 Thank you Julie. Good morning, good afternoon, wherever you are. We are very happy to have you in our seventh session of the Global Protection Forum. This webinar is about unpacking the protection of civilians and it's a follow-up action of our webinar last year during the Global Protection Forum 2020. We decided to have this follow-up action to unpack together the different concept tools and mechanism regarding protection of civilians. But I will not take much of your time because we have a very rich panel discussion and presentation. And that's why I will immediately give the floor to our first speaker, Bernadette Castell Hollingsworth, is our UNSCR Deputy Director of the Division for International Protection. Over to you, Bernadette. Thank you, Huda and Julie. Just wanted to check that you can hear me fine. Yes, thank you Bernadette. Go ahead. Thank you. Thank you very much. So I'm very pleased to be here and to be able to offer a few introductory remarks alongside Aurélien. So I'll be very short and just wanted to remind ourselves of the remarks to the Security Council Open Debate on Women, Peace and Security that took place in New York last week. At which the UN Secretary General reiterated that, and I quote, the international community faces a moment of truth, the greatest cascade of crisis in generations. The world is stuck in reverse and gaining speed as military coup, seizures of power by force and new arms race are back. Most of the countries and actually the communities facing the challenges mentioned by the Secretary General last week are evidently impacted as well by natural disasters and climate change. And they have very little to no means for effective and responsive capacities to address these challenges. And of course we do not forget that the COVID-19 pandemic provides for an additional layer of complexity in all these conflict situations. All the above elements compounded constitute a threat to the viability of durable solutions for possibly displaced populations by rendering areas of return and of local integration too dangerous or unsafe to live. This is of course not mentioning the actual lived experiences in conflict. As we speak, the current situation in Sudan, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Ethiopia, we could mention many others are living examples to the types of threats posed to the humanitarian development and peace building efforts, aiming at achieving global stability and sustainable peace. Following the news every day, we are also too often thoroughly reminded that among the civilians who are victims of armed conflict, particularly vulnerable populations such as women and children, persons with disabilities and many others, have become the prime targets. And importantly also that sexual violence is used in many conflicts as a weapon of war against civilians with women and girls particularly affected. UNHCR in our capacity as a protection mandated agency and protection cluster leads, we contribute to interagency collaboration in conflict situations that aim at supporting protection of civilians by states and other parties. UNHCR continues to coordinate with relevant stakeholders to exert efforts necessary to crystallize the centrality of protection so as to tangibly mitigate the impact of conflict on civilian populations. In this regard, there are some successes and unfortunately many collective failures. In armed conflict context, this objective of protection of civilians and the centrality of protection cannot really be materialized without a timely sound and evidence based protection analysis that can inform our decision making and mobilize the wider community to strengthen communities of protection mechanisms and resilience in accordance with the Dunoham principle, as well as utilizing humanitarian negotiation as a powerful tool to achieve protection outcomes. In my experience, having worked in conflict situations for more than two decades, community based protection mechanisms, humanitarian negotiation and protection by presence, afforded by the collective efforts of humanitarian workers, civil society organizations, as well as peacekeepers in some context. I indeed among the most effective tools of protection of civilians. Today's webinar will offer you an opportunity to comprehend and unpack the protection of civilians, not as an abstract concept, but rather as a practical set of effective tools and mechanisms, ranging from the principle engagement with non state armed groups and, as I've said, inclusive community based approaches to protection in armed conflict but also working with peacekeeping operations. These are good practices and there are many good practices and opportunities, not withstanding the fact that you, I'm hoping that you will also discuss gaps and challenges and having said this I wish you all a very good discussion and webinar and thank you very much. Many thanks Bernadette for these prudent remarks and this realistic approach as well because all what we need today is to be realistic and to talk about good practices as well as challenges and gaps in order to progress. Our next speaker is from OTSHA co-organizing with UNRCR the current webinar. Mr. Aurelian Baffler, Chief of Police Advice and Planning Section in OTSHA, over to you. Good afternoon and thank you Bernadette and good afternoon, good morning to all and thank you for our panelists to join us today. Look, I'm going to be pretty brief but just to put this event in a broader context. I want to follow the series of discussions OTSHA and UNRCR had and an event actually we organized last year on how we can bridge the gap between a very solid POC framework at global level at the normative level and some obvious gaps on the ground when we look at what happens in the armed conflict today and we need to be very as Bernadette said very practical and pragmatic in the way we approach that. I mean what kind of activities, action we can take on the ground to really make POC real for those who suffer the consequences of armed conflict. I mean this is really where we come from and it's a very simple hypothesis to start with. Of course, now addressing this challenge is not easy. And in that regard, maybe to fuel the discussion that will follow. I just would like to highlight a couple of remarks. You met and coordinators who gathered for the annual retreat two weeks ago in Switzerland made on this issue of POC at field level which I think are interesting and will feed into the discussion today. The first point many you met and coordinators made is that they were generally praising protection clusters and protection actors for really tremendous progress made in programmatic areas of protection over the past years. Where the gap where a very significant gap remains is in having really in depth analysis of POC issues including more serious violations and also gaps in developing strategies to influence parties to conflict to address POC issues so that's, that's one. What the notice also is that for humans and actors working on protection it was always very often difficult to mobilize outside the human and system. How do we work with missions how do we work with other actors I mean this is a key challenge and I'm very glad today we have colleagues from, from other parts of the house from the peace and security sector to actually have this discussion because I think that's one of the key challenges we need. We need to to to address and maybe one last challenge that emphasize is the difficulty to, to decide load protection to move it from the protection cluster to a higher level to make sure that it is owned by the highest level of the UN and other organizations leadership I mean that's been. It's been a challenge for for the system so so I'm really glad today we're going to to explore that with our colleagues from CR from Syria and Sudan and Geneva call will also give us some, some hints on how they're addressing this impact. So we're just finished by, by saying that this is a very self interested event from, from my perspective working in New York, close to the security console because I think one of the issue we need to discuss is how we work together between field level and global level, including in terms of advocacy and policy development. How we make sure that we maximize the tools we have to influence security console members the UN membership. And how we make sure that we connect protection clusters and protection actors on the ground to this to this tool so for instance, the SG issues every year an annual report on on the state of the protection of civilians how can we make sure that our colleagues can feed into that how do we make sure that we use the inform and expect group of the security concern the protection of civilians to influence a mandate submission but also what security console does in some areas of the people and how we advocate with member states including the group of friends on the protection of I think that's, that's really important from where I, I see it and I'm happy to have a discussion today. I would end by saying that there are two big opportunities coming up for us as protection actors. One is the ISC protection policy review. This will be the development of an agenda for protection under the SG's call for human rights. This will be developed in the coming weeks and months and in that regard this event is very timely because I hope we will be able to draw on some of the opportunities to feed into these important tools which going to shape the way we do protection in the coming in the coming years. Again, thank you very much to our panelists and to all of those who will turn this morning this afternoon and over to you. Thank you Aurelian. Thank you for asking this key questions that we are keeping asking every day while working on protection of civilian and child and also for setting the tone for the presentation from the field and connecting the global discussion to the to the field discussions and actions. So, our next speaker will will now present a very challenging context and Sudan is one of the most complex and I think it's a very practical example where we will see the coordination with other stakeholders but also many gaps and challenges especially with the recent development in Sudan and I'm sure our next speaker Aziz Raju, the senior protection cluster coordinated officer in Sudan will provide us with more updates on what's going on right now in Sudan. Over to you Aziz. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning and good afternoon colleagues. I will talk a little bit about the current situation in the impact of this latest development in Sudan at the end of the presentation, but now on these two documents that we have drafted. The first one is the Sudan protection of civilians strategy. And the second one is UN support plan for the implementation of the national Sudanese plan for protection of civilians. Before going into details of the strategy. I just want to say that we have, we have developed these documents in a consultation, not only within the UN agencies but also with the protection sector members with the strategic advisory group members with the with the authorities so these two documents or living document for us. But now, coming to the strategy, the strategy, the draft strategy for the time being has around the 18 pages. It starts with the vision. And then I save security and protective and environment in which the civilian population, right, the right of all civilians in Sudan are fully respected, protected and promoted the security environment is, is expanded. In this regard, the government of Sudan will have a sufficient capacity to strengthen protection mechanism mitigate threats enhance response capabilities and so on. The strategy has three specific objectives, reduce and prevent the threat to the civilian population, particularly among the civilians, IDPs, returnees and refugee population, those civilians who are in the, in the conflict affected areas we have to see around 60, 64 localities that are considered to be hotspot. The second objective is to support the expansion of an enabling protective environment by supporting the capacity of the government of Sudan to implement the national plan for protection of civilians, as well as the job of peace agreements and interim constitutional declaration. The last objective is to ensure that UN action on protection of civilians is strategically aligned, predictable, accountable and effective. Next slide please. So as I mentioned that the one UN approach coordinates and aligns with other protection strategy documents, planning documents within the mission and with the protection sector, a strategy and work plan that the Sudan peace making peace, building the stabilization program, a humanitarian response plan and related elements of the common country analysis as well as integrated strategic framework that the strategy provides a framework to facilitate a coordinated approach to the implementation of the UN's protection of civilians mandate. It's an operational advocacy and resource mobilization tool that will be implemented in collaboration with the national and local counterparts and in support or towards the collective outcomes that reduces risk and vulnerabilities of the civilian population. Furthermore, that strategy reinforces the government's responsibility to provide protection to civilians and the strategy also describes the commitment of the UN to support government of Sudan initiatives toward the implementation of the national plan for protection of civilians GPA and the constitutional declaration. Next slide please. The strategy developed following extensive consultations with the UN agencies national mechanism for the implementation of the national plan for protection of civilian, protection of civilian civil society organizations in other protection partners on the Sudan strategy is, sorry. Protection sector strategy work plan and and informed by the inputs that were provided by by the protection sector members it's a or benchmarks indicators related to the mandate of unit terms. The strategy is drawn in frame around the national and UN intervention priority areas focuses on on and reinforces the interface of the humanitarian and development nexus seeks to address human rights displacement access inter-communal violence challenges of DDR and disarmament demobilization and reintegration promotion of the of the rights of human rights protection of women and children in line with with this in the UN Security Council resolution that's mandating unit terms for peace building civilian protection and rule of law and port port particular in Darfur in the two areas the two areas. We mean that the SPM not controlled areas of South Court one and blue Nile States by supporting Sudanese effort to establish a secure environment in delivering its protection of civilians responsibilities by existing UN policies on on protection of civilians and the transitional governments and national plan for protection of civilians. Next slide please. The strategy belts on the government of Sudan national planning also performs. Sorry, I cannot see it. The belts on the government of Sudan national plan for protection of civilians to also perform. It is a responsibility in provision of protection to civilians apart from the nine thematic areas. The national plan for protection of civilians calls for the establishment of joint security forces to protect civilians. The national plan has is developed around the nine thematic areas, including return of refugees and IDPs. Human rights rule of law protection of formation and deployment of the of the joint security forces and initially the number was 12,000 6,000 from the government forces and 6000 from the governments of the movement from the forces of the movements that are party to the job of peace agreements, but lately they have changed that and now they are, they were planning before that the military could you are planning to to implement 20,000 joint security forces. Furthermore, the strategy seeks to provide innovative ways to prevent and reduce the threat to civilian population from armed conflict and violence. It seeks to provide guidance on the key building blocks on to creating a safe and secure environment, in which the rights of civilians are fully respected protected and promoted. Furthermore, since that document focuses on on the strategic level issues, a specific operational plans and guidance will need to be developed to address specific protection challenges. Different UN agencies and protection actors might also choose to develop more specific guidance and the directives on protection of civilians relevant to their mandates and activities. Next slide please. Well, the scope of the scope of the strategy. In the timeframe. In Sudan. It's agreed that civilian protection is a whole of UN responsibility. Not only the government has its main main responsibility to provide protection to civilians, but also for the UN agencies. It is considered to be a whole of UN responsibility. Therefore, the strategy is applicable to all of you in another protection actors civilian protection is an is an embediment that will be implemented by the UN entities through its cooperation and integration as outlined in the integrated strategic framework and as a reference in the security console resolution to assess the political transition progress towards democratic governance and the protection and promotion of human rights and sustainable peace. These building civilian protection human rights and rule of law in particular in Darfur in the two areas. This is a three years strategy and is in line with the transition period timeframe. If the transition period or security console mandate changes. And the strategy will be adjusted accordingly the strategy is a living and dynamic document. Next slide please. The strategy is based on on a number of principles like the national ownership, all of Sudan approach flexibility and pragmatism accountability to affected population, complementarity, innovative approach and environmental impact next slide please. This is a response in support to the national plan for protection of civilians. The national plan has a three tire approach to protection of civilians, which is, which this strategy aligns with support to prevention through dialogue engagement and conflict resolution support to physical protection and expansion of a protective environment and next slide please. In order to support to provide support to prevent threats to civilian population, we are planning to support with the early warning. We are planning to support dialogue engagement and conflict resolution support to physical protection. We are planning to do it through through protection by presence, monitoring proactive political engagement advocacy enhanced human and reporting targeted training on compliance with international human rights and humanitarian law obligation expansion of a protective environment focuses on the creation of a secure environment allowing IDPs and refugees to achieve the durable solution of their choice. To this end the UN will support institutional and legal reforms strengthen the capacity of the National Human Rights Commission, expand the civic space and enhance women and children rights UNHCR in consultation with other agencies and with the support of IGAT will also support the government of Sudan with the development of durable solution strategies for IDPs and refugees. And in this respect we have lately also discussed with the South Sudanese authorities with the support of IGAT to develop also a regional durable solution strategy that the strategy documents are almost developed and finalized. Next slide please. Programmatic approaches in coordination early warning response and integrated information management data as prevention and programming decision making tool protection of civilians coordination group at the humanitarian at the HCT level Sudan Sudan protection sector Sudan. State level protection working groups in coordination with the authorities, some of these coordination structures, especially with the authorities. Before the coup we had, we had a national mechanism for protection of civilians and then in five door for the states we had the state level protection of civilians committees, unfortunately this latest development may affect the functioning of these structures. Furthermore, the strategy describes roles and responsibilities like what what is the role of the senior UN leadership police commissioner directors of the Office of Support for civilian protection Office of Support for political political transition, police advisory unit UNHCR as protection cluster lead agency, and heads of a field offices. It also talks about resources and capacities training expected impact on implementing the strategy, reporting monitoring the evaluation considerations. Furthermore, it has a number of annexes that includes policy framework guiding protection, programming in Sudan reference documents protection of civilians threats and risk assessment typology of violent situation impacting the country in Sudan humanitarian human rights, peace and development nexus, and then some some other documents next slide please. Okay, that's it but let me let me talk a little bit about the strategy itself. The national, the national plan for protection of civilians, we were, we were planning to do these days to call a workshop at the national level in her to to discuss the protection of civilians strategy, the one UN POSC strategy, we also were planning to further prioritize activities that are that are proposed by different agencies in relation to the national plan for protection of civilians. And then, as soon as we validated this these two documents at the national level and cartoon. We were also planning to have workshops in each door for the states. We also had Kurt van in blue Nile to help them to also develop their own protection of civilians plan that are in line with that with the one UN POSC strategy that are in line with with the national plan for protection of civilians, but unfortunately, these latest development may not allow us to to do so. We're really ahead of the finalization of the protection of civilians strategy in the national plan. We started issuing protection of civilians advocacy briefs. The protection of civilians incident tracking tool developed a tool that all agencies will have access to the data to the data and the way or as per their mandate extract collected information analyze and then program accordingly, especially in those 64 localities of eight states that are either to be to be hotspots. Then the support plan and we were also planning to expand and advise other agencies to expand their presence in the field only units your was is planning to expand its presence by creating the 10 field units throughout Darfur. And on the impact, I talked a little bit. Unfortunately, the current situation cost killing off of seven person injuries of 140 and still colleagues cannot go to the office in her tomb. So, while while the situation in the in the Darfur states and Blue Nile and South, put the one also remains tense colleagues are working from home and the situation continues. The governors will be also military people will be appointed and then we may have also limited access. And then maybe for some of our activities, especially protection projects we may not be able to to implement we might be requested to to seek clearance from the humanitarian aid commission. I will stop here. Thank you. Actually, I'm really interested in all the recent developments and the action you mentioned but because we have other speakers and other region, I will give the floor immediately to another country and other very complex context which is car. I have two speakers from car. I encourage all of you to ask your question and the zoom chat box or raise your virtual hand please. I already saw some question in the chat box. So I encourage you to continue doing so. Next speaker we are pleased to to have viola Juliano is keeping researcher in the center of for civilians in conflict based in car. Over to you viola. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Thank you everyone for being here good morning or good afternoon depending on where you are. And special thanks to UNHCR for inviting civic to break on car today. And given the very particular situation we're facing. I think it's a it's very well come the fact to have a tandem here of people from car. So my intervention would be to step in back and looking a little bit at the dynamic that we see today what has been really changing in the context to understand the challenges in which protector actors protection actors have been find themselves basically almost overnight since the last 10 months so and then Jack will provide more in depth and field based remarks. But overall I think most of us of course no car but I think it's really important to remember that since December we have witnessed a very big change in the paradigm of the conflict here. We have seen renewed hostilities among six of the major armed groups and the government, which has been operating together with bilateral military partners which has also complicating the picture. And so this environment has really shift our, our environment and has changed the operational and threat environment really in which we operate in which menusca like the peacekeeping missions operate and all of us here. And the counter offensive of the government and their partner partners against armed groups has been disproportionately affected civilians and so both in situation of fighting where civilians have been caught in the middle and where we have seen excessive use of force and discriminate and disproportionate attacks but also outside military operation really and in this I think one major trend and what is on trend that we've seen is that over the past months civilians has been really targeted outside military operation as I said for suspicion among the parties accusing communities to side with the other side of the conflict. And so we really have seen like unfortunate incidents like a summer execution torture arbitrary detentions conflict related sexual violence. There has been a routine on kind of reprisals on civilians and what has been also new in this context is that civilians for more and more are also targeted for engaging with the peacekeeping missions which is something that didn't really happen before or not to this and I think this really stressed the importance for for menusca but also really other protection actors to step up efforts for civilian harm mitigation measures, which should be including those kind of assessment of risk, also for their presence and as well as lead protection activities. So we do know that concepts like do not harm and to be in harm mitigation are much more in the DNA of the humanitarians. We as civic we really try to advocate for member states for example, from the Security Council to continue to include language in harm mitigation, and we are really trying to expand this concept, working with missions to also include civilian led activities because today the concept is really applied for military and police operation. And so as I said as a, when we look at pattern of harm today we remain very concerned for the severe erosion of the protection for civilians as non combatant, which has been really deep in the protection crisis and with all the humanitarian consequences that we've seen where humanitarian needs are increasing and as well there are many challenges to respond to them. I think there are three elements that really highlight the challenges and of what has changed. The first is that in car before January engagement dialogue and negotiations with arm group was a backbone activity for all protection actors here. Arm groups were in control of the large part of the country they control resources and their chain of command that were structured today due to the conflict and the military operation against them we face armed groups that are completely fractured. 14 resources from civilian for their own survival and they are not even rejoinable because they are further in the bush and they're hiding. And so the government also has hammering the possibility for many actors to, to be in contact with armed groups for example by asking me news to notify any contacts with armed groups it's really was a clear sense of no negotiation no context. And so when we look at the repercussion for protection work of course it's very much clear on one side negotiations around humanitarian access has been really really challenging. On the other side when we look at the mission, we look like we kindly see that all activities under protection through dialogue and engagement has been really and severely hampered. And I remember, I just for recall you know protection from civilians through dialogue and mediation is a central pillar of minouska species strategy as well as other missions, keeping mission strategy, more than any, any other pillar. And second, we have the fact that national security forces and their bilateral allies are targeting civilians, which also means that from January, we, we need to broaden our engagement try to broaden our engagement to new actors that were not deployed before January, and to which it's very difficult to to engage. And so when we look at the consequences. We see that when documented I see it when we document really perspective of community down the thread, we find a constant fear of civilians to be simultaneously targeted or suffering abuses at the hand of the rebels but also to the national security forces and which of course calls for a broader protection and protection that include all actors, which is not necessarily what we were used to. And also there are different other challenges right because the deployment on the ground, the new deployment really on the ground of the National Army and bilateral which basically are operating under a very different rule of engagement from which minouska operates. And let's be clear, they operate in total disregard of IHL and then human rights law, of course, complicate coordination and communication between the mission and the whole state, which of course having broken communication among forces on the ground also has negative repercussion for other mechanisms such as the SIMC or other. And, and finally, and I'm going to be very, very brief. Increase in all style acts against all protection actors, whether it is the mission the mission has been really targeted by this information campaign, their movement has been blocked there have been harassment against the UN personnel and all this is very recognition. I also think like NGOs and others deployed in the field I mean their premises have been occupied their premises have been looted all the sites virtually everywhere in the country has been not not just respected but looted and occupied so this has been another challenge but now what what where we are now the situation is slightly improving we've seen that 10 days ago, the President declared a unilateral ceasefire and of course our hope is this will allow for a new space, which is needed for re-engage with all our groups from young groups from the government from anyone. I think it's also highlight the fact that we need to be realistic the situation is not going to change overnight. And so we can we need to continue to assume this is all these challenges to be part of our planning. This means really continue to be creative continue to try to find new ways of doing our work because as we were used to do is not possible. I think there are good lessons from this year. One of the key lessons is that having a mechanism between the UN between the NGOs and everyone that was working because in Carili it is working it's not perfect but it is working has been really an added value to face all the challenges that we have been seeing. Doing things different was not just an option you know it was necessary to continue to deliver on protection needs. And so just to conclude I think one to find the best Monday is under negotiation at the Security Council. We as actor on the ground including in all China including NGOs, 33 NGOs on the ground including Civic. And we have been really advocating we are really trying to stress to the security members. Of course the protection of priority of the mission which also allows engagement with the UN city at large, but also to use these opportunity to stress and really emphasize impartiality in the Monday. Because in this context I think from different very perspective impartiality of a peacekeeping mission in such a polarized and fractured environment is going to be vital to provide the space, for example, to create and facilitate access for humanitarians but as well as conducting protection through dialogue and mediation and being credibly an impartial actor. And so yes really we hope that the situation is going to improve here. And we recognize, you know, the need for a new SCAD UNCT humanitarians and all that to continue to work together in the protection activities such as you know restarting structure and regular dialogue potential or actual perpetrator of violence against civilians conflict resolution mediation among the parties and all this advocacy that the mission and others can do to the whole state in order to better protect civilians and also to alleviate their behavior. So we really hope basically that all activities that contribute to the protection of civilians by encouraging the primary duty bearers to meet their obligation can finally restart. Thank you. I think it will be a very swift transition since you are in the same room. So, Jack is in car as well as our senior protection cluster coordinator and over to you jack. Please unmute yourself Jack. Viola can you help Jack unmute. Okay, thank you. Can I check whether you hear me. Yes, I hear you. Thank you very much. Maybe I would have prefer to give my intervention in French so as to make it straight. And this is because the development of the situation, the actors, the dynamics on certain regions are different from what we find in the other regions. So what it means necessarily is to have more of an area-based approach and strategy in all that we can try to do to ensure that the population continues to have access to services. Generally, the approach that we had before, it was to work on the fixed structure of the prison charge, not the center of cost or health training or other fixed structures that allow for delivery of services. The alternative that the protection actors had to go to the acts where there was difficult access, in fact, was to use mobile teams to bring services to the population. In the development of the situation in which we have two challenges that are based on this traditional approach. One is insecurity to go to the human actors in mobile teams on certain acts and locations in the affected populations. Secondly, it is also the development relative to explosive engines that unfortunately affect certain human actors and impose additional challenges to go to the population. So this is what we are working on in terms of adaptation. First of all, it is to work on an approach that allows access to services at a distance. It is only limited to the first listening and to the first listening, I mean to say, of psychosocial support for the affected people for the survivors. It is clear that we cannot do medical assistance or a remote legal assistance, but at least it allows us to ensure that at a distance the people have access to this psychosocial service. Obviously, this is the tip of the telephone network, where it doesn't work, where it doesn't work, it remains still a challenge. But what we have noticed on this region is that there are more and more people who are at risk of stigmatization, to avoid the risk of stigmatization, prefer to go through this approach at a distance. And the other alternative that we are working on in the case of HRT in collaboration, it is really a strategy that aims at local approaches that take into account the analysis of the local context, local actors and those who can do it locally. Maybe my second point that I would like to mention in this conference on the ground is relative to the commitment with the community. And this is important when we think about the physical protection or other areas of protection, in the areas where we have the minimum strength to deploy, but also because of the presence of non-state actors, the army groups, or the private actors. Where it is, it is really trying to work on more commitment with the communities, with the community protection mechanisms, with the alert mechanisms that exist in the communities, within the communities, in a way to help ensure the risk of protection to be able to intervene. In some cases, like in the south-east of the country, in the south-east of the country, in Alindao, the protection class has led us to a mission following an army attack that took place in the locality and that led to massive movement of the population. The protection class, obviously in the context of the intersectorial mission, the Interplaster, during the mission carried out to note some major challenges. The first was a lack of communication, but really a lack of communication between the protection community mechanisms that exist on the sites and in the communities, with the contingent of the miniscar that is deployed on the site and in fact who has to ensure the security and physical protection. Absence of communication. The second fact that we have come back and I will go quickly to talk about the needs of time, it was a very formal demand from community leaders based on the fact that certain communities, like the Muslims, are estimated to be, just a title, to be targeted by certain acts of representation, particularly from the governmental and bilateral forces. So the demand was very formal, to have enough protection and in fact they also asked for the investigation. So with these findings, we came back to Bangui and we discussed the protection working group to discuss it with the miniscar's colleagues, the UN force, the composite in uniform and the civil components. The result of this discussion is that there is a joint protection mission that was decided, which was made to Alindao and which did the work of funds and revenues, to make the point at the miniscar's office and with specific recommendations of action at the same time preventive, to work on the necessary bridge between these systems and to be able to deploy additional civil resources, to work on the effectiveness of these mechanisms in order to ensure that we have an immediate response that comes. So this is something I think is very interesting for us, which is an example of effective coordination that we have with the miniscar's colleagues in the context of the protection working group. And I specify that in the protection working group, the humanitarian party is represented by the well-known Ocha, the protection class that represents the protection actors, and we have the CICR that comes as an observation. The second example that I could perhaps take quite quickly if the time will stop, is what we have had in Kaga Bandoro, which is a little bit in the zone. But once again, this is the example of a good collaboration that we have with the miniscar. It is very difficult, and it is also linked to the progress of the respect of civil and humanitarian characters. When the governmental forces and allies arrived and took control of Bria, suddenly we began to have a very regular order of armed forces, and of course there were also civil forces, and it resulted in an arbitrary arrest of 12 people. And so the protection class was alerted by the protection mechanisms that existed in the civil forces, and then the cluster documented the cases, and then referred them to the case of the protection working group at UN Paul first, to try to see what should be done for the liberation of people who, with the intervention of UN Paul, were liberated. And then the role played by the force was to make the link with the governmental forces, the Comandos Ocha. To make the message very clear that we cannot have the presence of the elements of armed forces on the site. If there are problems, concerns of the public, it must be managed by the armed forces and by the police. And this message was given by the force. Then the force opened the protection class to say, can you help to monitor it through the community protection mechanisms on the site, to try to follow the instructions given by the command of governmental forces to these men who were no longer on the site, whether it was followed or not. Maybe the last remark about that is that the actions taken for the respect of the civil character on the site, it must be actions that last in time. It's not a sort of one-shot action that must be done, but at the same time a combination, a collaboration that must be involved in time. That's maybe two specific cases that I would like to insist on, if I may stay in the limits of the family, but I'm still available to answer your questions. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Jacques. So these are very concrete examples and I remind all the participants that we have the UNHCR ICRC Edmémoire on the civilian character of site, which is the key guidance with regard to the civilian character of sites and settlements. So now we need to move to another region with another continent with our next speaker, Yasin Abbas, senior protection cluster coordinator officer in Syria. Yasin, over to you. Thank you. Do you hear me? Okay. Thank you very much. Yeah, first of all, thank you Huda and GBC and UNHCR for having the protection sector of Syria, to give a practical example on how and the role of the communities in strengthening the protection of civilians in the country. So, if, sorry, if we go to, yes, the first slide is there. If you go to the first slide. Yes, we are there, sorry. So, we, we know, everybody knows about Syria, it's a decade of conflict has a trapped civilian and protection crisis will, where people right safety and security, and well being a regularly violated the overall protection in the country defined by protracted crisis and civilian population in many part of the country continue exposed to ongoing in your studies resulting in civilian casualties and forced displacement. Next please. So, I'm not going there is a lot of figure if you will go through if colleagues will share the slide or the presentation, but that I just wanted to show you that's a number of violation of international human rights law and protection of civilian issue cases being reported which is really one of the highest country in the world, basically. So one of the three strategic objective for the humanitarian community in Syria is promoting international law and international human rights law and international human, sorry, and international IHL and IHL and that's through principle protection assistance. How we do that as a protection sector and what's that in practice link of protection of civilian if go to the next next slide please. So, basically, our protection intervention or the way we are operating in Syria, we rely on community based and participatory approach, and all these activities are delivered through 100 of mobile mobile unit community center satellite centers. And we have around if you look to the few of the figures I put them in the slide we have around 3000 community volunteers they are from the communities and work with the communities and we have around 160 mobile unit are going to the beneficiary to provide them assistance and not waiting the people to come to our community center and provide them activities. If you look to the next slide please. You can see from January, just a small example with it in Syria hop basically in Damascus coordinated protection sector hop from January to the end of August we have around or more than three million protection and you can see 90% of these protection intervention carried out by volunteers by by community by community members and by mobile unit who work in hard to reach area. So, why we do this, if we go to the second slides please. So, why the protection partner and sector in Syria choose the community based approach. So we believe protection is fundamentally about people for us it's mistake that only states or authorities or agencies are the sole actors and protection people at risk. We also know that people are always at the heart of any response and ultimately the decision makers. And, and we believe also protection that achieved by people, rather than deliver deliver to them is likely to be more durable since communities and individual affected by armed conflict and violence do not work for us to come and protect them. Basically, there is attack on civilians on. I don't know in a village in a community. I don't think the individual or the civilian will wait the international community to come and analyze the needs and the way to to sec safety or the which rate road to take all the community so community they already knows their, their contacts, the people that they are working around the relation with the authorities with an almost state actor. So they are able to analyze and think and to respond to the protection need. If we can go to the next please. So, why community based protection does matter for us as a protection partners working in Syria, and maybe for the international community also others, because it is enhanced protection response. In turn, it's the links communities we are working with. It's also improves the life and resilience of affected communities and also strengths local capacity. It's for us it's contribute to do no harm principle which is one of the main principle are we guided or we are working as a humanitarian community. And this is by understanding communities and putting them at the core of the programming. It's also helped to achieve the durable solution because we are we engage IDPs and affected communities in their own protection programming. In some cases in Syria where we are working the protection partner. Supports hundreds of community led initiatives, whereas at neighborhood level we have this group of four men's or yes, or elderly or returnees community they organize myself, they organize themselves to a community and they go door by door to identify women at risk or children at risk. And they refer these cases to the humanitarian community. In many cases they come up with a project like and what we do basically we provide them assistance. Sometimes this is financial assistance to do this project and sometime to negotiate with authorities to allow them to have access. And sometimes they do, they don't wait us they just go negotiate with an onset actors or with authority to move forward and found a lot of solutions for protection of civilian issue. If we go to the next piece. And finally so basically for us is community based approach is facilitated the empowerment of communities to obtain their rights safely and with dignity. It's really involved adopting the right based approach that we do in Syria that recognize that IDPs and affected community people are the right holder, and they knows how to respond to their protection needs, and also through the community based approach communities and who assess them can always identify protection risk, explore these causes and decide how to prevent and respond. So to tell you about this 3000 outreach volunteers they are working with us. The information they provide to us about protection needs protection threads. The causes of this protection they come up with a lot of solution. So basically, our work, it's improving a lot since we established a community based approach in 2016. We're learning a lot and a lot from the communities who becoming as our as our guidance on how much better to work with the duty bearers and the community to improve the protection of civilians. So this is I didn't want to take more time. Huda and colleagues. And if you have any question later, please go ahead. Thank you very much again. Thank you. Yes, since we are behind our schedule, I will immediately give the floor to our next speaker from Geneva call Mr is a KFS senior policy and legal advisor to provide us more examples and information on how to engage with non state aren't actors over to you as a kid. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Huda. And thanks to the organizers for having Geneva call this panel today. We were asked to, to, to speak briefly about how Geneva works to induce our non state actors and groups to respect international humanitarian norms and I'm saying humanitarian norms in a broad sense because our approach includes both IHL and some rules of human rights law. So the first point that I want to highlight is in relation to the nature of the actors that we're dealing with so you everyone working in conflict settings knows that our groups are actors that are dynamic entities that we change during conflict they evolve they fragment their structures they split. The commanders might be arrested might be killing combat there might be new commanders so groups are entities that change their attitudes with respect to international law during the conflict. But in time, they might agree not to use and recruit children in hostilities but six months later they might change that attitude that actually start doing so. So, the landscape that we face is a very dynamic. That's the first one that the first element that I want to highlight the second element that I want to highlight is how is the relation between our non state actors and groups and international. The point that I want to make here is that armed groups are entities that is not that they either respect international law at large or they violate international law at large when we turn on the news we always see this perspective of armed groups or violating international and the point that I want to make is that we should have, we should reflect more on a thematic approach this is what humanitarian actors do. So there are certain rules of international law that are violated by our actors in general be they states or non state actors, and some rules that are respected. So we have seen in our experience. So this is a concept by our non state actors with respect to international law and I'm going to go into into this now so this is just the two dynamics that I want to highlight so in situ in terms of the evolving nature of the actor in question but also in terms of their responses their attitudes with respect to international law they have a more thematic approach with respect to this legal regime so having said that Geneva call is a humanitarian organization that was created based on the challenges that that are not state actors were posting specifically on the use of anti personal minds, and this was more than 20 years ago. Now we have been engaging our non state actors in many conflict settings on other thematic areas not just on the provision of using landmines and the key aspect here is that at the beginning we were focusing on this but because you need five or six years, we managed to put together 3040 groups committed not to use anti personal minds or destroying their stockpile of anti personal minds. So, the questions that we were receiving is why doesn't Geneva call expand to other thematic areas since you're already sitting down and discussing with groups about this you could also discuss about different issues about the prohibition of sexual violence and discrimination about the protection of cultural heritage, the prohibition for displacement, IHL in general, and so on and recently, we have also started a program on the prohibition of starvation and environmental issues. So, Geneva call engages armed groups through different in different ways I mean of course the branding tool and the, the, the element for which you need a college recognizes what we call the deed of commitment that is a unilateral declaration that armed groups signed they come to Geneva, and together with Geneva call and a representative of the canton of Geneva they signed this declaration, and they commit to respect to certain international rules and these are thematic commitments so we have a deed of commitment on child protection, a deed of commitment on sexual violence and gender discrimination a deed of commitment on health care, a deed of commitment on starvation, a deed of commitment on the prohibition of using anti personal minds and that deed of commitment through those deeds of commitment that have been signed by more than 60, 70 groups from all around the world. And they allow Geneva call to monitor situations of compliance or non compliance so we are headquartered Geneva but we have offices in in Mali in Yemen in Syria in Iraq in different places around the Myanmar in the Philippines I mean I don't want to list them all. What we do is we monitor the respect of those deeds of commitment, but we also engage groups that have not signed the subcommittee and they commit to humanitarian norms who other means such as for instance, unilateral declarations or they internalize certain rules of international law in their cause of and the key aspect here is that most most often they're not non state actors that are non state actors they they are not aware of their international obligations and in any in any given society. The circle of people who actually were aware of law of the law in general is very small. So if we take the societies where we live in, most likely the people will not know everything about law. So if we think about the circle of people who are aware of international law is even smaller and the circle of people who are aware of international humanitarian law is even smaller and the people who know about the differences between international humanitarian law, human rights law, international criminal law, the Rome statue is even smaller. The first step for for Geneva call is actually to increase the knowledge of the arm no state actors about their specific international obligations and through these increase of the knowledge. We expect that they will understand their international obligations, and of course that we will have a frank and on discussion about how these obligations will be implemented on the ground. There are many challenges as I mentioned before, armed groups are dynamic entities, we might be. We might have committed or have obtained an engagement from an armed group and then that group might actually split or that commander that had given us certain guarantees is no longer there. There might be other other challenges and groups may, for instance, don't have the capacity to implement all of the international obligations, but the first step in any case is for them to be aware of those obligations and for us is one of the things that we do is actually these armed groups about their international obligations about what they they cannot do or they can do in conflicts and from there we build a bilateral and sustain engagement throughout the years. So, I've got to stop here because it's, I know that we're running out of time that they're happy to take questions about our engagement on specific context or, or how, yeah, we get in touch with our groups or other other issues that might be of concern. Thank you very much. Excellent Ezekiel, since we received many, many questions to the different speakers, we asked them to provide the answer on the chat that we will have a shared question for you because this is something that was recurrent in the chat. It's about a word that all the speakers mentioned in a way or another it's about innovative ways to prevent reduced threats to civilian and then our audience and the participants would like to hear from you. Concretely, what do you mean by that in few words so I will maybe start with the one who will raise the physical hand not virtual hand from the speakers viola Aziz. Ezekiel innovative ways to prevent reduced threats to civilian what do you mean by that maybe viola because you mentioned that several times presentation and then we can see. Yes, sure. I think Jack provided a really clear example of example of work that were not just in place before. And so I think colleagues that are really working on on the field are much more, but I mean there are better places to respond to this but what I think overall this hearing is so are all those efforts that basically bring the joint effort, all existing forces and really try to understand what the comparative on one of these in this context. So who is working with communities who is doing this better on it and we need to be very clear and honest about it, who is doing this type of engagement who has a better and how can we work together so the protection cluster of course is one of the natural body to do that. I think this has to go to very different level it has to be at the city has to be sorry to the country team level it has to be very strategic. And then a field office and a very to the local and really find priorities and when we can intervene and how so I think maybe you have clear example or. I have a virtual hand from is a care so I'll give them the floor for a few minutes as you can you can write also in the chat before the concluding remarks because we still have to other speakers is a care over to you. Yes, thank you very much. There are a couple of innovative ways. Of course, for us at Geneva call. One of the ways that has been this public commitments that that we have used to engage arm no state actors I mean that the engagements that we have with our groups are listed on our website and this has been kind of a driver for certain groups to respect international law. When actually when they, it's mostly in terms of legitimacy so when they wait, they actually try to achieve something or they don't want to be perceived as criminal as a criminal actor, just as a criminal actor as a criminal group you know they might want to be seen as more respectful so they might be willing to commit to to certain organizations but just a quick point this because on innovative ways. The humanitarian sector, I would say, 20 years ago was mostly focusing on the relation between the humanitarian sector and the parties to conflict so providing training and dissemination sessions on it to states and non state actors I mean now. The impression is that they're, we have identified that there are other key layers in conflict settings so one of course could be a civilians through a community based protection approach. So civilians as active participants looking for protection claiming before the parties to a conflict that they have that the parties have obligations and that they have certain rights in conflict areas so engaging with civilians is actually is a way to increase protection in course, we have to be careful because that's not always the case and it by putting danger, the community is the other one that that Geneva call has started working a couple of years ago is a role of religious leaders. So actors that actually are influential of the parties to conflict because either they put interpretations of the law that I respect full of HL, or the other way around, but the key aspect here is that these actors should be engaged on because we again we need to find innovative ways and and we have realized that this relation exclusively with the parties to the conflict was not enough to achieve protective outcomes in complex settings. Thank you very much. I'm afraid Jack I will not be able to give you the floor but you can write your reaction and answer. This time I prioritize Geneva call and civic as our guests because the majority are senior protection cluster coordinator here so I need to be fair. I will immediately give the floor to our next speaker Hannah Rose hallway co coordinator my action area of responsibility and humanitarian disarmament and peace building coordinator and for Danish refugee council in order not to say the RC and confuse it with Congo. So, Hannah over to you before going to William for the closing include concluding remarks on. Thank you very much don't worry how to it's a long and complicated title. Don't anyone would get it wrong. Thank you and for the introduction. I think it's quite hard to actually follow on from such presentations that we've had today in such a rich array of case studies it's hard to summarize in a meaningful and comprehensive manner. So the most important thing is that in the last half an hour and a half. We've heard repeatedly about the devastating plight of civilians across several locations who either caught up, or targeted arm conflict, the civilians regular people who wish you should be able to live a life free and without fear of being killed harmed, and be able to exercise basic rights in engaging in livelihood opportunities accessing medical services, achieving educational ambitions and move freely and practice individual faith. We've also heard about some of the efforts being carried out in the name of protection by array of agencies. The resources remain numerous, and the resources presumably also needed are ever expansive. However, we've seen some good, good practices successes and wins are achievable for me personally as a bystander and a participant of this session, the work described by Mr. In Sudan is in ensuring a coordinated accountable and a flexible POC strategy to ensure that the government bodies security bodies civil society and NGOs operate together to deliver effective protection efforts in a holistic and inclusive manner is an aspiration several locations could look up to and learn from Miss Viola, Viola Giorliano's level of understanding and analysis of the conflict and car to me highlights the importance and the value of comprehensive conflict analysis in order to develop and deliver more effective and innovative and conflict sensitive interventions. We've also heard of a comprehensive case study and example from Mr. Yassin Abbas in Syria delivering community based protection mechanisms showcasing the importance and need for communities to lay at the center in the heart of any intervention, giving them agency and the driving seat in the decision making process. All of these examples or case studies should be a testament to the work that can be done and the lessons that can be learned. To say the task at hand is complicated multifaceted dynamic and ever changing continued efforts to engage with relevant stakeholders, working with and for communities and civilians affected or targeted by our conflict and garnering the support and member states, lives can indeed be saved and families and communities protected. As I said already will say it again the last two years 2020 and 2021 have been challenging for many, but now more than ever protection of civilian needs to continue and enter at the forefront of the humanitarian agenda. I need to also mention as the mine action co coordinator for the mine action area of responsibility, the proliferation of arms and the changing and dynamic nature of conflict resource scarcity or resource abundance depending on which context we're referring to. The social political priorities and contest provide provides a growing space for protection of civilians is needed. The mine action area of responsibility through the protection cluster continues to support country operations and delivering effective and necessary clearance activities provide necessary sensitization schemes ensure support of frameworks are in operation to support victims of explosive issues and strengthen meaningful participation representation and leadership of local and national actors in mine action. I think the common message that keeps coming back time and time again which I cannot agree with more is that the protection of protection of civilians is first and foremost. Responsibility to the parties of conflict both states and armed groups, however civilians affected by conflict, in particular those most vulnerable are or should be first and foremost in any response. While the protection of civilians agenda is understood as measures aimed at limiting the effects of hostilities on civilians and civilian objects in situations of armed conflict. This is a quick fix, and the impact of our conflict has has long term lasting and devastating impacts. We as a community as individuals as agencies as members of a global society need to continue to work together in a principle manner to ensure civilians and communities are protected, supported and are at the center of a needs response. That's all for me thank you very much. And lastly but not least, Mr William Shimali, our global UNSCR global protection cluster coordinator for, I think William is here know for his words of wisdom as usual I hope you can see him. Yes. Now, we have, we have you there. So, over to you William. Thank you so much. And thank you to all the participants today and who the use specifically you did it again pull together very convincing discussion much needed discussion. One that might risk being repetitive from year to year. I think it was very interesting and inspiring to see these, what is referred to as innovation. These very basic tools and intuitive ways that that some of the operations like car, Syria, and Sudan have have referred to so congratulations to everyone. In the broader sense we do face a waterfall of crisis accumulating to what we refer to as a, as a coping crisis. Yet, as we have said in our last global protection update. Out of all the drivers of crisis conflict remains the uncontested major cause of protection risks and concerns. Military coup force to seize power. Secretary General Gutierrez speaks about a new arms race nuclear risk at its height. We see that military spending as a share of the global of the gross domestic product has its largest annual increase since more than 10 years since 2009. The situation is green. The big picture is worrying largely because how clear it is. But the individual level picture in many ways is more worrying because how unclear it is invisible actually as we said in the opening of this form. In many cases, civilians that do need protection are invisible to their communities sometimes to the services of authorities invisible, quite a bit to peace processes invisible to political solutions so we have come today and heard how we can how we can deal with this dynamism that is a care spoke about. And I think the, the first clear notion across all what all the speakers said is this simple notion of protection by presence needs a comeback with avengers to the lingo to the philosophy to the approaches to the programs to to the strategies that we implement in countries. And this second simple notion of community based protection needs to accompany. We've seen through across all the examples the role of the communities normally to to protect themselves and how these projects and engagement at a community level is is very protected. And then the third notion that came across all the innovative aspects is this access negotiation, I think that what you've said in many ways is that access negotiation is not about delivering the material eight. It's about being there and witnessing what's happening with the community engaging in dialogue, it's about these soft services and specialized services of protection of being there so there is a call from all of you to really focus in terms of access negotiation on this protection by presence on this protection services access, not only material aid. And we have good news. I believe the new leadership of Ocha with the priorities that has been described in the profile of the new ERC is good news in terms of humanitarian diplomacy and access negotiation and we will stand supportive as a cluster to to feed into that process. I want to close by by speaking about a notion of courage, we do live in an open world. People, we try to serve here our voices. But they also hear our silence. A loud voice advocating for protection of civilians might limit our access once or twice. It might do there is a risk. But our silence on protection of civilians might make our access even when it happens actually amputated forever. Silence might bring food plastic sheets, but risks to to leave behind hope that we bring to the communities when we arrived sometimes. It might bring water but risks leaving behind acknowledgement of injustice. And sometimes people we are accessing are left with nothing but their story, we have no right to take that away from them. And let's not. But this is where it takes a whole community where we complement each other. Some do drive much needed trucks some deliver much needed services. Some negotiate behind the closed doors some tell the story publicly. We need all these pieces. And this is why there is a cluster, because one approach is never enough. We can the GPC commit to keep such spaces of conversations open of complementing approaches and bringing complementarity across all these innovations that are happening and picking up on these individual successes of innovations and try to scale them up for the next year. So I wish you all a good, good afternoon. And I hope that next year when we have a protection of civilians session in the forum. We will speak not only about individual cases of innovation as we heard today, but about the scale of this innovation that is being spread across operations. Thank you so much to everyone. Thank you again, and have a good afternoon. Bye bye. Bye bye.