August 24, 2022

U.N. Faces Record Humanitarian Aid Shortfall — but Not for Ukrainians

Important article about a just published UN report that describes the structurally racist responses to global humanitarian crises. Farnaz Fassihi reminds us that as war, global heating/drought, COVID-19, and longstanding structural violence have grossly increased the need for global humanitarian assistance, the responses from the US, Europe, and Japan has focused on Ukraine at the expense of non-white countries of the Global South. Rich countries have exceeded the requests for Ukrainian needs but raised less than a third of the requests for countries such as Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, and only 11 percent for Haiti, 12 percent for El Salvador, 14 percent for Burundi and 17 percent for Myanmar.  The UN report notes that affected countries are falling further than ever behind what is needed for critical requirements like shelter, food, water, power and education, stating that this is “the biggest funding gap we’ve ever seen.”