Bridging gap between relief and development work
Bridging gap between relief and development work can meet immediate needs, lessen vulnerability – UN chief
28 January 2018 – A surge in conflict-induced needs in Africa and the Middle East, coupled with an increase in climate shocks that pummel the most vulnerable everywhere, have given fresh urgency to calls for the international community to work in a new way that not only ends humanitarian needs but reduces them over time, United Nations Secretary-GeneralAntónio Guterres said Sunday.
Addressing leaders gathered for a high-level event held as part of the African Union Summit, which has been running since last week in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, Mr. Guterres underscored that this new way of working is not about shifting funding from development to humanitarian programmes or vice-versa.
“It is about recognizing common goals and
optimizing existing resources and capabilities to help all
people in situations of risk, vulnerability and crisis.
It is about working better together to reduce humanitarian
needs over the medium to long-term,” said the UN chief,
spotlighting the aim of one of the key outcomes of the 2016
World Humanitarian Summit.
Two years after the
international community outlined the changes that are needed
to alleviate suffering, reduce risk and lessen
vulnerability, Mr. Guterres said it was clear the call to
bridge the humanitarian-development divide will take time
and a diverse range of actors, including those outside the
UN system.
“We must recommit to a focus on results and
holding ourselves accountable by fully articulating
collective outcomes,” he said.
Amid a surge in
conflict-induced needs in Syria, Yemen the Democratic
Republic of the Congo (DRC), South Sudan and elsewhere, the
UN chief said he had launched a push in diplomacy for peace,
including mediation, to end and prevent conflict.
We must
break down the silos that have existed for too long between
humanitarian and development actors UN chief Guterres
As for the increasingly frequent and more intense climate shocks that are also creating record humanitarian needs, and heavily impacting the most vulnerable, the international community must redouble its efforts to address climate change, as well as to increase the resilience of those impacted by drought, floods and other disasters.
“We
have a moral obligation to do better and we have the tools
and knowledge to deliver on that obligation,” said the
Secretary-General, underscoring: “We must break down the
silos that have existed for too long between humanitarian
and development actors.”
He said experience from
countries like Ethiopia, Uganda, Yemen and Somalia, where
the new approach is working, offers four valuable
lessons:
1. The UN and development partners must
strengthen the capacities of national and local actors to
effectively respond to needs, risk and
vulnerability;
2. Collectively start from a common
understanding of the challenges and then sharing data,
information and analysis;
3. Carry out risk-informed
joint planning, with governments and all partners, to reach
those furthest behind; and
4. Redesign the financing
architecture to promote predictability, flexibility and
multi-year financing, as well as engage international
financing institutions and the private sector actors,
including insurance actors, to develop innovative
solutions.
Noting that the world spends much more energy
and resources managing crises than preventing them, the
Secretary-General said the UN must uphold a strategic
commitment to a 'culture of prevention,' and he pledged to
work with Africa “towards ending suffering and restore the
human dignity of every
person.”
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