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A global pullback in aid funding by the US and other wealthy nations has left the world with “more shocks, fewer shock absorbers,” International Rescue Committee President David Miliband said Tuesday at Semafor’s The Next 3 Billion in New York.
Some 700,000 people have lost their lives in the past 18 months as a result of the cuts, the head of the global aid organization said, citing a Boston University study. Some 300 million are currently facing hunger, as overlapping crises ranging from Ebola to an estimated 65 ongoing wars exacerbate humanitarian need worldwide.
“When we look at the death toll of civilians in conflict around the world, you can see that this is an age of impunity,” Miliband said.
The US-Iran war has compounded what feels to frontline staff and those it serves like “a world that’s coming apart at the seams,” Miliband said, citing World Food Programme figures that found the Iran conflict has pushed a further 45 million people into food scarcity.
He pointed to the disruption of fertilizer supplies triggered by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz — through which a quarter of the world’s fertilizer once passed — leading to critical supply shortages and soaring costs for farmers.
The IRC has “unsuccessfully” called for a humanitarian corridor to allow fertilizer through, according to Miliband.
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The fallout from US President Donald Trump’s aid cuts have led the IRC itself to shrink dramatically in the past year and a half, from 18,000 employees to 12,000, with operating revenues down from $1.5 billion to around $1.1 billion. As such the organization is focused on “doing more on the innovation front, more on cost effectiveness and cost efficiency,” Miliband said.
He pointed to the potential of AI to streamline and personalize aid interventions such as the use of LLMs to diagnose Mpox in the DRC from photographs of lesions with 98% accuracy. There are 200 rare diseases, mainly in Africa, that technology can help to address, he said.