A new book by Mark Lowcock, a British economist and former department for international development head who spent four years as the under-secretary-general for Humanitarian Affairs at the United Nations, is a thought-provoking read for those interested in how the massive amounts of money spent on humanitarian responses — “now a $25 billion a year enterprise” — are used.
Lowcock briefed the UN Security Council more than 100 times between 2017 and 2021. In the first half, he looks at the Rohingya exodus to Bangladesh; Yemen, for years the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis”; Syria; the Sahel; the Horn of Africa; and natural disasters, now exacerbated by climate change.
The second half is more thematic, focusing on operational issues, along with a chapter devoted to women and girls; one looking at the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic; and a final chapter focused on reform. In particular, Lowcock wants to emphasise how more can be done in advance of crises.
Lowcock presents himself as at the same time powerful and powerless, working in a huge, divided bureaucracy where agencies compete for donations.
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There were honest pronouncements, such as how there are “surprisingly few financially literate people in senior positions in humanitarian agencies,” and “surprisingly few high-quality independent evaluations of humanitarian responses.”
Time on his hands?
A few questions I had were left unanswered. How did Lowcock have time to research (and later publish) a book on 120 of his and his wife’s ancestors halfway through his tenure as the head UN official responsible for responding to what he says was one of the most challenging times ever? (Maybe readers will say work shouldn’t take over your life, though perhaps this job — where “every working hour was consumed with combating human misery” — might have been an exception?)
Why is the fact that the UN set up its own air service to transport 25,000 staff between vulnerable, poor and conflict-ridden countries at the beginning of the pandemic —many of which had closed their borders to prevent the disease from entering —presented as an achievement (and did anyone die because of that?)
Most notable to me was how Lowcock chose to end, noting “how little weight [UN agencies] gave to the wishes and preferences of the people they were trying to help” and how there are “no real consequences for the choice they make” not to listen.
