Food and Water Security

Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors without Borders (MSF) has issued a press release that it has just delivered 810 metric tons of food to Maiduguri in northeast Nigeria. The organization estimates that it will feed 26,000 families for two weeks. MSF is primarily a medical organization. But, according to its press announcement, it is now delivering food because “there are people in desperate need. Other organizations were not stepping up until now, and MSF was obliged to fill the gap.” MSF runs two large medical facilities in Maiduguri, two therapeutic feeding centers for malnourished children, and trucks in 80,000 to 100,000 liters of water every day. It estimates that Maiduguri now hosts more than one million refugees. MSF notes that the food security and health situation will worsen in March, the start of the annual “lean season” in Nigeria. A MSF medical doctor, Javed Ali, says: “There is a lethal interplay between the lean and rainy seasons. Just as people’s immunity falls as nutrients in their diet decrease, the number of infections rises. This is particularly difficult for children and can leave them very vulnerable to developing severe malnutrition with complications.” In the aftermath of sounding the alarm over Ebola in West Africa, MSF has particular credibility. The fact that it is now delivering food–not its usual focus–indicates that the humanitarian emergency in northeast Nigeria remains out of control.

A September 28, 2016, press release from Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) characterized the humanitarian emergency in northeastern Nigeria as having reached “catastrophic levels.” As Boko Haram’s territorial control continues to recede, MSF has released reports on horrific conditions in previously inaccessible areas. Included in these areas is Ngala, a refugee camp “cut off from the outside world” with eighty thousand internally displaced persons (IDPs). MSF conducted a nutritional screening in Ngala of some two thousand children under the age of five and determined that 10 percent were “suffering from life-threatening severe acute malnutrition.” In Maiduguri, the state capital of Borno and the metropolis of northeast Nigeria, MSF reports that more than half of the population of some 2.5 million is made up of IDPs. In another location an MSF screening found that one in five children were suffering from acute malnutrition: “The mortality rate is five time higher than what is considered an emergency, with the main cause being hunger.” MSF characterizes the aid response as “massively insufficient, uncoordinated, and ill-adapted to the needs of the people.” The magnitude of the crisis in northeast Nigeria would appear to be too great for any country alone to face, even Nigeria, the Giant of Africa. President Muhammadu Buhari in his United Nations General Assembly address of September 20, acknowledged the role of international agencies: “Let me seize this opportunity to once again thank all UN and other aid agencies and development partners currently deployed in North East Nigeria.” But, clearly, the international effort must be scaled up dramatically.

Michelle Faul, writing for AP, reports on the horrific famine now underway in Northeast Nigeria. She quotes Doctors without Borders as characterizing the crisis as “catastrophic.” She also quotes an American midwife who runs a feeding center as saying “These are kids that basically have been hungry all their lives, and some are so far gone that they die here in the first 24 hours.” UN Assistant Secretary General Toby Lanzer reports that some quarter of a million children “are severely malnourished.” He went on to say that two million people have not been contacted because of the security shortcomings, “and we can’t assess their situation.” Nobody really knows how many are internally displaced and dying. Humanitarian and UN agencies have been sounding the alarm for months. It has been difficult for the western media to operate in northeast Nigeria because of security concerns and military discouragement. Nevertheless, it has carried the story despite these limitations. Yet the famine has attracted remarkably little popular attention in the West, certainly far less than the Chibok school girl kidnapping. There has been no equivalent of #bringbackourgirls, publicized by Michelle Obama. The kidnapping and the famine are horrific tragedies. But the first involved 276 girls while the latter would appear to involve hundreds of thousands, mostly women and children. Perhaps the famine is so huge, and so impersonal, that it is difficult for outsiders to comprehend it.

Nathan Birhanu is an intern for the Council on Foreign Relations Africa Studies program. He is a graduate of Fordham University’s Graduate Program in International Political Economy & Development. The June 2016 border clash between Ethiopia and Eritrea reflected renewed tensions between the two countries that have been mutually hostile since their 1998 – 2000 war. Shortly after the clash, tensions escalated as Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalgn claimed further retaliation will be administered if “destabilizing efforts” continued, while Eritrea accused the Ethiopian administration of human rights abuses. However, recent developments are promoting a welcome de-escalation, reducing the likelihood of  continued fighting. First, in July 2016, Ethiopia was elected to  the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) as a non-permanent member for the next two years. Considered the most powerful body of the UN, the UNSC can authorize military action, impose international sanctions, and mandate peace keeping operations. Ethiopia had been actively lobbying for the seat, not least because election enhances the prestige of the Addis government. Second, also early in July 2016, Eritrea allowed a consignment of food aid from the UN World Food Program (WFP) to transit its port of Massawa  for humanitarian relief operations in South Sudan. The cargo was the first to pass through Eritrea’s port in a decade. WFP used Massawa to avoid the congested port in Djibouti, thereby accelerating the flow of  aid to a humanitarian disaster area. Finally, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (Commission) in June 2016 released a scathing report on Eritrea, detailing rampant human rights abuses by Asmara. Taken together, these three developments appear to have encouraged a certain stabilization. Ethiopia had previously served on the UNSC in 1967 and 1989, well before the establishment  of the current regime in 1993, now led by Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn. The prime minister likely wants to avoid compromising his bolstered international reputation  by instigating conflict with Asmara at the border. Ethiopia will take its seat on the UNSC in January 2017. The potential influence of Ethiopia on the UNSC is not lost on Eritrea. On July 1, 2016, the UN Human Rights Council (Council) passed a resolution requesting that the UN General Assembly submit the Commission’s report on Eritrea’s human rights abuses to the “relevant organs of the UN for consideration and urgent action.” Earlier drafts had explicitly designated the UNSC, but several countries objected, including the United States and China. Eritrean Presidential Advisor Ghebreab Yemane has raised concerns that Ethiopia could use its seat on the UNSC to push for a resolution against Eritrea related to border issues.  By  allowing WFP cargo to transit its major port, Eritrea is offering something of an olive branch to the UN and the international community.  Despite the Council’s report, which Asmara denounces as false, Eritrea is signaling that it is  willing to work within the established system, at least with respect to certain humanitarian crises.

Asia’s major rivers depend on water flows from the Himalayas, and as regional demand continues to grow, a looming water crisis emerges.

This is a guest post by Gabriella Meltzer, Research Associate in Global Health for the Council on Foreign Relations Studies program. El Niño was first discovered in the 1600s when fishermen noticed that in some years, water temperatures in the Pacific became warmer than usual. Hence, according to the National Ocean Service, El Niño today refers to “large-scale ocean-atmosphere climate interaction linked to a periodic warming in sea surface temperatures across the central and east-central Equatorial Pacific.” These anomalous weather patterns vary across regions, ranging from heavy rainfall and flooding to severe drought. The El Niño of 2015-2016 has thus far proven itself to be the worst on record because of its interaction with global climate change, where higher atmospheric temperatures due to greenhouse gas emissions lead to a higher frequency and greater intensity of the extreme weather events characteristic of an El Niño year. Perhaps no country has felt this more than Ethiopia, which is experiencing its worst drought in roughly half a century. The country has faced three consecutive failed rains, the most intense and recent being in June 2015 with the arrival of El Niño to its doorstep. The primary rainy season from June through September is critical to Ethiopia’s agricultural sector, which contributes 42.3 percent of the country’s GDP and employs roughly 73 percent of its labor force. Ethiopia has suffered from chronic food insecurity for over thirty years as a result of intense population growth whose overcultivation of small landholdings has put immense pressure on the soil in an already fragile environment. Yet, the drought occurring now has brought a level of devastation that, according to the United Nations, could rival the major famine in 1984 that killed upwards of 900,000 people. As of February 2016, 75 percent of harvests have been lost, one million livestock have died, and ten to fifteen million people require emergency humanitarian food assistance, with 430,000 children experiencing severe malnutrition. Between 2004 and 2012, Ethiopia’s economy grew at roughly 11 percent annually, outperforming the 7 percent annual growth required to achieve the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving poverty by 2015. Ethiopia is frequently touted as a sub-Saharan Africa success story in development circles due to government investments in healthcare, agriculture, education, and infrastructure. Yet as of February 1, the Ethiopian government and its aid partners have announced that they need a total of $1.4 billion in 2016 to address the current drought-induced crisis, and have only received roughly one-third of this amount thus far. The World Food Programme has said that $500 million of this request is urgently needed by the end of this month to extend aid efforts through April. With the political urgency surrounding the current crisis in Syria, organizations like Save the Children have found it challenging to garner public attention and fiscal support for this equally severe humanitarian situation. Despite its efforts to present itself to the world as leading sub-Saharan Africa’s economic renaissance, Ethiopia remains desperately poor, with a human development index of merely .442 (on a scale of 1.0), ranked 174th in the world. The country only reduced poverty by one-third by the close of the MDGs, and nearly 90 percent of the entire population of 96.5 million is living in multidimensional poverty. Despite all of this, the Ethiopian government has still funded 46 percent of its humanitarian requirements. Through its flooding, record snowfalls, and droughts, El Niño has proven to be a far greater threat than any nation could have anticipated. This is particularly the case for a resource-poor country such as Ethiopia, whose communities rely on subsistence farming for survival. Ethiopia is justified in its pleas for help, and donor countries should act quickly to aid the many potential victims of famine. However, the adverse effects of climate change will continue to exact an outsized toll on countries like Ethiopia, and in addition to the rapid mobilization of resources in a time of crisis, there needs to be a forward-looking plan to help vulnerable nations build resilience.

With warfare continuing between the Islamist radical movement Boko Haram and the Nigerian security forces, the resulting humanitarian crisis in northern Nigeria is deepening. The United Nations (UN) estimates that there are between two and three million internally displaced persons (IDP). How many there really are is impossible to know. A small percentage are in formal camps. The majority appear to have been taken in by kin. The security services have liberated some women and girls kidnapped by Boko Haram. Again, exactly how many is not known, in part because of the lack of transparency and incomplete official statistics. However, International Alert, a peace-building group, and the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), both of which are highly credible, report that there is widespread community rejection of the freed women and girls. In some cases rejection is based on fear that those liberated have been radicalized and will recruit others. Others are rejected as “Boko Haram wives,” and rape carries a strong cultural stigma. Finally, there is anecdotal evidence that is highly credible that food prices in parts of the northeast have reached famine levels. There is a United Nations estimate that there are 223,000 severely malnourished children that could die absent immediate help, according to the New York Times. Periodically, the security services announce that because they have cleared Boko Haram from certain territories, IDP’s go home. But many flee again because of renewed Boko Haram depredations. The pervasive lack of security in the northeast makes the delivery of humanitarian assistance and services by the Nigerian government and the international community highly problematic.

Coauthored with Callie Plapinger, intern in the International Institutions and Global Governance program at the Council on Foreign Relations. As the world watches Syria burn, a tiny glimmer of hope shines in Yemen. Today, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee disclosed that it will use new oversight powers to more closely monitor U.S. weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, which for nine months has been carrying out a brutal campaign against Houthi rebels that’s left thousands of civilians dead. The news comes on the heels of an announcement earlier this week by Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the United Nations Special Envoy for Yemen, that he would begin a renewed push for peace talks in Geneva next week. To be sure, near-term prospects for peace are low, given the conflicting interests of Saudi Arabia and Iran and the growing presence of both al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the self-proclaimed Islamic State. Even so, the United States should welcome the UN’s latest initiative. More broadly, it should consider what Yemen teaches about the limits of backing proxy interventions—and the need to build up the UN’s multilateral conflict management capabilities. First, a little context. During the Arab Spring in Yemen, many national dialogues failed to produce meaningful results, and this lack of progress is to a large extent what gave rise to the Houthis, who took advantage of the power vacuum created by stagnating peace talks by consolidating power in the northern part of the country. Like Syria, however, Yemen has fragmented into a bloody civil war largely along the faultlines of the broader sectarian struggle engulfing much of the Middle East. Shia Houthi rebels deposed Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour al-Hadi earlier this year, prompting a Saudi-led coalition—backed by the United States—to intervene in March. Since then, Saudi air strikes have taken a heavy human toll, killing over 2,600 civilians. Besides civilian deaths, these air strikes have stalled the delivery of food and fuel supplies, displaced nearly two million people, and rendered a whopping twenty-one million Yemenis in need of humanitarian assistance. The Saudi coalition, which includes airplanes and auxiliary support from the Gulf states, the United States, and the United Kingdom, seeks to weaken the Houthi rebels’ hold on territory and, ultimately, reinstate the government of President Hadi, now exiled in Riyadh. Meanwhile, Iran is providing the Houthi rebels with military hardware, funding, and training. Although Saudi Arabia has publicly committed to a peace process under UN auspices, it has not ceased its bombing campaign. The conflict in Yemen is further complicated by the presence of AQAP and the Islamic State, both of which have seized on the power vacuum to stage a series of deadly attacks throughout the country in their endeavor to acquire territory. Most recently, AQAP, which has long been active in Yemen, gained control of the capital city of Abyan Province, as well as smaller towns in the area. In early December, the Islamic State conducted a bombing attack that killed the governor of Aden, a crucial port city, and dozens of civilians. Over the past two years, the UN has mediated a series of inconclusive peace talks. A first such effort, in late May 2014, was aborted before it even got off the ground. The following month, delegates representing the warring sides refused to meet in person, forcing UN negotiators to shuttle back and forth between separate rooms, which ultimately proved a futile exercise. In both April and May 2015, both sides neglected to adhere to a ceasefire negotiated by the UN, intended to allow for the safe delivery of humanitarian relief supplies. Meanwhile, the UN effort continues to flounder, thanks to wounds both self-inflicted and from powerful parties. Critics accuse UN mediators of undermining prospects for peace by excluding significant parties in the conflict, including southern separatists affiliated with neither the Saudi-backed government nor the Iranian-backed Houthis. But UN mediation efforts are also being stymied by the interests of outside powers. They include not only Saudi Arabia, but also its U.S. and UK backers, who view the war as part of a larger geopolitical struggle to counter Iran’s hegemonic ambitions in the region. Unless they come on board and accept Houthi participation in the Yemeni government, the UN will lack the weight to shepherd, much less safeguard, a workable peace plan. Recent events in various UN fora have only reinforced this impression. In the most recent September session of the UN Human Rights Council, the Netherlands drafted a resolution calling for a UN mission to examine potential human rights and international law violations in Yemen. Saudi Arabia blocked the proposal, offering an alternative that excluded any mechanisms to evaluate human rights violations. And although the Security Council reiterates its commitment to a peaceful settlement to the conflict, it has taken no concrete action. Saudi Arabia, for its part, continues to draw international attention to Syria, likely to draw attention away from its geopolitical agenda in Yemen. Last month, the Saudi delegation introduced a draft resolution in the UN General Assembly, cosponsored by the United States, France, and other allies, seeking to formally condemn the actions of Iran and Russia in Syria. Meanwhile, the U.S. government has declined to use its position on the Security Council to moderate the conflict—essentially giving Saudi Arabia a free hand. The time for doing so is over. Investigation into the gross human rights violations in Yemen are long past due. In this regard, the Senate’s forthcoming investigation is a step in the right direction. In the meantime, the United States should back increasing calls for an impartial UN inquiry into human rights violations in Yemen. Finally, the United States must support the negotiation and implementation of a long-term peace agreement among Yemeni parties to the conflict, as well as relevant regional and global powers. Sustained political attention and economic investments will be critical to consolidating peace and stimulating recovery in one of the world’s most fragile, poor, and water-stressed countries. Any eventual agreement must be accompanied by a major pledging conference led by the World Bank and major donor governments, so that Yemen can proceed with demobilizing, disarming, and reintegrating combatants, rebuilding infrastructure, and ensuring a smooth political transition. The United States and its allies should be prepared to provide aid and resources as necessary, but in order to ensure lasting peace in the country, local political solutions should be facilitated under UN oversight, rather than reflecting the historical pattern of global powers imposing political structures in post-conflict Middle Eastern countries.

This is a guest post by Emily Mellgard. Emily is a researcher for the Tony Blair Faith Foundation working on their Religion & Geopolitics resource (religionandgeopolitics.org) in London, England, and a former research associate for the CFR Africa program. Debate over legally hunting Africa’s wildlife has recently moved to the fore of wildlife advocacy and policy conversations. This reflects the current African poaching crisis and was bolstered in July with the killing of Cecil, an iconic lion by an American hunter. Often emotional in tone, the arguments around big game hunting may have political consequences. Two central aspects of the debate, are the realities of expanding wildlife populations within the limited space of national parks if hunting is banned, and the requirement for effective regulations and monitoring of hunting policies. Often cited as more of a danger to wildlife populations than poaching or hunting is the fragmentation and enclosure of wildlife habitats due to expanding human populations and development. Without some form of wildlife population control, numbers may boom, putting pressure on the land. If continuous migratory corridors cannot be preserved because of development considerations, then an alternative needs to be found to maintain wildlife populations on disappearing land. Confined to diminishing spaces and isolated from migration routes to access additional grasslands, African wildlife could overpopulate, overgraze, and induce famine, resulting in plummeting animal numbers. The giants, especially elephants, have a huge impact on their environment, shaping and changing the landscape. Regulated civilian hunting of herbivore populations, such as elephants, and facilitating migration may help keep herd sizes more manageable as well as provide needed meat and industry for local communities – if managed correctly. Hunting for sport can abrade our sense of fairness, but that does not exclude the possibility that properly regulated and monitored hunting could have a beneficial place in conservation strategies. This would require strong wildlife institutions with strict monitoring of licensing and hunting season parameters where they exist. Quotas would need to be recorded and severe punishments implemented for infractions. This all requires a strong and accountable government and judiciary, functional national and local institutions, and citizens who have been incorporated into the running of their country. All of these are already development and governance priorities for African nations and their international allies and should be considered within the same context. There are twenty-three African nations that allow trophy hunting. Each has different regulations and varying levels of accountability for the practice. Some countries, including Tanzania, which suffers from chronic corruption and is one of the worst offenders of lion and elephant poaching, allows citizens to practice cropping of herbivore herds for personal consumption and use. In addressing both national development and the current poaching crisis of Africa’s giants, conservation policy should be central to the discussions, especially as tourism plays such a large role in many African nations’ economies. In these discussions the possibility that hunting may have a role to play in conservation, development, and as a case study for strengthening institutions, should be considered.

Allyson Beach is an intern for energy and environment at the Council on Foreign Relations. As a requisite resource, water and its infrastructure are decisive targets in the self-declared Islamic State’s (IS) strategy for regional expansion in the Middle East. Although IS has not demonstrated the capacity to operate technologically intensive water infrastructure, it continues to pursue control of dams and water systems in Iraq and Syria that, if acquired and adequately maintained could partially legitimize its rule, or alternatively be exploited as a weapon. To counter this threat, the United States should prioritize the protection of major hydroelectric dams and water infrastructure in areas under or near IS occupation. It should also create viable alternatives to IS-supplied resources through increased water aid in Syria and Iraq, and support to allied infrastructure and supplies increasingly challenged by migration and water scarcity. Delaying this action poses added barriers to the coalition strategy to defeat IS because, as one Mosul resident stated, “if [IS] could only maintain services—then people would support them until the last second.” Institutionalizing management of water resources and systems is a realistic means for IS to expand its sources of funding and further legitimize itself among local populations. Unlike IS’s production of oil that (illegally) operates within a global market, water is a regional commodity that is largely dependent on the operation of local hydroelectric dams. For IS, these dams are “the most important strategic locations in the country,”says Shirouk al-Abayachi, a member of the Iraqi parliament and former adviser to the Ministry of Water Resources in Iraq. “They should be very well protected because they affect everything—economy, agriculture, basic human needs and security.” In the ongoing conflict, the desire to command water is nothing new. IS’s quest to seize water infrastructure began in 2013 with the occupation of the Tabqa Dam, Syria’s largest hydroelectric dam that supplies electricity to rebel and government territories, including the city of Aleppo. Advancing toward a hydraulic state during its invasion of Fallujah, IS effectively employed surrounding dams, canals, and reservoirs as weapons—denying water to areas outside of its territory and flooding the route of the approaching Iraqi army. And in the eastern Syrian city of Raqqa, IS exhausted water reserves and disrupted distribution networks, forcing residents to rely on untreated water sources and leading to the spread of waterborne diseases such as Hepatitis A and typhoid. Although other actors, including the Bashir al-Assad regime and Syrian rebel groups, target water systems and strategically withhold aid, IS’s endeavors have the potential to inflict greater damage. This was evident in the organization’s occupation of the Mosul Dam, Iraq’s largest hydroelectric facility that supplies water and electricity to the majority of the country and is considered “the most dangerous dam in the world.”A 2006 U.S. military survey concluded that its collapse would release a twenty meter-high wave on the city of Mosul, which could destroy the city and kill over fifty thousand people. During its occupation, IS ultimately did not have sufficient forces to sustain its control, and the dam was reclaimed by Kurdish forces with the help of U.S. airstrikes in August 2014. While the annexation of the Mosul Dam did not end in a devastating collapse, IS sufficiently damaged the region by failing to perform basic state functions—reports claimed that the city experienced dire shortages of water and food, and near economic collapse during the occupation. IS did, however, employ destructive flooding in the April 25 seizure of the Tharthar Dam near Fallujah. U.S. intelligence reports suggest that IS has opened at least one of the dam’s gates to flood nearby areas following an attack which reportedly killed 127 Iraqi troops. Source: “Key Iraqi dams taken or at risk of being taken by Islamic State,” BBC, September 7, 2014 Reckless behavior in Fallujah, Raqqa, and Mosul are indications that IS does not possess the resources needed to employ soft power governance through the management of the region’s technologically intensive infrastructure. Unlike IS’s common forms of funding, such as cash from the plunder of antiquities and kidnappings for ransom, wealth accrued from the command of resources like oil and water is contingent upon infrastructural planning and a skilled workforce. Supervision of dams requires a highly specialized skill set, and, according to Russell Sticklor, a water researcher for CGIAR, “there is no indication that the Islamic State possesses it.”Rather than initiate its own civil workforce, IS has borrowed skilled labor from its predecessors—the Assad Regime and government in Bagdad continue to pay many engineers and skilled workers operating under IS supervision. Although this unsustainable appropriation of labor prolongs the opportunity for the United States and its allies to build an alternative to IS command, as IS’s sources of revenue diminish, the organization may increasingly shift their focus towards state building tactics of water infrastructure management to maintain influence in the region. This would not be surprising given that, IS reportedly collects money from business owners in Raqqa in exchange for electricity, water, and security. Previously estimated at $1 million per day, the organization’s crucial revenue derived from oil has significantly declined due to airstrikes against IS’s already incapable industrial base—reducing production to 5 percent of its previous extraction capabilities. According to Iraq expert Michael Knights, the jihadis will have a hard time providing basic services without oil revenue:“Very quickly, Islamic State has gone from the richest terrorist group in history to the world’s poorest nation-state.”Colin Clark from the RAND Corporation argues, “Without this oil money they are going to have to maybe rethink some of the state building efforts that have been fairly ambitious up to this point.” Unfortunately, water insecurity spreads beyond Iraq and Syria, to U.S. partner countries such as Jordan, increasing the risk that disenfranchised populations will turn to IS if the terrorist organization develops the capacity to provide adequate water resources. Syrian and Iraqi refugees are congregating in some of the most water stressed areas in the Middle East—the region now loses water at the second fastest rate worldwide, behind only northern India. Jordan has faced added stress with the influx of 750,000 Syrian refugees and 60,000 Iraqi refugees. The country is currently exhausting its supply of water at three times the recharge rate, facing extreme drought as it accommodates three thousand new refugees every day. This has left both refugees and Jordanian citizens water insecure. Without addressing this resource burden and insufficient standard of living, disenfranchised Jordanians believe IS will strengthen its territorial hold. “We are waiting for this moment,”said Abu Abdullah, an IS sympathizer in Ma’an. Should IS successfully govern this water infrastructure, refugees may be compelled to return home where there are more reliable sources of water and sympathize with IS—similar to the growing sympathy for IS among the Yarmouk population in Syria, which suffered from Assad’s extreme tactics that resulted in severe water and food shortages. As the leader of the anti-IS coalition, the United States should prioritize the protection of water systems to prevent IS expansion and infrastructural abuse. Unlike the U.S. strategy to halt funding from oil by attacking oil refinement installations, the protection and reclamation of dams requires a strategy that preserves water infrastructure and continues the provision of basic services to the surrounding population. As these operations remain consistent with Obama’s pledge not to reintroduce ground combat in Iraq, the United States will need to rely heavily upon Iraqi ground forces and prioritize the prevention of IS incursion into areas of Iraq and Syria where there is standing water infrastructure. Despite setbacks from airstrikes and counteroffensives across Iraq, IS attempts to broaden its arsenal continue as they pursue control of water infrastructure in Iraq and Syria with the potential to serve as a state building mechanisms or weapons in the ongoing conflict. The April 25 seizure of the Tharthar Dam and opening of one of the dam’s gates demonstrates the growing prioritization of water infrastructure in IS’s strategy. As the leader of the anti-IS coalition, the United States, in collaboration with Iraqi troops, should prioritize the protection of Iraqi-controlled water infrastructure and efforts to reclaim IS-occupied infrastructure. As stated by Michael Stephens, a Middle East expert at the Royal United Services Institute, IS “understands how powerful water is as a tool, and they are not afraid to use it.”

Coauthored with Shervin Ghaffari, intern in the International Institutions and Global Governance program at the Council on Foreign Relations. As civil war in Syria inches toward its four-year anniversary, the nation’s humanitarian catastrophe deepens. Some 7.6 million Syrians are now internally displaced, and another 3.3 million have fled to neighboring countries to avoid the complex three-way dogfight among Assad’s forces, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and Syrian rebels. In Lebanon the influx of one million refugees is straining the capacities of a country of only 4.4 million. Today, some 12.2 million Syrians, both inside and outside Syria, rely on emergency food aid. It thus came as a shock when the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) announced on December 1 that a lack of funds was forcing it to suspend aid to help feed and clothe Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, and Egypt. In fact, the WFP had been signaling for months that its program for Syria was in dire need of a cash injection from international donors. Last week, the United States donated $125 million to prop up the program until the end of the year, but it clearly wasn’t enough. The WFP stated that it needed an additional $64 million for December alone to support its system of prepaid voucher cards, which can be used at local stores to buy food and supplies. Without this lifeline, refugees will face the impending harsh winter without food, warm clothes, or heat. “This couldn’t come at a worse time," said UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres. “I urgently appeal to the international community – support WFP now. Don’t let refugees go hungry.” The cutback is projected to hit 1.7 million Syrian refugees. Many have signaled that their best option now may be a journey back to war-torn Syria. Unless funds are found quickly, Syria’s “new level of hopelessness” might rise to new heights. The suspension of WFP aid to Syrian refugees is symptomatic of broader weaknesses in the current multilateral approach to delivering emergency relief. First, because humanitarian assistance is entirely voluntary, it is vulnerable to shifting attitudes in donor nations, particularly aid fatigue. After years of war and upheaval in the broader Middle East, major international donor governments and their electorates are weary of sending money overseas, particularly given competing domestic demands. Since 2001, donor nations have devoted hundreds of billions of dollars to humanitarian relief and nation-building in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, and elsewhere. The appetite to continue doing so is dwindling, particularly when—as in the case of Syria—it is clear that such aid is a mere palliative, unaccompanied by either a clear political strategy for a negotiated solution or a military effort to ensure the victory of one side. As the Syrian war grinds on interminably, there is bound to be dwindling support for providing endless “emergency” relief that only addresses surface symptoms. In other words, public support for addressing the consequences of war is contingent on there being an end in sight. Second, the current financial burden of providing humanitarian relief is unevenly shared. The United States has been by far the most generous donor government, having contributed approximately $2 billion to the WFP program, about five times as much as the next biggest donor, the United Kingdom. It is past time for other major donors, both established and emerging, to play their part. Most egregiously, France and China, two of the world’s largest economies, have given less to the WFP than has Ethiopia. The $64 million shortfall that compelled WFP to suspend its program is a “drop in the bucket” for either country. As long as nations like France and China abstain from pulling their weight, other nations will feel justified sitting out. Third, the humanitarian system is experiencing unprecedented demand on its limited resources. The last time this blog reported on the Syrian refugee crisis, there were three “level-3” emergencies around the world. Today, there are officially four: Syria, Iraq, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic (CAR)—not to mention the Ebola outbreak affecting West Africa. These simultaneous calamities not only distract attention from Syria, they also divert money. Iraq’s fight against ISIS has displaced approximately 2.1 million Iraqis. The civil war in CAR has led to at least 5,000 deaths and left 2.5 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. In South Sudan, 1.5 million people have been displaced and more than seven million are at risk of hunger and disease. The Ebola crisis, meanwhile, has claimed approximately 6,000 lives, according to recent reports. These competing crises are taxing the already strained resources of the WPF and other UN agencies. Rigid rules about how institutions can use funds only complicate matters. As Greg Barrow, spokesman for the WFP’s London office, explains, “Because many donations are allocated to specific programs and cannot be used elsewhere, there is a lack of flexibility in the system.” Although the scale of Syria’s crisis dwarfs the others, the WFP has little authority to reprogram the funds at its disposal. What can to be done to alleviate the humanitarian crisis, both in Syria and globally? The immediate priority is to provide WFP with the stopgap assistance it needs to resume its voucher program. The current suspension, which exposes already vulnerable populations to intolerable suffering, can be alleviated at modest cost. The WFP has embarked on a social media campaign in hopes of plugging the hole left by international donors, hoping that the world’s Twitter followers will mobilize action from derelict governments. The United States needs to complement this grassroots effort with high-level diplomatic muscle. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry should press France, China, and other donors to step up to the plate immediately, to ensure that Syrian refugees survive the impending winter—and that nations that are hosting them in large numbers can sustain this burden. Simultaneously, the Obama administration must redouble its efforts to bring an end to the Syrian civil war—the only sure way to end the country’s humanitarian catastrophe. The administration has sought for some time to thread the needle in Syria, hoping in vain that a robust moderate opposition would emerge that could somehow triumph over both the Assad regime and ISIS jihadists. This strategy has enjoyed little success. Indeed, the focus on ISIS’ rise has directed U.S. and international attention away from Assad’s atrocities, allowing his campaign against the rebels and the civilian population to remain unchecked. Every airstrike levels buildings, destroys lives, and diminishes any semblance of normality. Without a political solution, which seems unlikely, Syrians will continue to swell in neighboring countries. External actors have sought to soften the blow on those affected, but their efforts are waning. Finally, the United States must work with other influential nations to place the global humanitarian enterprise on a firmer institutional and financial foundation. The multilateral response to the Syrian crisis suggests that humanitarian aid has an expiration date, that current voluntary funding mechanisms are inadequate, and that the WFP and existing UN organizations are easily overwhelmed by multiple calamities. The World Humanitarian Summit, to be convened by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in 2016, will provide a valuable opportunity for the United States to demonstrate its leadership in helping reform systematic and structural flaws in the current international aid regime. More immediately, the Obama administration should push for a special session of the UN Security Council to focus global attention on the disastrous security as well as human consequences of the global humanitarian crisis.