humanitarian assistance

Humanitarian Affairs Segment

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Humanitarian assistance has increasingly become a heated topic among international community in light of escalating conflicts and tensions globally. The Segment, themed ““Restoring Humanity, Respecting Human Dignity and Leaving No-one Behind: Working together to reduce people’s humanitarian need, risk and vulnerability”, discusses on enhancing effectiveness and efficiency of coordination of humanitarian assistance by the UN.

Mr. Lowcock, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, delivered a report on strengthening coordination on humanitarian assistance of the UN. He highlighted that an effective global humanitarian system is in place currently which saves millions of civilians annually across the globe. Detrimental consequences on individuals’ livelihood caused by famine, natural disasters and armed conflicts were alleviated by the humanitarian aid offered. Innovative, comprehensive and integrated responses mechanisms were well-executed. In addition, anticipative and early-action approach were taken to ensure provision of timely assistance.

Countries’ representatives then took turns to voice their views and comments on the current state of humanitarian aid offered by the UN. Many expressed their deep concerns on the attack of medical personnel and facilities in volatile environments as well as occurrences of gender-based violence. At the same time, representatives such as Canada and Finland stressed on the inclusion of person with disabilities to advance their rights. Most representatives stated that their countries are committed to support stronger international cooperation to realize the aim of “leaving no-one behind”.

Meeting: Economic and Social Council: Humanitarian Affairs Segment

Date/Location: Economic and Social Council, UNHQ NYC; 15:00-18:00; June 19th 2018

Speakers:

Mr. Jerry Matthews Matjila (Vice President of the Humanitarian Affairs Segment)

Mr. Mark Lowcock (Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator)

Representative of Egypt

Representative of Bulgaria

Representative of Armenia

Representative of Italy

Representative of Thailand

Representative of Canada

Representative of Switzerland

Representative of Finland

Representative of Afghanistan

Representative of Germany

Representative of Republic of Korea

Representative of Japan

Representative of Belgium

Representative of Netherlands

Representative of Norway

Representative of El Salvador

Representative of South Africa

Representative of Ecuador

Representative of Cuba

Representative of Sweden

Representative of Indonesia

Representative of  Vietnam

Representative of Honduras

Representative of Ireland

Representative of Turkey

Representative of Papua New Guinea

Written By: WIT representative, Rosalind Cheung

Homegrown solutions to African problems and innovative practices in humanitarian action

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The event aims to showcase innovative models in private-public sector partnerships in humanitarian financing.

Ms. Jeanine Cooper opened the panel discussion by stating that helping is an integral part of the social fabric of Africa and therefore finding solutions in response to humanitarian crises is something very innate to the community.

Mr. Muhamad Sani Sidi’s address was about locating best practices learning from the 2012 flood in Nigeria. It was the largest natural disaster the country has ever seen, displacing over 2.3 million people. As an outcome, public-private partnerships have strengthened in the region. The Federal Government of Nigeria allocates 1% of total national income towards disaster management. Furthermore, the private sector too played a key role by raising and allocating 84 million US Dollars towards the disaster. However, the disaster coupled with the problem of insurgency in the country pose many humanitarian problems such as the closure of educational institutions in Nigeria.

Mr. Ahmed Idris shared success stories from Kenya. He posited that young people are vital to the progress of Africa as more than half of the population of the continent is under the age of 20. This reflects a growth in literacy rates as more children in the 21st century attend school compared to their older counterparts. Furthermore, technology is playing a key role in aiding humanitarian assistance. In Kenya technology helps authorise humanitarian assistance and aid documents from the government within five days.

Mr. Sunday Babatunde echoed similar innovative ideas highlighted by Mr. Ahmed Idris and Mr. Muhamad Sani Sidi. He addressed a need for governments to develop support systems that encourage these novel responses to old problems relating to humanitarian assistance. Furthermore, he stated that OCHA AU has a humanitarian assistant team with 23 members states and many UN Agencies that support initiatives of the African Union for coordination and Africa Disaster Management Platform.

 Meeting title: “Homegrown solutions to African problems and innovative practices in humanitarian action”
Speakers: Ms. Jeanine Cooper, OCHA representative to the AU and ECA; Mr. Ahmed Idris, Kenya Red Cross; Mr. Sunday Babatunde, OCHA regional civil military coordinator (Africa Region); Mr. Muhamad Sani Sidi, Director General, NEMA-Nigeria
Location: Conference Room E, United Nations HQ, New York 
Date: Thursday, 26 June 2014
Written by WIT Representative: Apurv Gupta
Edited by WIT Representative: Sophia Griffiths-Mark 

Effective Humanitarian Assistance

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A panel about the future of humanitarian affairs was convened to discuss methods and strategies towards achieving greater inclusiveness, coordination, interoperability, and effectiveness in humanitarian aid. H.E. Mr. Dabbashi underlined the importance of the dialogue, commenting on how increased humanitarian threats are dangerously stretching the finite number of humanitarian resources available.

Ms. Pizon focused on the importance of local leaders in disaster intervention. If coordination mechanisms work on both an international and local level, a damaged community can be much more resilient. Ms. Georgieva emphasized the different aspects of operational effectiveness, such as the swift deployment of capacities, the coordination of a joint-assessment strategy, and the cohesive interoperability of all sectors. But Ms. Georgieva also stated that this operational effectiveness can only take us so far. Efficient and productive policies, such as those developed for food assistance, are the difference between helping and further damaging a disaster stricken community. While pumping free food and crops into a disaster area may meet short term needs, it kills the local markets, weakening the society’s capacity to be self-sufficient in the future.

Dr. Sani-Sidi continued the conversation by championing Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA). NEMA’s departments are categorized into areas for both risk reduction and emergency response, which work in tandem to ensure long term capacity building and prompt response in times of crisis. To close the panel, Mr. Fisher brought attention to the importance of understanding the context of ‘at risk’ countries. As an international community, it is crucial to understand not only the capacities of the country of concern, but also the government situation, the strengths and weaknesses of their institutions, the rule of law, the fiscal management, and all of the other developmental issues that can exacerbate or mitigate the emergency. The effectiveness of response mechanisms is directly dependent on understanding the state of the country, as different situations are more conducive to different methods of humanitarian aid. 

Meeting Title: Panel discussion on “Effective humanitarian assistance”
Speakers: Chair H.E. Mr. Ibrahim O. Dabbashi (Libya), Vice-President of the Economic and Social Council; Moderator Ms. Valerie Amos, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator; Ms. Kristalina Georgieva, European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response; Dr. Muhammad Sani-Sidi, Director-General, National Emergency Management Agency, Nigeria; Mr. H. Halil Afsarata, Head of the Strategy Development Department at the Prime Ministry, Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD), Turkey; Mr. Nigel Fisher, United Nations Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for Syria; Ms. Inday Pizon, Executive Director, Regional Development Incorporated, National Coalition of Rural Women/PKKK, Philippines; Ms. Barbette Badocdoc, Media and Networking Officer, Initiatives for Dialogue and Empowerment through Alternative Lawyering Services (IDEALS), Philippines
Location: ECOSOC Chamber, United Nations, New York 
Date: 24 June 2014
Written By WIT Representative: Zachary Halliday
Edited by WIT Representative: Sophia Griffiths-Mark 

Humanitarian Assistance in Complex Emergencies

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As part of the ECOSOC humanitarian affairs segment, a meeting was held to discuss how to respond to the needs of people in complex emergency situations. Beginning the meeting, H.E. Mr. Dabbashi, gave a statement on how to provide more sustainable solutions for internally displaced persons (IDPs), and stated how partnerships between international and local actors must be strengthened in order for humanitarian aid to have the greatest effect.

Following, Ms. Amos, the USG for Humanitarian Affairs, stated that 75% of crises requiring humanitarian response are due to conflicts or complex emergencies, and 33.3 million people worldwide are displaced in their own countries due to conflict. Furthermore, she emphasized the importance of talking with armed groups in conflict zones in order for aid workers to be able to gain access to the effected civilians.Image

Next, Mr. Ramos Horta from the UN peacebuilding office spoke about how civilians oftentimes bear the brunt of casualties from conflicts, especially in Syria, Central African Republic, and Iraq. In these areas conflict and violence against civilians are leading to massive displacement, loss of livelihoods, restriction of movement, sexual violence, and long periods of insecurity. Mr. Ramos Horta emphasized that shifts in global geopolitical and economic power must be accompanied by a growing responsibility of these actors to respond to humanitarian crises, and that this humanitarian action must be complimented by more intensive investment in peacebuilding, conflict prevention, mediation of political settlements, and post conflict recovery.

Following, Mr. Al-Kholani spoke about the growing crises in his home country, Yemen, where thousands of IDPs are in vulnerable situations due to conflict. Yemen has created a single governmental authority, the Executive Unit for Internally Displaced Persons, to handle their IDP crisis. Dr. Philip Spoerri from the Red Cross then spoke about using the international humanitarian law (IHL) framework to protect civilians in armed conflict, and to restrict the flow of weapons. IHL imposes obligations on both state and non-state actors, and the biggest challenge to IHL is that in conflict situations it is often blatantly ignored.

 

Meeting Title: Economic and Social Council Humanitarian Affairs Segment: Panel Discussion on “Serving the needs of people in complex emergencies”
Speakers: H.E. Ibrahim O. Dabbashi (Libya), Vice-President of the Economic and Social Council; Ms. Valerie Amos, Under-Secretary-General (USG) for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator; Mr. Jose Ramos-Horta, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the UN Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Guinea-Bissau; Mr. Ahmed Al-Kholani, Director of the Executive Unit of Internally Displaced Persons and Camps Management, Yemen; Dr. Philip Spoerri, Director for International Law and Cooperation, International Committee of the Red Cross; Mgr. Dieudonne Nzapalainga, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bangui; Imam Oumar Kobine Layama, President of the Islamic Council in the Central African Republic; Reverend Nicolas Guérékoyame-Gbangou, President of the Central African Republic’s Evangelical Alliance
Date: 25 June 2014
Location ECOSOC Chamber, United Nations HQ, New York
Written by WIT Representative: Marli Kasdan

Lessons Learned from Typhoon Haiyan

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H.E. Mr Libran Cabactulan stated that the Typhoon Haiyan has taught significant lessons to the Philippines and other member states. All partners and shareholders, shared the cost and capacity to make response more effective. Ms Kang highlighted that the 2004 Indian Tsunami reflected the need for a fundamental reorientation in humanitarian response and the Typhoon Haiyan response gave us an opportunity to assess the same.

Following, Ms Nanette Salvador-Antequisa stated that ‘Ecosystem Work for Essential Benefits’ with their respective partner organisations have provided relief to 10,000 families. The challenges they faced were in areas such as storage, distribution, funding for the transportation of the goods and retaining their staff because of lack of resources (technical and financial). Further critically addressing the Cluster, she stated that they should be based on more practical issues and should give platform for local groups to have a greater voice.

Mr Andy Featherstone highlighted the key findings and recommendations of a high-end study, ‘Missed Again: making space for partnership in the Typhoon Haiyan response.’ First, the partnership of National and International NGOs strengthened the relevance, effectiveness and coverage of humanitarian assistance, through utilizing their respective resources: proximity to and knowledge of communities and their technical and financial resources. Second the humanitarian leadership and coordination mechanisms had an international look and feel. Third, the recommendations were as follows: (i) create an enabling environment for partnership; (ii) the need to ‘localise’ surge responses; (iii) an obligation to prioritise preparedness.

Next, Mr Butch Meily spoke on the role of the private sector in the Typhoon Haiyan response, where they plugged the gaps in government sector response. A case in point: the Department of Education needed emergency food aid, so instead of using the government process of bidding, the private sector, provided food aid for 27,000 students for one month. Lastly Mr Randolph Kent, questioned the sustainable impact of private sector within the humanitarian sector. He importantly highlighted that we must identify the core business interest of the companies in engaging with humanitarian assistance i.e. economic incentives and interests, and not just limit their involvement to philanthropy and corporate social responsibility. 

Meeting Title: The role of partnerships in humanitarian response: lessons learned from Typhoon Haiyan
Speakers: Chair- H.E. Mr Libran N. Cabactulan, Permanent Representative of the Republic of the Philippines to the UN; Moderator- Ms Kyung-wha Kang, Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs; Panellists- Ms Nanette Salvador-Antequisa, Executive Director, Ecosystem Work for Essential Benefits; Mr Butch Meily, President, Philippine Disaster Recovery Foundation; Mr Andy Featherstone, Co-author of new research commissioned by ActionAid, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Oxfam, and Tearfund documenting the application of partnership approaches with national and local actors during the response to Typhoon Haiyan; Mr Randolph Kent, Co-author of a recent series of studies commissioned by UN OCHA, ODI, HPG, and Vantage Partners, and supported by DFID, on business community ad public-sector partnerships in disaster response.
Location: Conference Room 7, NLB, United Nations, New York.
Date: 24 June 2014
Written by WIT Representative: Aslesha Kaur Dhillon
Edited by WIT Representative: Sophia Griffiths-Mark 

Nutrition as an Input and an Outcome of Resilience

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The concept of resilience and its practical application in food security and nutrition, both in policy formation and implementation, has recently become a topical issue among humanitarian development communities.

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Today at the United Nations, a panel discussion on nutrition aimed to propose approaches and develop a concrete action plan that can be taken to strengthen resilience towards the root causes of malnutrition. Building upon the discussion and conclusions from the IFPRI 2020 conference held in Addis Ababa, the event aimed to provide insights for the preparation of the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) and the post-2015 developmental agenda. 

Chairperson, Sandra Aviles opened the discussion by highlighting the importance of understanding the term resilience not as jargon, but as a term that is practically defined as a tangible indicator that can help communities bridge the gap between short term goals and long term developmental agendas.

Mrs. Florika focused her address on locating target communities that are most vulnerable to malnutrition. She stated that, “children below the age of five and pregnant and lactating women were among those that are the most severe targets of hunger needs”. In response, ECHO and OCHA are developing a system to index risk factors, develop key indicators, and resilience markers and identify best practices to provide humanitarian assistance to these communities with maximum output. Mrs. Dolores highlighted natural disasters as another factor that threaten food security. Crises prone regions of developing countries are often ill equipped with coping up with natural disasters, and at times such disasters occur with little time gap which further threatens food security and enhances health risks.

In conclusion, Mrs. Charlotte Dufour, drawing upon a programme conducted with ECHO that addressed the challenge of access to land as an underlying causes of malnutrition, highlighted some of the practical problems that schemes faced when tested on ground. She posited that institutional silos existed across and within institutions that hinder the establishment of a common language of indicators. Furthermore, while institutions possess technical skills they lack the organizational and planning skills that are required to initiate programmes in countries with fragile governments, weak leadership and high levels of corruption.

 

Meeting Title: “Nutrition as an input and an outcome of resilience”
Speakers: Sandra Aviles; Senior Liason Officer, Programme Development & Humanitarian Affairs, FAO; Mrs. Florika Fink-Hooijer, Director for Strategy, Policy and International Cooperation, ECHO; Mrs. Dolores Rio, Nutrition Specialist, UNICEF; Mrs. Charlotte Dufour, Nutrition Officer, FAO; Mrs. Muriel Calo, Senior Food Security & Livelihood Advisor, Action Against Hunger
Location: United Nations HQ, Conference Room 7 (NLB), New York 
Date: 23 June 2014
Written By WIT Representative: Apurv Gupta
Edited by WIT representative: Sophia Griffiths-Mark 

Starvation: Assad’s battering ram against the Syrians

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“Kneel or Starve”

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The Danish Ambassador to the UN hosted a panel to reiterate Denmark’s determination to end starvation as a weapon of war in Syria.

Mr. Zakarya started with a personal account of the life in the besieged and chemically attacked city of Moadamiya. Victims of the regime’s “Kneel or Starve” strategy, the people of Moadamiya survived on a diet of sugar and rice before resorting to foraging edible plants. He added that the Assad regime actively blocked delivery of aid, and individuals who sought medical treatment are shot when returned to the city. Speaking of the disheartening story of a grocer’s daughter starved to death, he said that the strategy deprives Syrians not only of food, but also hope.

Mr. Sammond illustrated the severity of starvation in Syria by pointing to the fact that more Syrians died of starvation than that of illness and attack. Referring to Amnesty International’s report on the Yarmouk refugee camp, he pointed out that there is only half an hour of water supply per day. The lack of supplies is also illustrated by the fact that hospitals are lit by candles and even cigarette lighter, and caesarian sections are performed with little or no anesthetia.

Mr. Al-Dimashqy illustrated the shortage of food by stating that price of food increased by tenfold. Mr. Bitari provided a voice of Palestinians in Syria, and urged the international community to intervene the situation in Yarmouk camp.

Echoing the call for intervention, Dr. Ghadbian joined from the floor by stating that the problem with the starvation strategy is the lack of enforcement of Security Council Resolution 2139, which demanded parties to allow delivery of humanitarian assistance. Saudi Ambassador Al-Mouallimi passionately expressed his regret that some countries prevented the passing of a resolution for bringing those who caused this atrocity to justice.

 

Meeting Title: Panel discussion on “Life under siege: Starvation as a weapon of war”
Speakers: H.E. Ambassador Ib Petersen, Permanent Representative of Denmark to the United Nations; Alexandra Hiniker, Pax Christi International (Moderator); Qusai Zakarya, Social Activist and Survivor of chemical attack in Moadamiya, Syria; Neil Sammonds, Researcher for Syria at Amnesty International; Ammar Al–Dimashqy, Social Activist in Besieged Areas; Nidal Bitari, Palestinian Lead for Human Rights in Syria; Dr. Najib Ghadbian, Special Representative to the United Nations of National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Force; H.E Ambassador Abdallah Al-Mouallimi, Permanent Representative of Saudi Arabia to the United Nations.
Location: United Nations HQ, Economic and Social Council Chamber, New York
Date: 5 June 2014
Summary Written By WIT Representative: Harrison Chung