At the end of last week, World Humanitarian Day was observed to honour the work of humanitarian personnel worldwide, and to call for global solidarity with the more than 130 million people who are currently in need of humanitarian assistance in order to survive. It provided an opportunity for people of goodwill to reflect upon the conflict, torture, disease, famine and suffering that is prevalent and worsening in so many countries, especially in light of last year’s #ShareHumanity campaign and the designated theme for this year: ‘One Humanity’. For can we really say that humanity is developing a greater sense of responsibility and global community, and embracing the need to share?

In reality, the lack of sharing in our world has perhaps never appeared more tragic or urgent since the end of the Second World War. Prior to World Humanitarian Day, several reports were released by UN agencies and charities that emphasised the extreme inequalities which could still leave millions of people living in poverty in 2030, despite government promises to ‘leave no-one behind’. An estimated 69 million children will die from mostly preventable causes at current trends, nearly half of which will occur in sub-Saharan Africa where 247 million children – two in every three – are deprived of the basic necessities needed to survive and develop. Behind these statistics also lies a bleak future for many more millions of poor families living in places that the UN Secretary General describes as a “living hell”, such as Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, South Sudan, and Somalia.

There is always plenty of commentary and analysis to show how little of the world’s resources need to be shared, if only to prevent the moral outrage of avoidable deaths from hunger or deprivation-related diseases. For example, the 5.9 million children under the age of five who died from treatable causes in 2015 could have potentially been saved with an additional $25 billion per year, helping the poorest countries to meet their basic health needs. Such a sum could easily be found if all rich nations met their longstanding commitments to give 0.7% of GNI in overseas aid, or if global funds were financed through common-sense policy measures – taxing offshore deposits held by wealthy individuals and corporations, a small tax on financial speculation, diverting military expenditures, and so on.

Indeed, as brought under the spotlight again this week with a second conference on the implementation of an Arms Trade Treaty, global military expenditures cost roughly $1.67 trillion of public funds in 2015 – a major portion of which most taxpayers would, surely, like to see redistributed towards pro-poor investments and ending hunger. Clearly, there is no reason why humanity cannot afford the 0.3% of world income needed to help the poorest countries provide an adequate level of financial security for the least privileged, considering that 870 million of those living in extreme poverty lack any form of social protection.

Even if governments possessed the political will to safeguard these minimal guarantees for everyone, could we describe ourselves as ‘One Humanity’ that shares its planetary resources on the basis of equity and need? Our inefficient systems of overseas aid are far from a ‘sharing economy’, in this respect, and should at least be pooled internationally and raised through an automated mechanism. For now, it’s clear that massive transfers of resources from North to South are central to financing an equitable development agenda and closing the gap between rich and poor nations. But perhaps one day we can envision an end to aid and charity altogether, to be replaced by a democratic system that guarantees the fulfilment of social and economic rights at the international level, funded through global taxes or other sources of innovative funding.

Any such vision will remain a pipedream, so long as the principles underlying domestic systems of sharing and redistribution are being undermined by the increasing commercialisation of our societies. That is why, at the heart of STWR’s proposals, is a call for ordinary people to unite through enormous and peaceful protests that uphold the basic entitlements outlined in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – for adequate food, housing, healthcare and social security for all. Otherwise, we can expect more high-level conferences on eradicating poverty to come and pass, including the next pledging summit for the Sustainable Development Goals to be held in 2017, while millions more people are left to die prematurely each year.

Only when public conscience is sufficiently awakened to the critical needs of others, only when a huge swathe of the populace is standing up for the basic rights of the poorest among us – only then can we talk of a humanity that shares in any meaningful sense of the word. As STWR’s founder Mohammed Mesbahi has asserted, that is when the terms ‘aid’, ‘charity’ and ‘humanitarian assistance’ may be seen to be psychologically meaningless and absurd, once our world finally shares its plentiful resources more equally among all nations, instead of making non-binding development goals and merely redistributing insufficient amounts of overseas aid.

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“For how much longer do we want to witness the annual palaver of these global conferences on poverty and undernutrition, while nothing is done on an adequate scale to help these tragically neglected people? Is it not true that all the millions of dollars spent on organising such recurring high-level summits over several decades could instead have been used to save many such lives already? Meanwhile, we—the minority privileged who take the human rights of Article 25 for granted—continue to overconsume and waste the world’s food and other essential commodities, instead of demanding that our governments redistribute our nation’s surplus resources to where they are most critically needed.”
– Mohammed Mesbahi, Heralding Article 25

It’s no exaggeration to claim that the world today is besieged by a host of interconnected crises that are destabilising every aspect of life on earth and forcing concerned citizens everywhere to question the distorted priorities of their governments and political leaders. Despite a series of high-level international conferences that have been convened in recent years, little has been achieved to reduce entrenched levels of poverty and widening inequalities, or to curb global carbon emissions and prevent run-away climate change. However, the ongoing failure of UN Member States to safeguard the most vulnerable was most recently demonstrated by policymakers meeting at the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) as they squandered a crucial opportunity to prevent an ongoing and rapidly escalating humanitarian crisis.

The demand for humanitarian assistance is already higher than at any time since the Second World War, with many millions of people now trapped in chronic cycles of life-threatening deprivation. As emphasised in One Humanity: shared responsibility, the UN report circulated ahead of the WHS, conflict and civil war is now the primary driver of this ongoing humanitarian emergency, affecting 125 million people and accounting for 80% of all humanitarian needs. An estimated 43% of the world’s poor currently live in ‘fragile’ situations as a consequence – a figure that will increase to 62% by 2030. Across Africa, the Middles East and Europe more than 60 million refugees have made perilous journeys to escape war and persecution, and many are struggling to survive in temporary encampments without access to basic amenities. At the same time, climate change is displacing many millions more as CO2 emissions continue to spiral and disrupt the biosphere. On average, 218 million people a year are affected by natural disasters alone.

It was hoped that the World Humanitarian Summit – the first of its kind – would signal a turning point for a disjointed and ineffectual humanitarian relief system struggling to cope with an acceleration in violent conflicts and climate-related disasters. To this end, the Agenda for Humanity report that accompanied the WHS articulated five high-minded objectives for collective government action, including preventing conflict, upholding international humanitarian law, and ‘leaving no one behind’. Indeed, the #sharehumanity framing adopted by the UN to publicise the event highlights a key notion that should underpin humanitarian action in the period ahead: that the citizens of all nations are part of one interdependent family, and that preventing humanitarian disasters must therefore be a foremost imperative for the international community as a whole.

Weak commitments without obligation

A number of notable albeit piecemeal outcomes did emerge from the Summit and were welcomed by many in the humanitarian and development sectors, especially organisations working in the Global South. For example, a ‘grand bargain’ was struck to make aid financing more efficient and effective – although the suggested measures are only likely to yield annual savings of $1 billion over a five-year period. A commitment was also made to double the size of the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund to $1 billion (a program that allows UN agencies to respond faster and more flexibly at the onset of a crisis), alongside pledges from donors to finally provide humanitarian grants on a multi-year basis.

In addition, governments pledged to reshape the top-down humanitarian system by increasing the amount of funding provided to local and national agencies to 25% (currently a mere 2%), which was commended by non-governmental organisations that have long campaigned for the localisation of aid. Among the many other relatively loose commitments made at the Summit, there was recognition of the need to channel additional funds towards prevention and risk management and provide a greater proportion of aid in the form of cash transfers.

However, specific targets and timelines were not specified for any of the above pledges. And given the current scale of the humanitarian emergency, the vague commitments made at the WHS were altogether insufficient and uninspiring. In spite of the enormous expense and effort involved in convening a global summit of this nature, almost nothing was agreed that could substantially reduce the burgeoning humanitarian funding gap, which has grown exorbitantly in recent years to over $16bn. Nor did governments demonstrate the political will needed to reverse the growing disregard for international humanitarian law and protect civilians in conflict situations – let alone agree on a concrete political framework to curtail protracted civil wars, or tackle a refugee crisis that is overwhelming the humanitarian system.

From the outset, there was concern that the summit was not preceded by substantive intergovernmental negotiations on humanitarian reform of the kind that have taken place before other major global conferences. And despite a sizable turnout of around 8000 people (including 55 heads of state, representatives from UN agencies, civil society organisations and the private sector), most of the world’s most influential leaders were conspicuously absent. Thus it was expected from the beginning that the conference would not materialise the political leadership and agreements needed to uphold the five core responsibilities set out in the Agenda for Humanity.

Humanitarian aid as a substitute for justice

Notably, Médecins Sans Frontières – a Nobel Prize winning organisation working on the frontline of crisis situations – pulled out in advance of the summit stating that they “no longer have any hope that the WHS will address the weaknesses in humanitarian action and emergency response, particularly in conflict areas or epidemic situations.” A vigorous debate also ensued about whether linking humanitarian activity to the broader development framework (a central pillar of the Summit) will ultimately politicise such interventions and make providing assistance in conflict-ridden countries far more difficult – which is pertinent given the overriding need for humanitarian work to remain politically neutral and independent of government influence.

An overarching and long-standing concern is that the UN lacks the power to enforce any of the commitments made at this and previous global summits, not least to ensure that governments follow through on their regular pledges to provide additional funding for humanitarian endeavours. A footnote on a political communiqué signed by summit delegates is revealing in this respect, stipulating that “This communiqué is not legally binding and does not affect the signatories’ existing obligations under applicable international and domestic law.”

In light of the overwhelming moral imperative to share planetary resources more equitably and protect many millions of people in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, the WHS is yet another reminder of the unsurmountable gulf between the priorities of UN member states and the desperate reality of the world situation. For too long, policymakers have put short-term political and financial interests before the protection of human life, and they have routinely failed to pursue the diplomatic measures needed to resolve protracted global problems. Instead, the inadequate provision of humanitarian aid has been used as a substitute for reforming a global economic and political framework that exacerbates poverty, conflict and climate change – even when humanitarian activities fall far short of their stated objectives.

Share Humanity – photo credit: World Humanitarian Summit 

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