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Last Updated: Feb 13, 2017 - 1:45:37 AM |
The Organization of American States (OAS) today hosted at its
headquarters in Washington DC, a regional consultation of the United
Nations system under the title “Toward the Global Humanitarian Summit,”
as part of the preparatory process for the Summit that
will be held in 2016 in Turkey, which seeks to strengthen capacity and
coordination of the international mechanisms for humanitarian
assistance.
Representing the General Secretariat of the OAS, the Director of the
Department of Sustainable Development of the OAS, Cletus Springer
explained the mandates that the member states have given the
Organization to support national efforts in assistance in disasters.
“One of these is the
Inter-American Convention to Facilitate Disaster Assistance. We
consider this Convention to be unique around the world,” he said.” The
convention, said Springer “sets out some very clear norms of behavior,
norms of channeling disaster assistance from donor
countries to recipient countries.” In addition, Springer echoed the
made by the Assistant Secretary General of the OAS, Albert Ramdin,
for member states to sign and ratify the Convention, which in his
judgment “would create a great deal of order and structure in the
process through which disaster assistance is channeled.”
Director Springer also mentioned as one of the instruments of the OAS the
Inter-American Plan for Disaster Prevention and Response and Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance,
adopted by the General Assembly in 2009. “In our move toward the summit
in 2016 in Turkey, we are making ourselves available to our member
state to provide
whatever technical support we can and to help them organize themselves
for more effective participation in this conference,” which he called a
“very significant event.”
Darío Álvarez, Representative of the Regional Office for Latin America
and the Caribbean of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA), emphasized the need to listen to not only the main
actors in humanitarian assistance, but also the
people affected by the disasters. “I invite you to have a broad
conversation. This is by no means a position you must adopt, but an
exercise in which ideas can be questioned, through which we are looking
for progress in the thinking about the resolution of
humanitarian problems.”
The OCHA representative explained that the path to the Summit includes
eight regional consultations, as well as technical consultations. Among
the issues to be debated by the working groups during the consultation,
Álvarez mentioned humanitarian efficiency,
reduction of vulnerability and risk management, transformation through
innovation and the importance of meeting the needs of at risk
populations.
The United Nations Secretary General will convene the Humanitarian
Global Summit in Istanbul in 2016, with the objective of looking for new
ways to address humanitarian needs in an ever-changing world. The three
year initiative is being managed by OCHA.
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