The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) last month announced it would lay off nearly 10 percent of its global staff and roll back dozens of its operations across the world. Although the ICRC’s crisis can partly be blamed on the war in Ukraine and resulting inflation, it also reflects a much more worrying problem plaguing the world’s humanitarian aid groups: with the world more in need of humanitarian action than ever before, donations are failing to keep up with demand.
March 30 was a dark day for the ICRC. It was the day that the governing board in Geneva approved the “difficult decision” to implement a €440 million savings package in a bid to save the 160-year-old aid group’s finances.
