Global Humanitarian Policy Forum 2021: Where to from Here? Humanitarian Action Between Rising Needs And Distant Solutions (9-10 December 2021)

2021 Global Humanitarian Policy Forum

On 9-10 December 2021, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in partnership with the United Nations Foundation, will convene the tenth Global Humanitarian Policy Forum (GHPF). This year’s GHPF will assess the current landscape through a series of thematic, interactive panel discussions including the growing humanitarian climate crisis, persistent challenges around access and humanitarian negotiations, increasing cyber threats impacting humanitarian action, and the linkages between COVID-19 and conflict and the importance of vaccines in humanitarian settings. Discussions will be held virtually on Zoom. 2021 was marked by great uncertainty around global socio-economic recovery following unprecedented disruptions worldwide in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, threatening to eliminate hard-won gains towards the Sustainable Development Goals. And a clear end of the pandemic is not in sight. While a number of developed countries with unrestricted access to vaccines struggle with vaccine hesitancy and social distrust, we see a near total lack of accessibility to vaccines in other parts of the world. Many countries with Humanitarian Response Plans are not expected to have sufficient coverage of their population until mid-2022 or later.

At the same time, the climate crisis is threatening to inundate national and international support systems, leading to more vulnerability and fragility worldwide. Continued and resurgent outbreaks of conflict remained the main driver of humanitarian needs. Growing geopolitical tensions and political division are increasing competition and preventing effective collaboration in many places. Increasing using of data and new and emerging technologies provide an abundance of opportunities but also the threat posed by adverse cyber operations. Terrorism, religious extremism, and organized crime continue to exploit weak institutions and power vacuums to undermine state authority. The GHPF will look at these evolving trends and key challenges that continue to shape the operating environment of humanitarian response Since 2012, the Forum has convened members of the humanitarian community and experts from other fields to anticipate future trends, launch new policy ideas and explore the practical challenges and opportunities of shifting policy to practice in crisis contexts. Over the past nine years, the GHPF has been at the forefront of shaping the international humanitarian community’s policy agenda.