MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
If you think you're staring down a long to-do list for next week, spare a thought for our next guest. David Miliband is president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee, and their goals - his to-do list - include ending poverty, ending hunger, ending disease. And they're trying to do it in a world where armed conflicts have hit a record level. Add in events like earthquakes and droughts, and this year alone, the International Rescue Committee estimates more than 230 million people need humanitarian assistance. All that is on the agenda at the annual gathering, the United Nations General Assembly. We caught Miliband and invited him to stop by our studios here in Washington before he heads to New York. David Miliband, good to see you. Welcome back.
DAVID MILIBAND: Thank you very much for having me on.
KELLY: Wellcome back to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. So let's start with the grim news. The IRC just put out a warning that these goals - ending poverty, hunger, disease - that they are failing. Say more. How so?
MILIBAND: Yeah, these are goals that were set in 2015. They were goals...
KELLY: So 11 years ago.
MILIBAND: Yup.
KELLY: OK.
MILIBAND: And we're four years away from the target date for the goals that you set out. There were 17 in total. And the evidence is clear. We're miles off track as a world, particularly because of the situation in the conflict zones like those that you have mentioned. We've calculated we're 18 years off track already for the goals that have been set. And our message is that we need to mend the approach, not end the approach. We mustn't give up on the idea that a world with more resources than at any time in human history can tackle the worst of poverty, the worst of hunger, the worst of violence and the worst of disease. But if we're going to succeed in that, we're going to need some big changes in the way the system works.
KELLY: When you say we're miles off track, give me an example.
MILIBAND: So Sudan is the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world. It's a country originally 45 million people. Thirty million people there are in humanitarian need. About 12 million are internally displaced as a result of the war. Six or 7 million have fled to countries like South Sudan, Chad, very poor countries in themselves. And while this is described as a, quote-unquote, "civil war" - in other words, a war within a state - it's a war that's being sponsored by external actors from across the Middle East. It's a war, in other words, which has been internationalized, not just in its consequence, but in its cause.
KELLY: Have you traveled to Sudan?
MILIBAND: Yes, I have. I've been to...
KELLY: I mean, what does it look like, a crisis at that scale?
MILIBAND: The capital city, Khartoum, used to have 6 million people in it. It was reduced to effectively a no-go zone. Now a few hundred thousand people have gone back, but even the capital city deserted. And then you see that in the west of the country, you'll know from 20 years ago, Darfur became a watchword for the worst of genocide, for the worst of assault on humanity.
KELLY: Yes.
MILIBAND: And in many ways, we're seeing a repeat of that. We're seeing hundreds of thousands of people, first of all, trapped in the capital of Darfur, El Fasher. Now, there was a city that was besieged. The people who've come out of that have lost everything. They've lost relatives, they've lost dignity, they've lost hope, and we're helping them in the nearby town of Tawila, where they're taking refuge at the moment. So it is the worst of humanity that we're seeing in places like Sudan. And those millennium development goals that led from 2000 to 2015, they saw poverty go down. Now, the period since 2015, we're on the backfoot because of this explosion of conflict around the world.
KELLY: Yeah. So whether we're talking Sudan or Ukraine or Syria or any number of other places we could bring into this conversation, how much of the suffering you were describing was preventable? How much is a lack of global leadership?
MILIBAND: Well, I think all of it reflects the failure of politics. Let's be honest, the phrase United Nations will strike people as very odd because there's not much unity around at the moment. The U.N. General Assembly is meant to be the moment when the world comes together. Actually, it's going to be an advertisement for how the world is tearing itself apart. And we describe that in our publications as a world of more shocks, fewer shock absorbers. That's what we're seeing. More shocks like the Iran War, like the Ebola crisis, like the - what seems to be a very clear El Nino event. This is a magnified impact because of climate. And on the other hand, the shock absorbers, a diplomatic system that works, an aid system that works, those are being stripped away.
KELLY: I want to turn you to the U.S. piece in this. It has been more than a year since the United States shut down USAID. I'm remembering the last time I interviewed you, and I was pushing you on how hard you were going to be pushing the United States to stay the course, to be a reliable partner in foreign aid. Has the U.S. been a reliable partner in foreign aid?
MILIBAND: Well, my argumentation (ph) and advocacy didn't work. The administration boasts that 83% of its foreign aid grants and contracts have been terminated. The very respected public health official Atul Gawande reports that 700,000 people have lost their lives as a result of the cuts. The administration does continue to issue some grants, not to organizations like mine, for what they call lifesaving aid. And obviously, anything that goes into the U.N. system or elsewhere and that is well spent is money that's important. But the U.S. was the anchor of the global system really for 60 or 70 years. And the anchor has been pulled up. Very basic things like the Famine Early Warning System - that was a global system that the U.S. funded and organized to anticipate famine and get in there for the worst excesses. That money's gone.
KELLY: Recently, it stopped warning on several critical countries.
MILIBAND: Yeah.
KELLY: Yeah.
MILIBAND: And so it was there at the - in supporting the infrastructure of the global system, but also the U.S. had a system of very fast response when there are crises like the Ebola crisis in East Africa. So I think it's a very different system. And what we're looking at, at the U.N. next week, we're looking to make sure that those countries that are willing to work, work together. Because at the moment, the fragmentation is one of the enemies that we face, as well as the lack of funding and various other chronic problems.
KELLY: So you're talking about how do we get this solved without the U.S. leading the charge?
MILIBAND: Well, I think it's very hard to solve without the U.S., but I think it's a world where we've got to make the case that the outcomes for the US, as well as for countries around the world, are worse when the U.S. isn't present. Forty-five million kids are acutely malnourished in the world today. You said to me, is that inevitable or is it just - is it something that's preventable? That is a solvable problem. But it needs the U.S. putting its fair share - not more than its fair share, but its fair share. And I want to make sure that next week, in any way that I can, we make the case that the suffering we're seeing is not inevitable. We're a solutions-oriented organization. The irony of the aid cuts is they've happened at a time when there's more evidence of what works in tackling the worst of global poverty than ever before.
KELLY: What will count as a successful week in New York? What will count as, OK, I've made the case, and it's been heard.
MILIBAND: Well, I'm going to be very, very sober minded about this. Success depends on people bigger than us. People - success depend - look, let's be honest. We're on an escalation trap in the Iran War at the moment that has global consequences, not just high gas prices in America, but farmers who are desperate for fertilizer that comes through the straits of Hormuz, unable to use it across Africa, making their own problems worse. So we've got to fear escalation. What can we hope for? We can hope for resolution from those who are willing to make a contribution, that they're going to work together to do so.
KELLY: David Miliband, president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee. Safe travels to New York. We are headed there, too, to cover the General Assembly. We'll see you there.
MILIBAND: See you there. Thank you.
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