From an Isis insurgency in northern Mozambique, to civil war in Cameroon, and long-running conflict across Ethiopia – there were 50 active conflicts across Africa last year. That is an increase of 45 per cent on 2020.
According to Patrick Yousseff, regional director for Africa at the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC), there is an urgent need for the world to shift its attention towards the devastation that is being wrought across the continent.
“There are many parts of Africa that can appeal to Global North countries, which are progressing economically, and feel like a positive, new horizon,” Youseff tells The Independent, citing Rwanda, South Africa and Kenya as examples. “But the impacts of war and violence are not getting enough attention.”
There are, Youseff continues, numerous examples of “forgotten” crises - like in Central African Republic and Burkina Faso – which nobody seems to be speaking about any more. Then there are the “neglected” crises - like Sudan, which might have thousands of articles written about them, and significant UN Security Council attention, but which the world is still not doing enough around to address.
“In today’s world, where every crisis is instantly accessible over your phone, tablet, or TV, we simply cannot consider the excuse that what is happening is not our problem,” Youseff says.
Distinct from national Red Cross organisations like the British Red Cross – which has a broad humanitarian focus both domestically and overseas – the ICRC was established in Switzerland in 1863 in the aftermath of the Italian Wars of Independence, with the specific remit of providing humanitarian support during times of war.
It now considered one of the most important organisations during times of conflict, not only responding to crises like an attack or a mass displacement, but also playing an oversight role where it seeks to ensure adherence to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which are the core tenets of international humanitarian law intended to limit the barbarity of wars.
In 2024, the ICRC delivered aid to millions of people impacted by conflict in more than 100 countries, leveraging its impartial position to also provide aid to some of the 204 million people worldwide who live in areas controlled or contested by armed groups – such as al Shabaab in Somalia - which other aid organisations struggle to access.
Normally based in Nairobi, Youseff spoke exclusively to The Independent at ICRC’s London base at the end of February, as part of a whistle-stop UK trip centred on meetings with the UK government to push for more support for its operations across the world.
While the details of those conversations remain confidential, it seems a safe bet that an enthusiastic loosening of purse strings for African conflicts – where the ICRC currently spends around 40 per cent of its budget – was unlikely to have happened. The UK, like a number of other western countries, is in the process of reducing its overseas aid spend, with real terms cuts worth 40 per cent set to take place between 2025 and 2027.
The ICRC itself has had to make significant cuts to its operations for this year, slashing almost one-fifth of its annual budget and shedding 2,900 jobs as countries retreat from providing humanitarian aid. The group has been forced to make such moves despite the number of armed conflicts increasing globally, humanitarian needs also increasing, and international humanitarian law coming under increasing strain.
A major study published in February of looking at 23 armed conflicts over the past 18 months found that international humanitarian law is at “breaking point”, with more than 100,000 civilians killed globally, and widespread allegations of torture and sexual violence in conflicts including Sudan, Gaza, and Ukraine.
“When we look at what is happening in wars around the world, I think we should be quite afraid that the trend has not been to increase assistance to those displaced by war, but instead has been to turn away,” Yousseff says.
Many of the world’s conflict zones are also in parts of the world that are also particularly impacted by the climate crisis. The lack of funding available to the ICRC and other aid organisations means that they are unable to develop holistic plans to help address the “dual curse” of conflict and the climate crisis, Yousseff says.
“In Somalia two years ago, we had an anticipatory action intervention where we were able to use local media to warn civilians in conflict areas in advance of coming floods. But to pretend today that we would be able to respond to climate hazards like that now would be a fantasy,” says Yousseff.
“In an ideal world, we would hope that aid discussions revolve around treating the root causes of problems, rather than just distributing food aid. This is what the governments want and what the people want, and reduces the likelihood of people becoming aid-dependent,” he continues.
But instead of a “climate- or development-centred approach” to aid, Youseff says, increasingly the only responses that NGOs are able to afford are food parcels for people suffering from the most extreme, immediate crises. “It is not our intention to create dependency, but in the absence of other funding, what are we supposed to do,” he says.
Youseff is unequivocal, too, that the threats to international humanitarian law in both Africa and other parts of the world should be a major concern to the governments of wealthy countries.
“The distancing from legal norms threatens global stability, and it threatens trade and economy,” he says - in somewhat prophetic comments that were made just a few days before the start of the US and Israel’s war on Iran, which many have called illegal, and which has caused significant economic turmoil across the world.
The aid cuts to the ICRC also risks exacerbating threats to humanitarian law yet further, Youseff continues, as it limits the role that the organisation can play as a “neutral intermediary” between partners - which is a role that was recently exemplified in the Red Cross-facilitated release of detainees in Gaza and Israel.
All of this is coming, too, at a time when the advent of drone warfare has created new risks to civilian populations during times of warfare, and the decline of mainstream media organisations has resulted in hate speech and disinformation “fuelling chaos” in certain communities.
After making cuts worth hundreds of millions of pounds in recent years, and reorganising operations to boost efficiencies, Youseff describes ICRC as “quite fit” for the challenges ahead, adding that group does also maintain emergency budgets in case of sudden surges in humanitarian needs in conflicts.
But nobody should kid themselves: People are going to suffer as conflicts escalate while budgets decline. “We cannot do more with less. It is less with less,” Yousseff says. “That is unfortunately the motto of so many organisations like ours at the moment.”
This article was produced as part of The Independent’s Rethinking Global Aid project
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