“I leave this job with a sense of work unfulfilled because the world is the worst place now than when I joined up
United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator and Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths in Irpin, Ukraine on 7 April 2022.
‘Humanitarian diplomacy’ rising
Reflecting on his career, Mr. Griffiths said he has noticed “how humanitarian diplomacy has been obliged to take a front seat in the absence of much political diplomacy because of the divisions of geopolitics that we face today.”
He expressed pride in the UN’s use of humanitarian diplomacy and mediation to achieve the Black Sea Grain Initiative and Memorandum of Understanding, signed in July 2022 amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The deal to export Ukrainian grain and Russian food and fertilizer to international markets, thus boosting global food security, ended the following year after Russia’s withdrawal.
“Humanitarian diplomacy is both an opportunity for us to do good for the world, but also in its ubiquity is a reminder of the absence of classic political diplomacy,” he said.
Concern for Sudan
Noting the absence of efforts to end the war in Sudan, where the humanitarian situation has worsened, he voiced concern over the 800,000 people at risk in El Fasher in North Darfur, and the likelihood that five million people across the country could face famine.
“I don’t think we’ve ever had that kind of number at risk of famine, and this was an avoidable conflict,” Mr. Griffiths said. “And that’s my double point here: we’re not winning on ending conflict.”
Though expressing hope for Yemen, he said “that’s going backwards right now, but it’s essentially because the attention and commitment to the use of negotiation and dialogue to end conflict is a trait, a norm, a commitment, which is now no longer an essential component in international diplomacy.”
Furthermore, “the impunity that goes with the willingness of men to reach for the gun to resolve their differences, has also never been so great.”
‘A bad world’
While hailing the recent UN Security Council resolution on the protection of civilians, he added ‘but God knows it’s a bad world”.