Topic: 2024-Famine in Conflict Zones
Country: Philippines
Delegate Name: Andrew Tompkins
Food and agricultural production is a major piece of the Philippines’ economy. Rice and corn are the main crops grown here but they are not generally exported as the Philippines generally lacks the economic level to be a mass exporter. The food we do export is generally fruits and nuts which we exported 2.3 billion USD worth of in 2022. Philippines exports were only half of their imports in 2022 so we’re not in a secure position to provide massive monetary or agricultural support to countries in need such as Afghanistan, Myanmar. or Palestine. The Philippines generally is not usually a provider of aid to other nations due to our lack of being a historically large economy but in 2018 they did provide support in their own unique way to a struggling Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea’s main export is oil and its economy is reliant on it and built around it when oil prices dropped in 2018 Papua New Guinea struggled greatly economically. The Philippines, from one island nation to another, supported them by helping them diversify their economy through teaching them methods of rice production with different strains of rice in tropical climates as well as in land fish farming methods. This instance helped secure food security for Papua New Guinea as well as showed the world that the Philippines is willing to go the extra mile to support countries struggling with food insecurity in any way they can.
As a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, we would like to draw support to our fellow member nation who is going through a strenuous civil war, Myanmar. Despite Myanmar’s history of isolationism, we have strong ties to them as we have held embassies in each other’s capitals since 1954. We are deeply concerned for the well-being of the Burmese people as the civil war between the nation’s military-controlled government and counter-coup insurgents has caused mass deaths and struggle among the people. Over five thousand civilians have been killed so far and that’s withholding the rebel groups which are mostly made up of civilian combatants. Other than the death toll 3.3 million Burmese citizens have been displaced from their homes and the majority of the nation is living below the poverty line. These numbers are extremely alarming as Myanmar not only lacks a stable government to provide for its people in wartime, such as a nation like Ukraine or Pakistan but also is hindered in support efforts by the mountainous terrain that surrounds that aided its independence among the mass colonization of its neighbors in the nineteenth century, as it is more difficult for humanitarian groups to reach the country as well refugees to flee to neighboring nations. The humanitarian effort in Myanmar is also critically underfunded as they only receive 8% of the UN funding with a measly 178 million USD of the effort for the war in Ukraine while having around 60% of the civilian casualties.
We would recommend either additional funding for Myanmar and other nations who encounter similar struggles or a more equitable distribution of funds between humanitarian efforts for major conflicts as Myanmar’s funding, in particular, is disproportionate to their struggle and all efforts need to be made to supply their destitute population with enough food to survive this civil war. The United Nations document titled “Equitable Geographic Distribution” from 1997 calls for the equitable placement of funds and attention of the organization and those principles are not being followed in the organization’s treatment of the Ukrainian and Burmese wars. Not only this, the Philippines as well as willing countries in Southeast and South Asia can combine our crop production with the distribution efforts of humanitarians in order to get food to the people of Myanmar with the utmost urgency.
We, the Philippines, will do everything in our power to support our allies in their fight against famine. We ourselves experienced a similar wartime famine during the Second World War as we experienced a terrible famine under Japanese occupation during the Second World War. It is precisely because we share this struggle with the Burmese people that we are able to emphasize so greatly with their situation. The Philippine government will do everything in its power to support the people of Myanmar.
Works Cited:
https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/09/1154436
https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/233756?ln=en&v=pdf
https://borgenproject.org/foreign-aid-in-the-philippines/
https://fts.unocha.org/countries/234/summary/2022
https://aboitizinfracapital.com/the-top-10-philippine-industrial-exports/
