On April 29th, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) released its report on global military spending in 2018. According to the report, the global military budget rose in 2018 by 2.6%, and is now estimated at $1.822.000.000.000 ($1,822 trillion.)
This is a tremendous setback for IPB and its partners. More importantly, it is a direct assault against people who are in urgent need of humanitarian aid and development assistance. IPB, which focuses its resources on lobbying and campaigning for the reduction of military spending in order to benefit social development, is greatly alarmed by this increase of 2.6% military spending increase. To put this in perspective, it should be remembered that humanitarian aid and development assistance amounted to $ 26.4 billion in 2017, according to the Development Initiatives´ Report on the Global Humanitarian Assistance[1]. Each dollar invested in war is causing multiplying physical and emotional damage, far more than $ 26.4 billion in humanitarian assistance can ever repair or compensate.
We, as active members of global civil society, need to combine our voices and efforts with others to name, protest and change this injustice and win reductions of the world’s military budget through legal means and with high moral standards. Only in this way can we free up the financial and human resources essential to not only treating the symptoms of the global epidemic called “poverty,” but to address issues such as hunger, homelessness, migration, racial and gender inequality and environmental deterioration.
Lisa Clark & Reiner Braun
Co Presidents of the International Peace Bureau
Florence and Berlin, 29th of April 2019
[1] http://devinit.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/GHA-Report-2018-Executive-summary.pdf
