 Do you have any things that you would identify as big humanitarian challenges? The continuing wars, the continuing struggle for access to reach people in very difficult civil wars and the challenge to stay alongside people in a very constructive way in very protracted wars like DRC and Columbia which have lasted for decades in Somalia. How do you see the relevance today of neutrality and impartiality? Neutrality and impartiality are deeply important. I mean impartiality is important as a core value of humanitarian action which says that we as humanitarians see every single person as equal and I also think that most people realize from their own experience in lives that if you want to try and enter a fight or a conflict get in the middle of it to help people then neutrality is absolutely essential to get people's confidence and trust and that we should even respect and care for our enemies. How does it work, this question of getting inside a conflict when it's a civil conflict and an aid agency might have to cross a border? I'm thinking of Syria for example. There are two ways to do it really, there's an official way, you can do it diplomatically as the ICRC does and is so well placed to do. You liaise with government, you liaise with all sides, all warring parties and you tell them exactly what you want to do to protect civilians and you ask for their consent to these things and their cooperation. And if there is no consent is there an argument for going in anyway? Yes of course there is, there's a very strong ethical argument that you have offered your help and if people need help but this is being refused then you can take humanitarian initiative. So in your opinion it would be fine for an agency like the ICRC to just roll across the border into Syria without the government's permission? Now I wouldn't expect the ICRC to do that, I would always expect the ICRC to work with full transparency with all parties but I do think it is okay and acceptable for NGOs sometimes to go cross-border when there is not clear government consent and this is a long tradition of this going back to cross-border operations into Ethiopia in the 80s and I think ethically if you are neutral, if you are impartial, if your goal is strictly humanitarian then you can ethically and legally take humanitarian initiative to go to meet needs without explicit state consent. What about the challenges of modern warfare, things like drones, cyber warfare? I'm not sure how many new ethical questions a drone poses. I mean the key issues for drones as far as I can stand are still about targeting, about precautionary measures, about making sure that you are acting legally and carefully in attacking which is what drones usually do. So I think it's quite possible for drones to be incorporated into the laws of war and they should be and should be used responsibly. I also think that going forward you may find that humanitarian agencies are using drones in 10 years time because the technology itself is rather remarkable and if it allows humanitarian agencies to make better assessments or to deliver equipment safely to societies that are in need and cut off this could be a major innovation for our sector as well. My biggest worry for an impact on civilian society is cyber war because I think for the ability of a cyber attack to shut down electricity, to shut down the flow of cash into an economy by grinding all cash points and ATMs to a halt is very serious and I think a modern society can be brought to a fairly devastating am pass quite quickly by cyber warfare. I see a lot of competition between aid agencies just to get media attention. Is this healthy? Competition is part of life and competition is very real in humanitarian action. We mustn't forget that. It is a good thing because it creates new ideas, innovation, new practices. If someone like Oxfam is trying hard to develop water and sanitation as its niche, as its speciality they will tend to come up with good ideas that then the sector will take up. But competition is difficult and probably negative when people are making decisions which say we are going to be in Syria because we must be seen to be in Syria. And in fact they might be making better choices to go to the Central African Republic where they can get better access, do more things. That's a bad decision because you crowd a field and you have people there actually for mixed motives which is not wise. So do you have any words of advice for the aid workers, the humanitarian workers of the future? My advice would be stay true to the goal that you are there to be humane in war and encourage as much humanity in war as you can. Respect the ideas of impartiality and neutrality because they work. Most studies show that there are two things that make local communities and government forces and armed groups accept humanitarian action and those two things are trust that they are impartial and neutral so therefore fair and not taking sides. And the second thing is that what they do works and that their aid is effective and that the process in which they give that aid is respectful of people and not arrogant. So those are the golden rules. You do as much to deliver as much humanity as you can and keep people alive and give them a life with dignity and you do it in a way that people trust and which respects them in the process.