Our Inklings newsletter explores all things aid and aid-adjacent unfolding in the wilds of Geneva, on the front lines of emergency response, or in the dark corners of funding spreadsheets.
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Today: A major donor’s budget cuts, the relief chief’s empty seat, the Taliban health minister's Swiss sojourn, and who’s talking about the ICJ.
Data points|
Germany’s latest budget cuts: If humanitarian budgets feel tight in 2024, then there’s more bad news coming down the pipeline. One of the world’s biggest aid donors is making further cuts. Germany’s draft 2025 budget, approved by the coalition government this month, would slash the money available for humanitarian aid to a decade low of around one billion euros, according to the Berlin-based Centre for Humanitarian Action. Germany has frequently been the world’s number two humanitarian donor, funding more than 10% of the formal international emergency response system. But it has fallen off its perch this year as massive budget cuts start showing in topline figures reported to the UN’s financial tracking service. A little over halfway through 2024, Germany sits in the fifth spot. Its share of overall funding has slid to around 6% – half of what it was in 2022.
‘It’s grim’: Germany is just one donor, but the cuts are another sign of the bumpy road ahead. Donors and humanitarian leaders say a seismic funding “reset” is underway after aid budgets ballooned through the COVID-19 pandemic (and aid groups expanded along with them). Budgets have crept back to fit pre-pandemic trends in the last 18 months rather than bottomed out, but humanitarians say needs are simply more intense. Funding from the world’s biggest donor government, the United States, fell back to Earth in 2023, shrank more in 2024, and is a gaping question mark for 2025 and beyond with the prospects of another Trump presidency (or a chastened Democrat-led one) on the horizon. “Things look OK for this year,” one aid official said of the funding landscape and aid groups’ ability to navigate it, “but next year looks grim.”
On the radar|
Empty chairs: The UN has spent nearly four weeks and counting without a head humanitarian. Relief chief Martin Griffiths stepped down at the end of June due to long COVID, and UN Secretary-General António Guterres hasn’t named a replacement. Insiders suggest the decision was delayed for the 4 July UK election – a tacit acknowledgement that the much-criticised and barely concealed tradition of global powers horse-trading key UN seats is alive and well. One name keeps coming up in conversations about leading candidates: Robert Piper, a UN veteran who Guterres appointed as special adviser on internal displacement in 2022.
Where power sits: Meanwhile, many NGOs based outside Europe and North America are repeating calls for the next relief chief to be from the Global South. “Selecting a Global South candidate would demonstrate a commitment to shifting power and increasing inclusivity. It would leverage the diverse perspectives, expertise, and leadership present within regions at the frontline of most crises,” the heads of two dozen or so local NGOs and networks wrote in a June letter to Guterres.
COP29: Joyce Msuya of Tanzania, Griffiths’ former deputy, has been serving as acting relief chief. She’s also a member of the advisory committee for this year’s COP29 climate conference, Msuya tweeted.
Geneva talk: The Taliban appointed Noor Jalal Jalali to be Afghanistan’s health minister in May. This week, the new minister dropped by Geneva “to engage in high-level discussions concerning advancements and reforms in the health sector, as well as to enhance coordination with international organisations”, according to a statement from the Islamic Emirate’s health ministry. As Asia editor Ali Latifi notes, diplomats and aid officials are increasingly taking a more pragmatic approach to engaging with the Taliban. While it’s not the first time a Taliban official has had meetings in Geneva, not everyone has been eager to publicise these get-togethers. World Health Organization boss Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted a pic this time around: “We… discussed the need to ramp up the work to #EndPolio, and respond to other outbreaks across the country,” he wrote, drawing online criticism. He added, an hour later: “We also discussed about the vital importance of ensuring that Afghan women have equal access to education and employment opportunities”.
ICJ advisory opinion: Aid groups have had a somewhat muted reaction to the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion that declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory to be illegal. “International organisations, including the United Nations, are under an obligation not to recognise as legal the situation arising from the unlawful presence of the State of Israel,” judges wrote in what the Palestinian rights group Al-Haq called a “historic and landmark” decision. Among the international NGOs who released a public statement are ActionAid, Islamic Relief, Oxfam, DanChurchAid, and Christian Aid. UN Secretary-General Guterres said it’s up to the General Assembly, which voted to ask the world court for its opinion in 2022, “to decide how to proceed in this matter”.
Acronymage|
IFEX: The Toronto-based rights network IFEX, formerly known as the International Freedom of Expression Exchange, knows what rejection feels like: It’s had its UN accreditation deferred for eight years running. Geneva Solutions reports on how the UN Committee on Non-governmental Organizations, which approves NGO access to the UN, “is accused of increasingly abusing its power to block certain organisations for political purposes”.
INB: Sometimes you need a glossary to figure out who’s emailing you. Take this alphabet-packed email from-line: “Leaders and Members of The Elders, The GPMB, The IPPPR, PAN, The PGPHC & Spark Street Advisors”. It was part of a recent statement urging the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body – tasked with hammering out a draft of a new pandemic treaty – to “improve modalities, inclusion, and transparency”.
End quote|
“We know first-hand that the nexus doesn't work.”
In the self-marking world of international aid, where punches are pulled and public critiques are served with a dusting of sugar, a high-level review of the response to internal displacement was a bit of a palate cleanser.
The system is slow, disjointed, fuels aid dependency, and is more concerned with its processes than listening to people who use aid, the review warned (albeit in a few thousand more words).
The report had a particular emphasis on getting the different corners of the aid world – from short-term humantiarian to longer-term development and more – to work together so that the world’s 75.9 million IDPs aren’t stuck in emergency mode indefinitely.
“Humanitarian-development coordination is problematic to near non-existent,” the report authors wrote, referencing the elusive triple nexus of joined-up aid.
At a Geneva launch back in March, Griffiths agreed the report was “unflattering” but accurate (he also name-checked Piper, BTW).
“We know first-hand how we should be improving,” Griffiths said. “We know first-hand that the nexus doesn't work.”
But sometimes, the nexus surprises you. The collective response to the overlapping crises in Chad is proof of life, says contributor Damian Lilly, who worked on the response for a year and penned this recent opinion piece.
“The nexus is real,” he writes. “But it needs a radical overhaul.”
Have any tips, recommendations, or indecipherable acronyms to share with the Inklings newsletter? Get in touch: [email protected]
