Mizzima
UN OCHA has highlighted Myanmar and Afghanistan in its annual global report entitled Global Humanitarian Overview 2024 released on 11 December 2023.
It says that in 2024, nearly 300 million people around the world, including more than 18 million people in Myanmar, will need humanitarian assistance and protection, due to conflicts, climate emergencies and other drivers.
For Asia and the Pacific, the overview says: “Asia and the Pacific is the most disaster-prone region in the world, highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and natural hazards. In 2022, over 140 disasters struck the Asia-Pacific region, affecting over 64 million people and leading to over 7,500 deaths. Nearly 80 percent of the world’s climate-induced displacement happens in Asia and the Pacific, mostly triggered by climate-related and geological hazards such as monsoon rains, floods, tropical cyclones, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and landslides. As a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), disasters cause more damage in Asia-Pacific than in any other region, and the gap appears to be widening. Last year alone, disasters in the region caused economic damages estimated at US$57 billion.
Asia-Pacific is also home to several conflicts and protracted crises, with 7 million refugees and asylum seekers and some 5 million internally displaced people. The region hosts the world’s largest refugee settlement in the Cox’s Bazar District of Bangladesh where one million Rohingya refugees continue to rely entirely on humanitarian assistance for protection, food, water, shelter and health. The crises in both Afghanistan and Myanmar continue to deteriorate, with significant impacts on the humanitarian situation in both countries, and the potential for repercussions across the region as civilians continue to flee conflict and instability. Small-scale and localized conflicts also characterise some countries in the region, including the Philippines and Papua New Guinea, with significant humanitarian impacts.
PROTRACTED CRISIS
Myanmar remains a complex, protracted protection crisis, UN OCHA notes. The people of Myanmar continue to face an unprecedented human rights, humanitarian and political emergency that is posing grave protection risks for civilians, limiting access to vital services including health and education, and
driving deep food insecurity. Humanitarian needs have worsened across the country as conflict continues to rage, causing unprecedented levels of displacement, destruction of property and livelihoods, and mine and other explosive ordnance contamination, especially in the Northwest and Southeast. This has created dire protection threats and underscores the need for the centrality of protection to be implemented and funded across the response. The use of heavy weapons, including air strikes and artillery fire, continues to claim lives and pose risks to the safety and security of civilians, while raids, random searches and arrests are of deep concern. Forced recruitment – including of children – is being increasingly reported.
MANY IN NEED
In 2024, 18.6 million people are in humanitarian need. This is almost 19 times the number prior to the military takeover and equivalent to a third of the population. This includes 6 million children, who are bearing the brunt of this crisis. The spread of conflict has driven unprecedented displacement, with the number of IDPs steeply increasing to 2 million as of 23 October 2023, which is nearly 600,000 more than at the same time last year. There are fears that this trend will continue into 2024. More than one million IDPs are being hosted in the hard-to-reach Northwest alone. IDPs are living in terrible conditions without proper shelter, often in informal sites in the jungle where they cannot easily access basic services, such as clean water. The monsoon in the second half of 2023 has been particularly miserable for people in these informal sites. Those on the move in unfamiliar locations are at escalating risk from explosive ordnance (landmines, explosive remnants of war and improvised explosive devices). People living in protracted displacement, from conflicts prior to the military takeover, are also facing desperate situations with pre-existing vulnerabilities further compounded by the current situation and Cyclone Mocha, particularly for stateless Rohingya people. Extremely severe Cyclone Mocha hit the Myanmar coast on 14 May 2023, bringing wind gusts of up to 305 km/h, storm surge and accompanying heavy rains, and impacting more than 3 million people in an area where needs were already high.
FOOD INSECURITY
Heading into 2024, 12.9 million people are moderately or severely food insecure, with food accessibility and availability presenting challenges. Agriculture has been heavily interrupted. Soaring poverty is making it difficult for households to put adequate food on the table and coping capacity is stretched to the limit. As a result of conflict, rights violations, and the adoption of negative coping strategies, more than 12.2 million people are considered to have protection needs, up from 11.5 million the previous
year. Despite the dire humanitarian situation of affected people, including IDPs, the military-led State Administration Council has continued to control and limit the transportation of rice, medicine, and fuel, as well as humanitarian access to people in need throughout many parts of the country, but particularly in the Northwest and Southeast. Heavy fighting between ethnic armed organizations and the Myanmar Military in the final quarter of 2023 has driven surging displacement and further constrained access to people in need.
CONCERNS OF COLLAPSE
The combination of the considerable underfunding of the response, inflation, access restrictions and interruptions to services has resulted in many needs going unaddressed and worsening over time. There is a serious threat that basic services will collapse throughout the country. Since the military takeover many children are still not attending school. More than 30 per cent of school-age children are not enrolled in any form of learning, while half of the children has had their learning heavily disrupted for the past three years due to conflict, displacement, economic hardships, and natural disasters. While efforts are underway to support alternative education solutions, these are currently only reaching a fraction of children. This situation places children at much higher risk of negative coping mechanisms such as child labour, trafficking, and early marriage and reduces the likelihood of permanent disengagement from education the longer it goes on. The health sector is facing similar strain, with interruptions due to conflict, attacks on health structures and staff, funding, availability of medical supplies and pressure on people not to use public services. This is contributing to worsening maternal and child health outcomes, missed routine immunizations and poor emergency care for pregnant women. While ethnic and community health organizations and alternative private services are working to cover gaps, response capacity is not commensurate with needs. Private providers are also too expensive for many people amid the current economic distress.
UN OCHA RESPONSE PRIORITIES FOR 2024
In 2024, humanitarian partners will work towards the following strategic objectives:
Protection risks and needs are identified, monitored, mitigated, and met for 3 million people, while the centrality of protection is upheld across the humanitarian response including through promotion of respect for human rights, international humanitarian law and humanitarian principles.
Suffering, morbidity, and mortality is prevented or reduced among 3.7 million displaced, returned, stateless and other crisis-affected people experiencing or at risk of food insecurity, malnutrition, and health threats.
At least 2.5 million returned, stateless and other crisis-affected people have safe, tailored, timely and dignified access to essential services and support to ensure their survival and prevent deterioration of their humanitarian needs.
The HRP target of 4.5 million at the start of 2023 went up to 5 million post-Cyclone Mocha in May 2023, and has now modestly increased to 5.3 million in 2024. The new target amounts to 29 per cent of the total People in Need (PiN) of 18.6 million people. Given the centrality of protection to the crisis, the Protection Cluster is largely driving the overall increase in people targeted for humanitarian assistance, as the Cluster expanded its target significantly from 2.1 million to 3 million. Overall, there is a high correlation between the intensity of security incidents, the severity of needs and subsequent targeting decisions under the HNRP.
There is a high correlation between the intensity of security incidents, the severity of needs and subsequent targeting decisions under the HNRP OCHA
Given the sheer magnitude of the PiN, the funding landscape, and capacity constraints, the HCT prioritized the response according to severity of needs and operational capacity.
More focus on IDPs, returnees/resettled/integrated IDPs, and non-displaced stateless people and less on the fourth population group “ –other crisis-affected people.”
More focus on hard-to-reach rural areas and those with the most severe needs, while being realistic about potential reach, given access and capacity constraints.
Resilience, DRR, most prevention and basic social services-type activities have been transferred to the development objectives outlined in the soon to be finalized UN Transitional Cooperation Framework (TCF) for Myanmar to allow for greater focus on acute needs by humanitarians. The HNRP will include a dedicated section looking at “humanitarian consequences if development actors fail to raise enough funds.”
The Myanmar humanitarian funding requirement went up from US$764 million at the start of 2023, to $887 million after Cyclone Mocha in May 2023, and now to US$994 million in 2024. The latest increase is the result of the more ambitious 2024 response target, the rise in costs of delivering assistance in hard-to-reach and insecure areas, as well as the inclusion of duty of care overheads for the first time. Inflation continues to play a major role in the costing of commodity-heavy clusters, especially where no alternatives are available in-country and cash is not viable.
Humanitarians have planned for the current situation to continue into 2024 with the potential for elections, if they take place, to be a possible trigger for increased tensions and further access restrictions. While there have been modest access openings in 2023, these were very localized, and the overall access environment is expected to remain heavily constrained, requiring a strong reliance on, and risk sharing with, local responders who are now the backbone of the response. Humanitarian operating space is under increasing threat from bureaucratic blockages imposed by the military-led State Administration Council around registration, travel, banking, and visas and continued advocacy will be required around the impacts of these constraints on the humanitarian response. Humanitarians will continue to engage with all parties in a bid to secure access, promote principled responses that are based on needs and raise civilian protection issues.
