Forgotten crises are defined as “situations that do not receive enough attention among the international community, in general, but that need to be kept among assistance priorities. People affected by these humanitarian crises are often among the most vulnerable and cannot be neglected” (The Management of ECHO, European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations). Although there is an idea that forgotten humanitarian emergencies existed previously, only since 2004 has the European Commission, through ECHO, carried out successive rounds of risk evaluations by countries and humanitarian crises and disasters, developing the Forgotten Crises Assessment (FCA), based on four indicators:
The Vulnerability Index is set up as part of the INFORM index, through 18 indicators divided into two components: socioeconomic vulnerability (eight indicators) and vulnerable groups (ten indicators, of which three are specific to health: (HIV/TBC/Malaria). Recently, maternal mortality was added to the INFORM index as a component that differs from vulnerability.
Media Coverage is analysed by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre and comprises a categorisation, by quartiles, of the crises considered forgotten, taking into consideration their appearance in the media in relation to the average appearance of the set of countries in the written press and on radio and television in 600 types of media selected.
Aid Per Capita is also categorised through quartiles from the combination of ODA and humanitarian aid available over the past two years.
For the Qualitative Evaluation, ECHO carries out an analysis of different aspects of each crisis via a questionnaire which is later cross-checked with the results of all indicators.
The European Commission’s last available risk analysis by countries was conducted in April 2020 and identified 17 forgotten crises on four continents. The last available analysis on forgotten crises was conducted by ECHO in 2019.
Guatemala ranked highest among these forgotten crises, despite its high rate of food insecurity and social violence, increased targeting of NGOs and, recently, a systematic situation of migrant deportations from Mexico due to the United States’ (USA) anti-migration policies. Nevertheless, the situation in Guatemala is not exclusive to that country and extends across other territories in Mesoamerica, including Honduras and El Salvador.
The conflicts and violence that occur in the subregion of Sahel are also among the most forgotten crises: Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania and Niger territories have a strong presence of armed groups and are the focal points of anti-terrorist policies, the impact of which can be counter-productive. This is in addition to historical processes of dispossession and vulnerabilization, as well as media neglect and scant international financial support.
Both the Mesoamerica subregion and the Sahel are geo-strategically important to the Global North and are the focus of struggles for control over natural resources. They also drastically suffer from the effects of global warming.
Some forgotten crises are part of a cycle, in which the structural situation of a country or territory becomes invisible or is overlooked, thereby creating an accumulation of critical circumstances which only receive interest from the press and public opinion when an emergency occurs. One country that represents this situation is Haiti, which remained a territory with an underlying crisis a decade on from the 2010 earthquake, an event that mobilised significant international support. The crisis included an unsustainable political situation lasting at least three years and stemming from the terrible assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, and in a context of absolute daily violence that some Haitian organisations and international NGOs had been warning of but without obtaining the desired impact. This situation, coupled with the 2021 earthquake, which has caused over 2,200 deaths, put Haiti once again under the media spotlight. However, barely a week later, Haitian voices were already condemning the “trick of fatigue” through the displacement of the situation in Haiti experienced as a result of the intensifying conflict in Afghanistan.
At the same time, Afghanistan reflected the paradox of being the regional crisis with the second highest risk rating in the world while also being among the most forgotten crises. The events of recent months have changed this situation, yet these periods of major international interest are short lived and risks waning once the most immediate and superficial aspects of the crisis have been dealt with, or even before. In the meantime, other aspects like the reinforcement of necessary processes to create trust and democratic stability in the country, the consolidation of the active role of local civil society -including the most neglected groups- and the autonomous strengthening of the State from the logic of respect, attention and protection of people’s rights are not kept a priority.
Forgotten crises result from the normalised suffering of entire populations, for whom the protection of their most basic human rights takes a backseat to other interests, largely geopolitical and economic. The case of Sahrawi refugees in Algeria is paradigmatic -the Sahara is a territory still undergoing a process of political decolonisation, with support from the UN-. In the Tinduf refugee camps in Algeria, more than 170,000 refugees have lived there for over 45 years. The pandemic caused expatriate humanitarian aid staff to leave, with their gradual return occurring after one year and with serious consequences for people to gain access to necessary aid during the pandemic and for the availability of basic health services, health workers, medicines, and other basic needs.
Meanwhile, the conflict in Ukraine is the only case in which a crisis considered forgotten takes place inside European territory. Although the levels of risk and vulnerability are not as high as other forgotten crises, media attention and international aid is seriously lacking, which means the armed conflict remains active and with all the effects human terms and the almost invisible neglect of the most basic rights.
Overall, the idea of humanitarian crises forgotten by the international community helps us to keep the focus on situations which, despite their severity, remain outside the media spotlight and the priorities of international cooperation and humanitarian aid. We can also say that forgotten crises represent “tips of the iceberg” for structural conditions which urgently require a coherent and responsible response, placing the human rights of those directly affected front and centre.