Latest / The Fourcast / Sudan, Gaza, Lebanon: Can the UN still save lives?

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Sudan, Gaza, Lebanon: Can the UN still save lives? · The Fourcast

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We were all migrants once, and we'll all be migrants again.
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Today's empires are are tomorrow's refugees, and if we
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allow ourselves to go down that route of blaming everything on
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migrants and looking to get our numbers down, there's no way
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back. You often talk about
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accountability, but the people waging these wars don't the.
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International community Will they stand up and hold people to
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account or will they just mouth the empty platitudes?
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Hello and welcome to the forecast.
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In a world where conflict and crisis are commonplace, and
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where the gap between humanitarian need and global
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response is widening, the role of the United Nations top relief
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official is more consequential than ever.
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From sprawling displacement and growing hunger in Sudan, to
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escalating danger in the Middle East and efforts to pivot
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towards recovery in Syria, the challenges are profound.
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Tom Fletcher, the Under Secretary General for
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Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator at
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the United Nations, is tasked with coordinating life saving
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assistance to 10s of millions of people battling against
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underfunding, calling for protection for civilians and aid
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workers, and wrestling with the political and logistical
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barriers that define today's humanitarian landscape.
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Tom, welcome, thank you. I wanted to begin with Lebanon,
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partly because you've been there recently.
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You were of course, the ambassador for the British
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government, so you know it very well.
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And the situation there is, is very acute with even in the
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ceasefire, you know, destruction still taking place, the extent
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of the destruction and the refugee situation vast how how
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big is the challenge for you there?
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Massive. And you're right that that
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destruction is still going on now even after the ceasefire,
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but it has receded dramatically. We've been trying to get back
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South of the Litani over the weekend.
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We've had a couple of convoys get to displaced people down
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there. But look, right now one in five
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people in Lebanon is displaced. As I crossed into Damascus a few
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weeks ago, that week 200,000 Lebanese people had crossed into
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Syria. And so the needs are huge.
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We launched a flash appeal about 4-5 weeks ago and we're only
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about 1/4 funded. Destruction, displacement, and
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you've got populations going back now to see if it's safe to
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go back, and it's not. So what?
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What about the way that war has been conducted?
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Because in many ways, Israel seemed to be doing in Lebanon
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what it had done, or learning from what it had done in Gaza.
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Well, that's a big concern is when you when you hear that same
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rhetoric being used about flattening places, about bombing
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people back to the Stone Age, you know, about reducing Lebanon
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to rubble. And, and literally, I mean,
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Israeli ministers saying we'll do to you what we did to Gaza.
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Now, I've been to Gaza twice in the last year and a bit and I
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know what that means. And so it's chilling to hear it,
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but it's part of this wider context of impunity and
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lawlessness in the world where you've got some of the most
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powerful people in the world, the most powerful person in the
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world, threatening countries, threatening to wipe out
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civilizations. And we're asking everyone,
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applauding, everyone ready to get back to, it's not sexy, but
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international humanitarian law and, and respecting the rules
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and conventions and principles, respecting the fact that even
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wars have rules. Israel always says it does
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respect international law. Does it?
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Well, I think a lot of the actions we've seen in in both
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Gaza and Lebanon would not be lawful.
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And that is ultimately a matter for the, the courts, the ICC, It
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needs to prove J it needs to be proven.
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You know, it's not just for me to come along and, and Chuck
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allegations like that around, but we're seeing all the time
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the effect of the action. Look at the attacks on
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humanitarian workers, for example.
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You know, in the last three years, we've lost 1000
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colleagues globally and over half of those were in Gaza.
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Look at the attacks on health workers.
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And I met many health workers in southern Beirut who'd been
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working in southern Lebanon. You know, a massive number of
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people in well marked ambulances, for example, who
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have been hit by strikes. And so this this context of
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impunity and lawlessness is really chilling right now.
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I'm we're up against it everywhere we work.
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What what did you make of the incident that happened recently
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in in in Lebanon, where the ambulance workers were
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apparently deliberately targeted at least three times, where
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different waves of ambulance corps went to help each other
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and each one was hit. Now, now, Israel again says
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ambulances are used to transport Hezbollah weapons.
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They don't provide evidence for it, but that's what they say.
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And does that ever become a justification no for that kind
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of attack on ambulance workers? So there is no justification for
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hitting ambulances and health workers.
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These are, you know, basic laws that we came up with, you know,
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after the Second World War, I mean, developed before, but
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through the Geneva Conventions when we'd seen, you know, the,
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the danger of a lawless world. And so no, you, you should
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ambulance workers, health workers should never be a
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target. And it is, you know, it's really
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disturbing. You know, we, we know about the,
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you know, from elsewhere, the double tap, the famous double
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tap where rescuers are hit. It was a tactic of Bashar
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al-Assad in Syria, for example. But now this new lexicon of
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talking about a treble tap or a quadruple tap, you know, this is
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part of the context that my colleagues are working in all
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the time. And we're saying there needs to
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be accountability for those who are attacking us, wherever it is
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and whoever they are. Right.
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But I mean, you often talk about accountability and and, and the
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media talks about international law, but but the people waging
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these wars don't really, I mean, you know, are these are these
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not increasingly meaningless phrases in the way none of it is
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enforced? So they mean a lot to us because
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they are our only protection. And ultimately, ultimately, my
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colleagues are still going out there risking their lives.
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We lost more colleagues even over the weekend, UNICEF
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colleagues in Gaza. So our only protection is
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international law. The ambulance roofs aren't
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strong enough to protect us, that the kit we wear isn't
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strong enough. But that protection is only as
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strong as the the member states, the international community.
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Will they stand up and hold people to account for what
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they're doing, or will they just mouth the empty platitudes?
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If it's the latter, then these protections are meaningless now.
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Because, I mean, isn't it for the Security Council to actually
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take meaningful decisions, which you don't appear to be doing?
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Absolutely. I mean, what, what can I do,
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what can, what can the UN leadership do other than point
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out what's happening and to call for that protection?
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You know, I, I briefed the Security Council 2 weeks ago on
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the fact that we'd lost 1000 colleagues in three years.
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That last year was the deadliest year to be a humanitarian in
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living memory, which is really quite something.
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You know, this year in Sudan, 50% more child deaths than in
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the the first quarter last year. So these conflicts are getting
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worse. Drone attacks, 700 kids killed
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in 700 people killed in Sudan in the first quarter of the year by
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drones. So it's getting more dangerous
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for civilians, more dangerous for humanitarians.
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But my challenge to them was I don't want empty expressions,
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lofty phrases. We need full accountability.
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Call out the people doing this to us, stop arming them and and
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make sure they can't continue. I, I want to talk about Sudan
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specifically, but before we get to that, I just wanted to talk
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about the impact of this war in Iran on those forgotten
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conflicts, because the, the economic impact which we are all
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analysing here at the petrol pumps has a sort of a multiplier
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effect in the poorest countries in the world doesn't.
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It absolutely. So you've got waves like ripples
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of this. So you've got the situation in
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Iran itself over 2000 dead and we're scaling up the response,
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particularly around healthcare, sanitation.
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We've got teams in there now assessing the damage.
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You've got the impact on places like Lebanon.
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We've touched on that and I was there a couple of weeks ago.
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You've got the impact on Gaza and the Palestinian territories
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where basically more crossings were shut.
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We only had one crossing open for the last few weeks.
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So it was even harder for us to to continue that scale up.
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We've been doing for six months, you know, one and a half million
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hot meals a day. The the progress we've made was
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impaired. But then you've got that knock
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on effect. You think about the fuel costs
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going up 20%, the food costs going up 20%, fertilizer cause
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natural gas costs with the planting season coming and all
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that traffic that was coming to the Straits of Hormuz going to
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sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Africa.
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The effect of that blockage will be the more people slip below
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that line will slip into poverty.
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And so we'll have that our needs that we deal with already over
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300 million people globally will go up.
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And then you have another ring, another ripple coming out of
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that, that the further corrosion of international law, of the way
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that we talk about war, that sense of impunity and the
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further erosion of basic generosity in the world.
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You know, I was at an aid conference last week, a pledging
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conference, and a key donor said, we will carry on giving
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you this money right now, but please don't tell anyone.
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Please keep it quiet because people at home won't like the
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fact that we're supporting the world's poorest, that we're
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saving lives when people at home are suffering more because of
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this energy crisis. And how often is the is the
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donation coming with strings attached?
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So I'm afraid, you know, for us, we have to be principled in how
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we spend the money always. And that's our kind of gold
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standard. I'm afraid that our donors are
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all quite transactional. So you'll sit with donors and
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they'll say, OK, we're going to give you this money, but we need
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these two or three jobs. Oh, we're going to give you this
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money, but you must spend it in the following countries.
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You must spend it in Ukraine because Ukraine matters to us
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more than the Central African Republic.
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So there's there's always. That unrestricted funding.
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It's very rarely. We've got some great donors.
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I'd I'd single out the Dutch, the Norwegians in particular.
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Others will now be upset. I haven't mentioned them, but
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who are the kind of gold, gold standard for unearmarked multi
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year funding? But across most of our donors,
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you know, there's always that back and forth, a lot of donors.
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Are actually asking for jobs in the UN in return for donation?
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Absolutely. I mean, that's corrupt, but
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that's not new. And and our job is to ignore it.
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It's corrupt if we, if we. So you don't do.
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We accept it. No, I mean we have to say thank
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you very much do send the CVS through very kind of you to
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offer up your your nationals for that job.
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But we will carry on delivering that principled needs based
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approach. But so this is, this is the
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route the American, you know, a lot of people talk about the
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American administration now. Yeah, a sense of aid
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conditionality isn't something new.
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Like, you know, we remember that period, I suppose there's sort
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of 2000s in particular where we were trying to move the world
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towards nought .7% and towards aid with no ties, no
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conditionality. In this more transactional
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moment, the money is going down, overstretched under resource,
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literally under attack. And the extra every time a donor
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cuts, they seem to put more conditionality on how we spend
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their money. I mean, the the cuts on American
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aid have presumably been the deepest and the most, the the
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ones that you feel the most. We do.
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What proportion of international aid was America provided they're
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about? 40 to 45% before the cuts.
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So you're talking about an enormous chunk of money there
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that would that was saving hundreds of millions, did save
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hundreds of millions of lives over decades.
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So they were by far the biggest player in the sector.
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And how much of it has gone? I mean, almost half of that has
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gone, you know, and that's probably an optimistic scenario.
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The sector was so has been historically so chaotic in terms
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of the way that donors and member states operate that no
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one knows for sure what the US aid budget was.
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But you know, you could, you could say it's probably 151617
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billion and we managed to secure an agreement for 2 billion at
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the end of December. They they were the most
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significant donors in Sudan, weren't they?
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They and they still are. And they they still.
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Are yeah, even with the aid cuts actually shows how far ahead
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they were. Even with the aid cuts, the
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Americans were our biggest donor in Sudan last year and I'm
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pretty certain they'll be our biggest donor in Sudan this
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year. They've just given us 200
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million for our country fund in in Sudan, which we're spending
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at the moment. Sudan is is the war that has
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been pushed out of the way by everything that's happening in
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the Middle East. Can you contextualize it for us
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in terms of the need, the numbers of people dying, the
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numbers of people reliant on food aid?
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Yeah, it's massive. So you've got 34 million people
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in need right now, 9,000,000 internally displaced, 4 and a
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half million displaced into neighbors.
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So you've got that ripple effect of the conflict going through
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South Sudan, through Chad, for example.
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And you know, I've been in Sudan twice in the last year, as well
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as into South Sudan. I had a week in Darfur a month
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or two ago and the needs are immense.
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You've got famine coming back in, but very, very high levels
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of, of starvation. You've got shifting battle
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lines. And what a lot of what we do is
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across those lines trying to get, I went through 3040
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checkpoints to get close to al fascia, the epicenter of that
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fighting. You've got the massive
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weaponization of sexual violence against women and girls.
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So you're meeting people all the time who've been gang raped,
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who've escaped with other people's children through and
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across these lines of of child soldiers.
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It's utterly, utterly devastating.
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It's the worst humanitarian crisis in the world right now.
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And, and yes, it's only getting worse, isn't?
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It it is only getting worse. You know, it's very struck, you
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know, briefly in the Security Council last week by this UNICEF
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stat that that number of kids killed in the first quarter has
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gone up 50% this year on last year.
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Because I think for all of us, we think of these long running
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crises, Sudan is 3 years now. They're just somehow rumbling
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along. But there isn't a trajectory to
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this and it's and it's worse. And of course you're right to
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call Sudan the neglected crisis, but it's less neglected and less
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underfunded than South Sudan, Central African Republic,
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Somalia, where I'll go next week.
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All of those are completely off the radar of the international
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community. Where?
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Where the need is, is what is people reliance on food aid.
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Mostly massive, massive needs. So we reckon so globally it's
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over 320 million people need help right now.
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It's a staggering, overwhelming number.
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And we've identified and it's not a popular move within the
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sector, but we've said we can save 87,000,000 lives globally
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this year. And to do that through this
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hyper prioritized plan, all the efficiency we're bringing in,
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taking out all the duplication and bureaucracy, we're asking
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for $23 billion, which is nothing compared to what the
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sector used to absorb each year. But is only 1% actually less
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than 1%, of what the world will spend on guns and arms defence
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security this year, even before the recklessness of March?
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Yes, I mean, that's a couple of weeks of the of the Iran war.
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Is what you're saying, it's a you're right.
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It's a fortnight of the Iran war.
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When you say 87,000,000 lives you can save I I mean just
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explain that. Are you saying 87 million people
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are going to die? If if we don't.
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Do it our preventable deaths this year.
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Yeah, that, that would be 87,000,000, but.
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That's a staggering number. If we don't get that 23 billion
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and we're, you know, I reckon after 1/4 of the year, we're 1/4
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of the way to raising the money. So we're we're broadly on track
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to raise that. It's not as over ambitious
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stretch goal given what the world spends money on elsewhere.
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But no, if we got 0 as opposed to 23 billion, then 87 million
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people would not be reached with life saving aid.
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And there are 87 million people who are in what we call severity
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4 and five the most urgent the most.
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Life they are severely. Situations.
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But the the other side of the coin vision is that in January,
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we know because we're tracking this much more carefully now as
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part of this plan. I mean, listen, in January we
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saved 7 million lives. I that should be leading the
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news. I mean, that should be my.
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I should be starting the interview telling you that.
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What an amazing What do you? Mean by that when you say we
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saved 7, so we reached. 7 million people with life saving
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support who are in severity 4:00 and 5:00 so are in the most life
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threatening situations. Now would every single one have
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died? I mean, then we're getting into,
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you know, it's impossible to to quantify whether some would have
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found a way to survive and so on.
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But this is this is not just us turning up in places which are,
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you know, just about muddling along and saying, let's dish out
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some, some pita bread, pita bread.
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This Is Us going at the hardest to reach places, to reach people
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who are starving, who are needing vaccination, who are
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needing that life saving support.
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So when you say the world is less generous, how, how do you
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think you can turn that around? So hard and what you'd hope is
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come on, talk to you podcasts, meet, you know, get into
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interviews, get in front of people and make the ethical
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case, the moral case for generosity and solidarity.
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I, you know, I believe we have these two competing instincts.
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You know, Darwin wasn't just survival of the fittest.
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Survival of the fittest is also that we work together for
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resource and I think if someone was dying on the floor in in
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front of us now then I I wouldn't be finishing my cup of
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tea, I'd be sharing whatever I have with them.
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But somehow people have got overwhelmed by the numbers.
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There's been a sense it's all just too big.
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So you hope there's that case for human solidarity.
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And if, if governments won't listen, then we have to win that
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argument with the public. But then alongside that there's
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a more, I suppose more technocratic case, which is that
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we have a plan, we can do this, we can save 87,000,000 lives
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this year. And let me show you how I'll do
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that and where I'll do it. And you know, the mixture
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between food, water, shelter, etcetera, etcetera.
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And then I hope there's a transactional argument.
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It's not what I want to make when I like making.
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But you can't put a tariff on a pandemic.
17:58
You can't build the wall that will keep out the climate
18:02
crisis. So unless you deal with these
18:04
problems at source, and by the way, it's cheaper to back us to
18:08
do that than it is to deal with the consequences, then you will
18:11
face much, much greater costs and pain further down the track.
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Do you think you need to make a bigger argument around
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migration? You know, given that is such a
18:20
driver of Western politics at the moment, you know that if you
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sort those things you will not have another wave of refugees or
18:28
asylum seekers. I think, I think politically I
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hear this in Europe in particular.
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That's an argument that might resonate more with politicians.
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I was just in Berlin last week and it was interesting talking
18:39
to parliamentarians there and they were saying don't rely on
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us, don't rely on our generosity.
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Our country has done so much for waves of Syrian, Afghan,
18:47
Ukrainian refugees. Make the case on the basis that
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there won't be further waves of migration.
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But look, you know, I'm, I'm the UN humanitarian chief.
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You know, I don't want to be out there making an argument on the
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basis of, you know, selfish interests.
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You know, if others want to make that argument, then then fair
19:05
enough. I hope that people will respond
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to the ethical moral case for doing this.
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And by the way, whatever happens, you know, 1° more
19:14
centigrade rise on the world and a billion people will move from
19:19
places that we have lived as humans for, for millennia and
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with, you know, they're coming in this direction.
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So migration is a factor. It's a fact.
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And we were all migrants once and we'll all be migrants again.
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Today's empires are tomorrow's refugees, and tomorrow's peace
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processes will often be between host communities and migrant
19:41
communities. So we're going to have to change
19:42
the whole way we think about this and work on issues of
19:45
migration. And if we allow ourselves to go
19:47
down that route of of blaming everything on migrants and
19:52
looking to get our numbers down, there's no way back.
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I mean, the the other bit of sort of rhetoric internationally
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that is that has really taken off again in the last few, few
20:03
years is anti UN rhetoric, you know, and saying it's.
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It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a useless organisers.
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You can be rude, you can be rude.
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It's. You can quote them.
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Corrupt, you know, all on the wrong side of various conflicts.
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You know the Israelis accuse UN workers of being terrorists.
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And anti-Semitic? Yes, there is that attack.
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You know how? How seriously has the UN taken
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the demand for reform and how much further does it need to go?
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So firstly, on the on the critique, you know, every time
20:34
you hear someone attacking the UN and I heal, obviously all
20:38
those accusations, ask yourself what they're gaining by
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weakening us, by weakening that scaffolding for global
20:45
coexistence, by weakening the restraint on the sort of
20:48
strongman kind of macho powers in this very transactional
20:54
moment. Secondly, a lot of what we're
20:56
criticized for are actually problems that need to be solved
20:59
by the member states themselves. If the Security Council wants us
21:03
to do more peacekeeping, it's the Security Council that can
21:05
come together, give us that mandate, give us the support.
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If it wants us to save more lives, you know, it can back us.
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It can back my campaign to save 87,000,000 lives.
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But that's all true. But we shouldn't be let off the
21:19
hook. We have to be energetically
21:22
reforming with much more ambition and confidence.
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We're doing that through this humanitarian reset that I've
21:26
described, where we're taking the layers out, we're hyper
21:29
prioritizing. We're moving power away from
21:31
people like me and down to towards the people we serve to
21:34
local level while defending the rule of law and our values and
21:38
principles across the UN. The Secretary General Gutierrez,
21:41
in his last year is doing more energetic reform than any SG
21:45
before in their final year. It's not easy with the political
21:48
capital that you have at that stage.
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But this morning, my first call and God knows what time it was
21:53
in New York. That's that's the SG saying, you
21:56
know, get on with this. I want to see results come on.
21:59
I want to see real outcomes. So he's all over that too.
22:02
But there's a moment now we've got, you know, the election of a
22:05
new secretary general in September.
22:07
They'll start at the beginning of the year.
22:09
There's a moment there for reform because someone comes in
22:13
afresh. You can argue with the member
22:15
states who actually have the restraint on reform.
22:18
And I think we should go big. I think we should be renewing,
22:20
we should be regrouping around the coalitions that need us.
22:23
We should be doing much more future proofing of the world for
22:27
a world of AI, You know, is the algorithm going to be
22:29
humanitarian? I doubt it at this moment, the
22:32
world of climate crisis. And so there is that moment.
22:35
And so I think whoever comes in as secretary general, whoever
22:39
she is, will come in with a, with a mandate to go big on
22:43
reform and, and they should be backed by member states.
22:46
I mean just. Finally, I mean you're an
22:47
international diplomat now, but you were of course a British
22:49
diplomat and a British advisor in Downing St. just as the
22:54
Foreign Office is in perhaps it's biggest crisis of modern
22:58
times. I mean, do you agree with the
22:59
assessment of how bad the the crisis is in terms of the
23:04
relationship between the Foreign Office and #10?
23:09
Look, the UN doesn't have a position on what's going on in
23:12
the UK and I have to make are you?
23:13
Able to speak personally. I have to make that caveat very
23:16
clear because I spoke personally this morning and immediately got
23:18
a lot of feedback that my views on the UK political situation
23:23
were not part of my job nor that welcome at the moment.
23:25
So what I would say is, you know, as you say, I've been a
23:31
British diplomat for a long time.
23:34
I want British diplomacy to be effective in the world, values
23:37
driven. I don't think it's in Britain's
23:41
interest to erect this sort of permanent circular firing squad,
23:46
which looking in from outside is often the case, certainly has
23:49
been the case over the last decade or so.
23:52
We need the UK out there helping us to resolve these crises, to
23:56
end some wars, to be a more generous humanitarian donor than
23:59
it's proving to be, to be an energetic member of the Security
24:03
Council and working on on UN reform.
24:06
And look, you know, I'm watching this current political drama.
24:12
I know most of the characters. Ollie Robbins is a friend of
24:15
Pretty Well. Yeah, I've known Ollie for a
24:16
long, a long time and I've I've worked with him for many
24:21
decades. He's a guy of immense integrity.
24:25
He, he has this public service ethos, which many people do, but
24:31
I think it, it's a particular, I think it's at his core.
24:35
In Ollie's case, he's really driven by public service.
24:37
He's a big loss. He's a terrific loss.
24:40
Absolutely. I mean, he was doing a big job.
24:42
He was leading actually quite an ambitious reform of the Foreign
24:47
Office. And, you know, I'm sad, I'm sad
24:50
for him that he's lost a job that was actually also a, a
24:55
vocation. And I really hope that the UK
25:00
can get back to, to looking outwards again.
25:03
And, and you know, it can sometimes feel a bit introverted
25:06
at the moment. I mean I.
25:07
Tell you what you're saying about what you can and can't
25:09
say. So if you can't say anything,
25:11
you can't say anything. But you've worked in #10 as
25:13
well. When you look at a Prime
25:15
Minister blaming officials, you know, does a bad Workman blame
25:21
his tools? You are no chance, Christian.
25:26
I'm not. I'm not.
25:27
Thank you for the question. But no, the United Nations does
25:29
not have a view on whether the Prime Minister is a bad Workman
25:33
blaming his tools. A nice try.
25:35
And I reckon you could. I mean, you're the best
25:37
interviewer on the planet. You're going to you're going to
25:38
get it out of me, but we won't have time for you to put me on
25:41
the rack and make me say something I'm not supposed to
25:43
say. All right.
25:44
Well, I won't drag it out of you, Tom Fletcher.
25:46
Thank you very. Much indeed.
25:47
Thanks, Richard. That's the forecast.
25:48
Until next time, bye bye.