• We define humanitarian emergencies as situations in which at least 300,000 civilians require international humanitarian assistance to avoid serious malnutrition or death. Our definition includes those situations in which people need protection in order to facilitate access to humanitarian aid.

• The manmade causes we focus on are armed conflict, repressive government policies, sudden economic emergencies, and technological occurrences such as Y2K.

• This assessment does not address situations in which the need for food or other aid is due primarily to chronic poverty or environmental degradation.

• Humanitarian conditions throughout the former Yugoslavia, Haiti, Iraq, and North Korea will continue to have a particularly significant impact upon regional stability, as well as on the strategic interests of major outside powers.

• Conditions are likely to worsen in Angola, Colombia, Ethiopia, Somalia, and the Republic of Serbia within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), excluding the province of Kosovo. The current drought in the Horn of Africa may induce a famine as severe as that of the mid-1980s.

• The humanitarian situations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DROC) and Sierra Leone are unlikely to improve significantly even if pending peace accords hold, and could worsen considerably if such accords were to fail.

• Resumed hostilities between India and Pakistan that expanded beyond the borders of Kashmir, as they did in previous conflicts, would displace a million or more people on both sides of the border.

• The countries of Central America and the Caribbean that were battered by hurricanes in 1998- especially Honduras, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, and Haiti-remain vulnerable to weather-induced disasters.

• Internal ethnic conflict would create substantial humanitarian needs in The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).

• The possibility of additional sudden economic emergencies also cannot be discounted. In Russia, drought threatens the grain harvest, and unless the outlook improves, Moscow will again need large-scale food assistance.

• Despite Nigeria's turn toward democracy, escalating conflict in the oil-rich Niger River Delta region could lead to widespread refugee flows into neighboring countries.

• The possible effects of widespread Y2K-related difficulties could aggravate current humanitarian emergencies or lead to new emergencies.

• Civilians have increasingly become the key targets for combatants in many conflicts. War has become as much about displacing people as moving borders, creating an ever deeper chasm between the military goals of combatants and humanitarian aims.

• The increasing ferocity of conflict is facilitated by the increased availability-and lower cost- of a wide variety of weapons.

• Instances of killing, injuring, and kidnapping of aid workers are on the rise. Relief agencies increasingly doubt whether adequate security will be provided for their humanitarian efforts, and some organizations are withdrawing from particularly dangerous situations.

• Genocidal-type conflicts create the most intractable humanitarian emergencies. They trigger large numbers of refugees and IDPs, create special security risks for neighboring states and humanitarian workers, and place substantial demands on resources-several billion dollars each in the cases of Rwanda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo.

• Sudden economic downturns can combine with natural or technological disasters to accentuate or create humanitarian emergencies in developing countries lacking the infrastructure and government capacity to cope with them.

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• The increase in the number of emergencies is due to the escalation of humanitarian crises in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY)/Kosovo and Democratic Republic of the Congo (DROC) and the addition of the sudden economic emergency in Indonesia.

• Twelve of the ongoing emergencies are in countries experiencing ongoing conflict; two are due to severe government repression; one is caused by severe economic conditions; the remaining nine are emergencies that have entered the post-conflict or transitional stage.

• The total number of people in need of emergency humanitarian assistance-which was 36 million in January 1998-has remained about the same, according to the US Committee for Refugees (USCR) . The current total cited in the pending 1999 USCR report is roughly 35 million. ¹

• Humanitarian conditions are likely to worsen in Angola, Colombia, Ethiopia, Haiti, Somalia, and the Republic of Serbia within the FRY, excluding the province of Kosovo. Conditions in the Republic of Montenegro within the FRY will remain about the same or could worsen.

• Conditions are expected to remain about the same in Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Burundi, Croatia, Eritrea, Georgia, Liberia, North Korea, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tajikistan, and Uganda.

• Humanitarian conditions in DROC and Sierra Leone will remain about the same if the peace accords hold but will worsen if the accords fail.

• Conditions are likely to improve in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Kosovo province in the FRY, Indonesia, Iraq, and Rwanda.

• Former Yugoslavia will continue to require a high level of humanitarian assistance.

• Although Haiti is recovering from its weather-induced humanitarian emergency, escalating political unrest preceding legislative elections scheduled for December 1999, coupled with a further deterioration of the economic situation, could trigger a modest worsening of humanitarian conditions and increase migration pressures. The Haitian Government will continue to rely on international assistance to resolve any humanitarian crisis.

• Iraq's humanitarian prospects are inextricably linked to its relations with the international community and a new weapons inspection regime. Assuming the continuation of the oil-for-food program at or above current levels and access to people in need, humanitarian conditions are likely to improve. The humanitarian situation could take a turn for the worse if the oil-for-food program and other relief efforts were substantially cut by the UN or by the regime or if the regime's insecurity impelled it to step up its repression of Shia, Kurds, and other groups to fend off internal threats.

• North Korea will be a significant humanitarian challenge because of the severity of the food deficit, restricted international access to those in need, and the large number of people affected. The infusion of projected international food aid-combined with North Korea's harvest of 3.2 million metric tons-is expected to meet P'yongyang's basic subsistence needs of 4.5 million metric tons from July 1999 through at least March 2000. Even with this aid, widespread malnutrition will persist due, in part, to distribution problems. Absent significant economic reform, North Korea will remain in need of large-scale humanitarian aid-the bulk of which will continue to be provided by the United States, China, and the European Union.

• Angola's humanitarian situation is deteriorating rapidly, and conditions are expected to worsen further-perhaps drastically-as the civil conflict between the government and UNITA intensifies. The number of people in need will grow well beyond the current figure of 3 million, while conditions for vulnerable populations will become more severe. Heavy fighting and the combatants' unwillingness to provide humanitarian access to noncombatants are putting many critical areas out of the reach of aid deliveries and increasing the risks for international relief workers and IDPs alike.

• Ethiopia and Somalia are facing a significant deterioration in humanitarian conditions resulting mostly from drought but exacerbated both by the Ethiopia-Eritrea border conflict and by hostilities among Somalia's warlords, which continue to hamper relief efforts and displace civilians. A total of over 3 million people are currently in need in the two countries; up to a few million more could be at risk from famine by December 2000. Indeed, the current drought in the Horn of Africa may induce a famine as severe as that of the mid-1980s. Preoccupied with the war against Eritrea, having limited resources and infrastructure, and denied access to Eritrean ports, Ethiopia may not respond effectively to the humanitarian needs of its population. The international community also will be pressed to provide extensive food aid to Somalia, where clan leaders dominate decisionmaking in the absence of any central government.

• Sudan is a long-standing and large-scale humanitarian emergency: it has 4 million IDPs-the highest number of any country in the world-in addition to its almost 400,000 refugees. It is unlikely that there will be either a breakthrough in negotiations or a major shift in the military balance between Khartoum and the insurgents that would fundamentally change the situation through December 2000. In addition to problems resulting directly from the fighting, the frequent droughts in southern Sudan will have severe consequences because the conflict often limits international efforts to ameliorate the crisis.

• DROC Spillover. Of particular concern is the risk of a widening conflict in DROC which could affect the neighboring countries of Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania, and/or Zambia-several of which are already experiencing humanitarian emergencies. Even if a peace accord in DROC holds, humanitarian conditions are unlikely to improve significantly over the next 18-months.

• The conflict in Sierra Leone could widen-or the Liberia conflict could heat up again-spreading to neighboring states that are now relatively stable, such as Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Ghana and/or Senegal. Even if a peace accord holds in Sierra Leone, humanitarian conditions are unlikely to improve significantly.

• Although the crisis appears to be subsiding, renewed conflict between nuclear powers India and Pakistan over Kashmir could expand beyond Kashmir into neighboring areas, as it has in previous wars. A full-scale war that extends along the border probably would spread to the Indian state of Rajasthan and the Indian and Pakistani states of Punjab and displace over a million people. The conflict also could spark even more widespread communal fighting in other parts of India, pitting Hindus against Muslims as it did at partition in 1947, when 10 million people were displaced and at least one million were killed. The potential impact of a humanitarian emergency in Kashmir is very high because of the potential for a nuclear exchange

• The countries of Central America and the Caribbean that were battered by hurricanes last year, especially Honduras, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, and Haiti, remain vulnerable to weather-induced disasters. Greater-than-average rainfall is projected for the 1999 rainy season. Since much of the rehabilitation work was makeshift, especially in remote rural areas, it will be in jeopardy in storms much less powerful than Mitch. Serious economic disruptions in the region would further increase illegal migration into Mexico and the United States.

• The aftermath of the Kosovo crisis continues to threaten the fragile inter-ethnic accommodation between The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia's (FYROM) Slavic majority and ethnic Albanian minority. Macedonian Slavs are sympathetic to their Serb kinsmen and wary of the transiting Kosovar Albanian refugees, while ethnic Albanians in the FYROM are extending material and moral support to the Kosovars. These developments could undermine the governing coalition of Slavs and ethnic Albanians. The coalition's survival will depend on the further integration of the Albanian minority into economic and political institutions, the ability of Slavs and ethnic Albanians to insulate themselves from destabilizing pressures from Serbs and Kosovar Albanians, and whether the government allocates promised international aid fairly. Should the inter-ethnic accommodation fall apart, FYROM could plunge into civil conflict, creating a humanitarian emergency affecting a significant percentage of the country's two million people and threatening the stability of the Balkan region as a whole.

• While democratic elections in Nigeria earlier this year have reduced political polarization somewhat, the tasks facing the new government are immense. In particular, the government will be challenged to address the bloody ethnic conflict in the oil-rich Niger Delta region, where dispossessed ethnic minorities expect a "new deal" in the form of increased access to oil revenues and massive government rehabilitation programs. Both will be very difficult for the government to deliver, given the influence of the military, the weak state of the country's economy, and the need to stick to tough fiscal targets to re-establish Nigeria's credibility with the IMF and private investors. Although unlikely, a boiling over of discontent in the Delta, displacing hundreds of thousands of people and leading to widespread refugee flows into neighboring countries, cannot be ruled out.

• In Russia, drought threatens the grain harvest. Russian agricultural specialists have reduced their estimate for the grain harvest this year from 70 million metric tons to 50-55 million tons, slightly above the record low of 48 million tons last year. Wheat output may fall more than 3 million tons short of demand. Recent scattered rains have helped, but the outlook for the harvest could worsen sharply if the drought continues. Unless the outlook improves, Moscow will again need international food assistance.

• Additional sudden economic emergencies cannot be discounted. The 1997-98 global financial crisis eroded the margins of safety that separate hundreds of millions of people from poverty in dozens of "emerging market" countries. In addition, the legacy of the crisis has made many countries more vulnerable to the social impact of natural disasters. While the global financial system is recovering from the crisis, and while some countries have experienced a faster rebound of production than anticipated, many economies remain in recession. Moreover, financial markets remain wary of the emerging market countries, and the possibility of a significant rise in global interest rates could further undermine recovery.

• The apparent increase in climatological and hydrologic perturbations could generate more frequent and severe weather fluctuations and rainfall events, resulting in more serious natural disasters necessitating international humanitarian support (see figure 3).

• The possible humanitarian effects of a widespread Y2K crisis could lead to new humanitarian emergencies during winter 2000, particularly in the more advanced developing countries with a growing technology base (see inset on page 11).

• From 1985 through 1989 an average of five declared manmade humanitarian emergencies were ongoing each year (see figure 4).

• By 1990 there were 20 such ongoing emergencies.

• After reaching a peak of 26 in 1994, ongoing emergencies in the 1995-1999 period averaged 22 a year.

• Key countries and regions that have significant ties to the global economy are especially vulnerable.

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• The increasing ferocity of conflict is facilitated by the wide availability, at very modest prices, of an array of light and medium weapons. Everything from weapons, to ammunition, to training and support packages is for sale or rent.

• Refugee and IDP camps have been used as bases for operations by combatants in Liberia, Pakistan, and DROC, as they were in earlier conflicts along the borders of Rwanda and Cambodia, and in Central America-increasing the risks for camp populations and relief workers alike.

• In Africa, the scene of many complex emergencies, small arms are readily available; for example, AK-47s can be had in the Great Lakes region for as little as $12.

• The breakdown of law and order in Albania led to the massive transfer of arms to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in Kosovo that helped spark the KLA effort to separate the province from Serbia.

• The number of UN civilian staff killed by malicious acts-the great majority of them in humanitarian emergencies-rose from 11 in 1992 to an average of 23 yearly since then (see figure 6).

• Nine International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) workers were killed in 1996-more than any other year in the ICRC's 135-year history and the number of "physical threats" to ICRC workers increased sixfold from 21 in 1990 to an average of 140 yearly in recent years.

• Insurgent groups have kidnapped relief workers in Somalia and Chechnya, among other places, for their money or equipment, and local soldiers have hijacked relief convoys in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Tajikistan, and Liberia.

• Rebel groups in Sierra Leone have kidnapped aid workers while rebels in Uganda have threatened to attack international aid workers if they assist victims of rebel atrocities or displaced persons living in government-established camps.

• Two Australian aid workers arrested at the start of the NATO bombing campaign against Serbia were convicted for alleged "espionage" by a Belgrade court.

• Organized crime and pilfering-such as the stealing of vehicles and supplies in Albania, Somalia, Liberia and elsewhere-pose a serious threat to humanitarian personnel and to relief efforts.

• In areas of high insurgent activity, aircraft conducting humanitarian relief operations could become deliberate targets of attacks if insurgents suspected the flights were being used to support the ruling regime.

• Genocidal conflicts such as those in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Rwanda, mass killings on a somewhat smaller scale, such as in Burundi and DROC, and mass expulsions in Kosovo evoke the most visceral emotional responses from victims and perpetrators alike. The political, economic, and social conditions that provoke such conflicts are likely to persist.

• Such conflicts also destroy any semblance of civil society and provoke or hasten economic decline. In some instances, they are a by-product of war or state failure; in others a cause, further expanding the scale and scope of the ensuing humanitarian emergencies.

• Most countries experiencing such conflicts in the last decade have yet to restore their pre-conflict growth, while reconciliation between antagonists has proven elusive.

• Such humanitarian emergencies typically produce especially large numbers of refugees and IDPs to feed and house, as in Rwanda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo.

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• Countries that have experienced conflict can suffer from major economic crises-sometimes combined with the effects of international economic sanctions-creating substantial humanitarian needs, as in the former Yugoslavia.

• El Nino-related drought and forest fires in Indonesia last year aggravated the food crisis brought on by the sudden economic emergency and may have contributed to the downfall of the Suharto government.

• The past year saw a sharp increase in the number of people needing aid due to natural disasters. The recently published Red Cross Annual World Disasters Report states that, in 1998, 5.5 million people needed aid after disasters such as floods and earthquakes. The 1998 number is a nearly ten-fold increase over the 1992 figure.

• Natural disasters such as flooding and earthquakes in places such as Central America, Africa, and parts of Asia have a particularly severe impact because of high urbanization, isolated rural populations, and poor infrastructure, complicating aid delivery and recovery.

• The Y2K problem is likely to most directly affect countries least able to deal with the kinds of disruptions it will cause, many of which already confront significant humanitarian crises.

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• A consensual response occurs when the government of the country experiencing the emergency welcomes or at least tolerates international assistance.

• A forceful humanitarian intervention involves the threatened or actual use of military power against the will of governments or local political authorities.

• UN agreements are being interpreted more broadly. Article 2 of the UN Charter enshrines the principle of noninterference in the internal affairs of member states, but Articles 55 and 56 also call on members to take joint or individual action to promote observance of human rights, which are being defined increasingly broadly. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights enacted in 1948 and the Geneva Conventions of 1949, with their Additional Protocols of 1977, further define the obligations of states party to these treaties to protect human rights and punish violators and also expand the international community's obligations to intervene toward this end.

• The principle that noncombatants have a right to humanitarian assistance has been established. Pursuant to the Gulf War and the crisis in Northern Iraq, UN General Assembly Resolution 46/182 in December 1991 established the reciprocal principles that noncombatants in a humanitarian emergency have the right to assistance and that states have the obligation to permit humanitarian organizations to enter their territories in order to help those in need. This paved the way for the establishment of a UN Emergency Relief Coordinator and subsequently the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which has since been merged into the Office of the Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

• Abusive governments are no longer protected by state sovereignty. The creation in the early 1990s of international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda has clearly established that international law extends to individual criminal behavior formerly shielded by state sovereignty. Establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 1998 further enshrines this principle, although the nonparticipation of the United States and other states such as China underscores concerns about the protection of state sovereignty and the potential for malevolent countries to abuse the ICC in practice.

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