World Humanitarian Summit: National Consultation in Pakistan

The UN – Secretary General has called for a World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) to be convened in Istanbul, Turkey in May 2016.

In the lead up to the WHS, a number of preparatory events are being organized at the regional and global levels, including eight (8) regional consultations, a global consultation. thematic and online consultation. The last of the eight Regional Consultation for South and Central Asia will be held in the last week of July 2015 in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. As this event can only accommodate approximately 120-150 participants, a comprehensive round of preparatory consultations need to be organized at the country level to ensure the broadest possible participation by interested organizations and individuals.

Furthermore, the intent of holding preparatory stakeholder dialogues at national level is to ensure that the regional / local perspectives and priority issues brought to the table in Dushanbe are as diverse and inclusive as possible. Following a similar process to that used in other regions, consultations have started across 16 countries covered by the WHS regional consultation for South and Central Asia.

The priorities, perspectives and recommendations emerging from these discussions will focus around four thematic areas namely i) effectiveness in humanitarian action, ii) serving the needs of the people in conflict, iii) transformation through technology and iv) reducing vulnerability and managing risk – which will primarily be organized by OCHA and coordinated with other stakeholders to make these discussions happen. The feedback will be informed through online questionnaire (https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/WHSSCARC), and a report produced by the facilitator to capture the context specific issues from focus group discussions.

National Humanitarian Network has been identified as a potential facilitating body to participate in the WHS consultation for Pakistan. NHN members would be able to participate by conducting stakeholder consultations, in two sets of consultations; for CSOs and for community representatives.

Pakistan Civil Society is requested to log on to the given link to give maximum feedback from national and local civil society before mid of May 2015.