 because this is not the first time that the Global Protection Cluster has turned to this subject. In the 2010 handbook on the protection of IDPs, we have a chapter specifically on this subject of humanitarian evacuations. And in 2014, we held a thematic round table also on this subject, and you can find the report of that round table on our website at globalprotectioncluster.org. Thankfully, humanitarian evacuations are a relatively rare occurrence, and the most notable recent examples are from the Central African Republic and more commonly now in Syria. But there are, of course, older examples, and as I'm from the United Kingdom, we have in our folk memory the relocation of children from urban to rural areas during the Second World War. But more recently, of course, there is a relocation of populations during the conflicts in former Yugoslavia. The need for a humanitarian evacuation underlines a generally grave situation for the protection of human rights in an armed conflict. So I'm going to turn to the panel now and to ask a few questions about the why and the how of humanitarian evacuations. If I start with the why, we can see that humanitarian evacuations have been seen as a life-saving protection intervention. How does your organisation view evacuations, and are they seen as a protection tool? Maybe if I turn to Pierre from the ICRC first, and then Louise and Brooke. Yes indeed, evacuation are seen at the last resort and a life-saving operation. Maybe let me just mention that most evacuation that we do in the field are actually related to evacuated, bonded and sick mostly. This is the most usual type of evacuation that we would have, bringing people to a place where they can be treated. The same type of guarantees, the same type of procedures would be applied in terms of ensuring, of course, informed consent, security, agreement of the parties, a follow-up, registration. All of those different aspects would be there. The family unity, trying to make sure that as much as possible you would have a family member accompanying the person. And in the case of wounded sick, of course, also a responsibility then on the follow-up and in some cases bringing the people back after the treatment is feasible. So you have, I would say, the same type of preoccupation that would come. Those are the most common types of evacuation that we would do. And they're also life-saving, they're also last resort. But those ones, I would say, are often going unnoticed in many places. But the vast evacuation of the sorts you mentioned before are more rare than fully. This is usually also because something went wrong in the first place. If you are speaking of evacuation that are for quite long-term as a last resort and not of the type that you mentioned, the fire or the inundation or even linked to conflict that you have, demining one operation that push people out for a very limited time. But if you are speaking of people having to take the difficult decision to leave their home, not knowing really if they will be able to come back and in what conditions they will find their home where they come back is, of course, is per se a last resort. It's not something that anyone would do as a first solution when conflicts approach. In those type of cases, we are confronted with a series of dilemmas. The more time we have to plan, the more, of course, we are able to ensure that the criteria – and I think, Luis, you're going to discuss a bit more the different criteria afterwards – I'm not going to spell them out all. The more we have the ability to plan, the more we can make sure that all of these criteria are fully respected. The worst case scenario is the case scenario, of course, where this is not feasible, where it's a huge amount of people, very little planning possible with the committee concern. This does not discharge the responsibility to try to make everything we can to stick to the criteria, especially to avoid all the risk linked to the transfer itself and trying to enter a dialogue with the authority to ensure that the people once they can would be able to return on the safest condition with the different rights, including property, etc., which would be respected. But this is always with dilemmas. So once we go in those type of situations, I think that the one thing to retain is that there will always be dilemmas. There will be dilemmas linked to how much are we contributing to actually facilitating military operation of one or the other party out, how much are we contributing or not, how much are people really willing to, even if the last resource that we actually have no choice to solution. So there will always be dilemmas. It doesn't mean that we don't have to do it. In some cases, you have to do it. This is the option that is left. But I think we have to recognize in the analysis that we have to wait for the pros and cons as much as we can. Thank you very much for setting up the dilemmas. I think your question, I mean, is very relevant. I mean, even posing the question, is a humanitarian evacuation like phasing? I think it's the cornerstone of the whole issue. Of late, in the last few years, we've been confronted with having to act swiftly, decisively, oftentimes at the request of populations, under risk, and found ourselves, you know, sometimes asking the wrong question, this is necessary. So going back in time, as you rightly pointed out, Simon, there are multiple examples of having said and trained humanitarian evacuations to save people. And what we wanted to do in the last few years is simply because of the brutality of conflicts today where civilians, populations are not just indiscriminately affected but sometimes are targeted by actors and to the conflict, we need to be prepared. And I think that's essentially the lesson that we wanted to ensure that everyone had a firmer grasp of what it takes to actually act decisively to protect people. You need an awful lot of preparation. And I think you were right, Tia, to underscore this. So in the heat of the moment, I don't think it's time for us to start debating standards, for example. So one of the lessons, recent lessons learned is that in a humanitarian country team, for instance, pushing aside the more politicized dilemmas around humanitarian action, at least as a humanitarian community, we need to be clear about what standards underpin our action so that they become the very threshold to even consider engagement. So to be much more concrete, to be very concrete, some of those minimum standards are drawn from the very principles of international law. And those are not to be questioned. They need, however, to be understood very operationally by all actors who we then need to coordinate with. Because another essential point of humanitarian evacuations is that they are rarely able to be put into motion without the coordination of many actors. And when I say many actors, not just humanitarian actors, oftentimes political actors, security actors, et cetera. Minimum standards, for example, once have led to a much more cohesive understanding of the situation. And I, for instance, you mentioned Simon very recently or perhaps even repeatedly inside Syria. Once the humanitarian country team is much more versed about these minimum standards of respect for the rights of people, then we can engage on a discussion in terms of the more operational or protection considerations. In other words, the modalities for setting in train a humanitarian evacuation. So are humanitarian evacuations life-saving? They must be. Are they last resort? Well, this recognition that they are last resort is because we have considered other ways and needs to try to protect the population in question for increasing security presence. And sometimes there comes a time when we need to understand that increasing humanitarian assistance alone does not protect people from an imminent risk of attack. So all of this discussion taking place in a very framed and structured, principled way among the humanitarian country team is very enabling for a swift reaction. And I think just the last point on this, because we do want to go into the more, to these operational protection considerations after, once minimum standards were well debated in a humanitarian country team, be they in CAR, Central African Republic or in Syria, for instance, because they're the most recent examples, very quickly that the humanitarian country team feel relieved from the concern of taking part in more political considerations or dilemmas. Because when you're answering to an immediate need to save people, suddenly the political considerations of whether or not we're completing ethnic, ethnically moving minority groups, et cetera, that becomes a very secondary consideration to the immediacy of interceding on behalf of the protection of people. So yes, life saving, but we need to be prepared. If I can ask a follow-up question, there's a political risk, isn't there, to preparation for something like this? And even in ordinary circumstances, sometimes contingency planning can be difficult because you're planning for something which you hope doesn't come to pass or the authorities might get annoyed if you think it will come to pass. And I can imagine a humanitarian evacuation is really at the far end of the spectrum of something which may be politically unacceptable to some of the parties in a given state. In one of the examples on the round table, the evacuation took place, but it took time. But now we see that humanitarian evacuations are taking place more regularly and more rapidly. And do you think that agencies have taken on board that there is a need to be prepared, as you say, and are prepared to accept the political risk? I think that's a fair way of characterizing this. I think it's been helpful. It's infrequent. Humanitarian evacuations need to be part of what we say, your protection toolbox. In other words, you have the tools prepared in order to engage. I think that's point number one. Point number two is there have been some relatively clear cut cases where our dialogue, our presence with communities, have resulted in the community itself asking very precisely to be removed from harm or threat way. This comes from, you know, consultation, information, an analysis of needs that go beyond humanity or needs, really an analysis of the threats and risks facing their community. It's relatively straightforward. But as you say, even the political challenges or nuances there need to also factor in you bringing the community in harm's way. In other words, the manipulation of communities themselves to change their minds. We've seen that happen in the Central African Republic where suddenly that didn't fit into maybe a more political agenda. Communities themselves then can become fractured. Part of the community wanting to be relocated and the other part staying behind. And then what that means in terms of the protection risks and what you need to have in place for the remaining community behind. So absolutely a lot of protection risks, a lot of risk linked to the political agenda. At the same time, I think that the answers lie in terms of a very good analysis based on informed and regular consultation with communities themselves that you can come up with an evidence-based decision-making grounded in humanitarian principle. Brooke, if I can turn to you about whether this should be part of the protection toolbox and why would you see it as part of a toolbox? Yes, sure. I think definitely it should be part of the protection toolbox. I think actually sort of going to the second question that you asked. Louise, I think part of the problem with the pushing it off to the realm of last resort in terms of a planning process is that you actually have situations where people self-evacuate because they get to a point where there is no facilitated means of leaving and that comes with a whole host of risks that had we planned better in advance we might have facilitated a more safer way for people to get out of harm's way. I think it's a very complicated tool in the protection toolbox for all of the reasons listed and I think for NGOs it's quite an interesting position to be in because we will generally never lead an evacuation. We are there providing assistance hopefully to people who are in a siege area or in place that they're already under threat. We might provide assistance en route as they're being evacuated out and we would often be at the front lines of providing assistance at the destination location. So I think in terms of the coordination that that takes to ensure that all those steps are in place and fully respect both principles as well as respond quickly and allow for an actual protective outcome that comes from an evacuation there's a lot of sort of consultation and coordination that's required for that and I think in terms of planning it is I think sort of time and again we see where that planning doesn't happen you either get to a situation where you can no longer facilitate an evacuation effectively or well yeah basically that's what you get to in which case the risk to the population is exponentially increased. So that's a good link to the following questions if everyone agrees that there should be an evacuation how do you plan for that and what are the considerations that need to be taken into account. Now we've heard already that consultation with the community itself and the desire of the community itself that people being evacuated I should say is critical. How would you go about that in the first place and then what are the steps need to need to be taken and then a secondary question would be that an evacuation requires substantial operational investments and how would you how would your agency go about implementing that it's quite a logistical problem. I would say when it comes to the criteria we have a theory of criteria we try to always make sure our respect with hands the need for a certain level of planning ahead and capacity to have presence on the ground to make sure that first people move because they agree to move and informed consent that there is an agreed upon destination which is safe it's not the evacuating people to a destination which is not sure in itself or a place people don't have any idea what they're really going. There must be a clause for our part a clear agreement and guarantees given by the parties not only for the transfer but also that at destination there is a certain number of things that will be with the disposal that people will be able to stay there. Family unity of course when the evacuation will be extremely careful not to break that unity. He doesn't mean that the whole family has to move. You take again the example of evacuating for example they wouldn't be sick and people the most vulnerable in a community not the whole community you might always make sure that you have one parent or someone who accompanies the person being evacuated. It's a security of transfer of course it's a guarantee of security during the transfer. It's as much as possible and we know that's where it becomes extremely difficult is the right of return to make sure that you negotiate and you have this class. That's of course the one which is often let's be honest the key difficulties that we have and that's hence all the discussion about how much is it really something we should be that easily ready to go into. I'm still in the opinion that it's a last resort so I will still not go for mass evacuation as in the toolbox something we can that easily take out I think that it's already a once more failure and it says especially if it's a long-term evacuation so we have to be ready to do it we have to know how to do it but before that a lot of other things must have been tried out to protect people where they are before evacuation becomes the best available option it's always a bad option to some degree but it may become the best one of the available one hence the notion of life-saving and the notion of with a sense of emergency into it and the documentation making sure that indeed especially if it's people who are then transferring to medical facility or that being taken care of unaccompanied minors or others that you also have a clear documentation of the cases that you have transferred the case to someone with them take care of the person and that sense of follow-up also afterwards I think that there is a list of things we have to put in place in terms of retired to make the evacuation as successful as possible in most case we are able to work on most of those the return being always the most difficult one in some extreme cases we are not able to fulfill all of them we have seen cases where because of restriction of access to places of timing we are unable to get it from consent of everyone then of course it's also about the team on the spot to have the sense that they spoke to enough people do they have a sense that yes there is consent that is given by the committee even though they couldn't speak to everyone so I think there under the criteria as much as possible we should really make sure that we have them especially if we can plan especially if it is about small numbers there if it's about the big mass last minute then of course that's the good sense of the team to see how with this criteria they have to be able to play around thank you Luis thank you next slide we have captured several of the elements that Pierre was discussing just then and it's not sequential and as you point out Pierre many of those aspects need to be negotiated and worked on in a way that is very important and there is a complementarity between different humanitarian actors and local authorities becomes quite important and really understanding that have a keen understanding of the interests that might be at play and I say this particularly because I've just mentioned local authorities and in a conflict situation local authorities and the dynamics with central authorities or other actors really well understood because essentially all of this needs to take place with continuous dialogue with communities who would eventually be relocated they need to be informed constantly things can change very swiftly and their appreciation of risks needs to be taken into consideration I can't underscore more the temporary nature of humanitarian evacuation and under any scenario humanitarian evacuation needs to be understood as a temporary measure hardly a long-term solution for anyone eventual re-establishment of protection and safety and so it's the immediacy the urgency of it the temporariness of it then requires a lot of mitigating measures you mentioned documentation how essential that is it's essential for people to leave with all the documents at their disposal and if they're missing something that we know what those essential documents are so that we can try to mitigate this I say this in the context of ensuring family unity and I say this very much in the context of the right of return and negotiating a safe access or for relocation will require a lot of negotiation their clear understanding with the receiving community and their local authorities there needs to be negotiation and agreement guarantees inside received for the safe passage of the communities about to be relocated there's so many things that need to be considered and in tandem a very deep understanding of the community to be relocated the profiling and there the profile of people some things become more essential depending on the context the receiving community needs to know also who they'll be receiving so that they are well informed and given informed consent to receiving and integrating people in the first place and then the support on both ends and the receiving community will need to have some form of support political security and perhaps even humanitarian assistance support to be able to deal with the situation in the short term and I think I should also underscore the need to not take for granted that all humanitarian actors are prepared or have the right level of experience or expertise and there needs to be some time devoted to ensuring that standard operating procedures are well thought out and understood by those undertaking the humanitarian evacuation and it would sometimes mean some training it needs also and I'll stop here because we could go on and on and hence the whole issue of preparedness and it comes to humanitarian operations the part of our toolbox we better know what's in the toolbox to be able to put them in training and I was going to say there needs to be thought to anticipating problems so once you know all the logistics are in place Simon you're saying it's a heavy investment and it really is I mean this is only a very short list of things to consider and you need to start anticipating what can be done and what can be done and what can be done. So this is part of you know ensuring the evacuation react if there's an attack how will we react if part of the community decides to at the last minute not get on board and be evacuated what if a political decision comes down and impedes the movement what if we're stopped on the way what if someone ends in the plan for etc etc preempting means preparing it doesn't mean we're waiting for things to go wrong we're anticipating therefore ensuring that you know what not everyone needs to be part of organizing this humanitarian evacuation but those that need to play an essential role certainly need to be so we need to identify who the best people to be able to accompany such a movement is complex it can be done but it certainly requires again looking at all the parameters I guess it's easier than it because of the extraordinary nature of an evacuation to be caught like a rabbit in the headlights and forget that in fact many of the elements that you have to take into account to an evacuation are things that you should be thinking about anyway because it's part and parcel of a response to those issues which you've mentioned actually they should be in your toolbox anyway but you have to adapt them to the extraordinary situation in front of you Brooke you said earlier that NGOs will probably never lead in evacuation but how might NGOs support an evacuation so I think in all the phases that I mentioned earlier NGOs can play a role and in some cases an essential role I think a lot of times we're in the best position to play the interlocuer with communities in terms of understanding what their interests and needs are we are in a position to provide assistance both prior to during both prior to and during as well as at the destination location so I think understanding as an organization where you have added value and it may not be at all three phases of that and sort of selectively being involved based on that added value I think is important so the other thing that I just so it's not I mean I think we would agree with all the different criteria that have been mentioned and sort of the reflection that needs to go on around that criteria the other thing that I think is important to note are the sort of establishment of decision making structures and coordination structures in terms of going into an evacuation I think what we've seen in a number of cases in the past has been that sometimes those are not as laid out as maybe they could be for the purposes of ensuring things are smooth for the purposes of being able to kind of react to things that go wrong and similar and in some cases where decision making authority has been kind of granted having ways to discuss things in a more open way and make adjustments I think is really important so there's of course all the issues around exactly looking at the needs of the communities talking with them understanding what they want and how to ensure that the evacuation is safe but I think also from a humanitarian community perspective recognizing that there are different points where different actors have added value and trying to balance all of that is quite a significant undertaking. Okay, thank you very much. Now we're open the webinar to questions from people online and we have a question from Mamadi Diakite Mamadi I believe you're in Dakar is that right? Can you hear me? No. What is the question it's about a list? Okay. Okay, we're open for questions and while we're sorting out what the questions are I'm going to follow up a little bit. Brook, are there any considerations which would be particular for NGO involvement in an evacuation? Am I thinking particularly about political or security considerations which may affect how you would support an evacuation? I'm not sure that it's exclusive to NGOs I think recognizing that the evacuations recognizing that moving a population on mass can have political ramifications in any case and trying to balance that and the life-saving needs of moving a population with the political consequences I think is something that does need to be thought through very seriously. So some of the dilemmas that Pierre mentioned earlier I think are very much on the minds of NGOs in terms of how to engage. I think one of the things about evacuations that are quite difficult for NGOs is it requires engagement with actors that we might engage with less in our sort of normal work and so having to sort of step out of that hat I guess and look at okay how can we for the purposes of saving lives engage with these actors that we would normally try to stay quite separate from and effectively ensure that we are able to remain principled in the way that we approach the evacuation but also recognizing that those actors are fundamental to moving the population. So I think like I said I don't think that is exclusive to NGOs but I think it is complicated for NGOs largely because it's not necessarily something that is always in the kind of list of things that we engage in. Right. I mean you've raised an interesting point about the position of groups vis-à-vis populations and populations who are displaced or at risk and they have a value to parties to a conflict. Now everyone has raised this issue about the need for informed consent the need to ensure that there is a possibility of return. Are there any examples where that has happened or is the experience that where a group is relocated or evacuated that it has stayed exactly where it is and has never returned. I think we have example of both. We have example where it works. People are either we support a different organization or directly by the authority and on their own we are moving for a limited period of time and able to come back and an example where this never really happened either because there was not much to go back to the destruction that happened while they were away or simply because in the course of how the conflict evolved they found themselves in the possibility to go back or maybe some could, some could not. I think we have different types of examples if we look back at history. I think we should do everything we can to ensure that people have the possibility to go back. That should really be part of the condition. I mentioned at the beginning that most of the occasions we do are linked to medical evacuation. In that case usually people are able to go back. There are practices in the vast vast majority of cases we are able even ourselves to bring people back so in those type of cases the same with people who are extremely vulnerable that are sometimes evacuating areas while the population otherwise stays this usually makes it more easy for people to go back. The case that are the more complicated one are the cases where you have a whole population to evacuate empty an area and of course that's the one where the question of return is the most difficult, the most at risk and I would say that's exactly why it should really be a last resort because you mentioned how evacuation could have a particular impact. They also have a military impact in the sense that the rules of engagement are different if there are population around or if there is no population around so moving the population also of course can be seen by one or the other party as a way for them to either have more freehand in what they can do on the contrary more restricted in what they can do and there we should be careful and suddenly one party in a conflict gives order to a population to vacate very large areas of territory because they are going to conduct major operation under AHL this is possible for restricted areas there is really a risk that cannot be avoided evacuation could be a solution contemplated but certainly not for a very big part of that territory where suddenly you could have one or the other strategy every civilian has to move out of a series of cities because we are going to fight in those cities so there we also have in the first place to remind parties of their obligation at one stage when we see the danger is such that people are indeed in a situation where staying is really life threatening then of course evacuation becomes an option back on the table but it's a difficult balance I think there we have to recognize about the artist dilemma there is no simple black and white answer except once more for the medical evacuation that you are able to bring people back once treated if you move to the scenario of mass evacuation of community as a whole you inevitably move to these very difficult choices so far I think we can say that even in cases where people were not able to come back it was still operation that needed because it was life saving but yes there you have to work with yeah okay we have two questions from online yeah okay maybe as you read the questions Simon I would probably add that you know what sometimes our own assessment of what is life saving or not is actually a point of discussion with communities themselves in the case of the Central African Republic we've seen people who enclaved in that imminent risk of attack were actually displace people already in other words they're not originally from that range and so to some extent it's an easier decision for them to want to move on and therefore the evacuation was done in full acquiescence and fully informed population and consultation in other circumstances where the community is originally from that area the very real risk of having their land or houses occupied by others is an equal if not greater consideration in their decision making process so imminent risk of attack yes but confiscation of their very means of livelihood is an even greater threat to them and hence we come back to you know we might think that many of these principles and standards are theoretical and it's because we're you know we keep talking about international law etc but they're grounded in very deep realities for human it tends to understand what is life saving you need unhindered and consistent access to people you need to understand why they're thinking or hesitating you need to understand why they seem to be getting along with the community that they say is a source of stress to them because under the cover or gays of having access to labor it's actually forced labor and enslavement as we've also seen in some recent situations understanding how people assess their own threats and whether or not they see is viable the options that we present is often a huge a huge gap and just to add on to that I think on the other end of the spectrum we need to be very humble about the protection that we promise from an evacuation I think that there are many situations where moving a population to another area could have similarly life threatening consequences and of course to take every measure to try and avoid that but that may be something as well that in terms of understanding what we're walking into with a particular population what we're sort of for lack of a better word selling in terms of why they should evacuate that we need to be very modest in our promise of protection I think okay thank you so a question from Elizabeth who's our protection cluster coordinator in Damascus but while we're deciphering what the question means Elizabeth just bear with us for a moment we have a prior question from Sonia Zdolovtsov who's asking about the political issues and she's picking up on one of your remarks I don't know if you want to clarify she says that you talked about the political issues which should not be discussed during an evacuation and the question is what do you mean by that and could you give examples if I wasn't clearly I'll at least attempt to be clear I think we need to be politically aware but not politicize what is fundamentally non-political and it's people's sense of protection and when you start talking about what we need in terms of protection I think that's the best and most enabling way to depoliticize the situation it doesn't mean that the actions taken or that ensues from this are not going to be used or interpreted politically and so factored into our analysis as a humanitarian community or as we negotiate with different actors that need to be involved in all of these things for instance and I think perhaps this goes to your question Sonia how are humanitarians going to be perceived in undertaking a humanitarian evacuation in situation A, B or C understanding how we're being perceived leads us to taking different actions from messaging to negotiation to ensuring that guarantees are publicly known for example to mitigate any misunderstanding of the reasons why we're undertaking a particular action I think all conflicts are seeped in politics that's what they are but understanding our role in depoliticizing something goes really to the core of our role in protection I hope that's clear Thank you very much Now you've all mentioned the need for registration and for follow up and documentation also to assure the possibility of return at some point is there any way that new technologies can assist us with tracking people with the registration of their needs but the registration of their rights to your property for example if any one of you wants to speak to that issue I think when it comes to mass evacuation for the time being we have tested mostly I would say our own capacity on the ground to discuss with individual community register them understand the willingness to leave the necessity to leave and as you mentioned the reasoning that some people might have to decide to leave while others might have to stay we haven't yet tested a way where this could be done remotely through internet or other solutions I think this is something we need to think of we haven't done it yet we wouldn't become the preferred mode of action I would still hope that we are able to access people to have a direct discussion with these people to be able to register them and follow them with a direct contact we shouldn't aim to replace that by a way where people can kind of self-inscribe for evacuation and self-register them safe and well after evacuation this being said in area of the internet consensus where we are through our presence and discussion could there be a substitute either for everybody or for a sample of people that would then be able to register both their willingness and then their safe arrival maybe also with possibility to do information what happened what they witnessed etc. Yes I think there is margin to have a reflection on how some tools could be developed which is a reflection we have in general I would say in many of our activities and how to bring through technology a capacity for people to be more active also and more have a constant dialogue with us for those tools so I would see that this could also be applied to case of evacuation hasn't been done yet not by us but to my knowledge not by anyone it would be tricky one we are very tricky one let's be honest but it's something that is really worth to be photographed for the future indeed I can foresee situation where we will be in the impossibility to really make the work as we shoot and as we would like to do in presence and accompaniment and where possibly other solution can substitute for part of it Thank you very much we've had a little bit of trouble getting questions on the field because of bad connections but we have a question here about how to address the guarantees to protect civilians that may not agree to evacuate and I think the question is linked to the possibility or the fact that sometimes evacuations are not conducted by humanitarian actors I guess they might be conducted by a party to the conflict itself so how in that situation do you get the agreement of the people to be evacuated and how do you what can we as humanitarians do to assure the rights of people in that situation Sorry just to clarify you're talking about people who want to evacuate who don't want to evacuate I think the question is there are many elements to the question but it's all one question essentially so far we've been talking about evacuations that should be conducted by humanitarian actors but there may be situations where they're not conducted by humanitarian agencies or supported by humanitarian agencies and what is it that we can do in those circumstances I can start I think firstly again reality shows that the request for evacuation can come from multiple sources it can come from communities it could come through an assessment by humanitarian it can come from parties to the conflict or the state a local authority a central authority and while this is a consideration for understanding what we need to negotiate because again I go back to one of my earlier points you need to understand the interests at play to be able to then well position yourself to represent what it is that you're supposed to be representing you're representing two things you're representing humanitarian principles at play and you're interceding on behalf of people you're representing the protection needs and the protection requests of people and if you're unable to express that or put this forward in a meaningful way I think it does put into question your ability to even engage the possibility of non engaging is there and this is probably done on the basis of very basic humanity and principles whether or not our neutrality our independence are going to be at play secondly that the very rights of people are going to be fully respected in other words there's not going to be any compromise over those minimum standards the earlier slide that we put up for you the second slide the very basic standards of respect and rights of people for example if it's a common practice or you can anticipate that people will be deprived of documents or families will be separated that young men will be taken separately from other people and the civilian character of the evacuation won't be respected I think those are all preconditions for humanity to even consider engaging so the source of the request might be at play that I think more fundamentally it's about framing the role that you anticipate playing and what you represent in the evacuation maybe I can just add one thing I mean I think I think by the time you get to the point of considering a mass evacuation we're talking about a list of bad options and I think there is I mean we also have to respect if people you know people have the agency to say it's not my preferred option and that may mean that they are taking on certain risks the reality is they'd be taking on certain risks by agreeing to evacuate as well so I think there's it sort of doesn't happen in a bubble that you would evacuate people you'd be looking at other ways of assisting in addition to that for both populations both the populations that stays behind as well as the population that agrees to move and so I think it's a little bit difficult to make it either or and I think in cases like this where you have a non-humanitarian actor who is organizing coordinating leading the evacuation or insisting on it I think even more so in those cases we would need to look at how to support the alternatives that people are choosing yeah thank you and we have another question from the field which is about the particular needs of people either living with a disability or a debilitating disease and the example raised was about HIV and so I guess how do you plan for that so that there is a continuity of care in an evacuation Part of the preparedness I think part of the preparedness is about we mentioned the necessity of having an adequate profile of people to understand the specific needs from children to older people and indeed for people who have specific needs in relation to their health or even their protection so choosing partners who have something to contribute to ensure that the evacuation is done safely in a dignified way extends to health partners and health support and the consideration has to be to the receiving end at the receiving end not just access to services but fair and non-discriminatory access to essential services for the population and indeed some of those very specific parameters are sometimes very difficult to predict but preparation would at least entail a discussion with people at risk in terms of the limits of humanitarian evacuation might entail Also what we have faced in many cases not when we speak of a total evacuation population which is still a very rare occurrence where it is but when it's mostly about the ones in seek and maybe the most vulnerable within that community is to be clear first on the criteria for the evacuation so that within the community also there's an understanding why some people would be evacuated by you while some others would not and then to make sure that based on those criteria indeed on the receiving end you make sure that people have access to the different support they need to which degree would they be able on their own to get the access or to which degree are they really totally relying on you to get the access because they cannot and it's something you have to pre-plan depending the type of situation they find themselves but you have a responsibility to make sure especially if you take up the most vulnerable that you don't just drop them which I think none of us do but really to make sure that then there is a follow-up through time and that this through time is important because although yes it should be only for a short period of time it should also show that in some cases this short period can last longer than what was thought first which is to make sure that we have registered and we can follow up these people in most cases we are able to plan and we are able to do things well I think there is this few cases where we are unable to do so today and where I think it's challenging to make sure that those type of cases would come come out and that you really be able to follow them Okay, thank you Brooke, did you have any other thoughts? No, I agree with everything Okay, great Are there any if there is another question from online? Yeah I will just read it So it's beyond consent could you elaborate more on best practices advice on how to ensure the persons being evacuated are adequately informed of the evacuation process to come the little details that you would recommend giving This is in the context of having observed an evacuation where it was found it's very useful to inform of the duration of the journey that's to expect along the way what would happen upon arrival the validity of medical staff at different stages of the journey for this to 100 persons to better anticipate what is to come but also having observed where such information was not provided resulting in confusion and worry We've got just a couple of minutes to go so if I can maybe reduce the question to one about how do we ensure proper information is given to people I can start with that I mean I think that in general the more information that's given in the largest variety of ways the better I think that the also taking into consideration the population that you're talking to how they access their information how they communicate among each other all of those things need to be accounted for but I think the goal would be to avoid confusion I don't think you want to add that level of complication to something that's already quite a complicated process similarly it's important for us to have information about about what kind of information they need what kind of information they want so that we can we can tailor the information that's available before, during and after an evacuation to ensure that it is informed consent in the the most real way that is possible I think in general that the leading would be towards as much information as we can give and there's quite a bit of good practice I would imagine from natural disaster situations where information is absolutely critical as I mentioned the California dam evacuation earlier 200,000 people evacuated in a short space of time and I think maybe that's the one your new technology question that may be some place where I mean on the one hand I think we need to think about new technologies on the other hand I think we need to also think about places where going back to basics is going to be the best way to communicate perhaps to conclude this panel would the panel recommend that all countries that are experiencing an armed conflict at any level prepare for an evacuation as part of their contingency plan that's a yes or no after at this stage I would be very uncomfortable with a yes or no answer because once more I think that especially if you are speaking of mass evacuation and not evacuation of wouldn't seek or categories of people with specific vulnerability but I think if you are speaking of yes I would advise that you have clear procedure put in place agreed upon authority with referral hospitals maybe with referral receiving home for elderly or other categories of people where you could envisage some evacuation but if you speak of the mass evacuation that's why you have to be prudent because if you give the signal you are ready to do it too easily but yes you are also giving a signal that actually it is okay to say to the population of a city where you know there is going to be fighting to evacuate to allow the use of force that would not be allowed otherwise if the population is still there and I don't think that's the type of message so it is that when to start a discussion in advance enough to be able to still have some planning and to avoid to be in a situation where it's all last minute versus starting it too early to then give an impression to the parties that it's actually okay to say to the whole population move on if you are coming in to fight I think that there the yes and no answer is honestly not the way I would try to frame it being prepared to do something is different and needs to be different from maintaining that humanitarian evacuation are a last rhythm so being prepared is a great thing and it needs to be part and parcel of our experience the lessons we learn throughout one operation to the other and that's why we are having this discussion that's why the GPC can be able not too long ago we need to check regularly on those difficult operations to carry out but it doesn't mean that they become routine or any easier or any less complex given the different situations I would and coming back a little bit to the previous question linking it to this you need to relay information that you know is credible and real you need to relay what has been relayed as guarantees and you cannot start venturing into suppositions or promises that you have no control over implementing and I think that's the real essence of a meaningful discussion and informed consent of community rest. Really quickly I just I feel like there are markers where you start to see that an evacuation may be an option that you would need to consider and so it's not in every armed conflict but that you would be able to say you start seeing enclaves, you start seeing sort of military strategies that put people at very high risk in terms of places where they're living and that's the point at which at least the conversation about preparedness would need to begin and contingency planning but that would be based very much on starting to see some of those markers. Okay. Thank you very much. That's all we have time for in this webinar. That was a very rich discussion so I'm not even going to try and sum it up apart from to say be prepared. Thank you very much everyone online and to the panelists.