Creon Butler
Creon Butler, I’m the Director of the Global Economy and Finance Programme here at Chatham House, and I’m very pleased to welcome everyone here today, particularly to today’s topic: Conflict, Climate and Extreme Poverty, with David Miliband. And we really couldn’t have a better person to talk about these subjects than David. As President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee, David oversees the agency’s humanitarian and relief efforts in more than 40 war affected countries, and is also – his agency also overlooks refugee settlement and assistance programmes in, I think, 29 US cities, and before…
David Miliband
And in the UK.
Creon Butler
And in the UK, very good. And before taking up his current role, he served as the UK’s Foreign Secretary from 2007 to 2010, and also as Secretary of State for the Environment before that, at a point where actually, being Secretary of State for Environment meant you negotiated international climate agreements and so on, in a way that I don’t think it’s the case now, but environment had climate at that stage, as I recall.
David Miliband
Yeah, but we were in the EU then. That takes us into a whole…
Creon Butler
Sure, okay, fair enough.
David Miliband
…different…
David Miliband
To the extent that the UK had.
David Miliband
We can spend the next hour on Brexit, but…
Creon Butler
To the extent that the UK had influence on the policy that was taken, it was through your department, as I believe, at least is my recollection. So, just a few quick housekeeping points. First of all, we are actually able to go through to six o’clock this evening rather than 5:45. David is going to give some initial remarks for about 20/25 minutes, and then, we’ll move to a conversation and then we’ll open it up for Q&A with the audience. So, do please be thinking about your questions, comments, but also, please be thinking about how you can express them in a short and punchy way so we can get in as much debate and dialogue as possible.
When it comes to that, if you are in the room, the key is to put your hand up and then someone will come to you with a mic for you to ask your question. And if you are online, I will see the questions come up on the laptop here, and I’ll aim to try and get a mix of both, in the room and online. We’re going to be livestreamed and I believe there’ll be a recording after the event, and I think also, your speech will probably – your remarks will be available, as well. So, with that, David, may I hand over to you?
David Miliband
Thank you very much, Creon. Thank you very much to all of you for coming. It’s – remote has all sorts of advantages, but thank goodness people still come to meetings and are in the same room together. There’s something extra about that. I’m short and punchy. So, I will be 15 to 20 minutes, not 25 minutes, and then that will leave as much time as possible for us to have a conversation about what is a complicated topic, but one which I believe is very, very urgent, indeed.
I should have said at the beginning, it’s nice to be back at Chatham House. The last time I was here, in November 2022, I was talking about the UK’s role in the world, and while I will end with that in respect of this issue today, I’m going to focus my remarks on some of the poorest and most vulnerable parts of the world. Places that are racked by conflict, but are also in the top quartile of climate vulnerable countries. And I’m going to argue that business as usual is failing these countries twice over, and I’ll make some suggestions about what we can do about it.
And just to frame this, Creon, you mentioned that 15 years ago or more now, I was Secretary of State for the Environment. I was lucky enough to be Secretary of State for the Environment at a time when the parties were competing to expand and extend their commitments. When Tony Blair appointed me as Environment Secretary, he said, “Can’t have the Tories setting the agenda on this. You’re going to have to – we need to make sure that we’re ahead of the game.” And we’re in a very different situation now and we might get into why that is, but I want to make a different point about the change in the debate since 2006/7.
When I was Secretary of State for the Environment, it was almost as though to talk about adaptation to climate change meant giving up or somehow conceding or diluting your commitment to mitigate climate change, to fight climate change. But now mitigation efforts have been – have not gone far enough or fast enough to prevent the rise in the parts per million of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from about 370 in 2006/7 to now 440, I think. Obviously the 1.5 degrees was breached last year. And so, while we need a significantly sharper downward curve in respect of decarbonisation, we can’t ignore the need for adaptation, especially in some of the poorest countries in the world, and those are places where the IRC works.
We are unusual as a humanitarian agency in only working either where there is crisis or the threat of crisis, conflict and disaster, or where there are people sheltering from conflict and disaster. And if you look at somewhere like the Central Sahel, temperatures are rising there 50% faster than in the rest of the world, and that’s a clue to a foundational element of my argument today, because I think many of you will know that it’s become commonplace among the national security community to argue that the climate crisis is a threat multiplier. It feeds conflict, and I want – I’ll show today how there are some new statistics that underpin that point, but I also want to make the point that the climate crisis is an inequality multiplier, and I’ll bring you some new statistics on that, as well.
I talk at the moment about the fact that we’re living in a ‘flammable world’. More people fleeing from conflict than at any time since records began, more civil wars counted now in the – more than 50 civil wars going on at the moment, and this is both literally a flammable world, wildfires, but metaphorically, it’s a flammable world as well. And the countries that I’m going to focus on today are at the intersection of conflict and climate crisis. Our analysis finds that 16 countries, 16 climate vulnerable countries, are also conflict affected. Sudan, Myanmar, Syria, Somalia as four examples, and these countries represent 43% of all people living in extreme poverty, 44% of all people affected by natural disasters and 79% of all people in humanitarian need. There are 330 million people in humanitarian need. So, you’ve got this overlap between conflicts and climate crisis, and you’ve got a concentration of acute poverty in those places.
Now, the trends are towards a deepening of the overlap and a deepening of the extreme poverty. Three decades ago, 44% of conflicts happened in climate vulnerable states. Now, it’s more than two thirds, and while the rest of the world has cut extreme poverty by over half since the 1990s, extreme poverty has grown by more than half in fragile and conflict affected states. This is what I call the new geography of poverty. It’s also a new geography of crisis, and these countries are among the least supported internationally by aid flows, but they’re also seeing the greatest amount of money sucked out of them by changes in the global macroeconomic environment. I just wanted to give you some further statistics. I hope you’re taking notes. There’ll be a test on these statistics later.
African countries are diverting or spending between two and 5% of GDP to cover just extreme climate events. When the COVID pandemic hit, many of you will know that African countries were spending more on interest payments on the debt then than on healthcare. But that debt spending has only risen because interest rates have risen, as well. Larry Summers and his colleagues in the G20 Expert Panel have reported earlier this year that over $200 billion was taken out of developing country budgets to pay for interest payments on debts just in 2023. And also in 2023, African governments spent 50 times more on external debt payments than the entire UK aid budget.
It’s also worth noting that the share of G7 aid going to Africa today is at its lowest point in 50 years. So, you’ve got a number of trends here that find their most acute pain point in some of the most vulnerable people in the world who are suffering both from conflict and from the climate crisis, and they’re being hit both economically and politically.
I just want to spend a little bit of time pointing out three problems with the way in which the aid system, the business as usual aid system, is trying to finance climate action, humanitarian response and poverty alleviation in fragile states. I would describe the approach at the moment as disjointed and incoherent. Here are the three problems. First of all, the lack of appropriate delivery models. Climate and development finance often flows where it is easiest to deliver, through national governments in stable countries. So, this is an obvious problem for conflict afflict – affected countries in particular who often live beyond the reach of governments control or influence. In fact, World Bank funds are often allocated to these conflict affected states, but then not dispersed. The spend rate is about 50%, I think I’m right in saying, in these rates, even of money that’s been allocated.
Secondly, the policy response at ground level to the climate crisis, to adaptation to the climate crisis, has been lacking. It’s not just that we estimate a 75% annual gap between adaptation support that’s needed and what’s actually offered to the 16 countries I mentioned caught at the intersection of conflict and climate crises. Where climate and development investments do exist, they rarely assess and adapt to conflict risks, limiting their effectiveness in these settings. And with crises increasingly protracted, remember, the most likely outcome of a civil war is renewed fighting, so with crises increasingly protracted, humanitarians are stepping in to deliver services without the long-term commitments and infrastructure that all of development economics will tell you is necessary.
And then thirdly, there is a chronic inequality in access to financial resources for people in these countries. 90% of climate financing, international climate financing, flows to middle and high income, high emission producing countries. For what’s leftover, and this is staggering, really, the more fragile a country is, the less climate finance it gets, according to UNDP, United Nations Development Programme statistics. The International Crisis Group estimates that conflict affected communities receive one third of the adaptation funding that people in non-conflict settings receive on a per capita basis. So, this is the policy conundrum that needs to be addressed, and in a way, it’s a political conundrum too, because the danger that you’re always robbing Peter to pay Paul in this situation is real. And I want to address what to do, how to fund it and then thirdly, how to deliver it, before I get onto some suggestions about what the UK could do to try and kick-start this forward or kick-start its own role in addressing this.
First of all, when it comes to what to do, I think it’s really important to recognise that we have to shift the debate about how climate is affecting communities from a focus on how it’s affecting land to how it’s affecting people, because too often, the people are missed out. We’ve seen important advances in science and technology required to respond to the climate crisis, but there’s a big gap between those advancements and how they’re used to improve the lives of the most vulnerable people, and I want to give you a couple of examples of that.
So much humanitarian finance, there’s about $50 billion a year, is spent on humanitarian finance. Hardly any of it anticipates crisis. It’s all reactive, effectively. The German Government is the only government that set a target for the percentage of its humanitarian aid budget that should go on what’s called anticipatory action, in other words, before the event. And this is doubly infuriating when you look at some of the results that we’ve produced in our own randomised controlled trial in northern Nigeria, which compared what happens if you give victims of a flood cash assistance before the flood, you can use the weather patterns to give at least a week’s notice. What’s the difference if you give people the money before the flood versus the other side of the valley, you give the money after the flood? It won’t surprise you if you just think about our own lives, those who got the money in advance of the flood were able to protect their livelihoods, protect their livestocks and be able to be in a position to recuperate much more effectively.
The second example of where, in the richer parts of the world, we know what’s necessary but it’s not being done. Conflict interferes with harvesting and planting, but so does the climate crisis. We’re running a programme in northeastern Syria, but also in Pakistan, in Niger, and in South Sudan, to work with local Farmers on innovative ways to strengthen resilience, quality and yield of crops through a seed strengthening programme, one which has never been tried in a conflict state before. By identifying and scaling production of high yielding and climate resilient seeds, it’s possible to build a more sustainable food system, which has obvious implications for the health of the population, never mind for its income.
And the third example of where we need to bridge the gap between understanding what climate does to land and what it’s doing to people, is some work that we’re doing in the Lake Chad Basin, where – which is obviously a conflict area, as well as an area of extreme climate stress. We are developing a package of services that address urgent humanitarian needs, health, food security, nutrition, services for women and girls, with programmes to support resilience to climate impacts and longer term economic opportunities in sustainable farming, to help the hardest to reach populations. Our intention is not to mitigate people movement, but it’s obviously worth saying that where livelihoods are protected, there’s a common sense implication for how much people movement there is in the future. So that’s how we think about what to do.
Secondly, how to fund it, and I’ll maybe leave some of these for the discussion. The focus of negotiations under the COP, the Conference of the Parties, the UN Conference of the Parties, framework, is about the new Collective Quantified Goal, and there are a range of other funds, Green Climate Fund, loss and damage fund. But the point I want to make here is that for the 16 countries that we are talking about today, or that I’m talking about today, the World Bank’s IDA programme, International Development Association Finance, is one of the few sources of grants. There are some highly concessional loans, but in the conflict states, frankly, a loan based system is not going to deliver the kind of financial support that’s necessary. You need the grants, but there’s a replenishment round underway at the moment, and IDA is in desperate competition with all sorts of other pressing needs, but without a robust replenishment of the I – of the World Bank’s IDA Fund, we’re going to be struggling to get anything like the kind of investment that’s necessary.
However, the point I want to put to you is that more money for IDA is not in itself enough, because IDA goes to – not just to those 16 countries. It doesn’t just go to the fragile and conflict states. And we’ve been playing over the last, I would say, year, with the idea that we need a new set of decision rules that force funding into the most fragile places. The UN Secretary-General has a goal that 50% of international climate finance should go towards adaptation and 50% towards mitigation. We think that we need a sub-target within that for the most vulnerable places, and we’ve been thinking about how the various climate funds could drive funding to these most exposed places.
The idea that we’ve come up with is that the UNFCCC, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, should formally recognise the adaptation gap that exists in these conflict affected states, particularly that its new climate finance targets in this Collective Quantified Goal that I mentioned and support the development of improved and more accurate nationally determined contributions and national action plans in these fragile states. And just to put a number on it, we think that a target for climate vulnerable conflict affected countries should be that it receives 18% of all the adaptation finance that is available for developing countries to reduce the gap, and that’s based on our best assessment of costed needs. And so, this would ensure that there’s a potential for investment in these most vulnerable communities.
The third thing I said I’d say something about, I feel very strongly, is about delivery modalities in the most challenging places. And this issue of disbursement being challenging came home to me, actually, not in the climate space. We’ve been talking to Gavi, which is an outstanding institution, the Global Alliance on Vaccines and Immunisation, and they reached a plateau for immunisation of under five kids, about 85% of populations getting covered with immunisations. And the reason was that in the fragile and conflict states, the four that we’ve been working with them on, are Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia, they weren’t able to get into conflict affected areas because of the conflict. And they came to us and they said, “Look, we need a different delivery model,” and they gave us some significant – they gave us $50 million to find two million – two and a half million zero dose kids, and we’re about 18 months into the programme. One and a half million kids have received immunisation because areas that were considered inaccessible to government are accessible to civil society, humanitarian organisation that’s bound by principles of neutrality and independence.
And we think there’s a parallel in this climate conflict space when it comes to adaptation to climate change. And the priority is to shift from what is essentially a – it’s more or less an only government accepting exceptional circumstances approach to one that is much more people centred, with a much greater role for civil society. And we’ve been arguing in various publications that instead of the World Bank saying that in exceptional circumstances, they’ll work outside national government, it should become much more the norm that there are a range of different ways of working with civil society. And people sometimes say, “Yeah, but if you work through civil society rather than through government, it’s not sustainable. You’re going to have longer term dependence,” and I’ve been thinking about that. But when you think about our – just think about our own countries. We don’t think government monopolies are actually the right way to do many things. We look for public-private, public-NGO partnerships. Just think about the range of services that exist. And so, I think that there’s a real room for rethinking this delivery modality issue or the way in which delivery takes place in these most conflict and climate affected areas.
Now, I just want to finish up with, you couldn’t – I couldn’t – if I didn’t have three suggestions for the new government, you’d think I was being way too diplomatic. So, I just wanted to suggest three things that – three practical steps that the new government in the UK could take, understanding completely that global problems take global action. That we don’t need hubris about what the role of the UK should be, but we should be ambitious for the UK to play an appropriate role on massive global issues, like the ones that we’re talking about today. I do think that there’s been a decade or more when the UK’s been in retreat in the field of overseas aid, and that retreat could not have been worse timed, given the growth in humanitarian need that’s existed around the world over the last ten years. Here are three quick things.
First, in 1997, the DFID White Paper on International Development put tackling extreme poverty centre stage. Today, 15% of the UK Aid budget goes to fragile and conflict affected states. And we’re saying that the government should actually reinstate a target that existed in 2010 to 2015 of 50% of its overseas aid going to fragile and conflict states.
Second, I want to make a point about how climate adaptation can contribute to incomes and livelihoods. I think some people here will be familiar with the argument that ‘green jobs’ are an important product of mitigation efforts. When I was Secretary of State for the Environment, Nick Stern published his landmark report about how fighting climate change was actually cheaper than living with climate change, but the focus was on mitigation. I think there’s a very good argument that in the poorest communities, adaptation to climate change also has an economic dividend, and I think the UK could put itself at the front of that argument. There’s a proposed resilience and adaptation fund that really would be a very good vehicle for this.
And third, to come back to IDA, to the International Development Association of the World Bank, we know that the UK Government has pledged that the restoration of the commitment to 0.7% of GDP for overseas aid can only be achieved when economic conditions allow. But before then, IDA, the multilateral system, is a prime example of how the UK’s experience of service delivery and public service reform could go alongside financial investment to make money go further, and not just our money, but others, as well.
So, to finish up, of course, the UK cannot and should not offer a quick fix to these problems, but it needs to be part of the argument. As I argued two year – nearly two years ago here at Chatham House, we are still one of the world’s richest countries. We have platforms that are not available to others, and we have public bodies, private companies, and NGOs, with ideas and experience that are globally relevant, and there’s no better time to put them to good use than now. Thank you very much, indeed [applause].
Creon Butler
Brilliant. Well, David, thanks very much. There’s an enormous amount there to get into. What I’d like to do is to start, actually, with your points about the mechanism, the delivery mechanism, and so on, and then to, kind of, move on to finance from that. So, I mean, one of – as you rightly say, you know, this is an area that’s – you know, traditional MDBs, other development – official development institutions find difficult to get into, and so, you proposed, if you like, civil society as a route. But is that – and that may partly deal with the issue, but is there also a question of actually needing, you know, through some means, something that combines, if you like, the climate expertise, the security expertise and capabilities, and the anti-poverty expertise? So, some – and to the extent that you’ve got 16 countries on which you want to focus, is there a case for some mechanism and God forbid, a new institution, but some way of combining those official efforts in that space alongside, arguably, you know, a stronger civil society element, as well?
David Miliband
I tell you where I’ve ended up on, on this, partly ten years in the NGO sector, I’ve ended up thinking that creating new institutions is going to have more cooks in the kitchen, not actually produce better cooking. Let me abandon the metaphor, but the – what’s needed is real accountability for real outcome targets, and all of the bodies, public, private, multilateral, bilateral, national, local, that’s what’s needed to drive things forward. And without clear outcome targets, no amount of institutional tinkering will align the incentives and the drivers to actually get you there. I’m actually making a speech tomorrow about the UK Government’s missions, and one of the points I’ll make there is that, you need a coalition to deliver on every mission and an ambitious target is actually the way to unlock thinking and also, align actions. I think it is true in this space, as well.
So, when I think about the most – you know, northern Nigeria – first of all, it’s not for the UK or for the International Rescue Committee to come and say, this is what your targets are in northern Nigeria. There’s civil society, there’s government there, but as we think about what we’re doing, we should be aligning behind very simple, very clear, preferably outcome, if necessary output, targets. So, at the moment, we are not getting anything like that. In fact, we’ve got humanitarian and climate outcomes that are decided independently of each other. And so, I think I’m much more in the unified outcomes territory than the unified institution territory.
Creon Butler
I mean, there is – you know, the SDGs, if you like, are, at a much higher level, a sort of, pan…
David Miliband
Well, that’s a great point. I would say they’re…
Creon Butler
…institutional point, and then you’ve got platforms, as well. I mean, the various, sort of, platform ideas to get…
David Miliband
Yeah, but that is a…
Creon Butler
So, what more can you do than those type of approaches?
David Miliband
Well, I think there’s a very…
Creon Butler
Is it more detailed or…?
David Miliband
There’s a real contrast between the Millennium Development Goals, seven of them, and the Sustainable Development Goals, 18 of them, and it’s not just there’s 11 – 18 rather than seven. By going for incredibly expansive goals, we’ve lost the accountability for progress. And yes, they can be derived from the Sustainable Development, as they should be, but when the UN meets later this month in New York to look at progress against the SDGs, they’re going to be off track in a lot of places, post-COVID, etc., but they’re going to be most off track in these fragile and conflict states.
Creon Butler
Yeah. Let’s move into, sort of, finance question where you’ve highlighted the fact that, you know, the nature of conflict situations is that, you know, an MDB that lends long-term, it doesn’t really work. You need aid. You need, not, if you like, lending finance, but a grant finance. And, you know, that you – I think you were making a strong case that of whatever public international finance we have, more should be going to these conflict states.
David Miliband
Hmmm.
Creon Butler
But, you know, the reality is that, we need, for example, public international finance for low income, middle income countries, to enable them to accelerate the low carbon transition. And if that doesn’t happen, then the situation facing these countries is going to be worse and so on. And we know, as you say, there are these constraints, particularly on the advanced countries, in terms of how much public international finance they can come up with, and it’s unclear how much more you can get from the emerging economies and so on. So, the really hard question then, is, you know, is, if you have to trade off these things, what’s your case for putting this ahead of everything else in a world where the amount of public international finance is going to be limited, also?
David Miliband
Well, I don’t want to just make a debating point, but my case is that these people in these countries shouldn’t be left off.
Creon Butler
No.
David Miliband
I mean, they’re left out of the agenda at the moment. So, I’m saying they deserve their appropriate place. I’m not – when I use that 18% figure, I’m not saying they should have twice as much access. Now, one thing I didn’t get a chance to get into is taking more risk on delivery is an essential part of this. Otherwise, you won’t be able to spend the money. But I would argue the most risky thing is not to spend the money because then you’re not helping anyone, and that’s what’s happening at the moment.
Creon Butler
Yeah, and how do you create a more risk-taking delivery mechanism? Again, civil society may be one way into that, but that’s…
David Miliband
Well, I don’t want to sound like a one trick pony, but it’s about the outcomes that you demand, and Ajay Banga, the new leader of the World Bank, new President of the World Bank, he’s completely into this, he’s following the data. I mean, 50% of the extreme poor now live in these fragile and conflict states, and he’s saying to his teams, “I want to hold you accountable for how much progress you make in these places.” And of course, we’ve got compliance requirements and diligence and the rest of it, but if we’re not actually using all range of partners to make a difference there, we’re not even going to take the first step on the road to development.
And this – there’s a danger that we say, humanitarian aid is just a short-term palliative and development aid is long-term and the rest of it. If you’re immunising a kid, that’s a long-term investment in that kid. If you’re treating malnutrition, that’s a long-term investment in that kid, and that’s why I always say to people, “The humanitarian aid is the first step on the road to development.” Stopping things getting worse is actually the first step to helping them get better.
Creon Butler
Yeah. So, I have one more question, then I want to move to questions from the audience. So, please be thinking from your – about the points you want to raise. And this is really about you mentioned partners and partnerships, and one really, really crucial player in this, particularly in the area of debt distress, which you highlighted, is going to be China. I mean, it’s absolutely essential in a whole range of countries for tackling debt distress. But even in terms of, you know, broader sources of new grant finance, new development assistance to tackle climate change and so on, China’s going to be really crucial. And there are some indications that, after the initial Belt and Road, China is now actually more interested in sustainability, in the way it provides finance and so on.
But, you know, when you come and you say, well, okay, we should use more civil society, I’m not sure how Chinese colleagues would – Chinese development officials will react to that. So, what would – what’s your advice to the West on engaging with China on this particular agenda where there’s a strong mutual interest, but an awful lot of other issues that may get in the way of a collaborative approach?
David Miliband
Well, I think the first thing to say is that there is – there may be mutual interest, but there’s also competition. Let’s be honest about it, and I wrote a piece in Foreign Affairs 18 months ago that said that “Ukraine had united the West, but divided the West from the rest.” And when you look at countries, some of them autocratic, but some of them democratic, wanting to sit on the fence on Ukraine, my argument was that’s because they don’t want to get shoehorned into being on one side of this emerging bifurcation of the global economy, global politics. And there is a – there’s clearly a competition for influence, for access, and from my position, just to be absolutely frank about it, leading an NGO, I make the argument in the US and elsewhere, that there are strategic reasons why these countries should matter, not just moral reasons. So, I’m trying to ride that horse, and I don’t think it’s healthy for – it wasn’t healthy for poorer countries to be utterly dependent on the West, and it’s not – it’s certainly not healthy for them to be utterly dependent on China.
Secondly, I think we do have to recognise that the debt issue puts the Chinese position under scrutiny in a way that it really hasn’t been for a – ever. Because the questions that’s being asked, when I was in Pakistan last year, and China holds a very significant element of Pakistani debt and is basically being challenged by many in the Pakistani system, say, “Well, where are you on this?” And they haven’t got a good answer at the moment. There’s this Zambian case, which I’m not enough of an expert on – you don’t want. So, the debt one is the most acute and difficult.
Third and final point, and then we can go to questions. I was real – I was planning to be in Beijing and in Shanghai last October, precisely to talk about this, but purely from the NGO perspective. When I went to Beijing the year before and did a session at the Central Party School on humanitarian aid and the work in the International Rescue Committee, a lot of people came from the PLA, the People’s Liberation Army, because it was received as emergencies, train crashes, it’s earthquakes and things. I wanted to try – and I was framing it – I couldn’t go because after October the 7th, we were focused on what was going on in Gaza, so I couldn’t get that conversation going. But in a lot of the countries I’m talking about, China is a presence, and I think it’s really important to try and engage them because these global public goods that we’re talking about need Chinese engagement.
Creon Butler
Excellent. Okay, let’s get some questions. What I’d like to do is get a spread of questions from across the room. Let’s take three at a time. That’s brilliant. I can see a lady in a purple jacket there. If we could go to you first, please.
Eleonora G.
Hello. My name is Eleonora. I lead climate innovation at the United Nation Children’s Fund. Thank you so much for your remarks. I wanted to ask you about the role of young people in conflict affected states and in particular, what can we do as international community to better support the deployment at scale of climate innovations that are created by young people where they live? So, there is a lot of research that really points at the role of young innovators in the community, but there’s also research that has been done recently that shows that in the last 17 years, only 0.9% of the global funding has gone to these young innovators that are creating crucial, innovative solutions. So, what can we do to address that? Thanks.
Creon Butler
Excellent question. Thank you very much, and there’s a gentleman behind. If we could – we’ll go down the middle block. Thanks very much.
Nick Westcott
Thank you, Nick Westcott at SOAS. Could I follow up the last question about other international parties? Because, you know, we have from Mali in the west to Somalia in the east, an area where states are effectively disintegrating. But some of the external partners are quite happy with that and only want a government in power that will support them internationally, and it’s not just Russia. There are also nearby partners in the Middle East. What – how can we address that issue as humanitarians and try and get those partners to see this is counterproductive? Thank you.
Creon Butler
Thanks very much, and let’s see if there’s one more in the middle bank. There’s a – sorry, there’s a lady on the side here that’s – oh no, sorry, gentleman. Sorry, yeah, just there. Yeah, thanks.
Rob Merrick
Thank you. Rob Merrick from the development website, Devex. Hope you don’t mind if I asked a slightly parochial question, but you made some suggestions for the new UK Government. When it comes to international development, I sense a disappointment, perhaps, amongst lots of people. There isn’t enough fresh thinking, and obviously, it’s only two months into the new government. There’s not enough fresh thinking. Perhaps the message seems to be continuity with what came before, even though Labour criticised development for having been degraded under the Conservatives. Do you share that disappointment? Do you think there is enough fresh thinking in the new government when it comes to international development?
Creon Butler
Thank you.
David Miliband
Great, thanks. So, to start with Eleonora, I think that the best answer to you is to say three things. One, it’s not just young people who are being left out. One of the things I was going to highlight was the role of women-led enterprises too often left out, as well. Secondly, employ them, and we have 27,000 people working with the International Rescue Committee around the world, 97% are locally employed staff. So, our commitment is to open up our institution to local hiring. Thirdly, listen, not – at all levels of the organisation, the priority is to be as porous and open to ideas as possible. And we are in a situation now where for IRC, we are 3% of the global humanitarian budget, but we are 30% of all evidence making about what actually works, if you look at the number of research studies about what works in the humanitarian sector. And so, that involves opening up your interventions, your programmes, to rigorous scrutiny.
We’re also trying – and I haven’t got an example that immediately comes to mind. Jet lag’s got the better of me. But the – now, I think 60 or 70% of our country programmes around the world, customer surveys are an integral part of our performance improvement model. So, in other words, not just saying we’re open to listening, but going out to figure out where are your programmes going wrong and how can they get better? And we think that with the benefit of some of the technology we’re investing in, we can make this customer engage – client engagement is a better word than customer, client engagement much more systematic, because our clients in a way include a lot of the people that you’re talking about. So that’s to be the way I’d be thinking about it.
To Nick from SOAS, I mean, you know more about this than I do, Nick, so you should give the answer, certainly when it comes to West Africa. You said, “How can we” get these partners to see what they’re doing is counterproductive? I think that’s too high a bar to set. What I think we can do is just be zealous and transparent about what the humanitarian mission is. So, independence, neutrality, impartiality, humanity. You take the threat out of what you’re doing. And ironically, there’s suspicion from both sides, because I get people saying, “Hang on, if you’re doing all this work in Afghanistan, is that going to make the Taliban more popular?” We say, “Well, we’re driven by the humanitarian imperative.” And from the other side, there can be suspicion from non-state actors about, “Who are you?” Well, transparency about what the humanitarian mission is, is as far as we’ve got in figuring out. Because if you can get your – the local population on your side, that’s the best defence. Now that’s not a geopolitical answer to the problem that you’re raising.
Rob, thanks for your tempting question. I think the new government is doing excellent new thinking. Just to be – absolutely, absolutely fresh as a daisy, but as you intimated in your question, it’s a bit early to be accusing a government that’s been in for the two month. I’m excited about the Minouche Shafik review that’s taking place. She’s brings a wealth of expertise there, but I’m also excited that they want to move – the Ministers and officials, they want to move on. It’s not, like, everything has to wait for that. They’re engaged, got some meetings while I’m here this week, and so, I think that there’s a real opportunity and it’s almost the government’s spoiled for choice with where it has to put its efforts. The danger is that, whatever it chooses, it’ll be criticised because it hasn’t chosen someone’s favourite thing, but I think that there’s goodwill. There’s international interest in where the UK’s going to go, and I think that that’s – that there’s an opportunity to bring the policy brain back into the thinking in a positive way.
Creon Butler
Yeah, yeah. Can I – just on the, sort of, advice the government. I mean, the previous government had this, kind of, golden thread idea, and this is David Cameron in particular, that if you tackle governance generally in a supportive way as far as possible in countries, that you can hit many targets at the same time. So, you know, tackling corruption. Arguably, you could say that tackles climate change, it tackles poverty and it tackles conflict. To what extent do you think, if you were advising the new government, that they should give a strong role to this kind of thematic approach, or do you think it’s more – I mean, you’ve said unique, sort of, quantified targets across all the different actors, which, sort of, suggests something that is more – rather than a single track approach, a more, kind of, comprehensive, tackle all the things at the same time, but with targets.
David Miliband
Well, you can’t do everything at the same time, clearly, but – and clearly, corruption leeches support and confidence at all levels of the system. And people think that you’re talking about leeching of taxpayer support, but actually no-one knows more about corruption than people in countries where there’s a lot of corruption. You can’t legislate. You can’t spend your way to a – to tackle corruption. You’ve got to just work your way doing it, and we know some rules. We know some – we know how prestige national projects can be subject to much more corruption than locally embedded community-based work. I’d be interested in any evaluation of what happened after 2016 and what worked, but I don’t think it’s a quick fix.
Creon Butler
No, okay, good. Let’s get some more questions. Let’s move to this bank, and yeah, there’s a gentleman at the far back. Yeah, yeah, we can do both.
Jonny Singh
Hi, Jonny Singh, Chatham House member. Really interesting remarks, David. Thank you, and you talked a bit about the interplay between conflict and climate, obviously, but then there seems to be another element, which is migration and forced migration as a result of that nexus. So, I wonder if you’ve got any thoughts about how to support, not necessarily the conflict affected fragile states themselves, but the neighbours of those states, to manage migration flows.
Creon Butler
Excellent, and there’s a lady here. If we could come across here, that’s really good. Thank you.
Lianne
Hi, thank you. Lianne from the House of Commons. How would you suggest we bring this issue higher up the agenda at the UNFCCC COPs?
Creon Butler
Yeah, very good, and I have a question, actually combines two from the online, which is – they’re both similar in terms of your delivery mechanism. One is about the role of the private sector and businesses. To what extent can they play a role notwithstanding, if you like, the confidence issues, and also regional governments and, if you like, getting funding past the central government to the regional governments, local actors and so on. I mean, to what extent in your delivery model do you think these are helpful bits alongside the civil society?
David Miliband
Great questions. In America, people say a lot, “That’s a great question,” and it’s generally a way to buy some time to think of an answer. So, thank you Jonny, great question. At the – I’d say two things to you. First of all, I’m very leery about talking about ‘climate refugees’. Just because all the evidence so far is that people who are on the move are moving inside their own country as a result of the climate crisis, rather than crossing borders. So, I’m leery on that. But secondly – so, I don’t see the greatest pressure on, you said ‘neighbours’, coming from climate per se. I see it coming from conflict, and Sudan is the most terrible example of that at the moment, South Sudan, even CAR a little bit, certainly Chad. We’ve got operations in all those countries, and while there is the overlap between conflict and climate in Sudan and in the – I wouldn’t want to say it’s a climate refugee flow. And of course, you’ll know that more or less, there’s a straight line. The poorer the country, the more open it is to refugees coming in from next door, and it’s the richest countries which make the most fuss about refugees coming in the – Sudan is a recent example. Is it Leonna or…?
Lianne
Lianne.
David Miliband
Lianne, I’m sorry, Lianne. I think we should capitalise on the fact that the UAE Summit last December was the first time there’s been a peace conflict and climate day. There was a voluntary agreement that was signed up to by 126 countries. I mean, we’ve got to say that mustn’t just be the end of the process. Having a day of discussion achieves nothing. It comes back to my outcome, what’s going to happen as a result of it? And I think it would be great if the UK picked this up, but I’m pushing in the US, I’m trying to push in the EU as well. But the most powerful thing would actually be for the fragile and conflict states themselves to be saying, “Hang on, we can’t afford to be left out of this equation.” And they were left out of the loss and damage equation, actually, more or less, and I think it – the – that’s where we’re going to try and do some pushing.
On private sector and business, I don’t know about you, but a lot of people think that that question is about international business, and what I would say to people about fragile and conflict states is when you hear the phrase ‘private sector’, you need to think hyper-local, because the truth is persuading the big multinationals that they need to go to Yemen or Sudan or to Central African Republic is going to be very, very hard, but there is business there. It’s affected by sanctions regimes. We had a real argument about this after the Afghanistan pullout in 2021, and that’s where there’s often a sub-regional, you mentioned ‘regional’, there’s a sub-regional element that is important. I think from – my experience is only as far as we work with the grain of local systems that are too open – inter – private sector systems interrupted by conflict. But I’m worried sometimes I get invited to speak at panels about the private sector role in fragile and conflict states, and that is not going to be the cavalry for these most difficult places.
Creon Butler
And the, sort of, sub-regional governments and so on, the, sort of…?
David Miliband
Yeah, I mean, I think in the African continent, the UN has delegated its peace-making authority to the African Union’s Peace and Security Committee, so that it’s a major player. Sub-regional, if you think about the experience, Nick, you know about this from West Africa, the experience of the recent coups and how that’s worked with the sub-regional authorities, the sub-regional authority couldn’t hold the ring for all of its players in that context. We are very, very stretched in finding bandwidth for engage – most of our effort is local engagement. We do some engagement at the donor level. We struggle for bandwidth at the regional level.
Creon Butler
Yeah, okay, yeah, great. Let’s try this bank over here for some questions. There’s gentleman at the back, lady at the front, and then – so, yes, sir.
Ahmed Laheraitani
Hello, again. Ahmed Laheraitani, Young Ambassador for climate change from Morocco. And my question going back to the refugee – to the climate refugee question, as we know from an international law perspective, there is no definition for climate refugee, and now we start having the sea level rise on small island states, which led to a lot of movements of population. So, do you think – is there something that we could do for this legal framework from an international perspective? Thank you.
Creon Butler
Great, thank you. Lady at the front here. Yes, in the middle. Brilliant, thank you.
Lemma Shehadi
Hi, Lemma Shehadi from The National. How will the rise of the far right in Europe affect aid budgets, foreign aid budgets, and do you see the UK riding that wave?
Creon Butler
Interesting, thank you. Gentleman there, yeah.
Rob Nunn
Hello. Rob Nunn. Just on your points you were making about some of those, and in particular Africa, how much time do you think we have in order to combat this before it starts getting out of hand? Obviously, Africa’s the – about the only continent that will grow in population. So – and actually be majority of the populational growth of the world for the next 100 years. Is there a time in that equation where geopolitically we lose advantage, as the West? And also, not only from a geopolitical standpoint and from an aid standpoint, but also economically, if they are being invested in by countries that are perhaps hostile to our way of life, that the growth of their economies as they recover from the situations they’re in, start massively affecting us too?
David Miliband
Good, okay. On the legal framework, I – my basic view is, if we open up the legal framework, it’ll get worse, not better. So, the 1951 Refugee Convention has adaptability built into it because courts can interpret what it means to be not safe for you to go home, and that’s been expanded to include women on the run from domestic violence. It’s gone further than the political – the “well-founded fear of persecution” of 1951. And the idea of opening up a international negotiation of the legal framework, my fear is you’ll end up diluting it rather than improving it. But clearly, if – sea level rise can make your – can make it unsafe for you to go home. You know, that’s the – and so, I think that’s – whatever the academic argument, the practical argument, I think is – at this time of enormous geopolitical fragmentation, my fear is that the framework will get worse rather than better.
I think aid budgets are under enormous stress, disproportionate stress, I would say. You write for The National. There’s also a lot of questions being asked about those countries that have benefited over the last ten or 15 years from rising income. What are they putting into the global aid system? And certainly, through the multilateral system, it’s relatively low. There are bilateral efforts that are being made, but the fact that the aid system is disproportionately dependent on the traditional West is not a healthy thing, because it’s not only the traditional West that’s got economic power today.
But there is a real temptation, I think, for far right parties to weave together overseas aid and anti-cli – and scepticism about the climate crisis, and you’ve seen that in some of the continental European elections, not here. Yeah, so, I don’t see any evidence of – I think you said something about ‘riding the wave’ or something. I mean, I don’t – I think the government here are being principled and clear about that. But defending the European Union’s role and the EU and its member states’ role in the international sphere, I think is a really important thing. And there’s a quite – I mean, a difficult test case emerging about its Green Gateway and how that is – the Global Gateway and how that is funded and what happens to funding for humanitarian and poverty alleviation purposes.
On Rob’s question, look, there’s a new global politics now. There’s a man called Shashi Tharoor, who used to be at the UN. In 2006, he wrote about a ‘multi-aligned world’, and the point about a multi-aligned world, is that other countries have got choices and they’re making choices, and the – so, I don’t think it’s a matter of how much more time. The time’s gone, and there’s a new geography of politics as well as a new geography of poverty, and there’s a transactionalism and a fluidity in the global politics now that I think is today’s reality. And you see that when America finds that some of its allies are doing things that it didn’t expect and doesn’t want them to do. It sees different coalitions around the world, and I think we should see the writing on the wall.
Creon Butler
What’s your sense of how the, kind of, new players view this particular problem? So, the – if you like, the Indias, the Brazils, you know, big emerging economies with potential resources, you know, in a way that their approach to climate change more generally is certainly evolving. You know, the – it comes back to this point of, you know, is – how do you make this a shared problem beyond, if you like, the traditional aid donors and stuff?
David Miliband
Yeah, I mean, I really look to Nick Stern on this. He’s my teacher. He says, “Look, you should be optimistic about the Indian – you should be – you should understand how serious the Chinese are about this.” Brazil, the new Brazilian government, it’s hyper political there, but the new Brazilian Government is deadly serious about – but it’s focused on the Amazon rainforest. And so, I think one’s got to be careful, I’ve got to be careful, we’ve got to be careful, not to just lump other countries into a single category. There are different interests that are being pursued in different ways, but those ones that you mentioned, I think there’s a – there’s reason to think that they’re seeing the climate plus development equation going together.
Creon Butler
Yeah, okay, good. There’s a very patient gentleman over here who I’d like to come to, and then there’s a lady here and a gentleman behind there. So, okay and they have to be yeah, super quick, super short, Twitter level answers as we have six minutes, yeah.
Richard Hill
Creon, David, Richard Hill, Chatham House member. We’re talking about climate change and mitigation of adaptation, but when nobody’s mentioning lifestyle change in developed countries. And secondly, how do we build empathy for the kind of money we’re going to need to spend for these kind of adaptations we’re going to do, because it’s going to be a big part of GDP?
Creon Butler
Great. Lady here with the blonde hair. Sorry to – sorry Alex is…
Member
Hi, thank you for your talk. I was wondering, so whilst the – we can’t expect private company, which are – they’re good at making war rather than peace, for instance, to go forth. However – and so, to be the cavalry, like you said. However, how about international taxation, and you think this new government will have a different say, for instance, as to what the OECD country’s role is? And, yeah, I think that’s it.
Creon Butler
Yeah, that’s a really good point, and then gentlemen behind.
Harold Freeman
Harold Freeman, Independent Commission for Aid Impact. My question is about bilateral versus multilateral aid. In a world where money is short and any individual donor, even the UK, is relatively small compared to needs, as you said, even compared to debt servicing, does it still make sense for us to have an active, distinct bilateral aid programme, and when does it make sense?
David Miliband
Well, thank God there’s only two minutes to go. So, Richard, I can’t get into your developed country mitigation lifestyle, but I want to pick up the second part of your question. The most worrying thing for me is this notion that there is a ‘globalisation of indifference’. It’s not my phrase, it’s – the Pope used this phrase in 2016 in – when he went to Lampedusa, the globalisation of indifference. And I’ve been thinking about that a lot, and what I think is that it’s not that there is an empathy gap or an indifferent – indifference, you know, a lack of concern. I think there’s a disempowerment. People don’t see how to make a difference. I think that’s the thing that drives me, and leading the IRC, I’m – we position ourselves as a solutions NGO. Don’t give yourself the excuse that we don’t know what to do. Actually, there’s a lot that we do know what to do, and I think that’s really important in re-establishing a sense of agency.
I mean, I can’t do justice to your question about the OECD and taxation. I’m certainly not going to speak for the current government or how they’re going to address it, but it’s obvious that the tax regimes are struggling to keep up with the globalisation of finance and it’s deadly serious, and this latest EU ruling on the Apple case is very interesting in this regard. Trying to claw back money from the lower Irish tax raise.
ICAI, the Independent Commission on Aid Impact, is a very good British invention and actually did a study, I don’t know, in 2014 or 2015, about different multilateral bodies and how effective they were. I mean, I think that the best case for the multilateral effort is that you can multiply your money. So, you – in a way, you answer a bit of Richard’s point because you’re saying, “Look, if we put in a pound, the Americans put in four and others and you – and then it leverages private sector effort and you’re suddenly up to 20 times the impact of the pound.” So that’s a very – I think that’s very powerful as long as the bureaucracy doesn’t then stifle the effectiveness of the delivery.
And so, I would say, just – if I don’t say the following, then I’m not being consistent. I’m going on and on about outcomes. I mean, we drive our own organ – every single person who’s delivering a programme in the IRC isn’t just working towards one of five meta-level outcomes. There are 17 sub-outcomes that – to which every programme is work – every programme works to at least one of those outcomes. And the test of the bilateral versus multilateral has to be about what it’s going to achieve. It’s got to be an outcome accountability, because you want to be able to say we’ve made this much difference to these many people.
We’re able to say, we helped 34 and a half million people last year and we helped them in these sectors, in this way, and with 30% of the evidence, and that’s why the $1.6 billion is put to good use and that’s why it’s good that we’ve troubled over the last ten years. That’s the story that we tell, and I think that in the end, the test that needs to be applied to the aid budgets is that test. And the good thing about the 1997 framework is it makes poverty alleviation the test, and so, I think holding fast to that is really important.
Creon Butler
Right. David, amazing. We got through an hour. No one asked you about Harris versus Trump, but maybe that’s for another opportunity. But please join me in thanking David Miliband [applause].
