The two-day World Humanitarian Summit wound up with announcements of a new children’s fund seeking nearly $4 billion (3.6 billion euros) to help educate the young in conflict and a “Grand Bargain” to streamline work between donors and aid groups. “These will kick-start transformative change from the top down and from the ground up”.
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Ban Ki-moon, who urged the global community to cut the amount of internally displaced people by 50 percent by 2030, is also expected to push for an increase in world spending on reducing disaster risk at the summit.
But critics of the summit argued that its lack of a binding agreement made it toothless, while defenders of the gathering said that was never its objective.
Participants discussed an global framework for refugees and asylum seekers, more legal pathways for migration, combatting migrant trafficking, and eradicating gender- based violence.
Mr Mohamoud said that “we need to help those affected by the natural disasters”. How to deliver the humanitarian aid supplies more speedily and efficiently to those in need is one of the main topics on the agenda.
That, observers say, is bad news for the United Nations, which is hoping to secure pledges to cover a projected shortfall in billions of dollars needed by its agencies to deal with the refugee crisis. “This summit was a step down that road”.
In an apparent reference to Russia, Ban also criticized members of the U.N. Security Council who have prevented progress “not only in critical issues of war and peace, but even on humanitarian affairs”, stressing that the absence of these leaders didn’t “provide an excuse for inaction”.
“We are here to shape a different future”, said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in his remarks at the opening of the event.
The summit will need to avoid the problems of previous large meetings.
Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn on Monday said South Korea will expand efforts to root out terrorism and support conflict-prone countries at a global humanitarian conference in Turkey.
United Nations second-in-command Jan Eliasson said on Sunday it was necessary to stand up for worldwide humanitarian law which was being disregarded, citing attacks on hospitals and “practically medieval” sieges on civilians in Syria and Yemen. If we continue to allocate only one in every 500 dollars spent on humanitarian interventions directly to first responders, we have little chance of building long-term capacity close to the ground.
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Caritas Internationalis, a confederation of 165 Catholic relief, development and social service organisations, of which Cafod is a part, believes the current top-down approach to humanitarian response must be replaced by an investment in local action, strengthening grass-roots capacity and improving partnership and coordination. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change.
