welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. imagine being the individual responsible for getting international assistance to the world's most vulnerable people, those facing the devastation of conflict, natural disaster and famine. and then imagine being hamstrung by an international system which sees promises of funding broken, which plays politics with human lives. that is the reality faced by my guest today, martin griffiths, un under—secretary general for humanitarian affairs. from the ukraine war to yemen, syria, sudan, myanmarand ethiopia — is the un system failing those in greatest need?

martin griffiths, welcome to hardtalk. thank you very much. not so long ago, you said something very striking. you said, "the state of the world is terrifying." and i suppose that one of the terrifying elements for you is that the scale of need so far outstrips your ability at the un to offer assistance. and also to be funded, to get the income you need to meet those needs. so, this year, 2023, we have... ..over 350 million people in the world need humanitarian assistance... which is substantially more than last year. substantially more than last year.

so, the direction of travel is negative. it's huge. it's almost vertical. the cost of the humanitarian programmes that i'm responsible for around the world, in 36 different countries, is about $56 billion for this year. to come from the member states of the united nations. to come from the member states, of which about 20 are donors, of which the top five pay 60% of all humanitarian aid. so, a very small donor base. as of today, we have received about one third of that $56 billion, and we're now in september. so you can see... realistically, you're not going to get anywhere near. no, we'd be lucky to get half. and it's the patterns, as you say, that are going in the wrong direction. need is growing. climate is a huge accelerator of humanitarian need. climate this year is a bigger

cause of displacement of children than conflict. conflict was always the egregious presence to cause misery, and now climate is rivalling it, in some cases overturning it. does that mean, what you've just laid out, which is pretty shocking... ..does it mean you literally wake up every morning, look at your in—tray and your emails and have to make decisions about which of the most vulnerable peoples in the world you can offer immediate assistance to and which, to put it horribly bluntly, you will have to leave to their own devices and possibly to...to death? possibly to death. and it's really important that we don't flinch from that brutal truth. it's not actually me waking up in the morning thinking about this. i do, in the sense that i'm responsible for trying to emphasise aid to this country as opposed to that country — to prioritise. sudan is obviously the top

of the list at the moment. but the really important story, i think, in that is, and i have been there... ..front—line humanitarian aid workers, they are deciding... ..on a virtually daily basis on triage. they are deciding whether it's still safe enough to keep a hospital going in khartoum or to pull out — with the obvious consequences. they are deciding whether to cut food rations. the world food programme estimates that every 1% cut in food rations, and they are hurting as much as we all are, in terms of getting money for the food... mmm. ..puts 400,000 more people at risk of starvation. it's interesting to me that in the course of that answer, you said that right now, your biggest concern on a daily basis is sudan. cos it seems to me there's something interesting about the way the public — the global public — perception of humanitarian crises works. on one level, we're very drawn for probably quite a short time

to those terrible natural disasters. yes. and we can think, of course, in recent weeks of the morocco earthquake and then followed by the catastrophic flash flood in northern libya. yeah. those attract attention because of the scale of death and destruction over a very short time. yeah. and then there are other crises like, i guess, the ukraine war, you could talk about the syria conflict, too, which are long—running and are deeply geopolitical... yes. ..which of course suck in attention. yes. but you've alighted upon your chief concern being sudan, which probably doesn't make the headlines on a daily basis. it doesn't make the headlines on a daily basis. it's very, very difficult to get media attention to sudan. and yet i believe sudan is the place in the world where we as a community, humanitarian community, is failing more than elsewhere to reach people in need. we're reaching... to just give you two figures, about 3.5 million people are getting aid in sudan right now through the agencies, ngos, un agency and others.

18 million people are in need of assistance. so it's a devastating difference. sudan doesn't get attention. i've said to myself and to others frequently that one of the major impacts of the ukraine war, among many other impacts around the world, is about attention. it's not quite in my field so much about money — because donors on the whole have protected humanitarian aid elsewhere, but getting attention to places. who's talking about afghanistan these days? and yet we see in afghanistan an increase in the numbers of fighters in the isis, er, local isk... ..in afghanistan, i think three—fold this year. are you saying there is a sort of a failure of imagination and empathy in the rich world, which means that some of these catastrophes are simply not on the radar in the way

they should be? i'm not sure. it's true that, of course, to get any, er, things on the news, we need a story to tell. we need to have access to people to tell it properly. i think empathy is something as strong in a popular way today as ever. it's an interesting statistic that in uk — i'm sure you know this — last year, the british public gave $12.7 billion to charities. there's no failure of empathy in that. of a desire to help others, you know... except... on an individual basis, that may be true. but if one looks at the big picture in the western world and one looks at the failure of so many governments to meet that 0.7%... yeah. yes. ..of gdp, of national income, that is supposed to be given to international humanitarian assistance. it was a commitment made in the uk. it was the law. the current government has cut it, has abandoned the commitment.

now they say they spend 0.5%, but that actually includes some money spent inside the united kingdom. you are one of many chiefs of un humanitarian response who come from the uk. it's a position that the uk seems to have some sort of lock on. mmm. are you embarrassed by that? look, i am embarrassed by that, in many countries, because it seems to me — and i'm not the first person to say this, the secretary—general has said it frequently — that when you look at the money available, you look at the windfall profits for the fossil fuel industry, for example, and you look at the promises made on climate and you look at the delivery on climate, it's an astonishingly bad and embarrassing story. and as you say, if you look at aid levels, we've receded. some countries keeping it up. thank god for that. but the donor base for us, humanitarian, is so small, is so limited and is so essentially western. and we are living in a world where,

as the former president of the international red cross said to me about a year ago, he said, "this is..." talking about ukraine, he said, "this is the first time "where we in icrc are dealing with a crisis in which all our "donors are actually parti pris." now, you know, we're very glad to get money wherever we can, but that... the way in which the world has divided so...understandably... ..and strongly, and i spent a lot of time working on ukraine, obviously makes us in a more difficult position when it comes to preserving our neutrality, when it comes to advocating for real expenditure. and as you say, we ain't there yet. actually, you've raised something which makes me question whether your organisation, that is the emergency relief effort that you co—ordinate at the united nations, and maybe many other un agencies, too, they fail to actually represent

the real interests and the real voices of those that you are seeking to help. you are an incredibly top—down organisation. you happen to be british. so many of the leaders of these un agencies come from the non—disadvantaged, non—poorest parts of the world. yes. there's something dysfunctional about this, isn't there? i think there is something profoundly dysfunctional about this. we're still living in a world, not quite victorian, but in the sense of the... post—colonial. ..goods come from the north... ..to give to the south. now, where this becomes very important for me personally and for the people i work with is in the relationship that we need to have, humanitarian agencies, with local communities. mmm. now, we all speak proudly about how we are driven by their priorities and their needs and their aspirations. well, we don't all. in fact, i was amazed to read this,

as i was researching you, from your predecessor, your direct predecessor in your role at the un, mark lowcock, who said, "the humanitarian system is set up to give people in need "what international agencies and donors think is best, "rather than giving people what they themselves say "they need most." what a profoundly depressing conclusion that he reached after doing yourjob. yes. and we've built on that. i'm not denying that myself for a minute, what mark lowcock said there. what we are doing with the commitment of the whole humanitarian agency community and of donors, cos all will have to change, if you genuinely listen to communities, you need to change your programming model. you need to change your supply chain model. you need to start empowering them. now, one of the things that has come into play since that comment from mark is an increasing use of cash as a means of

delivering aid to people. and cash, of course, is empowering. we aren't quite there yet. we are launching special programmes in a number of countries to get the community relationship right. but if we use cash creatively, we're giving them back the power of agency. but, martin griffiths, if you see this problem and you acknowledge it and you think there is a fundamental dysfunction in the way the un works and how it fails to represent truly the interests of the people on the ground who need the assistance, why did you take the job? cos you could have turned it down. you could have actually sent a signal that the un needs to change and must change by saying, "you know what? "despite my qualifications, you shouldn't appoint me. "you should appoint somebody from the developing world, "from the global south." i think that would have been a cop—out. i think i can be, you know, as many people have said in similar circumstances, can be very helpful. i don't accept the proposition that we are as a community entirely failing to represent the views of those communities.

what i'm saying is that we can hugely improve it. we can change our business model. and i believe, of course, i hope it's true, that i can be very helpful in that regard, precisely because i've worked for 50 years across conflicts and climate and continents to do this. yeah, i know you've done a lot of work over many years on this. there's one story you have told in the past that i want to tease out the meaning of, and that... you describe, i think it was in drc, a terribly difficult moment when you were with a mother and a child who was patently, very, very ill, in fact, on the point of death... mmm. ..and i think it was a little boy and he was so sick that bodily fluids were sort of flying around and your clothing got dirty, and you said the mother became so agitated and upset by what had

happened to you and your rather pristine clothing that the boy died while she was attending to you. i just wonder what stories like that, experiences like that, what impact they have on you. devastating. as you know, i'm still... i can still picture it very vividly. i can still remember the feelings of embarrassment and trying to stop it and trying to do something about it. it was too late, because the boy died. i've always felt very strongly, perhaps rightly or wrongly, how important it is for me personally — and everybody�*s different — to be able to have experiences, to engage with the people in the greatest forms of crisis. it helps me to understand why i do what i do, and not to have that direct engagement, not to have that involvement... and myjob, by the way, is not only in the un. i co—ordinate global humanitarian agencies. and that's hugely important to me, too. through that experience, i hope we can be impelled,

obviously, to do better. there's been work for years as to how to change the business model so we're more responsive, as opposed to more using communities to validate our views. we're now, i think, again with cash, again with public opinion in our community, on the cusp of doing something. so, you know, if i was to speak a yearfrom now, for example, and the situation was the same as now, then i think i should be out of myjob. let's just look at one case study, cos i think i'd like to learn from it and get your thoughts on how you handled it. that is the syrian earthquake. a terrible... well, it was syria and, of course, turkey. but...turkey managed quite quickly to get a vast relief effort on the ground in southeast turkey. but the story was very different in northern syria. yes. people blame you, amongst others, because they say you did not push to get the syrian government, quickly, to open up corridors, new border crossings that you could use to get relief

into northern syria. and the reason you didn't is because, essentially, you bowed to russian influence in the security council. is that true? not at all. nor is it backed up by the facts. i went to turkey on the day, the two days after the earthquake, and then to syria. and i went to aleppo, where i had again the awful privilege of seeing the kind of sudden, tragic disaster. and then i went — this would have been about five days after the 6th of february — to damascus. and i met president assad and he granted immediately, on that day, two extra crossing points. we were already using... but with respect, that was too late. as the white helmets and others have pointed out, in the immediate aftermath of the quake, you could have done much more. to quote the head of

the white helmets at the time, he said, "we are at a loss how the un is behaving." and then amnesty international and human rights watch both made the point that you could have, you could have, used your authority as the head of 0hchr, as it's known, in exceptional circumstances, according to amnesty, when a country is unlawfully hindering life—saving assistance, you could have gone in across that border without the permission of the syrian government. i've heard that view. i'm a former lawyer and i know that there are other views. remember, and it's. .. well, it's not a time for discussing views, is it? it's for decisive action, and it's really a political point. well... it's not just about you, but it's about whether you, as a senior official at the united nations, is too hamstrung by the geopolitical pressures that you face. i don't think so. we got aid in very quickly. remember the date of this earthquake, this tragic moment, was very soon after there had been

a renewal of the security council authorisation to bring aid into northwest syria, as a result of which there was a lot of pre—positioned aid there already. we had bab al—hawa, where the trucks were moving. we had two extra crossing points. right after the earthquake, before i even met assad, we were allowed to deploy un staff into the northwest of syria. so, i know... i met the head of the white helmets in those days in turkey, in gaziantep, and we agreed to disagree. i, in fact, issued an apology on behalf of the humanitarian agencies because i felt it could have been done quicker. but this isn't because of some geopolitical systemic problem with the un. northwest syria has, for the past many years, been the subject — and it still is, in a different way — of formal security council permissions for operations. to breach that, which is what your amnesty international people would be saying to me... in extremis. ..in extremis — first of all,

it wouldn't have worked. the security council wouldn't have agreed to it. iam bound... that's the point. well... i mean, let's not get too stuck on syria, but would you, as a senior un official, agree that right now, the way the un security council works, the system of permanent five having a right of veto, which goes back to the settlement after the second world war, and the big powers carving up sort of international power and domination... mmm. ..it is entirely inappropriate for the 21st century, is it not? it's not working. but the humanitarian world does not depend on the security council for all its operations. in fact, there are many humanitarian agencies — the red cross, msf and others — who, as a matter of principle, do not want the security council to discuss humanitarian issues. and i have a lot of sympathy with that. for that reason, i was one of those... i wasn't in the un at

the time, but years ago, when the security council first agreed to provide support for aid into northwest syria, i was one of those who didn't agree with that, on a personal basis. i wasn't in any office, as i now am. but for me, we are not depending on the security council for our operations. we should depend on the views of the communities to drive our priorities, and we should get more international solidarity to get money to our agencies. let me ask you something else about your career. you have made a point in different humanitarian guises, working as a special envoy in yemen and syria and otherjobs, you've always said, "i believe in talking to all the parties, "whatever their international reputations, if i believe "it can do good." and in that context, you've spoken in recent times to the taliban since they took over in kabul, you've gone to moscow to speak to putin and his people. you have made a point,

as you'vejust said, of talking to president assad. there are many who will say, "martin griffiths, you're being "used, you're being manipulated." these people whose track record suggest they have no interest in humanitarianism use the legitimisation that comes from a photo opportunity with you to send an image, a message which belies their reality. well, of course, i don't agree with that... but what utility can you point to of all of these meetings? well, let me tell you. assad, for example, in exactly the example ijust gave you, i went to see him on that day, i think it was a monday after the earthquake — he immediately granted two extra crossing points, which was very important for us at the time... all right, well, we've dealt with that to a certain extent. let's talk about the taliban, which is perhaps a more interesting example, because in recent times, they've made it plain they are not prepared to countenance you at the un — amongst other organisations — employing women injobs, in the field, on the ground,

delivering humanitarian assistance. and so we argue with them about that, and so we engage with them to point out why that's wrong. we... do you defy them? i do not defy them in the sense that i keep negotiating with them. so are you or are you not bowing to their demand that you don't employ women? look, humanitarian agencies are not bowing to their demand not to employ women. we are in a country which they are running. we are still delivering, in fact, even more assistance to women and girls in afghanistan now than before. we are finding ways to work around it, as we have always done in afghanistan over these many years. and i'm not ashamed of that. i think it's the right thing to do, to provide ways to work around the policies of people with which we don't agree. the idea of walking away from the people of afghanistan because i don't like the taliban or you don't like the taliban seems to be a monstrosity. of course we engage, and the people who tell us most strongly to do so and to keep doing

so are the afghan women and girls who are most affected. you said recently, "hope is rare these days. "i don't remember the world being so overwhelmed with problems, "but i still hold on to hope." is thatjust blind faith? or do you have any real reason for that? no, because we find successes — like in afghanistan. we find successes despite terrible conditions. we are delivering to the 3.5 million people in sudan, despite no help from the generals whose war has suddenly engulfed that country. we are delivering in syria. we are delivering elsewhere around the world. we are meeting a high proportion of the people in need. for me — and i know this from my time as a mediator and my time as a human being — if you don't have hope, you will do nothing. hope is the only thing that drives us to keep striving. and in the humanitarian world,

we live with the conscience of failure to deliver on our promises, but not on a bad conscience of lack of effort. martin griffiths, we do have to end there, but i thank you very much for being on hardtalk. thank you. thanks very much. hello there. after all the cloud around on thursday and the heavy overnight rain, friday looks to be drier and brighter for many of us, thanks to a ridge of high pressure. some good sunny spells around, certainly, to start the day. but there will be some showers developing mainly in the north and the west of the uk and these will be most frequent across the north and west

of scotland, closer to this area of low pressure — quite a squeeze on the isobars here. so another very windy day to come across scotland, with gales here, lighter winds further south. now, there could be that weather frontjust clearing the far south—east through the morning, it will do so. and then there's plenty of sunshine around. winds more of a feature further north. here's where we'll see most of the showers, some of them heavy and thundery, blustery gales up to 55 miles an hour in northern scotland. further south, one or two showers peppering western coastal areas. otherwise, it's mainly dry. top temperature, 20 degrees in the south—east, not quite as warm, as humid as it has been, a slightly fresher feel to things. then as we head through friday night with that slightly cooler air mass, clear skies, the winds turning lighterfor a while. we'll see some mist and fog develop. and it will also be quite a chilly night to come. single figure values across the board, could be as low as 3—4 degrees across rural aberdeenshire. so as we head into the weekend, then, we've got high pressure to bring some fine and settled weather to start with. this next frontal system, though, will

sweep into central, western and northern areas through the day. so we start chilly, dry, some sunshine. early mist and fog clearing, and then the sunshine will become hazy as this frontal system moves in. but most of the rain will be across northern ireland, wales, northern england and pushing into southern scotland. the far north of scotland, southern, south—east england should stay dry. some sunshine here, albeit hazy at times — 20 degrees, mid—teens where we have the wind and the rain. into sunday, it looks like that front clears its way into the north sea and we'll have a bit of a hang back with this weather front across england and wales. so sunday probably a bit cloudier for england and wales. some splashes of rain through the morning. it could brighten up, though, into the afternoon. some sunny spells here further north, brightersunshine, one ortwo showers, especially in the north and west of scotland. here, the mid to high teens, but a bit warmer, a bit muggier across the south, up to 23 degrees. it's quite mixed into the new week. it'll start off unsettled. it'll settle down around the middle part of the week. we'll start to see some showers across northern areas by the end

of the week, but it stays fine and settled in the south.

welcome to newsday. reporting live from singapore, i'm arunoday mukharji.

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