliance since 7 October; immediately restore and scale-up funding to UNRWA; and replicating responses to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with sanctions against those in the Israeli chain-of-command for IHL breaches.

Read all the opinion blogs in this series UK election: International development priorities for a new government.

Disclaimer
The views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author/s and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of IDS.

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