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The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has released its 2022 Emergency Watchlist, a global list of humanitarian crises that are expected to deteriorate the most over the coming year. Most Watchlist countries—the top ten in particular—have experienced almost non-stop conflict over the last decade, hampering their ability to respond to global challenges like COVID-19 and climate change. These 20 countries are home to 10% of the global population but account for 89% of those in need of humanitarian aid worldwide. Displaced families, and in particular women and girls, are disproportionately affected by the crises, which are more than a series of unfortunate events, stresses David Miliband, IRC president and CEO. “The story told by the Watchlist makes a bigger argument,” he writes in the report, “not just that there are more poor and more people forcibly displaced, but that the scale and nature of humanitarian distress around the world constitutes a system failure.” The IRC has produced a Watchlist each year for over a decade. Over this time, it has evolved from a purely internal aid for emergency preparedness planning into a public report that warns global leaders, policymakers and concerned citizens not just where crises are deepening but why they are deepening and what can be done about it.