So I have moved roles slightly and am now beginning to work
more specifically within the Humanitarian sector, although I still continue to
work for the Open University
in development I am focussing the majority of my time with the HumanitarianLeadership Academy
which has brought about this post around
the build up to the first ever World Humanitarian Summit (WHS)
As the summit draws closer (May 2016), a series of
roundtable debates (4 in total across Europe) organised by the European
Commission and the Network on Humanitarian Action (NOHA) are taking
place in order to inform the European Union’s Policy position towards the WHS. I
took part in the final event in Dublin this past week, running across 2 days
(30th – 31st March) the event saw participants from Government,
NGO’s, Academia, Funders and Responders engaging in debates which proved to be
both interesting (as I continue to develop my knowledge and understanding) and highly
productive. Day 1 was a closed event
developing the recommendations across 4 themes:
 |
| Day 2 at the Royal Irish Academy - Image from @eu_echo |
- Access and Subsidiarity
- Gender based violence and Resilience
- Protection in Urban settings
- Current challenges: forced and protracted displacement
I worked specifically with the group looking at recommendations
relating to ‘Access and Subsidiarity ‘with much discussion around the meaning
of subsidiarity as it relates to humanitarianism and access, outlined in the recommendations
as:
‘Crisis-affected
populations must be seen as actors in humanitarian assistance rather than as
beneficiaries of aid. There is a need for inclusivity of all sections of
crisis-affected population. In this respect, subsidiarity needs to be considered to include empowerment, solidarity
and accountability.’
Day 2 was an open event that saw the developed recommendations presented and debated to further refine the final submission. The recommendations from this 4th event will be published on the NOHAsite soon but you will be able to find the recommendations from events 1-3 already available.
Day 2 was an open event that saw the developed recommendations presented and debated to further refine the final submission. The recommendations from this 4th event will be published on the NOHAsite soon but you will be able to find the recommendations from events 1-3 already available.
Trying to pick highlights from any event like this,
especially within a sector that has many complex interdependencies, is always
difficult but there were two themes that did seem to be slightly louder than
most and that was around the need to ensure gender is represented across all of
the recommendations as part of an inclusive approach; and that with the
changing face of crisis in terms of the increasing protracted nature means that
a closer alignment of both humanitarian and development work is needed in order
to achieve lasting success. This was echoed at the Bond conference
earlier in the year.
NOHA live streamed day 2 of the debate which you can view on
the their YouTube channel
To see what others were saying about the debate via twitter see the Storify below:
To see what others were saying about the debate via twitter see the Storify below:
