‘No country is an island’

The Russia-Ukraine conflict has displaced 4 million people and millions more are under threat of food shortages. Whether Ukrainian farmers can continue business is increasingly uncertain.

Ukrainian wheat feeds 400 million people worldwide. Half of the wheat shipped by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to vulnerable communities comes from Ukraine. The implications for vulnerable communities around the world are clear.

WFP director David Beasley said the war in Ukraine has created “a catastrophe on top of a catastrophe”.

The conflict has compounded the misery of the world’s 800 million hungry. As for the 82 million who have been forced to flee wars elsewhere, they are likely to go to bed with an empty stomach.

Activists and humanitarian organisations warn that as aid to millions of Ukrainians is being stepped up, refugees elsewhere should not be allowed to go off the radar while they are increasingly in need.

Even before the war in Ukraine, the UN struggled to raise sufficient funds for all the humanitarian aid programmes. The UN received less than half the targeted funds after an appeal in 2021.

The issue has become even more complex during the last two years due to the multiple protracted conflicts, climate change, the coronavirus pandemic and high energy prices.

Wars, political upheavals and natural disasters around the world have also left millions cooped up in refugee camps far away from the media attention. The war in Ukraine and the influx of refugees in Europe grab most air time, which exacerbates the plight of others on other latitudes.

The international community and peace organisations seem less able to prevent and resolve armed conflicts, but mechanisms must be found help to victims of these crises. The distribution of emergency aid should be based on needs alone. Devoting more footage and column inches to a war here and less to an armed conflict in a remote corner of the planet must be avoided.

Now, donor exhaustion is setting in across the developed world, yet countries rich and poor must come together to resolve the ongoing global crisis. No one country can isolate itself from the repercussions from humanitarian catastrophes.