LEMON DROP | The World is Out Of Balance: David Miliband on World Refugee Day
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What is the scale and urgency of the global refugee crisis on World Refugee Day?
Look who's here, David Miliband, the president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee, one of the leading humanitarian organizations in the world. And keep the world in mind, that's what we're going to talk about. It's World Refugee Day. That's what we're discussing mainly with global displacement at record highs. His work and the work of the IRC has never been more urgent at this moment, especially with the cuts and all of that, even from the support from wealthy donors like Elon Musk has suddenly been slashed. David Miliband. Good to see you. How are you? Thank you, my friend. It's really good to be with you. See you thriving. Yes. You have plenty of things to be grateful for, I understand.
You know, there's so many problems in the world that when you've got good things, you've got to remember them because we're the lucky ones.
Yeah. So listen, I know that you, let's talk about what's happening in the world right now. And that is there's a conflict in that's going on overseas between Israel and Iran. And it touches on what you do in your work. How are you looking at this, Mr. Miliband? What do you think? You think it's going to become a regional crisis and the United States will be pulled into it more than we are now?
Well, the world's got enough wars going on at the moment. I mean, there's 58, 59 conflicts going on around the world at the moment. And the last thing it needs is another one. I mean, we've already got within the Middle East wars in Gaza, wars in Yemen, just finished a civil war, brutal civil war in Syria, where I've just been to Syria. visit. And what we see, and in a way, we're at the sharp end of this. The IRC has 16,000, 17,000 aid workers around the world, local people. And what they see is a world that's out of balance. It's out of balance because diplomacy is in retreat. and hard power is on the offensive. It's out of balance because the climate crisis is contributing to resource stress, and resource stress is something that people fight about.
So it's out of balance between people and planet. And it's out of balance, too, between rich and poor in a situation where the rich countries are actually giving less to help the poor than they were at this time last year. So I think that you've From our point of view, from my point of view, the factors come together. The wars are built on a crisis of diplomacy. The crisis of diplomacy is built on a fragmentation of political power around the world. The fragmentation of political power is built on big economic, social, technological change. Why are people not giving as much? You said this year they're not. What's going on? What's the reason for that? I think they're focused on the home front. I mean, we always say charity begins at home, sure, but it shouldn't end at home.
But at the moment, we've got a reigning in, a withdrawal. People are also seeing the government's doing less. You know that the current administration in Washington boasts that more than 80% of their foreign aid grants have been terminated. And so when people see their government's retreat. There's a flinching. Now, we've actually, since January 20th, we at the IRC, we've had a really good response from our donors. They've actually really come to not just the rescue of the organization, because we're in strong shape. We've had to make a lot of cuts, but that's part of staying strong. But the donors have rallied. The people who are in our network, the people who are in the IRC family, they've rallied to people who fled from Sudan to South Sudan whose program no longer exists because it's been cut by the U.S.
government. They don't want our most vulnerable clients to be left with nothing. And that's important, but they need their numbers to be added to. And that's something that we're really focused on.
Well, listen, you know, in recent weeks, we're talking about the cuts made to USAID and others. Elon Musk pulled major philanthropic funding for humanitarian and refugee programs, including some supported by the IRC's work.
How could the Israel–Iran conflict and other regional wars deepen displacement worldwide?
That supported, I should say, the IRC's work.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the scale and urgency of the global refugee crisis on World Refugee Day?
0:13–4:17
2
How could the Israel–Iran conflict and other regional wars deepen displacement worldwide?
4:17–11:34
3
Why are wealthy donors and governments cutting humanitarian aid and what are the consequences?
11:34–25:29
4
How does Sudan illustrate the humanitarian fallout when crises get sidelined?
25:29–26:30
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The Don Lemon Show
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