According to the UN, development is going in the wrong direction in 9 out of 10 countries. We are not surprised. Record numbers of people are starving and humanitarian needs are increasing. To reverse this trend, urgent action is needed – to make developing countries less vulnerable to the effects of climate change, conflicts and pandemics.

Never before have we seen so much extreme weather as now, and it will get worse. The massive floods in Pakistan have hit hard. So have the hunger crises. The UN status report on global food security shows that 46 million more people than the previous year do not have enough and nutritious food, and that the number is escalating. And recently the World Bank estimated that the number of extremely poor people will increase by up to 95 million people in 2022 alone as a result of the pandemic and the Ukraine war.

Must avoid new hunger crises

Without a clear change of course, we could be heading towards even greater destruction and even more injustice, warns the UN Human Development Report , which also shows that distrust and insecurity are increasing globally. This worries Minister for Development Cooperation Anne Beathe Tvinnereim. When she commented on the report during the Norwegian launch, she pointed to a lack of food as one of the most fundamental causes of insecurity. She further said that in a short-term perspective, we must do everything to avoid new hunger crises. In the longer term, we must further strengthen poor countries' own ability to prevent internal and external shocks related to food security .

Profitable prevention

We could not agree more. Strengthening developing countries' capacity for prevention and preparedness will be crucial to the success of the change in course. An important step will be to increase the total humanitarian assistance that goes to this purpose. Today, this is barely three percent . This is despite the fact that every krone spent on prevention and preparedness provides a saving in emergency response of seven kroner. In the long run, it will save the world community large sums of money, and poor local communities enormous suffering.

Today, it is only when the UN declares a humanitarian crisis that the large amounts of money and resources are put on the table. Then it is often too late. Therefore, the countries that are hardest hit must be enabled to prevent this from happening. This can be done by strengthening local knowledge and expertise – among the authorities, civil society and the rest of society. The population knows its own country best. The international community must, together with local partners, establish new ways of working. This does not come without challenges, but with today's global crises we cannot continue on the same path.

Strengthening the local economy

Sustainability and long-term solutions are the cornerstone of all work Caritas In 200 countries and territories we work to ensure good interaction between short-term emergency response and long-term development aid. We do this, among other things, by working to ensure that a humanitarian crisis goes from being acute as quickly as possible – where food distribution is the only way to prevent hunger – to a situation where refugees can produce their own food in their new homes and sell the surplus on local markets. Another important measure, which is proving to be among the most effective, is distributing cash to refugees . By giving them the opportunity to buy what they need, the result is increased sales of locally produced goods and increased income for poor small farmers. This in turn has positive long-term ripple effects both for the farmers and in the reactivation of the economy.

In the long-term development work, loan and savings groups are also an important element, in parallel with training in climate-resilient agriculture. By giving farmers better access to processing and storing surplus food, the possibility of resale on markets and increased incomes also increases. The creation of cooperatives and jobs is also crucial in the long-term work. There is also peace and reconciliation work in countries marked by conflicts, with the goal of giving young people vocational training, work and faith in the future.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres blames climate change for Pakistan’s devastating floods, caused by pollution from rich countries. More such disasters are on the horizon, leading to food shortages, disease outbreaks, damaged infrastructure and destabilising communities. It is high time the decision taken at the 2016 UN Humanitarian Summit – that 25 per cent of global emergency funding should go to local actors – was implemented. Six years later , direct funding is only 4.7 per cent .

Help for self-help

More funds must be channeled directly to local organizations, and costly intermediaries must be avoided. In the long run, this will create local ownership and sustainable solutions, as a report from Clearview Research in 2021 also concluded. Caritas is rooted in the Catholic Church, which means that our presence and ability to reach people and communities is there, regardless of whether financial support for an individual project is lost. We are there both before, during and after a crisis. This allows us to respond quickly with humanitarian aid, and at the same time follow up and ensure sustainability of the efforts long after international aid organizations have left an area.

We hope that Norway will take the lead in ensuring that local organizations have more influence, strengthen their preparedness and increase the funding of their emergency response, so that the world's overall humanitarian response becomes more sustainable. We hope for a change of course so that developing countries in the future will become more self-reliant in how to deal with the ripple effects of climate change, conflicts and pandemics.

(Chronicle signed by Secretary General Martha Skretteberg and published in Dagsavisen) .