Tom Fletcher, UN humanitarian chief: 'Cuts force us to choose which lives to save and which lives not to'

A few months ago, at a center for malnourished children in the remote Darfur region of Sudan, an orphaned baby who had arrived days earlier on the brink of death gripped Tom Fletcher’s finger with surprising strength. The United Nations’ humanitarian chief says those seconds eased his frustration at international inaction and the “anger” he feels over cuts to aid at a time when needs and conflicts are rising around the world.

“The U.N. plan to save 87 million lives costs less than half of what Wall Street spends on bonuses and less than the world spends on pet toys or games online,” the 51-year-old British official said in an interview with EL PAÍS in Madrid, where he met government officials and took part in Spain’s Fifth Ministerial Conference on Feminist Foreign Policy.

The head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) also regretted that life in Gaza —one of his top priorities — has not improved since the ceasefire that took effect in October, and criticized the insufficient levels of humanitarian aid to provide food, shelter and healthcare to its two million residents. “We are stuck,” he laments.

Question. Aid cuts have forced programs to close around the world. How have they affected OCHA?

Answer. In 18 months, I have gone from coordinating about $50 billion in humanitarian aid to managing $23 billion. Our teams have to make brutal decisions: the cuts force us to choose which lives to save and which lives not to save, which programs to fund and which to drop. On every trip I speak with people who tell me that their relatives are dying because we closed the nearest hospital, or that they have had to travel further to give birth or seek medical support. And that’s just the people we’re meeting. Think of all these people that we’re not meeting because they’re dying before they get to us.

Q. How many people will you reach with $23 billion?

A. The plan is to save 87 million lives, out of a total of 340 million people who need humanitarian assistance. That money is less than half of what Wall Street spends on bonuses and less than what the world spends on pet toys or games online. The good news is that in the first three months of the year, we reached 16.4 million people with this plan. That’s one-third of Spain’s population.

Q. How are decisions made within OCHA amid the collapse in funding?

A. If I have to choose between spending $1 here to save someone’s life or $4 there to organize a conference in Europe, I choose to feed a person. We are also trying to make the whole sector much more efficient, cutting layers of bureaucracy and shifting power to local organizations, involving them much more in decisions about how money is spent.

Q. Behind the numbers and cuts there are lives. Is there any person or encounter that has marked you particularly in recent months?

A. Earlier this year, I spent a week in Darfur. At a center for malnourished children, I met a very young woman whose family had been killed. She fled with her neighbors’ baby, who was also the only surviving member of that family. On the way, she was gang raped, and they broke her leg, but she kept going with the baby. Eventually someone helped her and she ended up at this center. The child was extremely weak, but after two or three days we managed to save him. That was not only due to us but to that brave young woman. I held him, he gripped my finger tightly, and I felt that extraordinary connection to the world. I wanted to believe that if that child could squeeze my finger, it was partly thanks to our work.

Q. OCHA’s latest report warns of repeated violations of international humanitarian law marked by growing impunity. Where do you begin to reverse that trend?

A. People often criticize the U.N. and say we are not doing enough, but we only have the mandate given to us by member states, and we do not have an army to stop conflicts in Sudan or the Democratic Republic of the Congo. When someone attacks the United Nations, one must ask: what is gained by having a weaker U.N.? The answer is quite evident: countries that want a world where only the strongest survive. We’ve got to fight back.

Q. Speaking of standing up, most of Gaza’s population remains displaced and could end up living in 30% of the 140 square miles that make up the Gaza Strip. How can Israeli ambitions be countered?

A. What is happening in Gaza is devastating. I have been there twice in the past 18 months, most recently in October, and I know what we mean when we talk about destruction or trauma. These are people who have been displaced multiple times and are now compressed into an ever-smaller space. The international community has struggled to restrain Israel’s actions. Since last autumn, through the initiative of President Donald Trump, we have managed to end direct conflict, but Gazans’ lives have not improved as they should have. More food, medicines and shelter materials are coming in, but it’s still a drop in the ocean of what’s actually needed.

Q. What are the humanitarian priorities in Gaza?

A. The top priority remains food. We are supplying 1.1 million hot meals per day in Gaza because half the population depends on them to survive. Second are vaccines for children. We are pleased that we were able to carry out an immunization campaign last month. Then shelter, because living conditions must be improved before winter. And education. But the reality is that we’re still stuck on phase one and are not yet talking about phase two, which is reconstruction. Every day we face bureaucratic impediments and restrictions on the entry of items that Israel says could have dual use and be diverted for military purposes.

Q. What word would you use to define your relationship with Israel?

A. Difficult. Israel has been very critical of me, of our work and of the U.N. On several occasions it has refused to cooperate with us and it does not appreciate when we openly defend international humanitarian law and the protection of civilians. I am a neutral humanitarian. We are impartial. We are laser focused on securing the maximum level of lifesaving aid to those who need it. That is why we will talk to everyone and work with everyone.

Q. After the closure of USAID, the United States is signing bilateral agreements with various countries, some of which erode women’s sexual and reproductive rights. How does that affect your organization?

A.We are very clear that we cannot compromise our core values. We have conveyed that explicitly to the U.S. and to other donors. Women and girls bear the brunt of these crises. We see it in sexual violence and its weaponization in places such as Haiti, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan. That is why we cannot compromise on this point: we will continue to prioritize women and girls in our response.

Q. You have warned about the growing impact of drones on conflicts, especially on civilians. What are you seeing on the ground?

A. A month ago I visited Somalia, I spoke with refugees and they were not talking about droughts, famine or floods but about drones. A woman told me she was collecting water and a drone attacked them. A friend of hers died. I asked whether drones did not target combatants. “They kill us all,” she answered. In a few years, one of the major issues will be the increased use of drones in conflicts. In the first quarter of this year, 25% more children were killed in Sudan than in the same period last year. And that’s drones.

Q. You have mentioned the importance of the next U.N. secretary-general being a woman. What would that female leadership change?

A. I think the time has come. We have had male secretaries-general for 80 years. In my academic work I have observed that when women participate in shaping health policies they are more likely to succeed and to be sustainable. In my humanitarian work I have also seen the impact of NGOs brilliantly led by women in places such as Sudan or Myanmar.

Q. In this moment of cuts and a rethinking of development aid, how is Spain’s role in defending multilateralism viewed?

A. Spain has taken difficult political positions in support of the rule of law. That matters a great deal to me and to our staff in the field. Because when they feel the world has given up on them, when they are literally under attack, there are voices like the ones we heard here that give them strength and reassurance. Spanish authorities challenge us to be better, to reform harder and faster, and they do so constructively.