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  • 10/2024
  • Prof. Dr. Conrad Schetter

Aid Organisations: Polycrises as the New Normal Require a Courageous Rethink

Confronted with wars, authoritarian regimes, climate change and refugee movements, Welthungerhilfe must break with familiar routines – and take a closer look at causes.

In Crisis Mode: Community kitchens in Lebanon are now producing food parcels for displaced persons. © Welthungerhilfe

The world is increasingly characterized by polycrises, in which various crises reinforce each other, making it extremely difficult to resolve them: Violent conflicts, authoritarian regimes, climate change and refugee movements are mutually dependent and have meant that regions such as the Sahel, the Horn of Africa or Afghanistan have barely been able to escape crisis mode for decades, making an emergency situation endemic. The main victim is the local population, whose livelihood is being challenged on a daily basis.

With its focus on food security, Welthungerhilfe plays a central role in combating these interlinked crises. However, the increase and intensification of polycrises also has an impact on the work of Welthungerhilfe, requiring the organization to adapt to a changing environment and presenting it with certain dilemmas. These perspectives will be examined in this article.

Increase in Violent Conflicts

Certainly, the greatest influence on Welthungerhilfe's work is the fact that the world is becoming increasingly “insecure”. States all over the world are increasingly fragile, and the number of violent conflicts has also been rising steadily for ten years: While there were around 50,000 war deaths in 2011, for example, the number has exceeded 200,000 since 2022 – meaning it has quadrupled. The Russian war of aggression on Ukraine, the violence in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon as well as the civil wars in Sudan and Tigray/Ethiopia are cases in point. It is also important to note that the duration of violent conflicts is continuously increasing. On average, a civil war now lasts 15 years – with a rising trend.

If we take a look at Welthungerhilfe's countries of operation, it becomes clear that – due to the dominance of violent conflicts – the organization is mostly active in situations where humanitarian aid is of primary importance, while long-term development cooperation is becoming less and less feasible. Against this backdrop, the combination of humanitarian aid, development cooperation and peace work, which is reflected in policy and practice as the HDP nexus, is especially important. Welthungerhilfe is well positioned here as one of the few organizations that is active in both humanitarian aid and development cooperation. It has experience in switching from one modus operandi to the other when the conflict situation changes. So far, however, Welthungerhilfe has hardly been involved in peace work. Due to the increase in violent conflicts, this will become increasingly important and should be given greater consideration in the organization's future portfolio.

It is also becoming increasingly necessary to consider the safety of the organisation’s personnel. The number of security incidents in which civilian aid workers were victims of violence has increased fivefold in the last ten years. This is alarming. Humanitarian aid workers are increasingly being targeted in both military and terrorist attacks. The killing, wounding and abduction of humanitarian aid workers disregards their neutral status, which is enshrined in international humanitarian law. This is a clear sign of brutalization, with which Welthungerhilfe, too, is confronted.

Since wars are highly politicized, Welthungerhilfe is confronted with the question to what extent warring parties instrumentalize aid provided. Implementation is faced with the dilemma that helping the needy often goes hand in hand with violent actors attempting to impose “taxes” and to influence aid distribution. In all conflicts, this is a dilemma on which Welthungerhilfe has to take a position.

Shrinking Spaces

Democracy is also in crisis. In many countries around the world, authoritarian tendencies on the part of governments are increasing rapidly, and civil society organizations in particular are suffering as a result. This applies not only to military dictatorships (e.g. Myanmar, Mali) and theocratic regimes (e.g. Afghanistan), but also to countries that are considered democratic (e.g. Bangladesh, Ethiopia). Many international as well as national non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are seen as “agents of the West”. Their funding and scope of action are being increasingly restricted by the state apparatus.

For Welthungerhilfe a partnership approach is fundamental, yet it is becoming increasingly difficult to find local partners. In addition, it is increasingly faced with taking responsibility for ensuring that its project partners are not in danger. On the one hand, Welthungerhilfe defines itself on the basis of core principles such as respect for human rights; on the other hand, it can hardly address these principles publicly in authoritarian systems.

 

Distribution of food to households threatened by food insecurity in Kabul a year after the Taliban took over power in Afghanistan. © Parwiz Sabawoon/welthungerhilfe

The new magic phrase in such authoritarian contexts is to work “at arms’ length from the government”. However, it is precisely this attempt at working outside state structures that authoritarian regimes want to prevent. Welthungerhilfe is thus faced with the extremely difficult question of the extent to which it wants to cooperate with governments that suppress their own civil society. What carries more weight: Providing for people in need or rejecting the legitimacy of the Afghan Taliban or the military juntas in Mali or Niger?

Climate Change

It is no coincidence that many countries affected by violent conflicts are suffering particularly from the effects of climate change. Especially in semi-arid regions of the world such as the Sahel and East Africa, the volatility and intensity of extreme weather events is increasing – and people are being left to their own devices in coping with changing living conditions.

Therefore, adaptation to changing climate conditions must increasingly be reflected in the structure of Welthungerhilfe's food security programs. However, the dilemma arises that sustainable agriculture with little impact on climate and environment is not necessarily sufficiently productive to feed a growing population. Therefore, the most appropriate food security scheme is not necessarily the one that makes most ecological sense.

The funding of Welthungerhilfe must also adapt to new donor priorities. The impression is that climate policy is increasingly dominating discussions while development policy is on the defensive. In future, the priority given to climate change is likely to determine political decisions on budgets to a far greater extent. At the same time, Welthungerhilfe's priority given to ensuring that people are able to feed themselves should be abandoned.

Refugee Movements

A major consequence of prolonged wars, authoritarian rule and climate change is that more and more people are having to leave their homes and seek refuge elsewhere. Here, too, the numbers are constantly increasing and highlight the current polycrisis. According to the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR, there are currently over 117 million displaced people, the majority of whom are internally displaced persons. Of particularly dramatic impact for Welthungerhilfe's work is the fact that more and more refugees find themselves in protracted situations of displacement: While the average duration of a displacement situation was nine years in the 1990s, this had already risen to over 20 years by 2015. Today, three quarters of all refugees are in a protracted displacement situation of more than five years.

Moreover, the camps in which refugees seek refuge are often located in the immediate vicinity of conflict countries. They therefore serve as a reservoir for the mobilization of fighters by the warring parties and thus contribute to the persistence of violent conflicts – such as in Myanmar, Somalia or Syria. Welthungerhilfe is on the ground with aid projects in many refugee camps where people are barely managing to subsist. But how sustainable is it to keep refugees in protracted refugee situations that indirectly contribute to the prolongation of violent conflicts?

Here, too, Welthungerhilfe faces a dilemma. What can it do beyond humanitarian aid to help people develop prospects for the future beyond war and flight? At the same time, Welthungerhilfe has to ask itself to what extent combating the causes of displacement forms part of its programs – a question that goes far beyond the issue of food security.

Conclusion

This brief insight into the current polycrisis makes it clear that Welthungerhilfe's work is central to reducing the suffering of people affected by war, disaster and poverty. Nevertheless, it also becomes clear that Welthungerhilfe's work faces key challenges if it wants to pursue its self-imposed goal of “a world without hunger”. It also becomes clear that conflicting objectives may force Welthungerhilfe to make bitter trade-offs if it wants to achieve its overarching goal. The organization will have to state clearly why certain compromises and concessions in conflict with its own objectives are necessary in order to save people from starvation.

However, Welthungerhilfe is not alone in facing the dilemmas outlined here. The majority of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that have emerged in Western countries in recent decades face similar challenges. The world is turning faster than many organizations can adapt to changing conditions. If Welthungerhilfe wants to develop meaningful answers to the polycrises of the future, it needs the courage to break with familiar routines and pursue innovative paths.

Crisis of Legitimacy

In addition to the crises mentioned above, Welthungerhilfe also faces a crisis that is invisible and difficult to pin down: the crisis of legitimacy.

After Covid, the war in Ukraine, Gaza and the refugee debate in Europe, those in the countries of the South accusing the West of double standards are becoming increasingly vociferous: On the one hand, the West preaches fair partnerships as well as humanitarian values and denounces violations of international law (Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, Gaza); on the other hand, the West gives up its own solidarity as soon as resources become scarce (Covid) and negates its own violations of international law (Guantanamo) and pursues an inhumane isolationist policy (Mediterranean). The criticism of Western actions is that human lives a valued differently depending on their origin; that solidarity with the countries of the South crumbles as soon as Western prosperity is in danger; that the goal is not partnership on an equal footing, but perpetuating dependencies. According to post-colonial criticism, hard-core interests are currently coming to the fore that no longer have anything to do with humanitarian principles – the core values of the Western social model.

Welthungerhilfe must face the fact that it is still primarily perceived as a German aid organization – despite considerable internationalization in recent years. As a result, Welthungerhilfe, too, is the target of accusations of double standards. It is thus extremely important for Welthungerhilfe to develop a clear and consistent position that refutes accusations of double standards. This is easier said than done: On the one hand, Welthungerhilfe must not allow itself to be instrumentalized by Western states (especially the Federal Republic of Germany and the European Union), which prioritize goals such as preventing migration or combating terrorism. On the other hand, Welthungerhilfe can prepare for some of the post-colonial criticism of its organization that it may face and proactively adapt certain structures. However, it will not be able to free itself completely from financial dependence on donations and project funds, primarily from the North. It’s a fine line that defines the identity of Welthungerhilfe and its future positioning as an aid organization in a world characterized by polycrises.

Ultimately, it is central to a consistent internal and external image that we communicate our identity even more proactively to the German public. After all, Welthungerhilfe stands for fundamental values that are firmly anchored in German democracy. Welthungerhilfe must make it clear that its commitment to the survival of people facing polycrises is not based on self-interest, but purely on humanitarian values.

All views expressed in the Welternährung are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view or policies of the editorial board or of Welthungerhilfe.

Prof. Dr. Conrad Schetter BICC Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies
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