The world was intended to be a better place when the international community pledged commitment to the UN (SDGs) after the relative success of the that reached their target year in 2015. But there are expected to be highs and lows, as well as speed bumps, on the road to realizing a sustainable world through the SDG targets, set for 2030. report published by IARAN predicts growing challenges such as long and complex conflicts, widespread involuntary migration, violent natural disasters and rising inequality. The challenges faced by NGOs and the work cut out for them are unlikely to wind down any time soon.

A decade until 2030 looks like a long time, but not when the world is faced with crises on multiple fronts that require sustained action. IRIN, a website dedicated to covering humanitarian emergencies and aid, identifies , including “voluntary” returning of refugees, re-emergence of infectious diseases in countries experiencing humanitarian crises, anti-terror compliance imposed on NGOs, and continued militancy in Africa. These challenges have complex backgrounds and causes, but lack of political will plays a significant role when it comes to resolution.

Interlinked Challenges

Pakistan has been putting pressure on Afghan refugees to return to their home country ravaged by war with the Taliban, having already more than 800,000 people since 2016. Bangladesh wants nearly a million of the Rohingya refugees to go back to Myanmar, where the ethnic minority faced a genocidal crackdown. It is a major concern that many of the repatriated people will only find their homes and land destroyed or confiscated. Returning refugees will have to rebuild their lives from scratch with already limited social services and security, or face looking for another country to accept them.

Meanwhile, in the Sahel region, Ěýis a major contributing factor to the ineffective fight against militants such as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb; it is also the reason for the failure to win local support and discourage people from joining militant groups through provision of adequate social services.ĚýAgainst this backdrop, recipient countries enforce stringent “anti-terror” legislation and regulations on NGOs to deter distribution of aid that these governments designate as support for militants.ĚýDonor countries, on the other hand, want to strengthen tracking and regulations on NGO funding flows to make sure aid doesn’t end up in the hands of armed groups on the ground.

The challenges are all interlinked: People flee from countries mired in conflict and disease, but eventually find themselves involuntarily repatriated back to a home country that is politically and economically unstable, without adequate social or health services. Recipient countries that host refugees suspect them of being linked to militant groups like the Taliban, for example, using this as a justification for their repatriation and imposing regulations on NGOs working to help them.

In these circumstances, a lack of the international community’s concerted will and efforts to tackle these challenges is a concern. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) managed to collect just under 60% of the from donors last year — $15 billion of the $25 billion needed. The trend of growing nationalism worldwide could be a factor. The isolationist policy of the Trump administration has seen a change from what has until recently been a major international moral leader and humanitarian donor — including the US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, narrowing its door to refugees and asylum seekers, and its budget cut for global reproductive health — is shameful.

Eurasia Group, a risk consulting firm, predicts such as lack of global leadership (“G-Zero”) and political volatility in the United States, a further rise of populism in Europe and a coalition against the global liberal order by countries such as Russia and Turkey. On the other hand, China’s global economic influence is strong when it comes to fragile economies. It is feared that these trends may exacerbate human rights in volatile aid recipient countries as the governments riding the trends become more negligent of protecting people’s rights.

A Lot to Worry About

The Future of Aid INGOs in 2030Ěýreport predicts four global scenarios affecting the future of aid. One likely scenario is the so-called “narrow gate,” in which the rise of nationalism will lead to a decline in the relevance of global governance institutions where the humanitarian ecosystem is challenged by the politicization of crises, particularly those in areas of chronic fragility. The report predicts an increase in control over and restrictions on humanitarian interventions; the growth of mistrust of NGOs regarded as West-centric; a struggle of finding a compromise between vision and values versus the necessity of accessing those in need; and a limited direct access to vulnerable communities, meaning a diminished position for international providers vis-Ă -vis local governments and NGOs.

All this indicates that suspicion toward NGOs at the political level, in which there is little room for mutual dialog and understanding, will risk leaving the voiceless and disempowered people behind. For example, across Africa, the decrease in the poverty rate is offset by the fact that more people are now living in extreme poverty, according to a 2016 . Another worrying aspect of political intervention highlighted in The Future of Aid is more proactive participation in humanitarian activities by the military. This may further blur the lines between military and humanitarian actors, resulting in a perceived erosion of NGO neutrality, impartiality and independence, and a loss of access for nongovernmental actors to the victims of widespread abuses war and conflict, and, consequently, a diminished protection for civilians.

More proactive involvement of which are not well regulated in international law, may also worsen the situation by raising the profile of NGOs and undermining their security. Aid may become less and less sustainable.

The Sustainable Development Goals must be achieved and their commitment safeguarded by concerted efforts by various stakeholders, including nongovernmental organizations. While NGOs may face internal and external pressures from tougher controls on funding and operations, they must be flexible to adapt to the changing situation and humanitarian ecosystem to be a viable actor. Where governments may be reluctant to safeguard human rights, it falls to NGOs to defend them, winning support and solidarity from civil society with goodwill.

The commitment of SDGs to “leaving no one behind” must always be at the core of advocacy, and NGOs must be part of it. Aid groups must keep making their voices and concerns heard. Though each cry may be quiet enough to be dispersed, concerted calls can become strong advocacy. There is still a tremendous amount of work to do.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Governments must work for ordinary people’s welfare, lives and hopes. Just as a government can sanction a food producer who falsified manufacturing dates or lists of ingredients, a group of (mostly) economically developed and politically powerful nations can sanction another country’s economic activities and/or investment for “threatening international security.” These sanctions are for protecting people who support and benefit from the current international order.

While local sanctions fall under domestic jurisdiction, in many cases international sanctions are agreed upon by the United Nations Security Council, which brings legitimacy in terms of international law. But when it is unlikely to happen, especially if the permanent five (P5) members of the council (the US, Britain, France, Russia and China) do not unanimously agree, or one of the P5 wants to sanction another P5 member, unilateral sanctions can be imposed, such as US and EU sanctions against Russia over the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Their legal bases are dubious, as many such decisions are .

For example, sanctions were imposed on Iraq by the international community following the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. The US and the UK were the most vocal advocates for the sanctions with an aim of toppling Saddam Hussein’s regime. The sanctions devastated the lives of millions of Iraqi people, with an estimated death toll of 1 million due to , while the regime remained largely unaffected. Airstrikes on Iraq damaged critical infrastructure like water and sewage systems, leading to lack of safe drinking water. Death rates, including child and mother mortality, rose significantly due to the deterioration of the health-care system and unavailability of basic medicines. According toĚý, there could have been half a million fewer deaths of children under 5 between 1991 and 1998. The sanctions damaged the economy through decreased imports of life-saving medicine, food and fuel — as well as lower exports — while poverty and social inequality increased.

Then followed the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, which had , against claims of the regime’s development and retention of weapons of mass destruction. While the death toll remains disputed, the war took the lives of at least Ěý(some sources giveĚý) and deepened their plight and suffering.

As in the case of Iraq, it is ordinary people who are punished by sanctions. People suffer due to the arbitrarily unequal share and distribution of wealth and resources. People need aid, but it becomes difficult or impossible to transfer funds into the sanctioned country because of disruption of banking channels, for example. According to the UN senior resident official in North Korea, additional requirements for licenses and the time it takes to determine what is or is not a potential sanctions’ violation delays efforts, and sanctions and political pressure behind them may make donors to provide funds.

They may also render aid workers’ physical access to those in need hard or impossible. Aid workers must get tougher and more tactical to convince those who insist on sanctions to keep supporting those in need. Sanctions only further exacerbate the plight of people on the ground and make them more vulnerable, while access to them becomes more difficult. So, are all sanctions merely futile political games? Something that deprives people’s lives and gives them tremendous physical and psychological trauma must be sanctioned: arms and weapons, the embodiment of inhumanity.

and military services by the largest arms-producing and military companies totaled $370.7 billion in 2015. This is equivalent to Israel’s 31st in terms of national GDP in 2017, or about 2.5 times the OECD Development Assistance Committee’s globalĚýĚýfor 2016. Traded arms and weapons are used in proxy war such as the conflict in Yemen. Saudi Arabia, a major player in the conflict, was the between 2013 and 2017, with a 225% increase compared with 2008 and 2012. The US and European states provide the kingdom with 98% of its .

All arms and weapons trade must be embargoed. The ultimate embodiment — one that came true — is the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, passed on July 7, 2017. As a person whose country experienced the world’s first and so far only nuclear attack, I strongly support this move of wisdom and humanity.

As a humanitarian, I’m not against all sanctions. ButĚýan arms embargo and a ban on nuclear weapons are necessary to prevent more deaths, devastation and resentment, and, at the extreme end, a catastrophe. It is true that sanctions led to theĚý in South Africa. But we have to be cautious as sanctions can be a result of arbitrary politics and propaganda. In my experience of working in Myanmar, I saw many people denied access to basic medical care under the sanctioned military regime. The government looked strong at the expense of its people, and the present compromise in democratization was never expected to happen at that time.

People suffer behind the scenes. Reaching and saving those is our highest priority. Humanitarian workers must have good conviction, strategies, tactics and skills to do it, going through the sanctioned regimes and reluctant donors and winning support by ordinary well-wishing citizens.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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It was a warm sunny day that made it hard to believe that it had happened. In a village in Afghanistan, Abdul Wali* was shot and killed, alongside others, in a crossfire between government forces and an anti-government armed group.

A series of conflicts that followed the invasion by the former Soviet Union led Wali and his family to decades-long exile in neighboring Pakistan. After he established a base there, supporting himself through small trade, content to send his children to school, he and his family were forced to return as part of “voluntary repatriation” due to political tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan. At “home,” which he yearned for, but had no worldly attachment to, he found he had to start from scratch.

Our NGO constructed water wells in communities including his and provided people with well maintenance training that Wali participated in. He was motivated and encouraged to take the lead in maintaining the water supply for his people, building a new life for him and his family.

According to the United Nations, some 68.5 million people are ; of these, 40 million are internally displaced persons (IDPs), 25.4 million refugees and 3.1 million are asylum seekers. The top three countries from which the biggest numbers of people are displaced are Syria (6.3 million people), Afghanistan (2.6 million) and South Sudan (2.4 million). Many people are forced to leave their home due to conflict, which is now the of refugees. Just as in Afghanistan, conflicts involving have been increasing all over the globe: There were almost none in 1989, and in 2017 there were more than 80.

In these conflicts, governments fight armed opposition groups, or what they call “terrorists.” On the other hand, humanitarian and development actors like NGOs reach people at the grassroots level to offer emergency support during and immediately after the conflict, helping them alleviate grievances that might move them to sympathize or side with the militants.

Some governments may find it hard to “distinguish” ordinary people from those supporting armed opposition groups or those actively involved with them. For this reason, governments in some cases are cautious about and want to control NGOs’ activities. Some countries I worked in were suspicious about NGOs’ links with militias and support for militiants in their financial sources and supply, and this implemented scrupulous procedures for granting visas and work permits to aid organizations.

While our work is being put under tougher control, our vulnerability as being a target for armed groups is still high. The number of reached its peak in 2013 with 265 incidents and 156 fatalities, but these still occur regularly across Afghanistan.

Narrowing Humanitarian Space

More and more people flee conflicts all over the globe, but the hands of aid workers are being tied more firmly. We have to not only be accountable and transparent, but also be more strategic, skilful and tactical in order to respond to people’s dire needs.

So can we do everything to a high enough standard? Unfortunately, the prospect is not a bright one. Humanitarian needs are in the coming years. Factors such as population growth (especially in Sub-Saharan Africa), climate change (resulting in water scarcity and reduced crop yields) as well as consequent widening inequality and protracted fragility in volatile states to increased conflicts, according to The Future of Aid INGOs in 2030 report.

As for political implications on aid, the report predicts the following trends. First, governments of affected states will be more inclined to resist external intervention and will prefer more localized approaches. Second, humanitarian crises will become increasingly political — in an increasingly interconnected world, crises can have severe and widespread implications. With increased media attention, humanitarian issues are taken much more seriously today than in the past decades, and governments are under greater pressure to address them. Mishandling humanitarian crises, or even the perception of mishandling can result in administrations losing power. Where aid comes from, and to whom it goes, are increasingly political issues. Donor and recipient nations are also held accountable by their constituents for their perceived complicity in dealing with unpopular states. Third, humanitarian assistance is going to continue being used as a geopolitical instrument, with complex emergencies and humanitarian crises gaining political centrality. Finally, rising impediments to NGO interventions are being witnessed, and a resurgence of state sovereignty is making NGO interventions more difficult.

These trends are not all bad in terms of capacity building of aid recipient governments. But it will be worrying if any political arbitration is inserted into responses based on inequality, disparity and discrimination among people and geographical areas.

Efforts in Vain?

So, is responding to growing needs with limited means a useless effort? As someone who has worked in the aid sector for nearly 20 years, I believe not. Each individual life is unique and precious, and requires to be treated with dignity. No one must feel left behind — otherwise this world would be nothing but hell. Even though circumstances around those who suffer may resemble a strong stream that casts them adrift, our work should be to gently catch them with open arms as an unbroken net against the current.

One of the biggest manmade tragedies is the global displacement of people and accompanying violence due to conflict. The best way to minimize human suffering is the prevention of conflict. It is recommended to include national actors to address risks and grievances and form coalitions among national and international actors when dealing with conflict resolution.

In the aftermath of a conflict, the nexus of going from humanitarian assistance to recovery aid to development aid is necessary to help the survivors and returnees retrieve their livelihood and rebuild their societies. But in reality, these scenarios are elusive in many cases due to . In cases like Afghanistan, where there is a complexity of conflict, geopolitics are hard to tackle. Global citizens’ advocacy must be raised and kept up. But it should never be a “white savior” kind. Aid workers must be sincere in seeking ideas and advice from collaboration with locals in order to plan and implement meaningful and effective assistance, to lessen the governments’ suspicions and effectively partner with them.

Abdul was one of the victims in the toughest of situations. It’s hard to imagine being in his place, and hard to fathom his family’s loss and deep sorrow. I can never wish him anything but a simple thing — to rest in peace. Others must keep surviving and the number of people asking, “Why me?” must be diminished. We must keep walking along with them with strong compassion and solidarity in difficult times.

*[“Abdul Wali” is a pseudonym and details have been slightly distorted to avoid identification of the people concerned in order to protect their safety.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit:ĚýĚý/

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