HUMANIFESTO - EDITION 3

En route to New York, 9 December 2024

Dear Humanitarian Community, 

I write this from the plane to New York, after an interesting few days in Geneva. I hope you have had a chance to look through the Global Humanitarian Overview, with thanks to all who prepared such a comprehensive analysis of needs and were involved in an excellent launch. The numbers are daunting, but they give us a clear target for our collective action. 

The top crisis on the GHO list was already Syria, and the extraordinary events of the last few days will keep it there. I was Ambassador in Beirut from 2011-2015, during an earlier phase of the Syrian people’s uprising, so this week has been resonant. I am in close touch with our Humanitarian Coordinators for Syria and the region. As we respond with advocacy, access and humanitarian support, we are focused on a strong grip of the coordination; scaling up support and engagement; ensuring Syrian voices are part of the strategy; anticipating what might happen next; and connecting the humanitarian track to the fast moving political track. I plan to visit the region next week, and to convene the IASC to hear from partners and build a shared approach. 

Also coming up this week I have Security Council sessions on Yemen and Afghanistan; sessions with our key donors and partners; and our high level pledging event on the Central Emergency Response Fund. This is our crucial mechanism for deploying resource in a fast and agile way. On Friday, I’ll join Raj Kumar for a Q and A as part of the Global Humanitarian Policy Forum, which can be watched here.

Jan Egeland and Joyce Msuya are making progress with their review of our efficiency and are set to report before the end of the year. This is not a review about job cuts, but reducing cumbersome bureaucracy and process, and freeing up more time and energy for the humanitarian mission in line with the World Humanitarian Summit and Grand Bargain Commitments. The key TOR are to streamline coordination by reducing overlap, simplifying structures, reducing meetings, and optimizing reporting and information-sharing processes. Have any good ideas? Please reach out to manjooran@un.org.

Great news also coming from Seoul today, where Joyce and colleagues are on mission, and the government has announced additional contributions: $18 million to CERF (compared to $7 million in 2023) and $6 million to the OCHA, in addition to $1 million already received this year (compared to $2 million in 2023).

Last week I also joined an excellent discussion the SG led with tech leaders and NGOs on crypto currency. I think that blockchain, combined with connectivity and cash transfer, could radically transform key areas of humanitarian delivery. We should embrace the potential, while robustly managing the risks, including the carbon cost and the potential impact on liberty.  

This week I’ve been dipping in to Hugo Slim’s Solferino 21. It has made me think about how we need to find new tools to respond to the sustained and deliberate attack on humanitarian values that we are facing. It won’t be enough to carry on as usual: we will need to be very clear about why we are here, what we do, and why it matters; and be determined in reducing bureaucracy and duplication.

Having had an excellent discussion with Samantha Power and paused by Sérgio Vieira de Mello statue outside OHCHR, I’d also recommend her biography of him.

This week, I also wanted to recognize my national colleagues in Sudan, who in like all places where we are work, show up to deliver on OCHA’s mandate while also dealing with the crisis happening in their own countries. Mohammed Gimish who I met in Port Sudan, is a National Field Coordinator. Joining OCHA almost twenty years ago, he went from providing humanitarian aid to internally displaced persons in Darfur to becoming displaced himself in Port Sudan, but despite personal hardships continues to work for his fellow Sudanese in need and coordinate aid where it is most needed. Gimish’s story is similar to that of countless frontline workers all over the world.

All the best,

Tom