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Second Meeting of the WHS Thematic Teams 21-23 April 2015, Bonn

The second meeting of the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) thematic teams took place in Bonn from 21 - 23 April 2015, hosted by the German Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The objectives were to develop a more ambitious vision, and narrative and sharpen the emerging recommendations around a number of critical issues arising from the consultations. The meeting involved 97 people from 44 organizations.

Vision and narrative

Participants developed what could be the building blocks of a vision for future humanitarian action. This vision frames the WHS as a call to action for the global community to tackle the collective failure to better protect and support people affected by crisis. Participants proposed that the Summit should generate a new compact for humanity, the elements of which could include: the affirmation by all stakeholders of common humanitarian values; an acknowledgement that affected people have the right to ask for and receive assistance, and to be safe; and a commitment that to deliver this is a collective responsibility. Underpinning this new compact, participants proposed that there should be a number of action areas that lay out a set of aspirations, milestones and recommendations, and catalyze concrete actions towards achieving the overarching vision.

Emerging issues and recommendations from the consultations

Much of the meeting was dedicated to sharpening potential recommendations. These were broken down into seven emerging issues common to the regional consultations so far. In addition, the UN Secretary-General, addressing Member States the day before the Bonn meeting, highlighted four critical areas for transformational change. This paper reflects how the seven emerging issues discussed in Bonn fall into these four critical areas, and provides a small sample of the recommendations that were discussed. It also covers cross-cutting issues.

i. Getting it right in conflicts

Confronting violations of international humanitarian law (IHL) and finding new ways to protect and assist people in conflict

There is growing political paralysis in protecting civilians in conflict. Regional consultations have echoed the Secretary-Generals call for the WHS to galvanize the international community to improve respect for IHL and other bodies of law, hold accountable those who violate these fundamental norms, and put protection at the heart of humanitarian action.

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Emerging recommendations

Generate new mechanisms to listen to the victims of atrocities, so their accounts are heard, and explore opportunities to raise pressure on individual violators of IHL and those duty bearers who fail in their responsibility to act.

Establish regional frameworks or instruments for protecting and assisting internally displaced people, building on the experience of the Kampala convention.

ii. Financing for the future

Global action to address the widening funding shortfall

The Secretary-General has called for agreement on how to close the gap between growing humanitarian needs and the resources available to meet them. This should involve diversification, making efficiencies and finding solutions to make best use of limited humanitarian finance. Emerging recommendations

Make longer-term finance in protracted crises in conflict settings the standard.

Understand funding needs and the total resource availability through use of modelling and increased transparency.

Improve the leveraging, triggering and deploying of the range of funding sources. The recommendations of the Secretary-Generals High-level Panel on Humanitarian Financing will help further to frame the Summit discussions and outcomes.

iii. New pathways to resilience

The Secretary-General emphasized the need to find new ways for the humanitarian community to work with development and other actors so that people and communities become more resilient to shocks and less dependent on humanitarian aid. Two of the emerging issues discussed at Bonn fit into this area: the need to build local capacity to prepare and respond to crises; and the need for new approaches to managing recurrent and protracted emergencies.

Localizing preparedness and response

The regional consultations to date have called for more discipline and predictability in triggering regional and international humanitarian support, and have emphasized that international humanitarian action should be driven by the concept of subsidiarity ensuring that it supports local decisions and systems instead of supplanting them. To achieve this, the capacity of first line responders at local and national level needs strengthening. Emerging recommendations

Increase the level of finance going directly to local and national responders.

Make national coordination and response mechanisms the default in disasters.

Build a strong network of deployable capacities, especially in the Global South.

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Developing new approaches for managing recurrent and protracted crises

Consultations have emphasized the need to re-think the way protracted and recurrent crises are addressed. This should build on experience from the resilience agenda, including common multi-hazard risk analysis, scaling-up safety nets and finding solutions to protracted displacement. Emerging recommendations

Generate a basic crisis cover for the bottom billion, with clear delineation of responsibilities between different actors for different levels of risk, to guarantee the minimum requirements for preserving life and dignity.

Agree a compact between humanitarian and development actors that will herald a new system of collective crisis management.

iv. Fit for the future: a more inclusive, effective and diverse humanitarian system

The Secretary-General called for humanitarian actors to continue the process of reform to enhance operational effectiveness, building on the elements of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee Transformative Agenda. Three of the emerging issues discussed at Bonn provide recommendations on creating a more inclusive, diverse and effective humanitarian system, capable of responding rapidly to what the future may hold: adapting the humanitarian system to new contexts, actors and challenges; and, ensuring affected people, particularly women, have a stronger voice and influence over humanitarian action; and creating an enabling environment for investment in innovation.

Adapting the humanitarian system to new contexts, actors and challenges

Regional consultations have emphasized that the international humanitarian system cannot be one-size-fits-all, but needs to adapt to different contexts. International actors should be clear where they have comparative advantage and how they should complement local, national and regional actors and strategies, so making international interventions a true safety net of last resort. Emerging recommendations

Develop a results framework to assess outcomes in different contexts and establish an independent impact evaluation group to monitor this.

Devolve decision making on preparedness and response planning and management to the regional and national level.

Ensuring affected people, particularly women, have a stronger voice and influence over humanitarian action

The regional consultations to date have called for systemic changes to ensure that affected people are much more meaningfully engaged in decision-making for humanitarian preparedness and response.

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Emerging recommendations

Gain commitments from donors and humanitarian organizations to deliver business practices that engage communities and increase accountability to affected people.

Make better use of data and build on innovations from the private and development sectors to engage affected people in determining the shape of humanitarian action and assessing its performance.

Creating an enabling environment and investment for innovation

The right environment, resources and partnerships are required to generate innovation for tackling the major challenges faced in the future. Current investment in research and development in the humanitarian sector falls below minimum best practice. Emerging recommendations

Launch a major initiative to stimulate innovation, including a high-level advisory group and a public-private fund.

Agree on shared ethics, principles and standards to guide innovation.

Scale up the use of multi-sector cash transfers.

Cross-cutting issues

Participants also discussed four cross-cutting issues that have emerged from the consultations.

Closing the gap: gender equality in humanitarian action

Gender equality must be a central part of the Summit deliberations and outcomes, and mainstreamed across its recommendations. The potential of women and girls must be tapped into in humanitarian response; as well as addressing their specific needs and vulnerabilities. Emerging recommendations

Make funding conditional on applying gender equality across the program cycle.

Create a formal, independent monitoring mechanism to ensure accountability for the implementation of normative frameworks on gender equality.

Cities in crisis: adapting to an urban world

Rapid urbanization is increasing the scale and complexity of crises. Cities also accommodate the majority of displaced people, who become invisible survivors of conflict and disaster. There is a need to get ready urgently for these growing challenges. Emerging recommendations

Adopt a new city-based approach to crisis management.

Form new partnerships for managing urban crises, notably in support of local and municipal authorities, but also with the private sector.

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The power of business: stimulating its role in emergencies

Crisis management would benefit from greater private sector engagement. This in turn should increase the impact of the response on the local economy, so speeding recovery. Emerging recommendation

Create coordination and regulatory frameworks for engaging the private sector in preparedness, response and resilience at national and sub-national levels.

Understanding future risk

Calibrating the risk of future crises and identifying new risks would greatly enhance response. As the majority of crises are predictable and modelling is becoming ever more sophisticated particularly in the insurance sector, this should be increasingly feasible. Emerging recommendations

Develop a biannual analysis of humanitarian risk, involving leading experts from science, defense and private sectors.

Establish a new advisory group to support the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator in identifying new humanitarian risks.

Conclusion and next steps

The Bonn meeting represented an important step in taking stock of the outcomes from the consultation process to date and starting the process of sharpening emerging recommendations. This process will continue. Emerging recommendations will be tested in the remaining consultations, and then distilled together with the findings of the overall consultation process into a synthesis report. This will be discussed at the Thematic Consultation in Berlin in September and be the main input to the Global Consultation in Geneva in October 2015.