The crises we don't care about
Why do politicians engage for crises in the global north but look a different path when the crises happen in the south?
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Last year needed 360 million people assistance in order to survive. According to UN estimates, less than half of the needs funded, the lowest proportion in many years. And that's just the start of the problems. In addition to the level on the funding being too low, the distribution is of the means grossly unfair.
According to a recent report from Refugee Aid, conflicts in the Global South are systematically ignored by donors in the North. Of the world's ten most neglected refugee crises, all but one are in Africa.
One of them, and The World's Largest Refugee Crisis, is in Sudan. There, the situation is desperate. Mothers feed their children with soil and leaves, and 25 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance. According to the Dutch think-tank Clingendael risks 2.5 million people to die of hunger before Oct..
The most neglected refugee crisis, however, is found in Burkina Faso. For nearly a decade, radical insurgents have attacked both civilian and military targets. As many as two million people are cut off from the outside world and have little or no access to humanitarian aid. This is a horrible situation, for as many people as in Gaza. Yet little or no attention is paid to the fact that it is happening.
According to the UN, Burkina Faso only got covered 39 percent of the need for humanitarian aid last year. Close to all the neglected crises got under fifty percent. Of all, Honduras received the least, with only 16 percent. At the same time, Ukraine got 73 percent of its projected needs funded, and Gaza 100 percent. While the latter is positive in itself, it is also a crude example of the world's unfair prioritization.
The extreme bias is mainly due to Western donor countries' priorities, and is difficult to defend. That two crises in the northern hemisphere receive so much more support and attention than similar crises in the global south is an uncomfortable insight into our political priorities. Do our politicians think this is ok?
Over half of all low-income countries are at high risk of falling into, or are already in, a debt crisis.
When the war in Ukraine broke out, world grain and commodity prices skyrocketed, with ripple effects for people all over the world. And most of all for those in the world who have the least.
Even after big price drops this year, international food prices are still 25 percent higher than the average in the years before the pandemic, According to the World Bank. Two years of even higher rates have rock-bottom scraped the savings coffers of poor peoples and countries. That makes them extra vulnerable now. According to the IMF over half of all low-income countries have a high risk of falling into, or are already in, a debt crisis.
As a consequence, Parliament agreed last year that the Ukraine package should include an extraordinary appropriation to countries in the south, where the ripple effects of the war had major human consequences. This is on top of ordinary assistance. The Parliament also reasoned that this support should be repeated in later years, if the situation persisted. It has. Yet the government doesn't do anything.
Last week the leaders went off 15 Norwegian civil society organisations join VG with a call to the politicians, and the prime minister in particular. They haven't responded. The agreement of last year should be followed up, with a new extraordinary appropriation for the afflicted in the south. Now Parliament should take responsibility.
