Event description
During this live online event on 11 July, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos presented her vision for the World Humanitarian Summit and answered questions from participants.
Since the current international humanitarian system was created 25 years ago, more and more people are affected by violence and hardship. The world has changed and humanitarian action must keep pace. Between 2004 and 2013, humanitarian funding requests roughly doubled from $6 billion to over $10 billion per year. In that same period, the number of people targeted through formal funding appeals rose from approximately 30 to 70 million. Moreover, global challenges like urbanization, population growth in some countries, environmental degradation, conflict, climate change and resource scarcity mean that humanitarian needs and costs are rising beyond the capacity of the global humanitarian system to cope.
The World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) is to take place in Istanbul, Turkey in 2016, and it – as well as the regional consultations leading up to it – is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to bring people and groups together over the next two years to think through and try to find better ways to address the various humanitarian challenges that occur as a result of disasters and conflicts, both building on successes and learning from mistakes.
The event took place two weeks prior to the WHS Regional Consultation for North and South East Asia, which will be held onsite in Tokyo. The online discussion was therefore an excellent unique opportunity to raise questions specific to the North and South East Asia region as well as about the Summit process in general. A recording of the event is available below.
The online event with Valerie Amos was exceptionally interactive, with participants asking a wide range of questions throughout the event. Participants asked about subjects such as humanitarian innovation, the application of humanitarian principles, the relationship between development and humanitarian action, how affected populations can better access humanitarian aid, how to integrate gender issues into the humanitarian agenda, and ultimately how humanitarian action can be improved.