KUALA LUMPUR, May 21 — Mercy Malaysia will moot a global “tax” aimed exclusively at funding global aid efforts at the upcoming United Nations’ World Humanitarian Summit on Monday.

The Malaysian medical relief society’s president, Datuk Dr Ahmad Faizal Mohd Perdaus, said he will make the proposal during the high-level roundtable session titled “Humanitarian Financing — Investing in Humanity.”

He explained that the tax was similar to contributions by developed nations like the US or the UK to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato), but this one would fund humanitarian rather than security efforts.

“You could argue that Nato was preserving security in the Western world. But it is in these countries’ interest to have another tax aimed at alleviating the root causes of these crises as well as a means to provide better assistance,” he said in a recent interview with Malay Mail Online.

As it stands, the world is currently facing a refugee crisis with more people displaced now than during the Second World War. Datuk Dr Ahmad said the proposed tax is very timely.

The tax Dr Ahmad envisioned would simply require all nations to contribute a certain amount of their public funds which will then be channelled for global aid initiatives.

He explained that a major hurdle when it comes to humanitarian efforts is the lack of funding, which he said was a pitiable proportion of the global economy.

“The world economy is at US$78 trillion. These are the figures the humanitarian arena is looking at as a benchmark, and this is not even counting money that is not within the system.

“The humanitarian budget that is launched at the end of every year is only US$19 billion to US$25 billion. The last one after a second appeal was just US$21 billion but even then, there was a huge difficulty in meeting the appeal,” he lamented.

The UN-led summit is convened by United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for the first time ever as, despite achieving vast technological advancements, the world is also seeing some of the worst human suffering in history.

“(Ban Ki-moon) realised that the world, although human advancement in science and technology is way ahead, but human suffering in relative terms hasn’t come down by any measure.

“If you measure in relative terms, it actually has increased. It’s the same as it was 60 to 70 years ago so it’s increased compared to the state of the rest of the world,” he said.

Mercy Malaysia president Datuk Dr Ahmad Faizal Mohd Perdaus speaks to Malay Mail Online during an Interview.

He added that the summit will attempt to find solutions to some of the world’s many crises, key among them the refugee crisis.

“There is a need to reduce and shrink both natural disasters and conflict situations. We should try to come together. Have better preparedness.

“Of course where conflicts are concerned, it’s not just economic and filling the gaps but finding the political will. In a way the summit will become a channel for discussions on a bigger scale,” he said.

Mercy Malaysia’s being invitation to the summit is also recognition for the 17-year-old organisation as apart from Dr Ahmad Faizal’s presentation at the main event, he will also be speaking at several other side events on public health and efforts to build a more resilient Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean).

“In a nutshell, Mercy Malaysia will represent not only our organisation but also represent Malaysia and, in a lot of ways, represent the humanitarian movement from the developing world given there are so few who are directly involved,” he said.

The UN World Humanitarian Summit is scheduled to kick off on Monday in Istanbul with high-level roundtables discussing, among others, the role of politics in preventing crises, commitment to aiding those displaced and humanitarian financing.