The Grimshaw Review of International Affairs Vol. 2, No. 1 before the military takeover in 2021 (European Commission, 2024). Despite aid reaching 3.2 million people in 2023 and 950,000 in early 2024, efforts remain largely underfunded, with the 2024 Myanmar Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan only attaining 12% of its required funding by mid-year (UNOCHA, 2024). This persistent underfunding forces aid agencies to make “impossible choices about cuts to planned assistance” (UNOCHA, 2024), placing millions at greater risk. Such inadequacies are magnified in the case of the Rohingya, where donor fatigue has resulted in severe ration cuts, with food assistance dropping to just 27 cents per day in 2023, exacerbating malnutrition and stunted growth in refugee camps (Tinmaung, 2024; Li, 2023). This lack of funding thus highlights a systemic failure to meet the Rohingya’s needs, even as global attention remains fixated on such short-term responses. The exclusion of the Rohingya from meaningful participation in humanitarian aid efforts further illustrates the failure of the humanitarian system to address their broader sociopolitical marginalisation. Lough et al. (2022, p. 8) argue that the historical erasure of the Rohingya’s identity, language, and rights has undermined the inclusivity of aid initiatives, rendering standard accountability measures ineffective. Moreover, communication barriers, including the use of unfamiliar languages and literacy-dependent feedback systems, alienate the Rohingya from decision-making processes, thereby exacerbating their exclusion from the aid process (Lough et al. 2022: 51). As such, these exclusionary practices are symptomatic of a humanitarian system that has failed to dismantle the very inequalities it seeks to address. The principle of “do no harm” further illustrates the complexities of aid delivery. While the principle is well-intentioned in its aim to avoid further harming vulnerable populations, humanitarian aid in practice often inadvertently worsens intergroup tensions and conflict (Anderson 1999: 69). The Rohingya’s dependency on external assistance – particularly from the World Food Programme – exposes them to additional vulnerabilities, including access restrictions during natural disasters and political upheavals (Ahmad et al., 2020, p. 5155). When compounded with the general diversion of global funding to crises in the Global North such as the Ukraine conflict, humanitarian responses in the Global South remain critically underfunded and this fragility is only deepened (IIRR, 2023). 17

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