The Iran war is a “food security time bomb” that will go off this summer and exacerbate an already perilous situation in the wake of global aid cuts, the CEO of the International Rescue Committee said.
David Miliband told Semafor World Economy that the war “couldn’t have come at a worse time,” saying that there were 122 million people displaced and 170 million facing food crisis even before it began.
A third of the world’s fertilizer goes through the Strait of Hormuz, the former British foreign secretary said: “West Africa needs the fertilizer today and it’s not there.”
A 50% cut in humanitarian aid over the last year already means “$40 billion has been taken away from the poorest people in the world,” but the war has made that worse, not least because the world’s hub for humanitarian supplies is in Dubai. “All of the medical and other equipment that’s there, including $130,000 of medical supplies to go to Sudan — the world’s worst humanitarian crisis — is stuck,” Miliband said.
There are ways to improve the aid system even without more money, he said: “90% of people in humanitarian need live in 20 countries; 26% of the aid budget goes to those 20 countries.” An “enormous reshuffle” is needed “to focus the aid in the places that need it most.”