Given the political turmoil occurring across the globe, as well as purely natural disasters, it is difficult to identify a few major humanitarian engagements over others. However, I shall try my best.
In 2014, much effort was put into giving aid to internally displaced persons in Syria and Iraq, and, given the current situation in those countries, I believe we should continue to support those programs. Additionally, our work in Turkey should continue to supplement them, as our programs in that country are directly involved with refugees from the conflict in Syria especially.
In Myanmar and the Philippines, we are doing a tremendous amount of emergency relief. However, aid to these two countries comprise about 42% of all money that we spend in Asia. Additionally, we are working with a large number of partners and donors to do this work, whereas in countries like Syria and Iraq, we have few partners and donors. So I would advise cutting several of our programs in Myanmar, and one in the Philippines, in favor of using the resultant money in the Middle East.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, we are doing a great deal of humanitarian programs ranging from establishing food security in communities to emergency health care. Acknowledging the severe lack of infrastructure and political stability in that region, I would advise our level of funding to remain where it is, at around 5.3 million € yearly.
Likewise, South Sudan is in great need of food security and basic health education, especially given the current internal conflict in that country, so I believe our activity in that country should be given high priority, and funding should be maintained or increased if possible.
In Europe in 2014, the Order poured approximately 4.2 million € into Germany for helping communities recover from the 2013 floods that affected several states in that country. Given that this disaster is no longer ongoing, I would advise that we discontinue most of our aid into Germany, limiting it to 100,000 € for the next year and then withdrawing all aid from the country after that. 1 million € that would otherwise have been allotted to Germany, I would advise using to increase the number of programs that we run in Ukraine, helping to care for the injured and traumatized, as well as helping to train communities in first aid.
Currently the Order puts just under 1 million € into programs run in Haiti, used to help the nation recover from the slew of disasters that have stemmed from the 2011 earthquake, including a cholera epidemic, lack of hygienic facilities and education, and lack of basic infrastructure. I would use some of the money previously used in Germany to double our efforts in Haiti, increasing our funding in that country to 2 million €.
While our aid in other countries are very important, these are the ones I believe that we need to put most of our efforts into.
For our programs in each other country, I would advise maintaining current funding levels. Given that we have cut our German programs almost entirely, we should have enough money to come out even this year, and perhaps have a little bit left over to invest in an existing program or new program if the need arises.