COVID-19 AND THE HUMANITARIAN WORLD

COVID-19 AND THE HUMANITARIAN WORLD

By Shahbaz Israr Khan

Covid-19 has gripped the world in pan-crisis with remarkable impact on world affairs and has/ will impact the humanitarian interventions across the world. In this article I hereby present humanitarian sector dilemmas related to Covid-19 situation which has impacted and will further impact the humanitarian programs across the world and need to be addressed on priority basis.

Firstly, Covid-19 impact on world's economy has already started taking its toll on humanitarian budget by donor countries and decrease in contributions by individuals leading to new perceived program priorities, for instance in Africa malaria program and other diseases are highly impacted due budget cuts, re-routing of funds to Covid interventions domestically and overburdened health systems. Covid has to be prioritized but should not be on the expense of other diseases like malaria, Tuberculosis and Hiv which kill hundred thousand each year (https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2214-109X%2820%2930288-6). In one of the recent field assessments, I met hospitals/ Integrated health structures with complete rupture of malaria treatment and lack of diagnostic kits in malaria season. In one of the health facilities, we found that there were no malaria treatment/ diagnostic stocks and a two-year-old child was only given paracetamol; as our team tested the child, he was malaria positive, the nurse informed that he has nothing but paracetamol and no kits. In already vulnerable population, malaria and other diseases will cause havocs.

Secondly, shrinking funds has already led to defining new priorities and in some cases reduced activities with some prominent international organizations closing their humanitarian programs (https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/may/20/oxfam-to-close-in-18-countries-and-cut-1500-staff-amid-coronavirus-pressures). Based on current trends it can be stipulated that the reduction of humanitarian funds will further takes its tool across the humanitarian organizations.

Thirdly, the human resource mobility and duty of care is a critical issue in the current Covid apocalypse. Already, the field activities have decreased and many field workers are unable to arrive to the field and others are working from home, which has impacted the effective implementation, monitoring/ evaluation of activities. In my recent project, there were gaps in essential positions and each one of us was doing multitasking and covering multiple positions. Such situations can easily lead to burnouts of existing human resource in the field due to overstretching to cover field gaps. On the flip side, we included more our national staff in planning and organization of the activities and realization that national staff capabilities needs to be further utilized_ a prospect that needs to decolonize our concept of humanitarian support.

Fourthly, psychologically humanitarians working in highly insecure contexts are already stressed and Covid adds another complexity. I interacted several humanitarian workers both in the field and while travelling back to home in Covid times. There were concerns all around:

i)                What if the dear ones got ill at home, will I be able to travel to home?

ii)              What will happen if I got infected with COVID and unable to arrive home? Most organizations have medical evacuation policies but are highly complicated during the Covid times;

iii)             What will happen if I will get stuck on my transit due to cancellation of flights to my home country? One of our colleagues actually got stuck in Addis for 10 days at airport due to cancellation of onward-flights. It was psychologically very challenging to be stuck inside the airport for such a long time.   

There is no magic bullet to above mentioned issues as all of us are new to such a different world. Some recommendations to deal the above-mentioned problems are:

-        Programing in the new financial and epidemiological context has to be done in a holistic manner; instead of cuts on/ reduction of ongoing programs, organizations should review internal financial inefficiencies and high bureaucratic expenses. Funds must reach to the beneficiaries rather spending on HQ expenses, lucrative salaries, luxurious buildings and high paid consultants as is the norm of many international organizations.

-        More national/ local funding possibilities to be explored.

-        In current situation, the humanitarian sector has to strategize effective implementation of programs according to humanitarian priorities without deprioritizing ongoing interventions to neutralize the Covid drainage impact on killer diseases.

-        Psycho-social support to existing field workers should be consolidated.

-        International organizations should readopt the monitoring systems (inclusion of strong community-based models) and mobile feedbacks.

-        In light of new field reality and organize advocacy with governments on access of humanitarian workers in the field (UN under banner of WFP has already started flights but cannot match the overall demand in the field in addition to layers of transit complexities and daily changing immigration rules of different countries). 

-        I have always been advocating the empowerment of national staff and involvement in decision making processes to avoid colonial approaches, such a situation as Covid further consolidates the argument that nationalization of key positions and involving national staff in key decision-making process is important for the continuity of operations and avoid above mentioned issues. 

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