The first World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) ended in Istanbul, Turkey on 24 May 2016. Even before the summit had opened, UN Humanitarian Chief Stephen O’Brien predicted the gathering would be a “once in a generation opportunity to set in motion an ambitious and far-reaching agenda”.

Indeed the United Nations, in its 70 years, has never come together at this scale, with so many different stakeholders, to discuss the pressing challenges that are resulting in so much suffering today.

The 23-24 May meeting was attended by a record 9,000 participants from 173 Member States, including 55 Heads of State and Government, hundreds of private sector representatives, and thousands of people from civil society and non-governmental organizations.

The WHS sought, above all, to bring to the forefront of global attention the scale of the changes required to address the challenges before the humanitarian community. It was agreed humanitarian assistance alone can neither adequately address nor sustainably reduce the needs of over 130 million of the world’s most vulnerable people and that a new and coherent approach is required based on addressing root causes, increasing political diplomacy for prevention and conflict resolution, and bringing humanitarian, development and peace-building efforts together.

In his summary report the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted the Summit had “truly been a unique opportunity for the global community to take responsibility to place people first: to secure their safety, to uphold their dignity, and to provide opportunities for a better future.” He praised support generated toward the vision laid out in his report One Humanity: Shared Responsibility and its Agenda for Humanity.

“I am encouraged by how many participants have embraced the five core responsibilities and committed to use them as a framework to improve our collective response to humanity,” he noted. “As we leave Istanbul, we know that the World Humanitarian Summit is only the beginning and not the end of a journey.”

He emphasized there is now broad recognition that humanitarian emergencies can no longer be viewed in isolation from broader sustainable development efforts. He added summit commitments must now give impetus to the new way of working put forward in the Agenda for Humanity.

As part of WHS follow-up, all individual and joint commitments made will be reflected in a new “Commitments to Action” platform which will be publicly accessible in order to ensure accountability.

In September, the Secretary-General will report to the United Nations General Assembly on summit achievements and propose specific ways to take commitments made forward. This includes through intergovernmental and inter-agency avenues, as well as the many initiatives, platforms and partnerships launched at the Summit. An annual update will review progress made in implementing what was proposed and achieved at the Summit and committed against the Agenda for Humanity.

He noted the Summit is “a point of departure to act, but there must also be a destination – a point where our action will have helped to transform the lives of millions of people around the world…. We owe it to all people affected by crises and owe it to ourselves, in the name of our common humanity and our shared responsibility.”

The Secretary-General has called for the Agenda for Humanity to be turned into an instrument of global transformation.

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As World Humanitarian Summit concludes, leaders pledge to improve aid delivery, move forward with Agenda for Humanity

With record numbers of people requiring life-saving assistance and funding drastically short of meeting those needs, leaders today concluded the first-ever World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul endorsing five responsibilities to improve aid delivery, support refugees, uphold international law, increase financing and prevent the crises generating the largest migration flows in 70 years.

“This unique Summit has set us on a new course,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in closing remarks. “It is not an end point, but a turning point”.

Governments, people affected by crisis, non-governmental organizations, the private sector and the United Nations had come together to support the Agenda for Humanity and its five core responsibilities. “Implementing this Agenda is a necessity if we are to enable people to live in dignity and prosperity,” he declared.

Indeed, he said, humanitarian and development partners had agreed on a new way of working to reduce the need for humanitarian action, while aid agencies and donor Governments had committed to a “Grand Bargain” that placed resources in the hands of those who needed them. Governments had committed to do more to prevent conflict, uphold international law and live up to the promise of the United Nations Charter.

Mr. Ban said he would report to the General Assembly in September on the Summit’s achievements and propose ways to advance the commitments.  To be sure, the people enduring conflict today and those working to alleviate their suffering were the true humanitarian heroes. “The World Humanitarian Summit must deliver for you,” he said.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, President of Turkey, said that, given the commitments participants had made during the two days, strong action, rather than empty words, must now follow. Indeed, no country could remain indifferent to the stark differences among countries, where one could be wealthy while millions of people lived in poverty in a neighbouring State.

“We must share our moral, political and financial obligations and act swiftly,” he said. “Any day that we wait causes the deaths of hundreds and the suffering of thousands.” With that in mind, he expressed hope that the Summit would open the door to a more peaceful world.

The two-day Summit brought together 55 Heads of State and Government and other officials from 173 countries. Hundreds of representatives from the private sector and thousands from civil society also attended, marking a diverse range of actors discussing new ways to alleviate suffering, including by addressing the social, economic and other inequities that could ignite simmering tensions into violent conflict.

In addition, the Summit featured seven high-level leaders’ round table discussions in which Heads of State and Government and representatives of civil society, the private sector, philanthropy and the United Nations announced commitments to improve humanitarian responses.  

In three of those round tables held on Tuesday, discussions focused around broad themes titled: “Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity”, “Natural Disaster and Climate Change – Managing Risks and Crises Differently” and “Women and Girls – Catalysing Action to Achieve Gender Equity”.

Throughout, participants decried that civilians were being indiscriminately killed in armed conflict, that the Geneva Conventions were being routinely ignored, that women and girls continued to suffer sexual abuse in emergency settings and that some 218 million people every year were impacted by natural hazards.  Indeed, participants said, the Secretary-General’s core commitments were a collective promise to never overstep the limits of humanity.

Fifteen special sessions were held, in which participants outlined individual pledges to help those affected by disasters and conflict. Seven of the special sessions were held on Tuesday, covering themes of humanitarian principles, protection of journalists, humanitarian intervention, young people, business, risk analysis and efforts to place people at the centre of humanitarian action. Speakers announced commitments to better engage a range of stakeholders in the search for pragmatic solutions to complex dilemmas. The eight special sessions held on Monday, 23 May, covered religious engagement, migrants, persons with disabilities, education, Islamic social finance, global health, regional action, and a global alliance for urban crises.

The plenary sessions, which were held alongside the other events, closed with an interactive panel moderated by United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson and featuring discussion with Maria Verónica Bastias, Regional Coordinator for the Global Network of Civil Society Organizations for Disaster Reduction; Butch Meily, President of the Philippine Disaster Recovery Foundation; Françoise Sivignon, President of Médecins du Monde; and Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Foreign Minister of Turkey.

The Summit’s closing ceremony featured performances by the Kenya State House Girls Performance Group, Syrian Boys Choir and the Adiyaman Temporary Housing Facility Performance Group, as well as Yvonne Chaka Chaka, United Nations Millennium Development Goals Envoy for Africa. A video of Summit highlights was also shown.

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Core Responsibility Five: Invest in Humanity

Extract from Chair’s Summary

The Summit reinforced the crucial role of financing as the key enabling and catalytic factor towards both meeting and reducing needs. Building upon the High-Level Panel for Humanitarian Financing, as well as in the Agenda for Humanity, participants made commitments that will help ensure that over 130 million people in need worldwide have increased access to lifesaving humanitarian assistance and protection, and to make existing funds go further. More specifically, there was recognition that financing needs to be able to support the new way of working. At the same time, it was clear that there remained a need to increase direct, timely and predictable humanitarian financing.

• Participants emphasized that humanitarian needs must be met by adequate and predictable financing. Commitments were made to increase resources and widen the donor base, including through expanding financing streams and mechanisms, ramping up risk insurance, greater support to pooled financing mechanisms, and mobilization of Islamic Social Finance. There was broad support from Member States to increase the Central Emergency Response Fund to $1 billion. This included a 25 per cent increase by one country, a pledge to provide $149 million over 5 years, as well as an initiative to use risk financing (backed by a fund to help pay the premium) to establish an innovative financing mechanism linked to risk insurance.

• Donors and humanitarian partners announced agreement on a Grand Bargain that will help get more means into the hands of people in need by saving incrementally up to a billion dollars in efficiency savings to humanitarian action over the next five years. Included was a commitment to channel 25 per cent of financing to national and local responders as directly as possible by 2020. This was embodied by an ambitious set of commitments signed by 27 international and 37 international NGOs in the Charter4Change as well as others coming from the newly-established Network for Empowered Aid Response, and existing NGO networks such as ICVA, InterAction, and ACT Alliance.

• New innovative partnerships were announced between humanitarians and private sector financial and technology companies, who will lend their expertise in digital payments, mobile money and other areas to help meet people’s needs more quickly and efficiently.

• On behalf of seven multilateral development banks, the World Bank and the European Investment Bank committed to close collaboration among the group in order to generate more evidence and data to guide solutions in fragile states with an objective of promoting economic resilience. In particular the World Bank announced the establishment of a Global Financing Response Platform which would provide longterm, extremely low-interest development projects to address fragility. The Summit also saw several concrete commitments for scaling up the use of cash transfers in conjunction with national social protection schemes.