Pacific to push for reform at World Humanitarian Summit

Transcript

The region's community groups plan to push for reform of the humanitarian aid system at a world summit in Turkey next week.

The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon, has convened the first World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul in response to high levels of human suffering around the world.

The Executive Director of the Pacific Islands Association of Non Governmental Organisations (PIANGO),  Emele Duituturaga, is among civil society groups attending from the Pacific.

She told Sally Round it will also be a platform for Pacific islanders to tell the world about the humanitarian challenges they face.

EMELE DUITUTURAGA: There is a lot of discussion in the world about the serious situation, what's going on in Europe, and I think many people don't really know that we are facing our own humanitarian challenges to do with climate crises. Also I am hopeful for the recognition of the specific role of civil society and support for local and national leadership which is something that's been discussed time and again but this would also mean a slight reform of the UN humanitarian system, which is very much a global system that hasn't, in my view, to date responded well to strengthening local leadership. Because you know the first response is always the local response . At the moment there's a lot of global response which brings in external resources which is great but it tends to swamp and overwhelm our local systems and I think the important issue is also about community resilience.

SALLY ROUND: Did you see that gap particularly after Cyclone Winston?

ED: Oh absolutely. This was a major issue with TC Pam in Vanuatu. We also saw this with TC Winston because we were directly involved. So, PIANGO is a regional organisation. We have a presence at a national level in 21 countries and territories and so this is a big issue that has come up now, the whole localisation of aid, the recognition of support for local communities who are linked in with national civil society and so we see a pattern where there's a lot of support for international organisations, international NGOs but very little support for local NGOs and local communities.

SR: But doesn't that filter through to the local NGOs in the end?

ED: What filters through is very little. I mean what we've seen since TC Pam and TC Winston is international NGOs setting up, expanding their organisations and local NGOs are still struggling on a shoestring. Now that's not to say it's an either/or. What we're saying is that there needs to be a strengthening of local and national NGOs particularly. The challenge for a lot of local NGOs is, you know, national coordination, so when a disaster strikes of course the government is the lead actor and the government usually pulls and coordinates everything but the government has also recognised that they're not able to do this at the scale particularly that we saw here with Winston and they require and appreciate the role of NGOs, but unless NGOs at the local and national level are coordinated, you have a lot of duplication , you have a lot of actors going in doing similar things.

SR: What about other humanitarian issues in the region. Will you bringing those to the table?

ED: Yes well certainly, the issue of the vulnerability of women and children, I mean when we look at people with disabilities, what are the challenges? Financing, the issue of climate change and how that links to the kind of humanitarian challenges. What is particularly important here in Istanbul is the opportunity to tell the world the nature of humanitarian challenges that we are facing in the Pacific. I know I've been to many global meeetings where people don't know the Pacific exists. They don't even know that we're suffering from these climate crises on the frontline, as we call it.

SR: But what can a summit like this realistically achieve?

ED: Well certainly a summit like this particularly convened by the United Nations Secretary-General identifies what the priorities are.Development partners, international community will tend to realign, reallocate resources according to priorities . We're not going to Istanbul and expecting Istanbul to come up with solutions for the Pacific. We're going to Istanbul with our Pacific priorities. We've also got ideas about how we need to work better together, but Istanbul will just be a platform and a stage for us to put the Pacific on the global map and in the United Nations.

SR: Something like this must cost a lot of money. Wouldn't that money be better sent to covering a humanitarian crisis?

ED:  Oh well absolutely, yes, that's what we in civil society are often saying - what difference does such a global conference (make) at this scale? The first thing to say is it's the first time there will be a UN summit of this nature and certainly we could do with a lot of the resources instead of going to Istanbul but you know that's something that the United Nations has to address. Here in the Pacific we are beginning to question ourselves the value of going to such large-scale global meetings and, you know, how does that benefit? The reality, though Sally, is that we don't have enough resources in the Pacific to solve all our problems and so we need to influence global decision-makers in order to reallocate and redistribute finances that are much needed in the Pacific.