DEVELOPMENT 65
of conflict has grown highly complex. One of
the consequences has been a shrinking of
humanitarian space, which has made the work of
organizations like UNHCR much more difficult and
hazardous…
To prevent a new spiral of fragility and instability,
development actors have to be given more
flexibility and better tools to act early and quickly, to
stabilize and to build resilience. To achieve this, we
need a fundamental review of the strategies and
policies of bilateral and multilateral development
cooperation…
For us humanitarians, it is of course essential to
preserve the autonomy of humanitarian space,
to enable us to act on behalf of all people who
require our help, in full respect of the principles of
independence, neutrality and impartiality. But we
must also recognize that from the point of view of
strategic analysis, humanitarian, development and
security issues are three faces of the same complex
reality…
they – like most development cooperation policies
– still do not sufficiently take into account the reality
that vast parts of the world today are mired in
conflicts. But the principle of universality, the pledge
that no one shall be left behind, and the explicit
recognition that refugees and internally displaced
people are among the most vulnerable, are a key
entry point for ensuring the conflict dimension is
not overlooked in the SDGs. UNHCR will identify
a number of countries where refugees constitute
a statistically significant portion of the population,
and work with national authorities and donors to
meet the SDGs in a way that includes all population
groups…
For UNHCR, not leaving anyone behind also means
achieving a durable solution, allowing refugees to
restart their lives and be productive members of
society…
UNHCR has been working hard to strengthen
our partnership with development actors…But
much remains to be done to bring about the
culture change that is necessary to facilitate closer
links between humanitarian and development
interventions. UNHCR has therefore been focusing on new
approaches, emphasizing comprehensive
solutions strategies and working with partners and
governments to strengthen refugees’ resilience
and self-reliance in the near term and to prepare for
solutions in the future…for me, there are two more
aspects that the [World Humanitarian] Summit
should not ignore. The first is the humanitarian-
development connection, which I have already
mentioned.
There is an opportunity to do this now, as
governments just agreed on the Sustainable
Development Goals for the next 15 years. The
SDGs are an important step forward, although But the second is the imperative of building a more
inclusive humanitarian system that better reflects
the universal character of the values guiding our
work and allows us to join the capacities of all
humanitarian actors in the response. We have
to overcome the current situation of different
organizations from different cultural backgrounds
sometimes working in parallel without effective
coordination, which can result in gaps and overlaps
and only hurts those we are trying to help.
It is obvious that a truly universal humanitarian
community can never be achieved by translating
perspectives from one part of the world into a
“one size fits all” approach. Instead, in order to
move beyond the essentially Western creation
that is the present multilateral system and build
a more universal partnership, we should focus
on something that is already there but often
overlooked – our shared basis of humanitarian
values that spans all cultures. Refugee protection
is an excellent example that humanitarian values
are universal but being sometimes expressed
differently. All major religions embrace the values
and principles underpinning refugee protection
– showing compassion and generosity towards
people in need, sheltering persecuted strangers,
and even early equivalents of the concept of non-
refoulement…
UNHCR and the humanitarian world will be very
different twenty years from now. The future will
be determined by our readiness to change and
adapt, provided that this change takes
place within the same framework of
organizational values – the respect for
humanitarian principles, human dignity,
diversity and human rights.