The Fourth Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Week (HNPW) - Closing Ceremony of the Inter–Network Day

Dear colleagues,
Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is a pleasure to be with you again and to witness first-hand the remarkable success of the Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Week. I am impressed how fast your meeting has evolved into an indispensable part of the busy calendar of International Geneva, the “humanitarian capital of the world”.

Let me first of all express our gratitude to our host, the Swiss Government, who once again does justice to Switzerland’s proud humanitarian and multilateral tradition. And I congratulate the organizers – the Department of International Development (DFID) and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – for assembling such an impressive group.

The humanitarian community continues to be under a great amount of stress. The growing divergence between the escalating needs of more than 145 million people on the one hand, and stagnating funding streams on the other, are creating an extremely difficult environment. Succinctly put, the magnitude of our challenges has yet to be met by the measure of our actions.

We need to become even more efficient and cost-effective, and we need to act even earlier – before conflicts erupt or natural disasters strike. This will require all of us to focus even more on partnerships and prevention.

It may sound paradoxical to outsiders, but humanitarian interventions alone cannot solve humanitarian crises. Sustainable solutions require collaboration across humanitarian, development, political and security sectors. They need to include NGOs and the private sector, and they need to integrate action at the local, national and international level. Only if we are truly joined up will we be able to stop chasing headline crises, and instead remedy root causes.

The encouraging news is that we are moving in the right direction. Today, more than at any time I can remember, we are joining up across geographies and professions. Your meeting is powerful evidence of this – bringing together governments, UN entities, NGOs, the private sector, military experts and many more.

The main catalyst of this new spirit of collaboration is the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Goals. They are at the core of everything we do at the UN, whether in headquarters or in the field. I mentioned partnerships and I mentioned prevention as the way forward. By calibrating our actions along the guiding stars of the SDGs, partnerships will deepen and prevention will happen naturally. Why? Because the goals help us identify synergies, they build up resilience, and they produce long-term solutions, not short-term fixes.

We know that this work is not about us. It is about the millions of people in need of the most basic help and support. It is about upholding the shared humanity of each and every individual across the world. I promise you that we will do all we can to help you help others, to raise awareness about your important work, and to defend the humanitarian mission to which you have dedicated your lives.

Thank you.