Transcript of the stakeout by Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson following the Global Consultations for the World Humanitarian Summit (at the CICG)

(Near-verbatim transcript)

DSG Eliasson: Thank you very much, Minister Burkhalter. I cherish very much our friendship and our cooperation. I thank you for the contribution you have made and the contributions you have announced. They are very, very welcome for the work we are doing. I will also say a few words in English, briefly, and then I can also take questions both in French and German.

Geneva is the humanitarian capital in the world and will remain to be so, with the direction we are going. I commend what the Swiss Government and the Swiss people are doing in this area, and I also want to mention the role of the ICRC and the IFRC. I have almost daily contact with Peter Maurer of the ICRC and the work they are doing both here from the headquarters and particularly in the field is invaluable for the work for humanitarian action.

The Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul at the end of May next year will be a very, very important meeting. We are at the threshold of the time of change in the global landscape, which requires both to strengthen the nexus that we already have, but also to think in innovative ways of the road forward. I am dealing very much with crises and conflicts, and I am more reminded than ever before about the importance of solving the problems with their root causes, ending war, ending conflict. The humanitarian price that is being paid for the war in Syria is unspeakably high and the human suffering is unspeakable. So here we have to make sure that we connect the humanitarian action to political action, to political solutions to our main problems. I also want to say that we need to connect humanitarian action to development. There has perhaps been too much of a divide between humanitarian action and aid for development. We need to see that we don’t create long term dependency in humanitarian situations. Sometimes it is unavoidable, but we need to do more to make sure that people can start, begin normal lives, go back to their homes, and by that inspire such moves through development assistance.

We also have economic strings, financial strings. I myself was the Emergency Relief Coordinator, I had Stephen’s [O’Brien] job many years ago. At that time when we issued consolidated appeals, we would normally get 60 to 70 percent of the appeals funded. Now, Stephen would say that 40 percent is a pretty good figure, unfortunately. And that is a sad state of affairs because it means that we don’t reach even half of needs we need to cover. If you can imagine that we are already low in contributions from the beginning for the individual people in Syria or in the neighbouring countries, you can imagine that if the World Food Programme has cut down rations to practically nothing, people flee. So, apart from the horrors of the war in Syria, one of the reasons for the refugee flow now is of course the fact that we don't have enough funding to turn into reality programmes for the people concerned.

I suppose that you listened to our speeches, so I will not repeat more from my own speech. I am open to take questions from you, as is the Minister.

Question: You are drawing a really sad picture. Everyone is talking about underfunding. Mr. Gutteres is talking about the broken finance system. You are talking that we need political will to engage, but it is not coming. Maybe, wouldn’t this be a platform to say that we cannot walk forward, go to the Summit next year to solve humanitarian problems, when we cannot even do it now? So, let’s stop and say “that’s it”. Maybe to stop and say – either it changes or we are not going to go anywhere?

DSG: Well, I don’t know. Did you think it was so pessimistic? I thought I was trying to inspire hope, at least in the end. I always say about the United Nations that we are a reflection, mirror of the world as it is. And it is not a pretty place today; it is a troubled world. But the United Nations is also a mirror, a reflection of a world as it should be. And our job is, and it goes beyond the United Nations, it is a job for everybody… we need to reduce the gap between the world as it is and the world as it should be. That is our job. Right now we are in a very troubled situation. I think we both underlined very strongly what I called competition in brutality of terrorist groups, and the disregard and the lack of knowledge of the international humanitarian law, that we see all over the place right now. So we have to make sure that we build on what we have already achieved in the past and then mobilize the good forces in today’s world. We need to create a counter-narrative to the stories out there. We need to bring hope in the world. There is hope. I think we can go in a very good direction in the humanitarian world if we bring it closer to peace and security and to development. That would strengthen the whole agenda of the international community. There was a formula in 2005, when I was the President of the General Assembly, and I am very proud of that formula: we said that there is no peace without development, and there is no development without peace, and none of the above without the respect for human rights and the rule of law. So, we have three pillars on which we have to stand. And if we build stronger all three pillars and see how they are interconnected, and instead of working how often we do, in bureaucracies, in silos, vertically, we should work horizontally… and not only in the UN, but also in private sector, civil society, academic community… All actors could bring in. Nobody could do everything, but everybody could so something. Sorry if I sounded pessimistic. I hope I added an element of hope for the future. Thanks for the question.

Question: On Kunduz and talking about the respect for international humanitarian law, how do you think that the attack will impact the willingness of humanitarian actors to go around, especially given the lack of financing they are facing? Do you think it will have an impact further afield, also in the way other people in other conflicts regard international law?

DSG: Well, I have talked to Joanne Liu, President of Médecins sans Frontières, very soon after the tragedy. The Secretary-General issued a statement of condemnation of this act. And when she and I spoke, she spoke of course first of all about the grief over losing 12 of her colleagues and patients, but she was very much concerned about exactly the issue that you mentioned – what would be the consequence for action in other places. First of all, the fear factor, knowing that you are not safe even in a hospital, and then getting people to go to these very, very dangerous zones. And that is why she made that public, and I understand her concern, that she wants to have a credible, impartial investigation, that would go into all the facts. Evidently, there is a process going on now in that respect. It has importance for humanitarian actions in other areas. We must know that hospitals are safe places, and that is something you would not even need to say – it is basic Geneva Conventions. So I understood her fully, and we hope that Médecins sans Frontières will be able to continue their absolutely vital and valuable work.

Question: Just a clarification from the Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson. When you say that the inflow of immigrants into Europe is partly because of the lack of finance for Syrian refugees, does that mean that if the situation of Syrian refugees in countries like Lebanon and Jordan is improved, the inflow of immigrants to Europe can be stopped?

DSG: Well, it’s evident. There are talks, very advanced talks between Turkey and the European Union about this issue, and the European Union made a contribution, their latest bidding, of an additional one billion dollars to the humanitarian programmes. There is now a plan, and Mr. O’Brien is in charge of this planning, that we will have a meeting by the end of this year/early next year about humanitarian funding for Syria, and we know that Germany, Norway and Kuwait are interested in doing this. Of course, what we are aspiring for is that people will be able to return to Syria, but you know the enormous destruction and the despair that has been caused there. In the meantime, we have to make the living conditions as good as possible in countries that provided home to the people that have fled Syria. And the figures are almost two million in Turkey, 1.3 million in Lebanon, and a similar figure in Jordan – enormous figures. And, of course, the more one can do to make the life there as decent as possible is, of course, very good. This doesn’t mean that there is no need for global responsibility for dealing with refugee inflows. We need to think very carefully about shared responsibilities in the world. But the aim is always for people to come back home. The statistics in this case is pretty negative. In refugee situations, the median time a refugee spends abroad is 17 years. If you look at Afghanistan and other crises, it is a pretty sad figure; it takes a long time. So we have to think about both helping the neighbouring countries, not only humanitarian terms, but also infrastructure and community support. We established something called International Support Group for Lebanon, to go beyond humanitarian aid. But there is also an element of global solidarity, which is now being tested in Europe.

Question: Following what happened in Kunduz, how could humanitarian workers be better protected?

DSG: Well, the first is what the Foreign Minister and I have underlined – respect for the international humanitarian law. That is the first line of defense, so to speak: to have respect for the international humanitarian law, which goes back to the Geneva Conventions. And, then, of course, we have a very different dilemma, and I know this as a humanitarian myself: to what degree in crisis areas, in war zones, you need also to have support from peacekeepers, if we have peacekeepers there, for humanitarian actions to continue. This is a dilemma also for humanitarian actors, because many of them don’t want to be associated with military operations. On the other hand, in some cases the reality is such that you need convoys, you need military support, without undermining independent mandates of humanitarian actors, of course. But there has to be an element of policy respect, an element of doing maximum of security for people on the ground. I can’t tell you how many friends I lost. I lost so many friends, both in peacekeeping and in humanitarian action. And this is the new environment which we are talking about. The United Nations, when I started in humanitarian affairs, was always considered a neutral, impartial actor, and we hope that that would be the case. But in today’s world we are often targets, we are considered enemies, particularly by terrorist groups. Just look at situations like Mali today. And this is a huge problem for us, that we are not equipped to deal with such situations. There has to be an element in providing security. The French have played a more muscular role in Mali and in the Central African Republic. In Congo we had intervention brigades. It is a sad fact that we also have to think about the security on the ground. We expect also the parties to conflict to respect humanitarian actions, but we are also sometimes targets, so there is sometimes competition of brutality towards not only civilians, but also those who are trying to help their own people. Paradoxical, but it is, unfortunately, often true.