U.S. money spent on Iran war could have saved 87 million lives: UN humanitarian chief

Tom Fletcher is on a United Nations mission to Somalia where he’s seeing the impacts of rising poverty, hunger and death, all of which he says could have easily been avoided.

Fletcher, head of the UN’s humanitarian agency, says the U.S. war on Iran and closure of the Strait of Hormuz is driving up food costs, creating a fuel shortage and hampering the delivery of much-needed aid to the African country.

He says the money the U.S. has spent on the war could have saved tens of millions lives had it instead been invested in humanitarian aid for the world’s most vulnerable.

The UN recently launched a global appeal for governments to fund its targeted plan to save 87 million lives, with a price tag of $23 billion US. The war in Iran, meanwhile, has cost the U.S. an estimated $25 billion so far, according to Pentagon numbers.

“We could have funded that [plan] in less than a fortnight of this reckless war. And, of course, now we can’t,” Fletcher recently said during an event at Chatham House in London, U.K.

Fletcher is the UN’s undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief co-ordinator, and head of its Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Here is part of his conversation with As It Happens host Nil Kӧksal.

You’ve been in Somalia for a few days now. I wonder what the people you’ve been meeting with face-to-face have told you about what they’re facing, what they are dealing with?

They’re dealing with multiple crises at the moment. You’ve got the climate crises, these spikes between the droughts and the floods, you know, those horrific climate catastrophes getting closer and closer and having more and more impact. 

You’ve got the impact of the cuts [to foreign aid]. 

You’ve got the impact of existing poverty and conflict and terrorism and insecurity. 

And, now, layered on that, the knock-on effect of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which is driving up food prices, fuel prices, the costs of seeds and fertilizer. And the effect is that people are having to make the most unimaginable life-and-death choices about who to save and who not to save. 

What surprised you as you saw things with your own eyes? 

One thing that I’ve heard on this trip — much, much more than on previous trips —  the people that we’re here to serve, the people I’m talking to, are talking to me about cuts. Not at that kind of global level … but talking about what the cuts mean to them as individuals. 

If you’re a mother trying to get health treatment for your kids, you’re walking much, much further as a result. And when you get there, you know that people are being stricter on whether you’re going to get that nutrition or not for your dying kid. 

What kind of a difference do you think a humanitarian corridor [in the Strait of Hormuz] would make in this moment? 

It would make an immense difference to get the [Strait] open to all traffic, but most importantly, that humanitarian traffic and the food, fertilizer, natural gas and fuel that has such an impact on economies in East and sub-Saharan Africa. 

What you were saying in your conversation at Chatham House recently, how the cost of the Iran war could cover the funding needs you’re speaking about … given the reality of the world we live in … how do you change where those dollars are going?

That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? Or the several billion-dollar question. 

Our entire plan … to save 87 million lives this year would cost $23 billion. Now, it’s a lot of money, I know. But it’s less than one per cent of what the world is spending on arms and defence right now.

So, you know, when people tell me the money’s not there, you know it enrages me, infuriates me because … people are finding that money for other things. 

I have this great privilege of being someone who was sent out by the world to meet the extraordinary people who are on the front lines of these crises and are surviving day to day. And if we could show an ounce of their courage and dignity and their generosity to each other, then we wouldn’t be in this catastrophic mess globally. 

Andrew Leslie, who is a former MP and former commander of the Canadian Army, was a guest on our show, who I spoke to back in March. And he was talking about the issue of defence spending and why he feels, as others do, that it is crucial. … Is he and others who agree with him wrong about that in this moment? 

I understand why people feel less secure. They feel more anxious and, of course, that will drive up spending on defence and security. But we’re not competing at that level. All I’m asking for is less than one per cent of what the world is spending on defence and security right now. 

I want to make that moral, ethical argument based on solidarity and kindness. But there’s also a transactional argument here, which is that you can’t put tariffs on pandemics. You can’t stop climate crises at your border. And unless we’re out there in the world dealing with these problems at source, then they will come in our direction.

It’s much cheaper to deal with these problems at source than to deal with the implications for later on. 

Last December, the United States gave you $2 billion [US] in funding. You’ve said you had to “really fight” to get that from the Trump administration. How would you describe your relationship with that administration today? 

It’s not anything like the levels that came in in the past. But that $2 billion will save millions of lives and I’m determined to use it as effectively as I can. 

The latest budget [request] put forward by the Trump administration is calling for another $2 billion in cuts to humanitarian assistance, and just over $4 billion in cuts to global health programs, including cutting funding to [programs that deliver] “the world’s birth control and therapy.”… How do you balance the need that your agency has for billions and millions of dollars with conditions and phrases like that?

We’re always dealing with donors who want to put conditions on what we do and it’s our job to hold fast to our values and our principles. 

Those kinds of phrases, cutting the world’s birth control and therapy, have life-and-death consequences for people. 

Let’s be clear. In all of the crisis areas I work in, the impact falls most heavily on women and girls, on mothers and babies. And I’ve seen that again here in Mogadishu.

I want to prioritize funding for women-led organizations because they have a really clear idea of what the needs are and how best to respond to them. So they are absolutely central to the humanitarian response.