UN relief chief says humanitarian diplomacy crucial in resolving conflict

Remarks by Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator at the Global Security Forum 2024 Strategic Competition: The complexity of interdependence

As delivered

Thank you to the State of Qatar. It’s a privilege to be here for this very important event, a privilege to have listened to such distinguished discussions and conversations, as well as from the Prime Minister [His Excellency Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani of Qatar].

I am somebody who has witnessed firsthand Qatar in linking its humanitarian assistance, for which I am engaged, to the vital priority of resolving conflicts that we’ve heard so clearly from Mohammed Al-Khulaifi [Minister of State of Qatar], as well as from the Prime Minister.

Qatar’s not just potential, but Qatar’s actual role in defining what I refer to as humanitarian diplomacy, which brings those two aspects together, is seminal, and I say that as someone engaged in humanitarian work but with a background in mediation, so thank you very much to Qatar for what it does for the world as well as to bringing us here.

Excellencies,

We once had a dream: a dream that we could come together to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.

That we could develop friendly relations between nations, strengthen peace, and solve international problems.

That we could have justice, respect for international law, and a world in which we upheld respect for fundamental human rights and freedoms, and the dignity and worth of the human person, and you know, like I do, where those words come from.

Yet over the past three years as Emergency Relief Coordinator of the humanitarian system, as well as head of the UN’s humanitarian office, I have witnessed, as you have, how persistent competition, animosity and aggression between nations has prevented that dream from becoming a reality for far too many people.

How strategic competition has been the hidden – and not so hidden – hand behind the outbreak of seemingly endless conflicts. And how it has stymied efforts to prevent and resolve conflict. In the last year, as we have been hearing, we have seen the outbreak of unimaginably devastating tragedies and trauma in Gaza and in Sudan, and that at a time when the Ukraine war remains a raging concern.

In both Gaza and Sudan, civilians are paying the very highest price, every single day, today perhaps even more than other days, while while we fail to reach consensus on solutions.

In Gaza, more than 35,000 Palestinians have now been killed in these seven months, many more injured. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced, many serially, searching for safety where little safety exists and where hunger and the threat of disease continue to escalate – we have shared publicly our concerns of where the Rafah operation will go.

In Sudan, for over a year, people have faced an inferno of brutal violence: we have reports of horrific atrocities, ethnically motivated violence and gender-based violence. Millions have been displaced, and famine is now on the horizon for an extraordinary potentially five million people. I don’t think there has been such a threat in both my time and in decades.

In Syria, people are facing the worst humanitarian situation in more than 13 years of terrible war.

It’s not remembered that Syria has more people below the poverty line each year of this war. The economy is in ruins, people displaced, the country divided.

In Ukraine, ten years of war and more than two years since Russia’s full-scale and ongoing invasion.

Approaching ten years of war in my dear Yemen.

And many more combined years of conflict and instability in places such as Afghanistan, the countries of the Sahel, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti and Somalia – and I could go on.

In many of these places, strategic competition is not only preventing the resolution of conflict – it is fuelling it, with powerful countries, in every region, arming or otherwise supporting warring parties, or protecting them from international restraint.

Beyond conflict, we have seen how strategic competition and economic protectionism has prevented an adequate collective response to the climate crisis, to the COVID-19 pandemic and to persistent economic and social inequality.

Our growing interconnectedness and interdependence have magnified many of these challenges.

Climate change driven by activity in developed and developing countries is having the most deleterious impact on those who did the least to cause it, often thousands and thousands of miles away from the places of cause.

Following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, we saw the consequences on the food security of millions of people around the world.

Mass displacement of people has put pressure on host countries and communities and has been seized on as a pretext for divisive politics, further fragmenting international cohesion. And the highly connected global information space means that malign actors are much more easily able to affect situations in disparate places, with misinformation and disinformation sowing further division, stoking conflict, and putting the security of civilians, my own colleagues in the humanitarian community, operating at risk.

The result of all of this is that over the last few years, humanitarian needs have grown exponentially. This year, we estimate 300 million people are in need across the globe of humanitarian assistance. Of course, we’ve never come near that figure before.

Displacement, acute food insecurity and malnutrition are all at historically high levels. Inequality and poverty – as I pointed to in the Syrian case – persist. And we are witnessing a surge in health emergencies, and, of course, impunity. I’m reminded about impunity by reference to health because of the endemic of attacks on health institutions in conflict as my colleague Dr. Tedros [Adhanom Ghebreyesus of the World Health Organization] has often described.

So as you can see, I am not sugarcoating what is a desperate situation. But I do believe there is hope.

I have hope because I have the fortunate privilege to see places of darkness and sorrow, and in these places, we also see the light of humanity. And I believe that light still burns brightly.

We see this in the generosity of host communities, those communities to which displaced people have moved to find safety and who are always helped first by host communities – and then by the international community – who share everything with them. I remember visiting a small township in Burkina Faso – 300,000 people had descended on that small township of 80,000 people, and those 80,000 people cut off now by the war with the Al Qaida insurgent group in that part of Burkina Faso. Those 80,000 people had shared their food, their assets, their capital with their visitors until there was no food left to share. And the mothers in that community walked out each night across the front lines to find leaves and salt because there were no longer leaves in 
their villages to feed their own children as well as those of their new neighbors.

Humanity exists everywhere with the same force and power as it always has.

I have hope because there are many among you who still believe in the multilateral system, in which I am very engaged, who give their all to that grand idea of the United Nations Charter and those who engage in humanitarian diplomacy, and, as I said, by Qatar who sees the links between the two.

We have recently defined humanitarian diplomacy, which is so commonplace and important in these perilous times, as having three elements.

Firstly, the negotiations, like we’re seeing now in Sudan, to create the opportunities for agencies and communities to have access to healthcare and other forms of humanitarian aid. 

Secondly, the mediation – we heard from Dr. Al-Khulaifi – the mediation that ends battles and that ends wars.

And thirdly, the promotion of humanitarian principles underpins both of those forms of activity. I have hope because in the fiercest conflicts, humanitarian diplomacy has appealed to the common good.

I had the privilege of being involved in the mediation of the United Nations for the Black Sea Grain Initiative where, at a time of angry enmity and war, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, those two parties, with the help of Türkiye and, of course, the United Nations came together for an agreement to protect the global need for food security. And they said to me, very often, in that mediation that is because this is for the global good that they were able to go through and eventually achieve that agreement, and we hope that agreement may yet be renewed.

What has given me the most clearest evidence of hope over the past 3 years is the courage and determination of the humanitarian community – workers, international and national, many of them local community humanitarians, particularly important in the frontline in Sudan, those people in the Emergency [Response] Rooms in Khartoum who did not leave, who are still there, 
who are finding aid somehow to protect and feed and support their communities – these are remarkable people and are our heroes and they die in greater numbers, as we’ve seen in Gaza and elsewhere.

As humanitarian needs continue to rise for the reasons I’ve outlined and as funding fails to keep pace, the world is not a rich place, despite the generosity of many of our donors, we all do continue to strive to make the world better.

In the heart of these efforts is a resolve to do a simple thing: to do something of the greatest importance, and that is to listen to our neighbor, to listen to the people who know what they need and who know what they deserve – to listen to them and to be guided by them and to be driven by their voices.

And it was absolutely clear in the conversation with Dr. Al-Khulaifi with Qatar’s approach to mediation and, I would say, to humanitarian diplomacy is indeed to put first, not necessarily the political position of the State of Qatar, but the opportunities for meeting the needs of people to be at the heart of the way they approach difficult, difficult negotiations.

I understood very well, and I’m sure we all do, and I end by saying that humanity is not smaller today than it ever was.

Humanity will outlive the decisions of bad leaders. Humanity remains the beacon that will drive us all.

Thank you so much.