ISTANBUL—An unprecedented summit to revamp humanitarian aid and global responses to modern-day crises has opened in Turkey.
The first World Humanitarian Summit is being convened in Istanbul on Monday and Tuesday in a bid to better tackle what the United Nations describes as the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II.
The gathering was conceived four years ago by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. In preparation, 23,000 people were consulted in over 150 countries, UN officials say.
Stephen O’Brien, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, said the summit’s success would be defined not by funds raised, but by the number of commitments to action made.
He said the summit is “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to set in motion an ambitious and far-reaching agenda.”
A top United Nations official on Sunday urged word leaders to reform the humanitarian-aid system and uphold international humanitarian law ahead of a key summit.
Speaking on the eve of the first World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson said the gathering was a “wake-up call for action.”
“There is a huge need for us to show solidarity with those who are affected by natural disasters and man-made disasters,” Eliasson said.
Natural disasters, he warned, were on the rise because of climate change with more than 22 countries affected by El Niño.
Eliasson also urged leaders to “stand up” for international humanitarian law, which is being flouted in Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen.
He described sieges against civilians in Yemen and Syria as “an absolute violation of international law” and “practically a medieval practice.”
He also expressed hope that more energy would be devoted toward conflict prevention as an outcome of the two-day Istanbul meeting.
Other priorities on the summit’s “agenda for humanity” action include closing funding shortfalls and reducing the number of those in need.
Sixty-five heads of state and government representatives from 180 countries are expected to attend.
The event is a bid to boost the response to what the United Nations calls the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II.
An estimated 125 million people worldwide require humanitarian assistance, among them 60 million people displaced from their homes.
Sixty-eight countries, including host Turkey, Germany and the United States, issued a joint statement ahead of the summit, saying they were on board with its goals.
War, conflict and persecution have forced about 60 million people worldwide to flee their homes, overwhelming the global humanitarian-aid system designed to help them and exposing its shortcomings.
Haphazard organization, inefficient spending and a lack of coordination in delivering aid are among the problems, according to critics who charge that now, more than ever, the structure for helping the world’s most vulnerable people needs to be overhauled.
“It’s definitely the case that the way in which we respond to humanitarian crises needs to be reformed,” said Jodi Nelson, senior vice president for policy and practice for the International Rescue Committee. “It’s not just the humanitarian organizations, it’s the development organizations. It’s really about reforming the entire humanitarian-aid system.”
How to better coordinate, fund and organize humanitarian aid are among the topics the World Humanitarian Summit will explore. The two-day event, the first United Nations conference of its kind, was expected to bring together global leaders from government, business, aid organizations, affected communities and youth, among others.
Jens Laerke, deputy spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said world leaders were expected to commit to advancing action in key areas. These include reaffirming the political and financial pledge to help ensure that 130 million people across 40 countries who are “in need of life-saving assistance and protection” have access to humanitarian aid and protection.
The leaders would also “respond to the widespread call…for a ‘new way of working’ to address today’s crises, which are increasingly urban, protracted and complex, leaving millions of people caught in long-term cycles of humanitarian vulnerability and need,” Laerke said in an e-mail.
The problems of the system are endemic, critics charge, not least among them the delivery of aid.
“They have a massive problem with coordination,” said Elizabeth Cullen Dunn, a geographer at Indiana University, Bloomington, who spent 16 months between 2009 and 2103 conducting research in camps for displaced people in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. “There is no one who is in charge. We see a lot of duplication of aid and gaps in delivery.
“Once they are displaced, [refugees] enter into a system that is extremely chaotic,” added Dunn, who authored a paper on refugee protection and resettlement in the May issue of Science. “There is very little planning involved. It’s very ad hoc.”
Dunn and other advocates for refugees also criticize the length of time that displaced people fleeing conflict and other trauma are generally left to languish in camps. The average is 17 years, she said.
UN officials cite a gap in humanitarian funding as exacerbating the challenges to the humanitarian-aid system.
“The sheer scale of the global crisis is something we’ve never seen before,” Brian Hansford, a spokesman for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said in written comments. “But the whole humanitarian system is faced with a critical dilemma because the funds available are not keeping up with the rapidly expanding needs.”
(AP and Los Angeles Times/TNS)