The United Nations is set to launch a $1,5 billion aid appeal today to prepare for the coronavirus outbreak in areas with a severe humanitarian crisis, such as Gaza, Myanmar, Syria, South Sudan and Yemen.
"While all countries must respond to Covid-19, those with an existing humanitarian crisis are particularly vulnerable and will require all humanitarian partners to see how to re-prioritize existing operations and adapt them," states the Global Humanitarian Response Plan, which will be published today.
The request, however, comes at a time when the world's leading economies are in shock due to the pandemic. The UN and aid agencies expect it will be very difficult to convince rich governments to loosen the purse strings.
"Some of the biggest donors see that they will be hit by the global recession. The question is how generous they will be when they know the crisis is coming to their backyard," a senior official of the aid agency told "Forin Polisi".
As the pandemic moves from global capitals to war zones and refugee camps, the UN and humanitarian organizations are preparing for a possible cataclysmic second phase of the pandemic: spreading in the crowded camps that house more than 25 million refugees and another 40 million internally displaced people worldwide, writes the American sheet.
According to UNICEF, more than three billion people do not have access to handwashing facilities, depriving them of one of the most effective first lines of defense against the spread of the coronavirus.
Even more difficult is finding enough space to implement social distancing measures in overcrowded camps from Bangladesh and Kenya to an archipelago of refugee camps for Afghans, Syrians, Palestinians and others across the Middle East.
"We are facing a global health crisis like never before in the 75-year history of the UN," said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, adding that a global recession of unprecedented scale is "almost certain."
"We must realize that the poorest countries and the most vulnerable - especially women - will be the hardest hit. If we allow the virus to spread like wildfire, especially in the most vulnerable countries, it will kill millions."
International aid efforts are hampered by efforts to provide safe conditions for personnel. Those concerns were heightened by the announcement last week that David Beasley, executive director of the Rome-based World Food Program, had also been infected with the coronavirus. Some international humanitarian organizations have withdrawn senior officials working in the field due to fear of infection.
"Many humanitarian operations are reducing physical presence and recommending staff to return home, and closing offices," according to a report by the Capacity Assessment Project, a Norwegian non-profit organization that analyzes major humanitarian crises. "Current travel restrictions, suspensions and flight schedule changes are likely to continue to hamper humanitarian operations."
"It makes us self-absorbed," says Jeremy Condick of the Center for Global Development.
"In donor capitals, they are much more preoccupied with threats to their homelands," he said, adding that the UN and aid agencies must balance protecting the health of their staff with helping communities in need.
In conflict-ridden countries, weak health systems are already overburdened. The coronavirus epidemic and its economic effects could bring those countries to the breaking point, writes "Forin Polisi".
"South Sudan's health system has been completely destroyed by civil war over the past seven years," says Sterling Carter, a former aid worker in the country.
After five years of war, with millions of people on the brink of starvation, the population of Yemen is more vulnerable to the coronavirus epidemic than that of most other countries. Most of the country's inhabitants have weak immune systems due to the conflict, said one aid worker.
The UN has issued guidance to field workers, refugee camp managers and public health experts on how to combat the spread of the virus. They call for a plan to be drawn up for each camp to assess the risk of infection, train staff to detect, test and monitor the spread, as well as trace those infected and those who have been in contact with them.
"Wherever possible, measures should be introduced to reduce overcrowding," according to the guidelines. It is added that social distancing should be promoted, especially when sharing basic necessities such as food and water, to prevent large gatherings of people. Each site should have access to a laboratory for ease of testing.
However, some of the recommendations, such as social distancing, are impractical in the world's largest camps. In addition, many countries hosting refugee camps, such as Afghanistan and Bangladesh, will be overwhelmed by the health needs of their citizens.
In Gaza, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which provides basic care to about 70 percent of the territory's 1,8 million residents, is preparing for a possible coronavirus outbreak in one of the most densely populated areas in the world.
The UN agency, which was denied funding by the Trump administration last year, has about 22 health centers in Gaza, which are on the front lines of defense against the coronavirus.
The crisis has inspired dark humor among Palestinians in Gaza. They note the irony that Israel's heavy economic blockade of Gaza helps keep Palestinians safe from the virus.
Leaders of major aid organizations are pressing donors to give them more flexibility to redirect funds from existing programs that will be halted by the pandemic to projects that provide clean water and sanitation.
It is not known whether the UN appeal will be on top of previous appeals by UN agencies for funding to fight the virus. The World Health Organization announced earlier this year that more than $675 million, including $61 million for its own agencies, would be needed through April for the international campaign against the virus. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, however, said more money would be needed. On February 17, UNICEF issued an emergency request for $42,3 million to prepare for the coronavirus response. That money would be used to reduce the transmission of the virus by promoting distance learning for children who cannot go to school and on a public information campaign to combat misinformation.
The Secretary General of the UN, together with the UN Coordinator for Humanitarian Aid, Mark Lowcock, the head of the WHO, Ghebreyesus, and the Executive Director of UNICEF, Henrietta Faure, will make a new appeal today at a joint teleconference.
"Forin Polisi" reported that the UN will ask donors to reduce funding for other vital humanitarian aid programs. The goal of the new appeal is to "meet additional needs due to the Covid-19 pandemic, while at the same time continuing humanitarian operations and life-saving programs that correspond to needs before the epidemic," according to the draft plan. "This is essential to avoid further casualties and suffering, and to avoid worsening the plight of affected people". Guterres, meanwhile, expressed concern that the pandemic could set back decades of efforts to improve health standards and reduce extreme levels of poverty, and weaken the Sustainable Development Goals, which are supposed to improve people's living standards around the world by 2030.
Guterres pressed governments to launch a coordinated strategy for global health, by increasing health spending and increasing aid to poor countries. He said that "global solidarity is not only a moral imperative, but is in the interest of all of us".
"Covid-19 is killing people and attacking the economy at its core - trade, supply chains, companies, jobs. Workers around the world could lose as much as 3,4 trillion”.
States must resist the challenge of erecting protectionist trade walls and should take steps including exempting poor countries from paying interest, offering debt relief and reducing fees for migrants who send money to relatives back home, he added.
"We must focus on people - the most vulnerable, those with low wages, small and medium-sized enterprises," Guterres pointed out.
"This means stable wages, insurance, social protection, preventing bankruptcy and job losses. This also means designing fiscal and monetary responses to ensure that the burden does not fall on those who can least afford it. The recovery must not fall on the backs of the poorest - and we cannot create a legion of new poor. It is necessary that the resources go directly into the hands of the people".
Time to lift the sanctions
The international community must reconsider funding priorities and redirect foreign aid to fighting the spread of the coronavirus, says Jan Egeland, former head of the UN's humanitarian aid task force, now head of the Norwegian Refugee Council.
He appealed to forty donors to enable his agency to divert the money.
Egeland also says that extensive U.S. and UN economic sanctions imposed on Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela are making aid efforts more difficult.
"Now is the time to lift the sanctions. They make it difficult to work in the worst places on the planet, where the Kovid virus will hit much harder than in New York, Oslo and Wuhan," he said.
The call to lift sanctions comes as Iran pressures governments to break them. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif took to Twitter on Monday to thank those calling for the lifting of the measures and called on countries and companies to oppose "American mass punishment".
"The USA is not listening, and is holding back the global fight against Covid-19," he wrote.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended the punitive measures, saying that Tehran is seeking money for terrorist operations in the region that could be used to fight the pandemic. He also said that "Iranian documents show that their health companies have been able to import testing kits since January without obstacles from US sanctions."
"US sanctions do not include the import of food, medicine and medical equipment, or other humanitarian goods," Pompeo added.
Egeland acknowledged that most UN sanctions regimes, including those on Iran and North Korea, contain exemptions for the import of humanitarian goods. However, due to sanctions, international institutions are afraid to provide vital financial services to humanitarian agencies. "No bank dares to transfer money because they are afraid of being sued by the US government," he said.
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