UN Secretary‑General launched One Humanity: Shared Responsibility report

United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on 9 February 2016 launched a report titled One Humanity: Shared Responsibility. The report called for a global campaign to prevent the erosion of humanitarian law and protect civilians in conflict.

The report was launched as part of the first-ever World Humanitarian Summit that is scheduled to be held from 23 May to 24 May 2016 with the theme One Humanity: Shared Responsibility.

The summit aims at providing an opportunity for concrete steps towards ending the suffering experienced by billions of people at present.

Five Core Responsibilities:

The Secretary-General’s Agenda for Humanity calls on global leaders to commit to five core responsibilities. They are:

Global leadership to prevent and end conflict

• Preventing conflicts and finding political solutions to resolve them.

• As per the report, conflicts drive 80 per cent of all humanitarian needs.

Uphold the norms that safeguard humanity

• Every day, civilians are deliberately or indiscriminately killed in wars. In this regard, leaders must recommit to upholding the rules that protect humanity.

• As per the report, 90 per cent of people killed or injured by the use of explosive weapons in populated areas are civilians.

Leave no one behind

• Reaching everyone and empowering all women, men, girls and boys to be agents of positive transformation. It means reducing displacement, supporting refugees and migrants, ending gaps in education and fighting to eradicate sexual violence.

Change people's lives – from delivering aid to ending need

Ending need will require three fundamental shifts in the way system works:

• Reinforce, don't replace national systems
• Anticipate, do not wait for crises
• Transcend the humanitarian-development divide

At present, 43 per cent of people live in fragile situations. By 2030, the figure is estimated to reach 62 per cent.

Invest in humanity

• Accepting and acting upon the shared responsibilities for humanity requires political, institutional and financial investment.

• As per the report, only 0.4 per cent of official development assistance spent on disaster preparedness in 2014.

Background

The report states that the year 2015 witnessed some of the greatest challenges of the time:

• 125 million people were in need of humanitarian assistance
• 60 million people were forced to flee from their homes
• 37 countries were affected
• 20 billion US dollars were needed

The above statistics forced the UN Secretary-General to organise the first ever World Humanitarian Summit, which aims at reaffirming the commitment to humanity and charting a course for change.

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