Our editors’ weekly take on humanitarian news, trends, and developments from around the globe.
On our radar
Trump 2.0: What comes next for aid?
When he steps back into the Oval Office in January, Donald Trump will again lead the world’s biggest donor government to an aid system stretched by spiralling needs. The president-elect’s unpredictability is the key variable here, but there’s a partial blueprint for what’s ahead based on what he did the first time around and who he surrounds himself with. Aid funding under Trump will almost certainly be more politicised than it already is. UN agencies may again be under fire, though not evenly so. A new Trump administration could use its levers to redistribute funding along ideological lines – away from the perceived excesses of Big Aid, towards selectively chosen faith-based groups, and returning to strict conditions that punish and defund groups focused on reproductive health. And activists say Trump’s return bodes ill for recent gains on addressing climate inequities and loss and damages caused by global inaction. Read more: What could Trump 2.0 mean for humanitarian response?
COP29: An urgent push for new climate targets
The COP29 climate summit opens on 11 November amid another year of record temperatures, climate disasters, and political earthquakes. Trump’s victory will cast a long shadow over the proceedings in Baku, Azerbaijan, where negotiators will attempt to hammer out a new climate finance target, called the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG). Agreeing to the NCQG – for which a target of $1 trillion a year transferred from Global North to South is generally suggested by experts – was already a hard ask. Now, reaching a lasting deal is likely to be even harder, as it is widely feared that Trump will withdraw the United States, a key donor, from the COP process, as he did in his first administration. Because climate change was largely caused by their historical emissions, the US and other high-income nations agreed in the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement to provide climate finance to lower-income nations to reduce emissions and help prepare for a hotter world. But the money that has been delivered is lacking compared to the vast needs of climate-vulnerable nations. Read more: What’s the NCQG? For COP29 and the climate crisis, it’s ‘the answer to everything’
Ukraine: The uncertain road ahead
The administration of outgoing US president Joe Biden is preparing to rush over $6 billion in security assistance to Ukraine before president-elect Trump returns to the White House on 20 January. During the election campaign, Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine during the transition period, should he win the election – although he never specified how he would do that. The expectation is that the new Trump administration will slash military assistance to Ukraine, which has been fending off Russia’s attempted full-scale invasion of the country since February 2022. The US has spent $108 billion in military, humanitarian, and economic aid for Ukraine since then. The fact that Trump has expressed admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin and that Russia interfered in the 2016 US elections – the last time Trump won – to boost Trump’s campaign are only raising the levels of anxiety in Ukraine. Trump has also blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for starting the war. Despite the misgivings, Zelenskyy called Trump to congratulate him on Wednesday.
Israel says no return to north as food crisis deepens in Gaza
“There is no intention of allowing the residents of the northern Gaza Strip to return,” Israeli brigadier general Itzik Cohen told journalists during a press briefing on 5 November. Israeli forces are getting closer to “the complete evacuation” of people from the north, he added. The Israeli military later tried to walk back the comments, saying they were taken out of context. But since 6 October, the Israeli military has laid total siege to the three northernmost areas of Gaza – Jabalia, Beit Hanoun, and Beit Lahia. Almost no humanitarian assistance has been allowed in as Israeli forces carry out a brutal ground campaign. The offensive looks a lot like a plan put forward by an influential retired Israeli general at the beginning of September to cleanse northern Gaza of its inhabitants. After the military operation began, Israel denied that’s what it was doing. But of the estimated 300,000 to 400,000 Palestinians who were in the north before the operation began, only an estimated 75,000 to 95,000 now remain. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also fired defence minister Yoav Gallant on 6 November, replacing him with long-time ally Israel Katz. Meanwhile, the number of aid trucks Israel is allowing into Gaza has also plummeted, intensifying an already dire food crisis. For more, watch journalist and activist Maha Hussaini’s latest report from Deir al-Balah:
More flee as Israel’s attacks on Lebanon continue
Lebanon’s Ministry of Health said this week that Israel’s attacks have killed at least 3,102 people and injured 13,819 since last October, a toll that has grown significantly with recent attacks on eastern parts of the country. Bombs dropped on Baalbek and the Beqaa Valley reportedly killed 40 people in one day there, and Israel continues to hit what it says are Hezbollah facilities in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Israel also struck targets inside Syria this week. While this in itself is unusual, this time Israel announced it had carried out the attacks (it said they were aimed at stopping the transfer of weapons and intelligence to Hezbollah), and these claims of responsibility are a rarity. Meanwhile, people continue to flee Lebanon for Syria. But others are heading further afield, with the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, reporting that 28,350 refugees have gone to Iraq. Most are Lebanese, arriving by land and on planes into Baghdad and the central province of Najaf, which – along with nearby Karbala – is hosting most of the arrivals so far. This may be changing though, as the UNHCR says the Iraqi government is now sending new arrivals to Diyala, northeast of Baghdad.
Mozambique’s election protests
The streets of Mozambique’s capital, Maputo, were calmer on 8 November after security forces violently broke up post-election protests the day before. Officials say at least three people were killed and 66 injured when police and plain-clothed security officers opened fire on people demonstrating over the official results of the 9 October election, which gave the ruling party Frelimo – in power for nearly 50 years – more than 70% of the vote. Social media footage appeared to show some soldiers sympathising with protestors. Opposition leader Venâncio Mondlane is challenging the poll – widely condemned as fraudulent – and has demanded a recount. Mondlane’s campaign galvanised Mozambican youth, and tapped into popular anger over corruption and joblessness. The nationwide protests that have followed – which the government says may incite a coup attempt – have seen the country grind to a halt. This week, South Africa, Mozambique’s key trade partner, shut its borders. The regional body, SADC, has called for an emergency summit on 16 November to discuss the crisis.
Weekend read
Six Haitian women’s struggles to recover from rape by gangs
‘When you've been raped, beaten, humiliated and lost everything, it's hard to have hope.’
The use of GBV has grown dramatically in scale and ruthlessness, with sexual abuse now being deployed as a routine means of torture and control.
And finally…
The quiet release of a critical polio report
A scathing investigation into a backfiring polio vaccine recipe change that contributed to the paralysis of at least 3,300 children has been quietly published – on the busiest news day of the year – by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. Dubbed “the switch”, the 2016 policy change dropped the component for the type 2 poliovirus – one of three polio strains – from oral vaccines given to children. The intent was to help end the type 2 virus. Instead, infections multiplied. “The findings are clear: the switch was a failure,” the report’s authors stated. “The overriding cause of the failure was (and continues to be) the inability of the program to close out outbreaks and stop [vaccine-derived type 2 poliovirus] transmission.” The report’s release had been delayed for months, before it was published on the day the US presidential election results were announced. In July, The New Humanitarian highlighted the disappearance of the draft report, which was first due to be published in June, then kicked back to September. The GPEI, which is a partnership between governments, private organisations, and UN agencies WHO and UNICEF, oversees global efforts to fight polio, and has received more than $18 billion in funding since its launch. A GPEI statement said the organisation accepted the report’s “findings of shortcomings in the implementation of the mitigation measures before and after the switch that resulted in an increase in cases and outbreaks.” It did not contain details on whether the paralysed children would be helped, nor did it offer an apology.
