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| The Observer view on global crises and the need for international action | The Observer view on global crises and the need for international action |
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| For tens of millions of people around the world, 2017 has been a year of disasters. The latest in a long list of catastrophes, natural and manmade, has left more than 40 million in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal struggling with extreme monsoon flooding. Many of those affected are the least able to cope – subsistence farmers and the urban poor who can expect little help from their governments. In a world inundated by emergencies, they may be left, literally, to sink or swim. | For tens of millions of people around the world, 2017 has been a year of disasters. The latest in a long list of catastrophes, natural and manmade, has left more than 40 million in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal struggling with extreme monsoon flooding. Many of those affected are the least able to cope – subsistence farmers and the urban poor who can expect little help from their governments. In a world inundated by emergencies, they may be left, literally, to sink or swim. |
| The Observer is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper, founded in 1791. It is published by Guardian News & Media and is editorially independent. | The Observer is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper, founded in 1791. It is published by Guardian News & Media and is editorially independent. |
| The victims of hurricane Harvey in Texas and Louisiana will likely fare better. The extent of their suffering should not be under-estimated. On the evidence of previous killer storms, such as hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005, it will take many years to repair the damage and the lives of some survivors will be permanently scarred. But at least the residents of Houston can count on generous assistance from the federal government. Congress is already considering a $6bn aid package; billions more will follow. | The victims of hurricane Harvey in Texas and Louisiana will likely fare better. The extent of their suffering should not be under-estimated. On the evidence of previous killer storms, such as hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005, it will take many years to repair the damage and the lives of some survivors will be permanently scarred. But at least the residents of Houston can count on generous assistance from the federal government. Congress is already considering a $6bn aid package; billions more will follow. |
| The response to Harvey is highly untypical, not least in the intense media attention it has attracted. More usual, to give one glaring example, is the relative lack of international interest in the near-apocalyptic disaster currently afflicting the people of South Sudan. This disaster is largely manmade, triggered by an avoidable civil war. The conflict has a strong ethnic component, pitting the Dinka against the Nuer in a fight for oil, land and power. But it is also about the abject failure of international institutions to keep the peace. | The response to Harvey is highly untypical, not least in the intense media attention it has attracted. More usual, to give one glaring example, is the relative lack of international interest in the near-apocalyptic disaster currently afflicting the people of South Sudan. This disaster is largely manmade, triggered by an avoidable civil war. The conflict has a strong ethnic component, pitting the Dinka against the Nuer in a fight for oil, land and power. But it is also about the abject failure of international institutions to keep the peace. |
| Since 2013, tens of thousands of people – nobody really knows how many – have been killed in the fighting. Starvation and disease have killed many more, with a cholera outbreak causing particular concern. About one-third of South Sudan’s 12 million population is displaced. Two million, mostly women and children, have fled to Uganda and other neighbours. Nearly 2,000 refugees reportedly arrive each day. | Since 2013, tens of thousands of people – nobody really knows how many – have been killed in the fighting. Starvation and disease have killed many more, with a cholera outbreak causing particular concern. About one-third of South Sudan’s 12 million population is displaced. Two million, mostly women and children, have fled to Uganda and other neighbours. Nearly 2,000 refugees reportedly arrive each day. |
| “Recent arrivals speak of barbaric violence, with armed groups reportedly burning down houses with civilians inside, people being killed in front of family members, sexual assaults of women and girls and kidnapping of boys for forced conscription,” a UN report said last month. Of $883.5m requested in international aid, only $250m has been forthcoming so far. Compare that with the Texas billions. | “Recent arrivals speak of barbaric violence, with armed groups reportedly burning down houses with civilians inside, people being killed in front of family members, sexual assaults of women and girls and kidnapping of boys for forced conscription,” a UN report said last month. Of $883.5m requested in international aid, only $250m has been forthcoming so far. Compare that with the Texas billions. |
| As with Yemen, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where conflict, displacement and disease have combined to cause similar, largely unremarked disasters, the political failure of international and regional organisations to rescue South Sudan is stark. A 2015 peace agreement has not been implemented. Opposing factions have not been contained. War criminals roam unchecked. The collective record of the Intergovernmental Authority for Development, the African Union, the UN security council, the UN’s Juba peacekeeping force and international backers such as the US and Britain, which supported South Sudanese statehood in 2011, is little short of lamentable. | As with Yemen, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where conflict, displacement and disease have combined to cause similar, largely unremarked disasters, the political failure of international and regional organisations to rescue South Sudan is stark. A 2015 peace agreement has not been implemented. Opposing factions have not been contained. War criminals roam unchecked. The collective record of the Intergovernmental Authority for Development, the African Union, the UN security council, the UN’s Juba peacekeeping force and international backers such as the US and Britain, which supported South Sudanese statehood in 2011, is little short of lamentable. |
| The unmitigated suffering of the people of Yemen is likewise hard to excuse. Earlier this year, aid agencies warned that the Arab world’s poorest state was “at the point of no return”, with 17 million people facing severe food insecurity. But since then their plight has only grown worse, with the western-backed Saudi bombing campaign compounding the evils of hunger and disease. In the DRC, meanwhile, Oxfam warned last week, “vicious conflict”, unreported in the west, has forced nearly a million people to flee their homes this year. About 1.5 million are “on the brink of famine”. | The unmitigated suffering of the people of Yemen is likewise hard to excuse. Earlier this year, aid agencies warned that the Arab world’s poorest state was “at the point of no return”, with 17 million people facing severe food insecurity. But since then their plight has only grown worse, with the western-backed Saudi bombing campaign compounding the evils of hunger and disease. In the DRC, meanwhile, Oxfam warned last week, “vicious conflict”, unreported in the west, has forced nearly a million people to flee their homes this year. About 1.5 million are “on the brink of famine”. |
| New additions to 2017’s roll call of disaster come thick and fast. Last week produced another dire example of the international community’s failure to protect – a sudden upsurge in violence in western Myanmar that uprooted about 70,000 Rohingya, members of Burma’s Muslim minority, in the space of a few days. The long-running persecution of the Rohingya by Buddhist nationalists in Myanmar is well known. The military has launched previous slash-and-burn campaigns in Rakhine state, committing multiple atrocities. | New additions to 2017’s roll call of disaster come thick and fast. Last week produced another dire example of the international community’s failure to protect – a sudden upsurge in violence in western Myanmar that uprooted about 70,000 Rohingya, members of Burma’s Muslim minority, in the space of a few days. The long-running persecution of the Rohingya by Buddhist nationalists in Myanmar is well known. The military has launched previous slash-and-burn campaigns in Rakhine state, committing multiple atrocities. |
| Now the generals are at it again, torching villages and killing their inhabitants on the pretext of counter-terrorism. The violence is by no means over. But where is the international outcry? Where are peacekeepers and mediators when you really need them? The answers are all too evident. Instead of demanding an end to what Turkey says is genocide, the UN security council spent last week fretting over North Korea’s missiles, another problem it cannot solve. | Now the generals are at it again, torching villages and killing their inhabitants on the pretext of counter-terrorism. The violence is by no means over. But where is the international outcry? Where are peacekeepers and mediators when you really need them? The answers are all too evident. Instead of demanding an end to what Turkey says is genocide, the UN security council spent last week fretting over North Korea’s missiles, another problem it cannot solve. |
| The mid-year report of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs gives a daunting measure of the challenges 2017 has thrown up. Manmade and natural disasters have so far left at least 140 million people in 37 countries in need of humanitarian aid. This figure does not include the south Asia or Myanmar crises. An estimated $23.5bn was needed to fund assistance efforts this year, the June report said, but only $6.2bn, 26% of the total, has been raised. | The mid-year report of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs gives a daunting measure of the challenges 2017 has thrown up. Manmade and natural disasters have so far left at least 140 million people in 37 countries in need of humanitarian aid. This figure does not include the south Asia or Myanmar crises. An estimated $23.5bn was needed to fund assistance efforts this year, the June report said, but only $6.2bn, 26% of the total, has been raised. |
| Stephen O’Brien, the UN’s senior aid official, said humanitarian needs, from all causes, had reached unprecedented levels. “This year has been marked by multiple disasters amid protracted crises... As many as 20 million people are at risk of famine across north-east Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen. Five flash appeals have been launched in 2017 to respond to devastation caused by the drought in Kenya, by tropical cyclones Enawo in Madagascar and Dineo in Mozambique, and by flooding in Peru.” To all this misery, O’Brien said, must be added the “intense suffering” of civilians in war zones in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. | Stephen O’Brien, the UN’s senior aid official, said humanitarian needs, from all causes, had reached unprecedented levels. “This year has been marked by multiple disasters amid protracted crises... As many as 20 million people are at risk of famine across north-east Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen. Five flash appeals have been launched in 2017 to respond to devastation caused by the drought in Kenya, by tropical cyclones Enawo in Madagascar and Dineo in Mozambique, and by flooding in Peru.” To all this misery, O’Brien said, must be added the “intense suffering” of civilians in war zones in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. |
| What is to be done in the face of this overwhelming wave of woe? More funding is one answer. Ordinary citizens, especially in Britain, usually respond generously to specific disaster appeals. One such is under way for the south Asia floods. Wider acceptance is needed that, as individuals, we all share a moral responsibility to inform ourselves about what is happening across our joined-up world. Governments such as the US and Britain, the two leading donor states, should increase, not cut, their foreign aid budgets. The emerging economic powers must do more, too. Another imperative, in terms of natural disasters, is ever more forceful, integrated efforts to combat climate change, especially by the recalcitrant Trump administration. | What is to be done in the face of this overwhelming wave of woe? More funding is one answer. Ordinary citizens, especially in Britain, usually respond generously to specific disaster appeals. One such is under way for the south Asia floods. Wider acceptance is needed that, as individuals, we all share a moral responsibility to inform ourselves about what is happening across our joined-up world. Governments such as the US and Britain, the two leading donor states, should increase, not cut, their foreign aid budgets. The emerging economic powers must do more, too. Another imperative, in terms of natural disasters, is ever more forceful, integrated efforts to combat climate change, especially by the recalcitrant Trump administration. |
| Yet more pressing than any of this, perhaps, is the necessity to increase the effectiveness and improve the co-ordination of global and regional governance organisations, principally the UN, its peacekeeping arm and its agencies, but also the G7, IMF, World Bank, OECD, EU, AU and Asean, in tackling global disasters of all descriptions. Multilateralism has fallen out of fashion of late. But without it, there may be no way to turn the tide of global disaster. | Yet more pressing than any of this, perhaps, is the necessity to increase the effectiveness and improve the co-ordination of global and regional governance organisations, principally the UN, its peacekeeping arm and its agencies, but also the G7, IMF, World Bank, OECD, EU, AU and Asean, in tackling global disasters of all descriptions. Multilateralism has fallen out of fashion of late. But without it, there may be no way to turn the tide of global disaster. |
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