International Federation of Red Cross and Red Cresent Societies - 11 July 2003

11 July 2003

Mr President,

It is a particular honour for me to be able to address the Humanitarian Segment of the Economic and Social Council's 2003 Session. The structure of the Session, and the themes chosen for it, should make possible a comprehensive and focussed discussion of the major humanitarian issues confronting the world today.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies approaches this debate against the background of the address to the High Level Segment of this Session of the Council on 1 July by our President, Mr Juan Manuel Suarez del Toro.

In that statement, the President emphasised the need for a more courageous, more determined approach to the humanitarian crises affecting the world than has traditionally been taken by the international community. I will not repeat the details of his statement, but the important point for today is that he described the International Federation's position that language must change, attitudes must change, and new ways of achieving results must be found. This new way of thinking must include three elements:

First, a resolve to address problems in an holistic manner, with an integrated approach, recognizing the interdependence of all sectors and actors. What is needed is a strategy to address the patchwork of problems, not just to address them one by one in isolation. Second, in all humanitarian interventions a long-term perspective must be incorporated from the outset. Only then will local capacities be strengthened, empowering communities towards self-reliance and sustaining a process of recovery. Charity is out, development is in. Third, and perhaps most importantly, all our strategies must highlight and promote the role and contribution of women, as well as their protection.

This line of thinking is demonstrated very clearly in our recent publication: "NOT business as usual" which highlights the relationship between HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa and other hazards like cyclical food shortages, combining to produce a poverty calamity of unseen proportions.

The same applies to other regions, beyond Africa, where the HIV/AIDS pandemic is already reinforcing poverty and insecurity.

The need to find new ways of doing business is just as acutely felt in the humanitarian financing debate. In this spirit, the International Federation welcomes the decision to elevate this subject to a panel discussion involving eminent and creative thinkers from different sides of the debate. The International Federation was pleased to have taken part in the recent Stockholm Good Donorship meeting, and is now actively engaged with colleagues at the Inter-Agency Standing Committee in the development of new principles to guide our work on this important subject. And in the hope that principles such as the Red Cross/Red Crescent and NGO Code of Conduct for Humanitarian Relief, and standards such as SPHERE will be put more forcefully into practice. It is our hope that good practice in donor financing, management and accountability will be complemented by good practice and accountability of humanitarian action.

Humanitarian financing is important to the International Federation because we find ourselves in the possibly unique situation of being an international organisation with the usual concerns of a headquarters agency, but at the same time a membership organisation with national level members setting and driving our agenda. We are also here in ECOSOC to represent the world's largest humanitarian network, with people and structures in place at the community level in virtually every country in the world. We are the last mile, the link between donors and beneficiaries, and as such we have a real stake in the progress of the debate on humanitarian financing, and we intend to remain very closely involved in it.

We are also vitally interested in the work of the panel on "Transition from Relief to Development". We look forward to the broadening of this discussion. While transition from conflict to recovery remains important, countries emerging from natural disasters merit just as much attention. The role of civil society in underpinning a sustainable transition from vulnerability to recovery deserves very high priority, and in general we consider that much of the current discussion has undervalued the importance of the civil society role in all the transition models identified.

Discussion of this aspect of the question was prominent during the recent 17th Inter-American Red Cross Societies Conference, in Santiago de Chile. An interesting point to emerge from that Conference was the view that the range of the topic itself is potentially restricted by the apparent starting point of relief. The suggestion offered, from the perspective of cyclical disaster, was that transition should often start at the point of the identification of vulnerability. From that perspective the International Federation's work on disaster preparedness as part of wider disaster management is much easier to understand. It also explains why we will continue to advocate forcefully for the inclusion of vulnerability and risk reduction strategies, as part on community-based disaster preparedness programmes, in national development plans. Only then will we be addressing the vulnerabilities in a durable and sustainable way.

Mr President,

The International Federation also contributes to the humanitarian debate each year, and usually at about the time of ECOSOC's Session, by launching its annual edition of the World Disasters Report. This Report, known around the world as the leading publication of its kind, will be launched this year in over 70 cities around the world, and in Geneva on 17 July . Its 2003 theme û "Ethics in Aid" - is highly relevant to your discussions at this Session of the Council, and we would encourage all those with a real concern for the future directions of humanitarian financing or transition issues to read its chapters carefully.

Mr President,

I have not addressed in this statement one of the greatest crises confronting the world today - -HIV/AIDS -, because the International Federation has been honoured by a request to suggest a panel member to share the leadership of the discussion to take place during this session of the Council. We will also contribute with a direct Red Cross and Red Crescent position on the subject during the debates to be held during the General Segment of this Session.

We will, however, take all these issues further at the 28th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent when it convenes in December this year in Geneva. That Conference, bringing together the entire community of States parties to the Geneva Conventions and all National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, has a special task and responsibility to translate the messages from ECOSOC's debates, its panel discussions and its resolutions, into action. It is our hope that an Agenda for Humanitarian Action will be adopted by the International Conference which will make a real difference to the way states and civil society address the world's humanitarian crises.

More profoundly, we look forward to a result which will be seen by those to whom we are all accountable, the vulnerable people in communities everywhere, as a deliberate contribution to the task of Protecting Human Dignity. That is the theme of the 28th International Conference, but it is also the task of the entire international community.

Thank you
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