The UN World Food Programme (WFP) announced last year that it would have to suspend or reduce its funding for food assistance to several countries. The decision was taken before the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on 7 October which has caused a humanitarian disaster in Gaza which currently overshadows what is happening in other countries.
The list of these countries, some of which have endured decades-long wars and still are suffering from civil wars, is long. According to a list prepared by the WFP, the ten top recipients of WFP assistance in 2022 and 2023 were Yemen, The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Afghanistan, Sudan, South Sudan, Ukraine, Somalia, Ethiopia and an item called Flexible/Other.
During for example the eight-year long civil war in Yemen, hundreds of thousands of people died from fighting, hunger and disease. The UN called the crisis the worst humanitarian crisis in modern time due to a war fueled by foreign powers. The Saudi Arabia-led coalition against the Houthis rebels was armed by the US while the rebels were supported by Iran.
The humanitarian budgets were reduced across the board, a WFP spokesperson told The Brussels Times. The only exception is Congo, where the aid tripled to US$ 624 million but is still far from enough because of the millions of displaced persons there.
The largely forgotten crisis in Congo has reached a volatile new phase because of the struggle for minerals in eastern Congo, where armed groups and several national armies are fighting. According to a recent article in The New York Times, WFP says it has enough to feed only 2.5 million of the estimated 6.3 million people who go to bed hungry every night in eastern Congo.
WFP assistance in 2022 – 2023 to top recipients
Source: World Food Programme (WFP)
Has the cut in aid been compensated by more aid from the EU and other donors? “Funding to WFP is always voluntary and our donors faced a variety of constraints in 2023,” the spokesperson replied. “Given that, it’s important to note that the EU, our third largest donor, remained a very generous donor to WFP in 2023 overall.”
Excluding Germany (second largest donor) and the EU, the average drop in donors funding of WFP in 2023 was 38 %. EU donors reduced also their aid but less. “EU and its member states not only remain vital partners for us, but were able to retain more funding overall than the cuts we saw globally,” the spokesperson added. “For that we are grateful, even if the situation remains very difficult.”
In Syria, international humanitarian aid must pass the Assad regime in Damascus and cannot easily reach regions in the country that are not controlled by it because of the insufficient number of border crossings. The north-eastern part of the country is ruled by an autonomous Kurdish administration (AANES). The UN-led peace process to reach an inclusive political solution in Syria has stalled.
Half of the population in Syria is displaced, both inside and outside the country, more than 12 years after the start of the crisis. Humanitarian needs in Syria are now at an all-time high, with the food and water crises dramatically deteriorating over the past months. Despite EU’s boycott of the Assad regime, the EU is committed to to continue supporting Syrians in need, a Commission spokesperson said.
The EU announced last November that it had boosted its humanitarian funding to Syria with additional €11.5 million, with a particular focus on food assistance. Of this allocation, almost half, €5 million, went to WFP to support food assistance projects for the most vulnerable. This brought the total of the EU humanitarian assistance earmarked in 2023 for Syria to €186.5 million.
The humanitarian package also added €3.5 million for Lebanon, another country which is facing a deep economic and financial crisis because of its sectarian divide. While Syria still holds the world’s largest number of internally displaced people and an overall 15.3 million people in need, in Lebanon 3.9 million people, including 1.5 million refugees from Syria, now depend on humanitarian assistance.
“The scale of the cuts that we witness in Syria are exemplary for the historic funding crisis that we are currently facing,” the WFP spokesperson commented last week. “Global economic headwinds and long-term fiscal tightening meant that many governments and other partners were forced to reduce levels of support to pre-pandemic levels last year while acute hunger remained at record high.”
Even before the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, the crises in Syria and other countries were often forgotten or risked becoming overlooked by new crises. “Syria is increasingly forgotten,” Eric Economy, Mercy Corps Director of Crisis Analysis, said at a press conference in Brussels last December.
Mercy Corps is a global humanitarian organization which is headquartered in the US and the UK and has recently opened an office in Brussels. In 2022, Mercy Corps reached 38 million people in more than 40 countries. Mercy Corps receives EU funding for humanitarian aid and development projects in Syria, Gaza and the DRC, among others.
“Communities throughout Syria continue to be impacted by complex and overlapping crises,” the expert at Mercy Corps explained.
“Some crises, such as the February 2023 earthquake and October 2023 aerial campaign in southern Idlib, constitute sudden urgent humanitarian shocks. Other crises are long-term, as communities continue to face protracted and ever-increasing vulnerabilities related to socio-economic dysfunction, climate-induced food insecurity, and social instability.”
Mercy Corps supports mainly local communities in Syria and tries to circumvent Damascus by working through the informal banking system. It relies on the local market rather than on aid convoys and offers aid for buying goods that otherwise would be unaffordable for most people. It describes the crisis in Syria as the result of a protracted conflict without a political solution in sight.
“Communities throughout Syria continue to resort to desperate measures for basic survival, given the lack of affordable basic goods for survival, Mercy Corps explained. “Inflation and currency depreciation, driven by the conflict’s legacy - both in terms of physical destruction and political stalemates - have had a sharp impact on the average Syrian’s ability to survive - let alone prosper.”
In some areas, it is common for daily income to be estimated at approximately .50 to .70 cents per day, well below the global poverty marker of 2 euros per day. Ultimately, an estimated 90% of Syrians are below the poverty line.
Food assistance to Syria
How much aid did Syria receive in from WFP in 2023 and how much is foreseen for 2024? “Hunger is on the rise in Syria, the WFP spokesperson replied. “The country remains among the ten countries with the highest number of hungry people globally. Despite this, the underfunding of WFP in Syria has been a challenge in 2023 already.”
| WFP required roughly US$1.5 billion to reach 9 million food-insecure people with food assistance in Syria throughout 2023. This plan only received 35 percent of the funding required. WFP consequently had to progressively reduce the level of assistance in different programmes, such as reduced rations sizes, and was only able to reach 5.5 million people until July 2023. After July 2023, WFP was forced to further reduce its caseload to 3.2 million people until the end of the year. The outlook for 2024 is bleak: WFP will be unable to continue its “general food assistance programme”- the biggest food assistance programme that has served Syrian families nationwide for over a decade. This will gravely affect the remaining 3.2. million beneficiaries, WFP says. WFP will continue to support families affected by emergencies and natural disasters across the country through smaller and more targeted emergency response interventions. WFP’s other programmes, such as malnutrition treatment, school meals, and early recovery, will continue normally. In 2024, WFP will aim to support 1.6 million people-- far below the actual needs of the people of Syria. |
M. Apelblat
The Brussels Times
