The world is burning... Russia, America and China must save it

An article in the British Guardian newspaper reported that the emerging Corona Virus (Covid-19) pandemic has exacerbated the crisis creaking under the global humanitarian system, at a time when the “ineffective” United Nations was being pushed aside.

Just as it is difficult to look beyond one's outside door when a deadly disease threatens one's family, so do governments when faced with emergencies outside their national borders, according to an opinion piece by Simon Tisdale, an international affairs analyst for the newspaper.

What if the world burns? In the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, the search for prevention and the longing for recovery is a local obsession in the first place.

The outbreak of the pandemic has coincided with a crisis already afflicting global humanitarian action, reflected in the “ruthlessness” of existing vulnerabilities and long-neglected problems.

bleak situation

But in his article, Tisdale sees COVID-19 as just one aspect of the issue: unmediated conflicts, endless civil wars, climate-related disasters, lawlessness, impunity and ineffective diplomacy; All are factors leading to famine, disease and displacement to an unprecedented degree.

Statistics from the International Rescue Committee - a non-governmental organization that aims to provide humanitarian aid and international development - show that a record number of 274 million people around the world will need humanitarian assistance in 2022, an increase of 63% over the past two years.

There are 80 million people - according to the same statistics - who have been forced to flee their homes, and another 41 million are on the brink of starvation.

The 20 countries affected by crises and classified by the International Rescue Committee as the most vulnerable to further deterioration - led by Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Yemen, and also include Myanmar, Syria and 11 other African countries - account for 89% of all global humanitarian needs, and 80% of all migrants in the world.

The Emergency and Disaster Management Committee - a group of 15 British charities - launched an appeal last week to provide aid to Afghanistan, whose 8 million citizens are at risk of starvation this winter, including one million children.

Simon Tisdale points out that the committee was able to raise 9.5 million pounds ($12.5 million) on the first day, but the bigger picture seems frightening to him, because the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) seeks to raise 9.4 billion dollars to fund emergency cases around The world in 2022, to help 177 million children affected by humanitarian crises, such as climate change and the Corona pandemic.

In total, $41 billion will be needed to provide aid to 63 countries, a figure that the author of the article believes is difficult to achieve.

Accumulated crises and catastrophic failure

And the Guardian newspaper quotes former British Foreign Minister David Miliband - who chairs the Committee on Emergency and Disaster Management - saying that this emergency global crisis is not the result of a combination of unfavorable factors, but has been brewing for years, noting that it is rooted in a political crisis and for him it is a "system failure. ".

This failure has many aspects. An increasing number of countries are failing to fulfill their responsibilities towards protecting their citizens. Some of them, such as Syria and Myanmar, even attack them or treat them as hostages.

The newspaper goes on to say that diplomacy and peace are in decline, and civil wars are increasing in number and lasting for longer periods, and are being internationalized through proxy forces, which cannot be resolved.

She adds that failure has a legal aspect as well, as international rights and treaties are ignored and overlooked, and international law is treated with more contempt than at any time since the founding of the United Nations in 1945.

The repercussions of that failure are an increase in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and massacres, while their perpetrators are not held accountable with near impunity. The author believes that the international aid system is also collapsing, and not just because donor support is insufficient.