Humanitarian access in Ethiopia, IDB chief pledges to collaborate and a bleak preview for 2021: this week in development

The UN and Ethiopia agree on humanitarian access, the IDB president pledges to collaborate with Joe Biden’s White House, and the UN presents its “darkest and darkest” humanitarian overview. This week in development:

The United Nations has signed an agreement with the government of Ethiopia Wednesday to allow humanitarian access to the Tigray region, which has been embroiled in a deadly power struggle between federal and regional forces. On Saturday, the government announced it had taken “full control” of the region’s capital, Mekele, and declared victory in a military offensive that lasted more than four weeks, displaced nearly 1 million people and resulted in an unknown number. of deaths, even among civilians. Some 45,000 people are estimated to have fled Ethiopia for neighboring Sudan, while Eritrean refugees living in camps near Ethiopia’s northern border have suffered reported attacks by Eritrean forces aligned with the federal government. The conflict has left humanitarian organizations waiting for an opening to provide aid amid reports of growing food insecurity and deteriorating health services, particularly among refugees. The new agreement will allow “unhindered” access to areas under federal control within the region, but experts have warned that while the active military phase may be over, the fighting is not. They warned that the danger now is that the conflict could turn into a long-term insurrection. On Wednesday, Reuters reported that four Ethiopian aid workers were killed in fighting last month in one of the Eritrean refugee camps. Their identities have not been revealed and the exact circumstances of their death are still unknown, largely due to a communications blackout across the region.

The president of the Inter-American Development Bank is enthusiastic to cooperate with the incoming administration of US President-elect Joe Biden, he told Devex. Mauricio Claver-Carone, a former member of President Donald Trump’s National Security Council who became the first American to be named and elected president of IDB, was quick to congratulate Biden on his victory and said he doesn’t see the It’s time to show that he and the White House can “put aside biased political differences”. Biden opposed Claver-Carone’s candidacy on the grounds that he broke with the precedent of IDB presidents from Latin America and the Caribbean region. Claver-Carone has pledged to serve only one term and has planned a capital increase for the institution at the center of his presidency. This will require the support of the Biden administration, including treasury secretary Janet Yellen. “I take President-elect Biden at his word when he talked about us coming together, for the healing of the nation and for us working in a bipartisan way,” Claver-Carone told Devex. While serving as Vice President of Barack Obama’s Administration, Biden was centrally involved in creating the Alliance for Prosperity, a plan for the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to spur development and economic growth. and to reduce migration to the United States. border. Claver-Carone hopes to collaborate with the Biden White House on “Alliance for Prosperity 2.0”. “I have a copy in my desk ready to submit for their review,” he said.

The humanitarian branch of the United Nations warns that 2021 presents the “darkest and darkest” picture of global response needs in history, due to the continuing and worsening fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs released its “Global Humanitarian Overview 2021” this week. It requires $ 35.1 billion to reach more than 235 million people – or 1 in 33 worldwide who are now in need of life-saving assistance – representing a 40% increase in the number of people in need of assistance over last year. “This is a reflection of the fact that the COVID pandemic has devastated all the most fragile and vulnerable countries on the planet, those where humanitarians are involved in their daily work,” Mark Lowcock, the United Nations emergency chief, told journalists. The overview raises particular concerns about rising food insecurity around the world, including the imminent risk of famine in Yemen, Burkina Faso, northeastern Nigeria and South Sudan. And it points to new hotbeds of conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, Mozambique and northern Ethiopia, as well as protracted crises elsewhere that have seen little improvement. “Things are so bad in the biggest humanitarian settings of a year ago,” Lowcock said.