Could the world’s worst humanitarian crisis get even worse?

The war campaign in Yemen has become a quagmire for the Saudis and their allies, who have killed thousands in bombing raids but have failed to recapture much of the country. Meanwhile, the health- care system has virtually collapsed, along with food supplies, making millions of Yemenis dependent on international aid.

The world’s worst humanitarian crisis may be about to get much worse. Some 8 million people are on the brink of famine and the worst cholera epidemic in history is raging, and now the country’s most important port has become the target of a new offensive in the three-year-old civil war. Forces backed by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are seeking to cut off and eventually capture Hodeida, a city of 700,000 that is the entry point of 70 percent of the aid shipments keeping millions of civilians alive.

The Saudis and some advocates in Washington contend that if Hodeida’s port could be seized from the Houthis, aid shipments would improve, while the smuggling of Iranian missiles would stop. But aid groups see it differently. The offensive, they say, is likely to meet stiff resistance, and even if successful could take weeks or months. Any sustained interruption in shipping to Hodeida could tip the country into famine — and make it virtually impossible to combat the spread of cholera, which has already infected more than 1 million people.

[Washington Post]

The US has lost track of 1,500 immigrant children that they separated from their parents

At a Senate hearing earlier this month, US Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Trump Administration policy will refer everyone caught crossing the border illegally for prosecution, even if they are claiming they deserve asylum or have small children. Any parents who are prosecuted as a result will be separated from their children in the process.

In April, a New York Times investigation estimated that more than 700 children, including 100 under the age of 4, had been taken from their parents at the southern border since October, citing federal Department of Homeland Security officials. The U.S. government then places these children into the homes of sponsors or caregivers.

While testifying before a Senate subcommittee on April 26, Steven Wagner, acting assistant secretary for the Administration for Children and Families, said the Office of Refugee Resettlement was not able to account for the whereabouts of 1,475 migrant children it had placed.

Now President Donald Trump is blaming Democrats for his administration’s controversial policy of taking children away from parents caught unlawfully crossing into the United States with them, a practice the White House says is a deterrent to illegal immigration.

The president’s criticism of the “horrible” policy comes less than a month after U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a “zero tolerance” approach to illegal border crossings. “If you are smuggling a child then we will prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you as required by law,” he warned.

Trump’s tweet came a day after Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., attacked his policy of splitting up children and parents. “There are many ways to describe the @realDonaldTrump policy of ripping children away from their parents at the border. It violates human rights laws. It is unAmerican. It would shock Jesus. But I think the most appropriate way to describe it is this: The policy is evil,” Lieu tweeted.

[ABC News]

Urgent humanitarian needs in the occupied Palestinian territory

The Humanitarian Fund for the occupied Palestinian territory announced the release of US$3.9 million to address urgent water, sanitation, shelter and protection needs in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt).

“The humanitarian response to the crisis is among the worst-funded globally this year,” said the Humanitarian Coordinator, Mr. Jamie McGoldrick. “With this allocation, we ensure that humanitarian partners have the resources to respond to some of the most urgent needs, but this is a stop-gap measure only and much more is needed.”

The 2018 Humanitarian Response Plan, which requires $540 million in funding, is currently only 16 per cent funded.

Over 75 per cent of the allocation targets needs in the Gaza Strip, where the already-dire humanitarian situation has been exacerbated since March 30, 2018 due to a massive rise in Palestinian casualties in the context of demonstrations.

The oPt HF is an emergency pooled fund supported in 2017 and 2018 by Belgium, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey. It is managed by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and its allocation aim is to support highly vulnerable Palestinians.

[OCHA]

Affordable antibiotics for antimicrobial resistance

The international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) welcomes the launch of the Global Research & Development (R&D) collaboration hub on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) announced at the World Health Organization’s World Health Assembly.

This German-led collaboration between governments, donors, and various stakeholders aims to promote research on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and encourage the creation of new and affordable antibiotics, diagnostics, and vaccines to help combat the global resistance crisis. This hub could help ensure that investments in AMR are needs-driven rather than profit-driven.

“MSF has been witnessing, with alarming regularity, the challenges caused by antimicrobial resistance in our clinics—from war-wounded Syrians undergoing reconstructive surgery in Jordan to burn patients in Haiti to newborn babies in Pakistan to patients with MDR-TB in South Africa, India, and Eastern Europe.

“We are encouraged by the launch of the Global R&D Hub on AMR, which could be an important catalyst to address the urgent need for medical tools for use by people in real-life conditions to tackle the worldwide AMR crisis. With more than half a million new cases each year and around a quarter of a million deaths, MDR-TB also needs to be a key focus of the Hub.

[MSF]

Taxing the world’s poor to give to the bureaucrat

The 10 percent of the world’s population still consuming $1.90 or less a day are subsisting on a small fraction of the resources available to people at the US poverty line.

In the rich world, even in the United States, government tax and transfer systems like welfare payments reduce the gap between rich and poor. But in the world’s poorest countries, taxes are less progressive, financial transfers are much smaller, and—with the bulk of social spending soaked up by broken health and education systems—the net effect is often to leave people poorer than they started.

Tax regime in many developing countries isn’t very progressive—taxing the rich a similar percentage of their income as the poor. That’s because the revenue authorities tend to rely on indirect taxes like VAT—which fall on all consumers—rather than direct taxes on high personal or corporate incomes. So poor people lose a similar proportion of their income to the government as do rich people. The impact of government can thus be to increase poverty rates.

In four of the five sub-Saharan African countries where CEQ data is available, the net effect of taxes and transfers is to increase the number of people living below the World Bank’s extreme poverty line. (In Tanzania, for example, poverty is nearly 20 percent higher due to taxes and transfers.)

Eradicating global poverty will require decades of sustained economic growth, and a state capable of delivering high-quality education and health services to all. But in the short term, just making the current system of taxes and transfers slightly more progressive would be—on a technical level—a pretty easy fix for poverty and inequality in many countries.

[Center for Global Development]