David Miliband, CEO and President of the International Rescue Committee, unveils the 2025 Emergency Watchlist at the Council on Foreign Relations. Highlighting the world's most pressing humanitarian crises, Miliband calls for urgent action to address the growing imbalances driving conflict, displacement and poverty.
Transcript
At the end of each year, the International Rescue Committee takes stock of the state of the world and prepares for the challenges ahead. Our team analyzes 74 quantitative and qualitative data points, layering on insights from colleagues on the ground. The result is a ranking of 20 countries most at risk of humanitarian deterioration: the IRC’s Emergency Watchlist.
This is not an abstract exercise. It drives our emergency planning; so it is a call to action internally. But it is also a call to the world beyond IRC: to recognize forgotten crises, like Syria, which remained on our list year after year while many people said “the war is over”, and to scale interventions to match the biggest crises, like Sudan, which is not just the largest crisis today but the largest humanitarian crisis in recorded history, with 30 million people in humanitarian need, 15 million forcibly displaced and 25 million experiencing crisis levels of food insecurity.
The story of this year’s Watchlist is unambiguous: the world’s crises are severe, growing, concentrated and protracted.
- Severe: Two million experience catastrophic levels (IPC 5) of food insecurity in 2024. That means they are eating so infrequently that they are in physical pain. The body weakens. Death rates spike. Those who survive will face health complications for the rest of their lives. This is the apex of the humanitarian crisis - food insecurity at this scale indicates a total system failure.
- Growing: In total 305 million people are in humanitarian need, up from 78 million in 2015. In the last decade the number of people in crisis - levels of food insecurity and those forcibly displaced have doubled. More people are displaced today than ever before.
- Concentrated: Eight in ten of those in humanitarian need live in the 20 Watchlist countries. This is emblematic of the fact that while extreme poverty has gone down nearly 40 per cent in non-Watchlist countries. By contrast, it's gone up by 85 per cent in our countries over the past 20 years. Even climate hits these countries harder than others: more than a third of people displaced due to climate shocks were residing in these countries.
- Protracted: 14 countries on this Watchlist appeared on it a decade ago, their crises ongoing to become chronic emergencies that spill across borders like contagions. The headlines can move on from DRC or Myanmar, but the people’s needs are still great.
Behind these statistics are individual lives, communities, and clients. If you're a girl growing up in a crisis affected country like Sudan you're likely to be fed only after your brothers. You're likely to be the first in the family pulled from school. And since you live in a crisis setting, you are twice as likely to be sexually assaulted before the age of 18 - a horrific one in four girls.
The Syria story is a devastating testament. We don’t claim to have predicted the events of the last two weeks. But we have been clear that the humanitarian needs were ongoing and real; the fears of the refugees preventing them from going back are also real; and the evidence that unmet humanitarian need is the companion of political instability compelling.
A world out of balance
Twenty five years ago the sociologist Anthony Giddens coined the idea of a “runaway world”. One of the things he pinpointed was that risks were increasingly “manufactured” not “natural”. In fact, he argued that the climate crisis was evidence that even nature was no longer “natural”.
The idea of a runaway world is captured in the title of the Watchlist this year. It is called “A World out of Balance”, because that is the world we see; there are four imbalances that explain it.
First, we see more conflict and less diplomacy. Wars today are more frequent, longer-lasting, and increasingly internationalized. In 2023, there were 59 active conflicts, the most since World War II, and a third of them involved foreign powers. Conflicts in places like Sudan and Yemen are prolonged by international interventions, which add complexity and intensity. Meanwhile, the mechanisms meant to resolve conflicts are paralyzed. The UN Security Council, tasked with maintaining global peace, has been undermined by the veto used 36 times in the past decade—twice the rate of the decade prior. The result is fewer peace agreements and a troubling trend of wars reigniting rather than ending.
Second, we are witnessing more attacks on civilians with fewer consequences. Wars today are not just fought in villages and cities; they target them. Attacks on civilians have risen by 66 per cent in the past decade, and health facilities, schools and aid workers are under siege. From Gaza to Ukraine, 2024 has marked the deadliest year ever for aid workers. Health care attacks have quintupled since 2016. These violations of international humanitarian law leave deep scars on communities, making recovery all but impossible even after conflicts subside.
Third, the imbalance between people and planet is summed up by the trend of more carbon emission and inadequate climate action. The climate crisis is hitting Watchlist countries the hardest. These nations contribute less than 4% of global carbon emissions but bear the brunt of climate change’s devastating impacts. In the Sahel region, temperatures are rising 50% faster than the global average. Yet, only 13% of global climate adaptation funding reaches these high-risk nations, with a mere $1.51 per capita allocated for adaptation—compared to over $24 in non-Watchlist countries.
Finally, there is more wealth accumulation and not enough poverty alleviation. Global progress on reducing extreme poverty is bypassing Watchlist countries entirely. Instead, poverty has increased by 85% in these nations over the last two decades. Their economies grow at half the global rate, weighed down by conflict and crushing debt burdens. Rising interest rates exacerbate the problem, with countries forced to allocate scarce resources to debt servicing instead of social welfare.
A Path Forward
At the IRC, we focus on solutions. Our work is driven by a bias to action, and the Watchlist is no exception. The numbers in the Watchlist could overwhelm and exhaust, but our clients don’t have the luxury to admire the problem. This is why the Watchlist is not just a compendium of crisis, but a chance to chart a path forward. Here is a sample of our recommendations:
First, humanitarian aid works when it is evidence-based, outcome-oriented, and incorporates cost-effectiveness and cost-efficiency. That is the IRC way, and how we have shown an ability to treat malnutrition at 21 per cent lower cost, deliver a year’s worth of pre-primary education to children in Lebanon in the space of 11 weeks of programing, and deliver 7 million doses of vaccine to children in regions of four East African countries that were considered “inaccessible” by traditional methods.
The Watchlist is a chance to call on donors to step up, but also the private sector and foundations to work with us to develop the breakthrough interventions that will mitigate the humanitarian crisis.
Second, we cannot address humanitarian need if we cannot reach the people. 2024 has been the deadliest year for humanitarian aid workers to date, and there are barriers to reaching people as never before. We have recommended the creation of an Independent Access Organization to shine a spotlight on the denial of the legal as well as moral right that civilians have to aid.
Third, the impact of extreme weather events on vulnerable communities is not the only feature of the overlap between conflict and climate; so is the fact that more weather events are predictable, thanks to AI. This gives us the chance to build resilience – but only if the humanitarian budget is anticipatory not just reactive. At the moment only Germany pledges a percentage of its budget (5 per cent) to be spent in advance of crisis. This is an aid reform agenda that is more necessary than ever.
Fourth, when I visited IRC programs in Tapachula, Mexico, I was told by Paula, a refugee from political repression in Venezuela, that participation in IRC’s economic livelihoods program had shown her that “migrants can have dreams too”. Most refugees are in poor countries like Pakistan or Bangladesh or even very poor ones like South Sudan and Chad, and those countries need support; otherwise people move. And rich countries can and should manage their own migration challenges with consistency, humanity and, critically speed.
Finally, we must address the drivers of crisis to prevent the next humanitarian emergency. Debt is strangling fragile states, perpetuating cycles of poverty and instability. Solutions like debt cancellation—modeled after the U.S.’s $1.1 billion relief for Somalia—are crucial. We have proposed a “debt for humanitarian intervention” swap, so that instead of poor countries paying creditors in richer countries higher interest rates, the money is diverted to preventing the next crisis.
These actions are not just moral imperatives—they are practical necessities. By reaffirming the value of humanitarian aid, reinforcing access to it, ensuring humane migration pathways, and tackling the root causes of crises, we can begin to restore balance to a world that desperately needs it.
At a time when politics is roiled by polarization, we want the Watchlist to bring people together with urgency and with agency. A world out of balance is not in a steady state. If we do not make things better, they will surely get worse. That is the motivation that brings the IRC community together every day in the work that we do, and we hope that this Watchlist inspires you to join us.