Humanitarian actors play a critical role in responding to climate-related crises, armed conflict, or a combination of both. Their response comes with an environmental cost. Humanitarian staff air travel, for instance, represents a significant source of carbon emissions and humanitarian logistics remain heavily dependent on fossil fuels. As the demand for humanitarian response climbs and countries increase their commitments to curb climate change, a question arises: Can humanitarian organizations mitigate their environmental impact and remain effective in responding to the consequences of armed conflict and climate impacts?

Until 2016, the agrarian residents of east Kenya’s Kitui county had never encountered a water quality monitor like Mary Musenya. Wearing a bright blue company jersey and furnished with sample bottles and plastic trays, the young Kenyan is a water safety officer for FundiFix, a tiny rural water supply service company. She is one of 20 staff who manage 130 pumps, plus pipes and water tanks that serve 82,000 people across a 1,000 square-mile service area in Kitui and Kwale counties. 

Historically, Americans have not been entitled to adequate, nutritious food when they are hungry, at least not at the expense of federal or state governments. Public food assistance programs are and have always been limited and supplemental and not designed to cover all nutritional needs. The effects of limited government engagement with hunger have disproportionately affected women and people of color and resulted in a patchwork system of assistance where charities and privately funded food banks attempt to fill gaps left by the government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) program.

“It is in Brazil’s interest to climate-proof the nation,” said Wilson Center Senior Fellow Sherri Goodman during a recent International Military Council on Climate and Security (IMCCS) event. Referencing a new IMCCS  report, Climate and Security in Brazil, Goodman, who is also Secretary General for the IMCCS, said that Brazilian leaders ought to develop counter-deforestation and climate plans as critical elements of the national security agenda.

“We all know that while no one is immune from the Covid-19 virus—and people of all types have caught the virus and died from it—it is the world’s most vulnerable communities that have suffered disproportionately from the pandemic,” said Michael Kugelman, Deputy Director and Senior Associate for the Wilson Center’s Asia Program. He spoke at a recent Wilson Center event on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on refugee communities. As of 2019, 1 percent of humanity was displaced. That’s more than 79.5 million people. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the vulnerabilities of these people. “The health pandemic is fostering a new pandemic of poverty,” said Matthew Reynolds, Regional Representative for the U.S. and the Caribbean at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Rohingya refugees fleeing anti-Muslim persecution in Myanmar are exploited by the Arakan Army to smuggle synthetic drugs into Bangladesh. The army, which demands greater autonomy for Myanmar’s Rakhine State, uses the drug sales to purchase arms and ammunition. It moves the drugs from production centers in Myanmar’s interior to Rakhine State, where Rohingya make the arduous trek along refugee migration routes into neighboring Bangladesh. Lacking other sources of income, the Rohingya are vulnerable to recruitment by the army’s drug smugglers.

On May 6, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) announced it had started to treat COVID-19 patients in Tijuana, in northwestern Mexico. Tijuana, which is on the border with San Diego, has the greatest number of cases in Mexico and one of the highest death rates.

“We will be providing support to health institutions [by] relieving the hospital burden in Tijuana,” said Maria Rodríguez Rado, MSF’s COVID-19 Emergency Response Coordinator in Mexico, according to the group’s website. “Through this support, we want to relieve the enormous workload of health workers who are responding to this pandemic and help alleviate the suffering of patients.”

The move is welcome. Across Central America, megacities such as Guatemala City, Tegucigalpa in Honduras, and Managua in Nicaragua are vulnerable to the rapid spread of COVID-19.

“While COVID-19 has wreaked havoc the world over, history has proven, and recent data agrees that the hardest hit will be the world’s women and girls and populations already impacted by racism and discrimination,” said Sarah Barnes, Project Director of the Maternal Health Initiative and Women and Gender Advisor at the Wilson Center, at a recent event on the impact of COVID-19 on race and gender inequities. Coronavirus has hurt women and girls in many ways. Among them, women have been pushed back into the home.  And healthcare workers and caregivers who are mostly women are jeopardizing their own health, caring for others.