 So I think we are going to start our event and good morning, afternoon, evening, everybody, wherever you are joining us from. And welcome to today's event of the Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Week organized by the Global Protection Class for Human Rights Engagement Task Team. Today we will dive in more specifically into the implementation of the Secretary General's call to action for human rights and look together on how we can engage with human rights systems to advance the protection of affected populations in emergency settings. My name is Valerij Svobodova. I am the Global Protection Class for Human Rights Engagement Task Team Co-Chair and I'm very happy to guide you throughout the event today. So that we all feel comfortable during today's one and a half hour, we would like to ask everybody to please keep your microphone on mute and use the function of chat so as to share your questions, comments, examples, and we will be constantly monitoring it so as to capture your inputs and bringing back to panelists as necessary. So we warmly invite you to use as much as possible the chat function. So I would like to introduce you today's agenda, which is very exciting. We will first hear from William Ciemali, who will open up our today's event. He's the Global Protection Cluster Coordinator and this will lead us to our panel and we have four distinguished panelists today, starting with Sweeta Madhurikanan, who is the Political Affairs Officer in the Executive Office of the UN Secretary General, followed by two voices from the field. Firstly, Sarah Palacen, Protection Class Coordinator in Chat, as well as Lóki Rumatendo, working for the World Lutheran Federation, focusing on the situation in South Sudan, Ethiopia, and Uganda as the Regional Program Coordinator. And we are also very fortunate today and honoured that we have the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of internally displaced persons with us, Cecilia Jimenez-Damari. So after this very distinguished panel and remarks that we will hear, we will move to the section of questions and answers and we would strongly encourage everybody to take advantage of this event and to really ask whatever you have on mind in regards to the human rights systems in humanitarian settings and how we can use the call to action to improve the situation of affected population. So without any further delay, I will pass the floor to William to share with us opening remarks. Over to you, please. Thank you very much, Valeri, and welcome, everyone. Let me start by a big shout-out for our colleagues working in the Human Rights Engagement Task Team for the Global Protection Cluster, the grouping that is there and the different backgrounds that the 40-plus partners bring together in that task team is really good to see and brings this colorful diversity to the issue. I'm also very happy we're having this conversation today. First, to start by a clear statement from my side is that we see a lot of conversation around the difference between human rights and protection. And I would like to start by saying that we don't see that difference. We think and we believe and we're sure in practice that at the end, reaching the human rights of people is fulfilling their protection. And as such, we see that the tools might be complementary coming from a humanitarian or a human rights or a development or a peace perspective, but at the end, it's all heading and founded on the main concept of human rights. Is someone trying to come in? No. I think all is okay. Good. Now, I would like to share three observations, three field observations regarding this issue that I believe our colleagues working in the villages and the camps and the suburbs have conveyed to us repeatedly and in different ways. The first one is a question of mindset. Having a human rights approach in delivering humanitarian aid makes us shift from a charity mindset of helping people to a real true humanitarian solution-oriented, protection-oriented, rights-based mindset of aid. And that's extremely important. It's extremely important for our behaviors as staff on the ground, among the community. It's very important in the language we use. It's also very important in the way we program and design what needs to happen. This shift from charity to true protective humanitarian action has to pass through the human rights approach. The second element that is very helpful for the deep human rights understanding in the field is that it forces us to go deeper and understanding the situation on the ground and what people are facing. Let me give you an example. In a place like many of the Sahel countries, of course we have land degradation plus conflict plus COVID leading to ongoing or looming hunger and famines. So we come from a humanitarian perspective and we look at a household and we see do they have enough food? Should we give them food? And often we look at do they have enough calories on the table every day? Do they have the right intake of calories on the table? And based on that we decide if we give them food or not. Yet what a human rights approach makes us do is to look not only at the food on the table but it makes us look at what's actually happening under the table. Is a girl married off and the family has received payment? This is how we have food on the table? Has a child dropped out of school and is working in horrible conditions and this is how we have food on the table? And this interlinkages of rights, this analytical and observational and logical exercise that we go through when we're looking at a situation adopting a human rights approach allows us to understand deeper not only the tip of the iceberg but also the whole bottom and as such we can address issues in a more sustainable and more real and more effective way. And that leads me to the third point. Local actors, local actors, local actors. Having a sustainable engagement on human rights issues requires cultural understanding, long-term legal engagement, parliamentary engagement, cultural change and shift, broad true alliance in the leadership of the community but across all the layers of communities and the only real actors that can sustain this long-term patience and have the true built-in skills to drive a human rights agenda on the ground are the local actors. And this is where we have as humanitarians to make much more efforts in liaising with legal firms, parliamentarians, human rights commissions in our work because the only true lifeline of whatever we start or try to do will only be achieved and completed by local actors. I have had the luxury and the privilege to work on forced disappearances in my country Lebanon and that through a local organization that was no more than three, four full-time people but tens and 20s and hundreds of a network that reinforces us and guides this work of addressing a specific crime. And this kind of alliances and networks, this octopus approach to addressing a single problem that have a ripple effect in a society can only be done through the communities themselves and the local organizations. Let me close opening the session by saying one of the major difficulties our clusters and partners find on the ground is to find financial resources to address human rights issues and protection issues. And part of the challenge to that is that in many cases the main people that would require support to achieve their human rights don't even have the chance to raise their hands and tell us that they are in trouble. We have to be there with long-term trust in the communities to observe when there is trouble and be able to work on it. And the loudest successes in addressing a human rights issues are often proven by their invisibility. They're silent, they happen behind closed doors and even when we succeed in meeting the rights of a community or a person, these people won't even celebrate that because they slide back into normality in silence. And that silence that is a success is a major obstacle for financing and resourcing and resource mobilization. And this is where we need a continuous mind shift among the donor ecosystem that we work with to invest in these long-term silent consistent, persistent work on no regret basis because it's right and it achieves even though it won't probably be shown in glossy reports or on cameras. So with this, I would like to thank you for all the panelists that will be addressing these issues today. I'm looking forward to hear you and your thoughts and coming back at the end of the session to make a short conclusion. Thank you and back to you, Valerie. Thank you so much, William, for those very strong and inspirational remarks that I think really tuned us to the discussions that will now follow. And I would like to invite Sweeta to share with us more background and information about the call to action and agenda for protection, why it is important. Over to you, Sweeta. Thanks so much, Valerie and William. And I agree that was a very strong opening and I think it really, William really neatly set out some of the key challenges I think that we face when we think about protection. And I think especially, William, the way that you set out what we think of as a binary between human rights and protection and sort of starting to think much more realistically of these kinds of issues is exactly what the call to action and the agenda for protection are trying to do. My name is Sweeta Kanan. I work in the executive office of the secretary general and I'm here today together with my colleague, James Turpin. The two of us share penmanship on the agenda for protection and I'll briefly set out the background to the call to action where we've come since its launch last February in 2020 and then we'll set out very briefly what the agenda for protection is about. Next please. The agenda, well, the call to action for human rights was really born out of a recognition that we needed to promote a human rights vision that is transformative and as William said, very much solutions oriented and pragmatic and that speaks to all. And I think this last piece, the speaks to all pieces really the idea of bringing in a people centered focus into everything that the UN does. And I think it is really sort of the red thread together with this idea of bringing a very strong human rights based focus and approach to everything that we do that underpins this call to action. Essentially the call to action is a rallying call to the UN as a system to kind of come together in a way that is much more coordinated, much more coherent and much more decisive around issues of human rights. Specifically the call to action sets out a number of principles of which I think you can kind of summarize them into four key issues. One is the recognition that human rights are fundamental to the work of the UN of course and the work of the international community as a whole. The second is the recognition that human rights are indivisible. And I think that the pandemic really demonstrated that very clearly, right? We cannot just think about civil and political rights without also thinking about economic, social, cultural and labor rights. The third element, and I think it's really fantastic that we're having this discussion today obviously because it sort of highlights this aspect is the need for strong partnerships. The UN cannot act alone and it often does not act alone. And especially as we're thinking about sustainability as William was saying and sort of long-term approaches, it is key that this element of partnership is one that underpins all of our work. And then finally, a recognition also that the UN needs to come together much more strongly around leadership for human rights, that human rights guides and really informs all of our decision-making as a system that it informs the institutional commitments that we agree to and really truly guides all of our operational engagement. Now the call to action sets out seven key areas where transformational action is deemed to be possible with a concerted approach. So as we now go into this effort, we need to focus our effort around these seven issues, specifically in order to kind of achieve this transformational vision that the secretary general had in mind. In particular, and I think these are all issues that will ring very true to all of you, is sort of thinking about rights at the core and as the guiding light for sustainable development. Of course now rights in times of crisis is something that you as a community will have thought about a lot, but really then also taking that to the next level to think as William was saying, not just in silos of what does protection actually mean in the humanitarian context, but how is it that actually we as various communities, the humanitarian community, the development community, the peace and security community can come together and work much more complementarily in these spaces. Then looking at gender equality, gender parity, equal rights is sort of a key, key issue that needs much more attention. Of course, the safeguarding of civic space as a key element, also not just physical civic space, but also as we enter new and different spaces as we thinking about civic space in the digital zone. The rights of future generations, which was interpreted to mean specifically the rights of future generations in the context of climate justice, but also thinking about the rights of youth, the rights of children and how these are being taken into consideration as we make our decisions today and give policy advice today. Human rights at the center, collective UN action, really being sort of the overarching umbrella that's being used in the future. Thank you. The guiding light also for our engagement in new spaces and new frontiers. So as we think about the digital space, artificial intelligence and these types of new challenges that are emerging, how do our existing frameworks apply and how can they help us make rights-based informed decisions and develop rights-based policy? Next. Now, specific strategic interventions were identified under these seven thematic areas. You will see that there's a number of activities that are set out here. One of the key ones that I will be speaking about a little bit later on is the agenda for protection, which is identified as a strategic intervention under the times of crisis peace. Next. Now, where are we when you're on? If we take a step back and think about the fact that the call to action was launched in February of 2020 before the global outbreak of the pandemic, you really have to recognize the fact that it was actually very prescient. And I think ultimately it helped the secretary general and it helped the UN system as a whole take a specific rights-based approach when thinking about COVID response, well, the pandemic response and then the socioeconomic recovery. And it's also in the sense that the executive office issued a number of policy briefs over the course of last year that were thematic that had very centrally this idea of human rights as sort of the guiding principle for all of our action. And then specifically identified thematic areas and issues for example, engagement with the elderly engagement with differently abled people in the context of the COVID response offering very concrete guidance and support. In addition, other activities that have been undertaken and I think we really need to kind of look at this very much with the idea of all of these activities are meant to kind of help bring greater coherence within the UN system when it comes to the implementation of human rights is a set of guidance and policy notes and capacity sort of learning opportunities that were made available to UN country teams on a range of issues, ultimately allowing for greater human rights-based analysis, greater gender sensitivity and a lens that was brought in at an early stage when thinking about joint analysis on the ground, planning and then operationalization of country plans, an additional effort that was made to kind of support member states around dismantling gender discriminatory laws and thinking about establishing special temporary measures that would then allow for a reaching of parity for example in specific contexts, gender parity in specific contexts. It also, we've seen the launch of a digital hub for resources around digital technology and human rights and we can make that available to you. I can share the link in the chat and of course a number of other sort of system-wide guidances and support. And finally, perhaps this is important also a strong recognition and a strong effort across the system to make sure that we engage much more systematically with the outcomes of the universal periodic review and make sure that these recommendations are tied into the broader engagement at country level. Next please. Very briefly on the agenda for protection. While the agenda for protection was a recommendation that was put forward under the times of crisis heading, the idea is really that the scope of it would go beyond this. And it would as William had sort of suggested in the beginning really look at how the UN works across the spectrum of work across the three pillars. So really from conflict situations through to development situations and can bring much greater coherence and continuity to the protection, human rights protection work that we do and make sure that as we're talking about transition between different phases, transition between different types of engagement that there is a very strong continual threat and that people are not left hanging essentially. Now specifically the agenda for protection will build on previous initiatives such as the human rights upfront and will build on previous reviews of UN action in crisis situations, specifically human rights crisis situations and we'll build these together to kind of form a overarching common vision that would help guide UN country teams and UN engagement across the board when it comes to human rights protection so that we all start from the same starting point. But very much with the idea that we kind of have coherent but differentiated approaches that are context specific and appropriate of course. And here I think important to highlight again is sort of this idea of the indivisibility of rights. The approach that we've taken to human rights protection is one that is really broad. So one that does not define protection in the way that perhaps the IAC defines protection but one that can be inclusive and can bring into and build on the various protection systems that have been established across these various spectrums of engagement. Finally, I mean this document is still being drafted now but the way that we're envisioning it is that it would contain an overarching vision, an operational plan that would be really concrete and provide concrete guidance and support to country teams on the ground and then a broader accountability for ARC. Thanks. Thank you so much, Sweeta. This has been very helpful. It gave us really the overarching overview of the call to action and the agenda for protection. I'm sure it has prompted a lot of questions amongst participants as well. colleagues to respond to your request we will definitely share the slides after the event so no worries for that. And now we can move to the next panelist who is Sarah Palacen as the protection cluster coordinator in chat. Over to you. Many thanks Valerie and thanks a lot also to William and Sweeta for setting the scene so well. So I'd like to first of all, just thank the Human Rights Engagement Task Team Global Protection Cluster for this opportunity to share a field perspective on the call to action for human rights and how it can be leveraged to support and advance the rights of displaced populations in times of crisis. But I'd like to start just with a little bit of context and a word also on the lived experiences of displaced populations in chat. So as many of you may know, chat is a complex emergency with the armed conflict and climate disasters driving forced displacement in a context marked by chronic poverty. Chat hosts just over 500, next slide please. Just over 500,000 refugees and a very rapidly increasing number of IDPs primarily due to the intensification of the conflict between non-state armed groups and military forces in the Lake Chad Basins, which has continued to intensify since 2015. Many of the displaced populations have been forced to flee attacks in the middle of the night leaving behind family members and personal belongings with frequent reports of human rights abuses which include kidnappings, killings and sexual and gender-based violence. Lack of funding to echo what William said for humanitarian assistance has resulted in the deprivation of the right to safe shelter, protection and assistance, which of course, as you all know, increases their vulnerability to disease and more human rights abuses. Chat is now plunged into uncertainty following the death of the president two weeks ago during clashes between Chadian forces and rebel groups at the heels of the presidential election. So in light of these current events, the Protection Cluster and its partners across the humanitarian community we very much welcome the call to action for human rights. We see it as a timely opportunity to bring focus to collective efforts that can prevent further displacement and human rights abuses at this time of instability. So next slide please. And next, thank you. So there are four main reflections that I'd like to bring forward. Overall, I think we really think that the call to action sets out useful guidelines and recommended actions and we're currently thinking now how we can operationalize that at a country level. It's given us an opportunity to think, to reach out to human rights institutions, to really try to bridge that link with them, to come together and to think how we can best draw on complementary mandates, expertise and capacity to ensure that protection remains central to ongoing contingency planning efforts. So OHCHR is collaborating with the wider membership of the cluster on joint protection risk analysis following recent events. And we're working on joint advocacy messages to promote respect for humanitarian law and human rights law. We're also reaching out to the National Human Rights Commission, which of course is a strategic partner with a unique position as an independent state institution to promote and protect the human rights of all persons on the territory. Secondly, the fact that the call to action is an initiative of the UN Secretary General which concerns all member states, donors, humanitarian and development actors. We think sends a very strong signal about the importance of and collective responsibility to advance respect for human rights. And we think that this will give weight to our advocacy efforts. So at the next humanitarian country team meeting we have requested to give an update on the call to action with a request for the HCT support and recalling the obligations of the transitory government to the respect to respect for the principles of human rights and humanitarian law. We also welcome the call to action, the encouragement of the secretary generals to reach out to relevant human rights mechanisms such as the special operator and the rights of internally displaced persons for both advice and support with strengthening international advocacy for the protection of IDPs and those who are currently at risk of becoming IDPs. The protection situation and risk analysis that we're conducting jointly with the OHEHR and our National Human Rights Commission will serve as the basis for our communication with relevant human rights mechanisms. And finally, the reminder that human rights are universal and indivisible as set out in the call to action, we believe gives traction to rights based advocacy efforts. These are the humanitarian but also very much the developing community. These efforts that are aimed at mobilizing funds for quality assistance across all sectors of the humanitarian response. And then with that, building a common understanding of protection as all the activities that are aimed at ensuring respect for the full range of human rights, including the right to food, shelter, water and protection from harm. If we can go to the next slide, please. The 2021 humanitarian response plan for Chad is currently funded at 7%. And we recognize that participating in events such as this one on the call to action provides a platform for us to raise awareness about the dire protection needs and assistance, protection and assistance needs of displaced populations. And with that, we thank you once again for your attention and look forward to hearing what the other panelists have to say. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Sarah, for sharing with us the very concrete examples from Chad and how the call to action and agenda for protection are creating momentum in the operation and help to leverage various actors. Very interesting. Now we will move to the next panelist, Lokiru, who will share with us some insight from the Eastern Horn of Africa and NGOs and faith-based organizations. Over to you, Lokiru. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, colleagues and everyone. This is an exciting moment and I would like to start my presentation by appreciating this call to action brought by the UN General Secretary because it really affirms the centrality of human rights and protection in everything that we do. I mean, whether it's humanitarian intervention or development or peace work, it calls us back to really the basic and the most fundamental of what needs to be really done. So my name is Lokiru. I work with the Lutheran World Federation. That picture you see there highlights one of the things I will touch on, but really links very much to this call for action. There are many times we in the NGO world and together with the UN, of course, and governments have wondered whether we acted a little bit too late to a given situation. I think there is hope in this kind of call to invite everyone to go back to putting rights at the center of everything. Next. So the Lutheran World Federation is an international faith-based organization. We are best headquartered in Geneva, but we work globally in all the major, I mean, all the continents. We primarily work with refugees, displaced persons, they're hosting communities when they return home, but also other communities who are at risk. And we have identified three major programmatic areas that we focus on globally. One is livelihoods, strengthening livelihoods from the day one when a crisis hits and continuing to build resilience even after the crisis. We have the other one being quality services, partnering with governments and others to provide quality services. And I will come back to this, but this is really at the center of us trying to ensure putting rights at the core of sustainable development. And our third programmatic area is protection and social cohesion. Really centered on rights, best approach for individuals, for communities, but also building the institutional frameworks to strengthen, to assure people's rights. We have an approach that we have been working on we've developed where we work to secure the rights of people at a local level. So concretely trying to deliver based on their needs, based on their priorities and their rights at a local level, but partnering in a wider scale at a regional, national and even a global scale using our international network and alliances with faith-based organizations, with UN organizations, with governments to go back and deliver on those grassroots level locations. This is what we call the local to global approach. And we find that very much emphasizing the rights-based, the faith-inspired approach that the Lutheran World Federation adopts. Next. Now, in East Africa, and I know that many of the people in this call perhaps are familiar with it, but those who are not familiar with it, East Africa has a long history of conflicts, but also a lot of climate-induced challenges. At the moment, I can say those two C's stand out very much in East Africa. Conflict has displaced the millions of people and climate-induced factors have also displaced and continue to make many people very vulnerable. I mean, in the region, as more than seven million people who are in that situation at the moment, and there are so many rights that are undermined under those circumstances. I mean, we're talking about gender equality and discrimination, violence against children. You know, we talk about the full range of rights. I mean, from the socio-economic rights, political and civic rights undermined when people are in a situation of light and instability that is caused by conflict and climate-induced factors. We see that education for us as an organization has played a major role in engaging around these issues. I mean, trying to ignite people's resilience can be done in many ways, and many NGOs and many UN agencies, we work in many different ways. At Lutheran World Federation, education has been one of those areas in East Africa where we have found it really meaningful to engage in peacetime during the crisis and after the crisis to really continue to strengthen the resilience of the people who are affected by conflict and climate-induced factors. Next. And another way that we have found meaningful engaging is connecting with the human rights mechanisms. One of those... Look, Yuru, I'm sorry, I think you have been muted. Can you please unmute yourself? Thank you so much. All right, okay, thank you. Yeah, one of the other ways that we engage with in East Africa is through the Universal Periodic Review. And in this area, we work across the countries in East Africa engaging with civil society organizations with governments, with human rights entities in government to identify priority rights for communities that we work with and try to empower them to be able to support, to claim them, but also to realize them through concrete interventions that we provide alongside our advocacy and engagement initiatives. The others are the CEDO and other instruments, treaty instruments that we also engage with. We support civil society to develop reports, to engage with governments, to develop action plans and actually assist them to implement them. At the core of our intervention is basically to ensure that we're not just helping people to claim and advocate for rights and be aware about their rights, but trying to help them to concretely realize them at a local level. And through our international networking and advocacy, anchoring and securing those rights through the various instruments that are available globally. Next. And if I now come back to this call that has been made, which is really timely, we think that it is very relevant for NGOs. It's very relevant for us in the Lutheran World Federation. And we have identified, for example, the two main aspects of the call, human rights in times of crisis, but also human rights at the core of sustainable development. We think that for many times, I mean, when there is a crisis and even before a crisis, people's rights are the first casualties. They are not prioritized and they are not supported to fulfill them. We think that there is a need for the human rights mechanisms to be strengthened before the crisis, after the crisis, to be able to secure people's rights. How can we in the UN, working with the NGOs, staff the rights of the people better? This is a question that we keep asking ourselves. And as I finish in my last slide, I would like to just go deeper into how we've reflected internally and ways in which we can all bring this call to action to be a meaningful new way of delivering for the people that we all of us work with. Next. Yes. We think that it should provide us the momentum to channel on the ground, the grassroots, concrete initiatives in a very linked way. It is important that the General Secretary has pulled his weight and the weight of all the UN agencies behind this call for action to put rights at the center of all the UN agencies. We think that working together with NGOs, there is a powerful way in which we will be able to deliver in a better way. And taking into cognizance other initiatives that have lately been developed, for example, the global compact for refugees. If we talk about refugees and displaced populations and we're talking about the comprehensive refugee response framework, they all have very noble ideas, responsibility sharing, burden sharing and thinking about before the crisis and beyond the crisis trying to bring issues together under one umbrella. Where the government takes the lead and others are supporting governments to deliver for people's rights. We think that this is a very powerful way moving forward. And we also need to make the rights mechanisms much more accessible to NGOs and especially to local best, local NGOs and civil society organizations. People, who my colleague earlier has mentioned are always there for the people. They are the first one to respond. They will be there after many of us have left. How can we make human rights mechanisms and all the other mechanisms that we provide for meeting people's rights accessible to them and enable them to be able to deliver them to work with them. I mean, we cannot overemphasize the importance of coordination, financing. These are the tools that eventually make it possible for people's rights to be delivered. How can we have flexible financing mechanisms? Those that do not just kick in in terms of crisis but can actually be activated before the crisis. So that we can no longer continue to say we acted a little bit late, but we actually were able to build the capacities, empower the people and mitigate the risks before they were struck by a crisis. I would like to stop there and just emphasize that message that if this gives us an opportunity to reinvigorate our joint efforts, working together to deliver the rights of people in a certain local area in a powerful way using all our international connections. Thank you. Thank you very much, Lokiro, for this very insightful presentation but also some reflection and suggestions on how we could practically translate it in the field and how we can use the call to action and Agenda for protection. Very interesting and I'm sure we will get back to those points in the discussion later. But now I would like to turn to our last panelist, our owner panelist, the special reporter on the rights of internally displaced person, Cecilia Jimenez. Over to you, Cecilia. Thank you very much, Valérie. And I would like to thank William and the previous presenters for the excellent presentation. Obviously I'm coming from the human rights perspective so I am very biased with regard to this topic and biased because it's my role to be biased as the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights of IDPs, it's very clear. And one of the first things I actually said in the beginning of the mandate when I took over the mandate in 2016 is that humanitarian action is actually action that is not a matter of being nice. Humanitarian action and assistance is a matter of human rights. Why? Because when we are giving humanitarian assistance, humanitarian provisions in whatever way, it is exactly what William mentioned in the beginning of this webinar, that this is not charity. It is because those people do have human rights to be assisted because they are vulnerable, they have lack of human rights, their human rights have been violated, et cetera, et cetera. It's a whole slew of reasons, obviously. But what is important here is that for each of those people, we have to see what the gaps of their human rights are and what are the risks that the human rights violations will actually be happening to the people that we serve as humanitarians. So thank you so much because it was very nice to be following really the two people from the field because precisely this is what we are also trying to get to, the how. It's not so much the why, but only, but it's also the how. So it's really my pleasure to present to you in the remaining eight minutes the role of my mandate in humanitarian action. And naturally, I was very pleased and very shocked with the United Nations Secretary-General's call for action on human rights. I have been really kicking a lot with regard to where is the Secretary-General when it comes to human rights across the UN system. So thank you to Sueta and of course, the rest of the members of the organization of your unit for presenting to us the UN call for action. So as I said, the presentation really focuses on the mandate, but with regard to that, I would like to be really simply focused on how you can use my mandate to promote human rights in your respective humanitarian action. So next slide, please. So just very, very briefly, a background. My mandate is an independent mandate. We are independent experts appointed by the council for a six-year term. So my term is actually ending next year. And this is done through a competitive process that is established in the UN Human Rights Council. And the human rights mandate for IDPs is actually part and parcel of a whole load, a whole, I think we are about 43, almost 50 independent experts on different, different topics of the world of human rights. So there is a special rapporteur on trafficking. There's a special rapporteur on slavery, special rapporteur on torture against housing evictions, on indigenous peoples, on minorities, et cetera, et cetera. So any of these mandates you can actually use. But so by using my mandate as an example, I just would like to give you very briefly a guide as to what we are all about. So my mandate is actually guided by the substance of the resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly and the Human Rights Council resolutions. Of course, I only deal with internally displaced persons as much as the special rapporteur on torture, for example, deals with torture issues. Or the special rapporteur against housing eviction deals with eviction, et cetera. And of course, I'm also guided by the IASC framework and durable solutions. And now, very much on the UN Secretary General guidance, the call for action. And one of the main things that I am supposed to be doing and I really try my best to do this is the mainstreaming of human rights of IDPs into the UN system. And that includes all of you. And of course, strengthen relations with UN agencies, entities and RCs and HCs. So a lot of my work is really having dialogues with different members of the UN and also naturally to strengthen their own, your own international response to displacement situations and ensure that in that mainstreaming and strengthening human rights is part and parcel of the solution rather than the problem. The role, of course, of the international community to assist affected states. And that's why in the end of the day, that's why we are here. And particularly the internally displaced persons is of course the main purpose of why we are doing this. And so the human rights mandates, my mandate is very much victim-centered but with advocacy towards those who are responsible for those internally displaced persons. But there is one thing that I would like to share with you and that is of course, when I do my work I look at different groups as well of internally displaced persons aside from common themes. But one of the things that I have consistently advocated during my mandate is the participation of internally displaced persons themselves. And this is very much a human rights-based approach that we are not here to be the people making decisions for them. Secondly, for who will take the cudgels for them and of course be the bosses. I think it's the other way around. And in fact, the participation of IDPs is enshrined in the guiding principles on internal displacement. And frankly, I'm very, very pleased that along with ensuring and emphasizing that the primary responsibility for protection and human rights of IDPs is with the states, IDP participation has to be part again, part and parcel of the process in order that we can actually be more relevant concerning this. And William in the beginning mentioned something about human rights perspectives actually making influencing the way we also program human target assistance and action. And I think this is very, very important because if the human rights is not mainstream in the programs and IDP participation is not mainstream into programs, then again, we go back to what William has called charity of humanitarian assistance. And also, I also would like to share that part of my mandate is to analyze root causes and drivers of displacement. And I participate as a member of the Interagency Standing Committee, which is where part and parcel of the mainstreaming is all about. And it was in the IASC as many of you know that the UN agencies members and NGOs and myself as members of the IASC also released common positions concerning internally displaced persons. In the IASC, we also ensure that we are in a position to endorse or not to endorse, which is very rare cluster activations, et cetera. So let's go to the last slide. And these are the tools that I have. I do directly dialogue with states on the human rights of internally displaced persons. Therefore, one of the things that I think needs to be done, and I would like to encourage everybody is that people who have information about human rights violations that are happening in your respective work, you can send that to any of the special rapporteurs. And you can send it to me if it concerns internally displaced persons. We, I actually can say that I have led recent communications on certain countries with internally displaced crisis. And a lot of those communications actually were informed by information from the field, some from UN agencies, but mostly from NGOs. But I do have to say that UN agencies do not find it really, have not really used the communications procedures of the mandates very much. We usually get our information, which we triangulate through from the NGOs. And these communications procedures, therefore give us the chance to advocate publicly on those countries. So we would issue press releases statements and of course do this quick diplomacy where needed. The second aspect that I would like to inform you about is that of country visits. And in country visits, I have been very privileged by most of you in this call for being assisted, provided information, and also setting up meetings with internally displaced persons. So that when I visit these countries, I am given firsthand information and your information as well that I can then put in reports. It's the same also with thematic reports. I was very grateful, for example, to the AOR and housing land and property and to the global protection cluster on different occasions where you provided me with information concerning thematic reports. Then after I finish these thematic reports, after I report on them to the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly, I throw it back to you. Use the recommendations that you yourself have provided to me for the States because now you have it officially in a UN document endorsed by the system. And last but not the least, I'm very happy of course that the mandate also has convening power and influence. And maybe the stuff that I would like to share with you is the convening of the very successful GP-20 Plan of Action from 2018 to 2020, some of which I'm sure you were also involved. But that is just an example on where one can use the mandate to raise awareness about the situation, human rights situation of internally displaced persons and also push advocate for other players and influence other players to up the styles, so to speak, on protection of human rights. So the UN call is very relevant in this sense because it is officially really a segue whereby it's being offered to you. Use us, use us UN human rights mechanisms. The UPR is very state-based, mandates like mine is independent. And in fact, I've even had discussions with UN country teams and humanitarian coordinators who told me, we cannot say these in our countries. Can you please say it? Because I'm not based in the film right now and I have the mandate. I have the tool, so to speak, the authority to speak on these issues that you yourselves cannot speak about. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Cecilia. And I think your call to us, all of us to use your mandate and the mandates more broadly is very clear and well heard. And I think there is a huge potential as you outline that the humanitarian actors can look into and should consider. So thank you so much for giving us those highlights on how the mandate can be useful and is very useful already to agencies working in humanitarian settings. Very good, Koelig. So thanks again to all panelists and we will now move to the questions and answer section. We have received several questions ahead of the event and we were also monitoring the questions that Koelig posted in the chat and we encourage you to continue posting questions but we will start with the first round of questions we received. Noting as you saw in the chats that I will need to leave us but her colleague from the office of the secretary general's James Turpin is with us so will be available to provide any insight on related questions. So let us hear the first set of questions. There have been quite a lot of comments and questions around the centrality of protection and the call to action. How to ensure that there is no confusion amongst humanitarians on the centrality of protection and the call to action? How to, what is actually the difference is one of the questions first of all, what is the difference between centrality of protection and the call to action and how we can avoid confusion at all levels, field, regional, global between the two. So it would be great if our esteemed panelist could shed some light into that. Secondly, ahead of the event we received also some questions from NGOs asking what will the agenda for protection mean for NGOs and how they can meaningfully participate. Also, what is actually the difference between the call to action for human rights and the agenda for protection and rights upfront? So we have heard a lot in the past about rights upfront. How is it different now if you can give us some insight on that? Further on, we have received a question ahead of the event on how the protection clusters can be involved in the implementation of the call to action and agenda for protection. If at country level, there has been yet no discussion at humanitarian country teams level. So should the protection cluster initiate the discussion or should they ask the humanitarian country teams to take action or just wait? What would be the advice? Finally, we heard a very thorough reflection from colleague, Tobias, who shared his example from experience in a given country that sometimes the humanitarian actors are actually for the reasons of the operations, the programs and not following the human rights based approach but rather focusing more on the operational priorities in terms of keeping the programs on funding, et cetera. So how to minimize such situations? Finally, we have received a question which is very interesting that sometimes when colleagues have a conversations with different colleagues and partners that there is a need for stronger human rights approach in humanitarian work, the response is that we need to be neutral. There is a necessity of neutrality and colleagues are sometimes critical as to whether this neutrality can be kept fully intact if we speak about human rights based approach. So our colleague would be interested to hear your thoughts on this and how can neutrality remain at the central? Why we also put in more efforts for a stronger human rights based approach? So I will stop here. I see we have more questions coming in but this is the first set. And maybe I will start with William to give us some insight on some of the elements which has just been put on the table. Over to you, William, please. Thanks very much, Valerie. I think it's fair to say that all these questions somehow come together. I hear through the questions and the comments that there is a clear acknowledgement of the oomph or the push that the agenda for protection brings. And as one of the speakers said, our colleague from LWF said, it has a lot of noble ideas. And then we have heard, of course, that we need to use well what we've got. We have to use the UPR, we have to use the conventions, we have to use the special mandates and the special reporters capacity and reports. But also we want to make it real in terms of partnerships and concrete stuff. And in this flip of how do we make it real, then of course a number of very interesting questions came in. How do we actually do it? What does it mean? How can NGOs, civil society contribute? How does it link to rights upfront, centrality of protection and so on? I think what's important for us where I stand today, while I can give my opinion about the answers, is that we have today a process and a product that is not yet final, it is being shaped. And both the task team and through this event, we've got two co-pen holders for some of the ideas and the words on the paper set that are with us. So rather than clarifying things today, I would call on all of us to engage in this process, utilize the task team to channel some of the ideas and the answers that you have, those who have asked the questions to shape them. But in a broader sense, I think this is clearly a continuation of the work that started with rights upfront. Maybe I can even go further in history, but no need for the sake of now. And of course the centrality of protection. And as our colleague, I think Han-Sophie asked in the chat box, do we add a new brand and process and thing while we haven't, we don't see that we have achieved some of the previous ones? I think that's possibly one way of looking at it, what the opportunity that could be if we do it well is to utilize this momentum to also go backwards and make sure that rights upfront centrality of protection are empowered through this momentum. But that requires specific answers that are yet to be shaped from where I understand. So my answer to most of the questions is, this is the right vibe. These are the right questions engaged directly after this call through the writing and drafting process to get a product through the openness that Shweta have shown that gives us clarity. Over. Thank you, William. Very clear call within this call to action, I think that reached us all. And I would like to ask our colleague, James Trepen, who is here in support of Shweta, who had to step out if he can maybe shed some light on the various questions. I note that you have already posted several responses in the chat, which is really useful, but would you like to come in, James, to compliment this? Hi, good morning. Yeah, I don't have too much more to say than what I said in the chat. It's really, I think about understanding where the call to action came from and the fact that it's very much addressed to the whole UN system in all contexts. It's that continuity question that Shweta mentioned. So Rites Up Front started the ball rolling. It's some years since Rites Up Front was launched under a previous SG, so it probably was due an update, an upgrade. The centrality of protection, of course, was a sort of response to Rites Up Front within the humanitarian sphere. And my understanding is that that is under review, but there's no intention to sort of stop that, and we wouldn't want to see it stop because it's actually trying to achieve exactly what the call to action does. So I guess the answer is that the call to action sort of sits above all of these processes. It's trying to bring it all together in a more coherent way across the development mode of engagement, a humanitarian mode of engagement, or indeed a kind of peace operations type of engagement, and it's a work in progress. So if there are questions about how this centrality of protection is sort of being implemented, this is an opportunity for the humanitarian's to look at that and see whether you can pick up anything from the call to action, but it's certainly not a, there's no sense that it competes or is a new sort of direction. It's just aiming to get to the same place in effect. So I think those three processes marry very well. Thanks. Thanks so much James for reassuring us that this is actually bringing everything together and gaining the momentum to advance on some of the aspects which might have been stuck in the past or blocked. And this gives us a new impetus to advance on some of the protection human rights aspects very clear. So before moving to our field perspectives, maybe I give the floor back to Cecilia, the special reporter on IDPs to share some reflections on the questions which have been put forward. Over to you Cecilia. Thank you so much for the questions. Thanks Valery for giving me the floor. All of these documents and processes I think are very important for all of us and we should not be stuck with one or the other. And as somebody said, the UN call for action is actually, well, it's the newest, but in a way this is really, if you want for now a pinnacle for all of the work that's been done on the different processes. William has pointed out that the human rights front preceded, not really preceded, was basically had the fruit, part of the fruit of the UN call for action. So I would see it not as separate processes but really more of a dynamic interaction of the different processes where they are relevant. I think the problem of getting too stuck with different processes in their different silos is that you forget who we are doing this for. And these are for the people that we are delivering humanitarian assistance to. So the key words that I would like to put here is complementarity. And like the centrality of protection was more really on the substance, if you'll read through it. And the call for action of the section in this case was really more an action. That's why it's called for action. What actions can we take? But it doesn't mean the centrality of protection is put to the side. And secondly, the relevance. And of course, I would say the human rights is always relevant, but the way that we use human rights would really depend on each context and on the needs and risks of rights of the people that we are concerned with. Thank you. Thank you, Cecilia, as always, bringing us with clarity on the contextualized responses. Very important, thank you. So moving to our field colleagues, if you can share some reflection from your field experience and responses to the questions that have been put forward over to you, Sarah. Sorry, Valerie, I actually lost connection for a second and had to reconnect. So if you wouldn't mind just repeating the question. Of course. I hope you could hear the questions colleagues have put forward and I forwarded them to the panelists. Were you connected at this moment? No. No worries. So they are the questions also mainly through the chat. So maybe first we go to Lukiro and I will share with you bilaterally the questions to continue then with reflection. So over to you, Lukiro. Thank you. No, I would not like to repeat what my, the colleagues have already mentioned that these are enforcing each other in that sense. But I think if you look at the presentation I made earlier in our conceptualizing how we engage with the people of concern, we've put them at the center and there was a deliberate mental impression for our staff, but also for our partners that all we do, we try to think from the perspective of the people that we are working, we're trying to work with and support. And for them, it does not really matter which terminology or which conceptualization that delivers for them. I think in the end, it's important that their rights are honored, their rights are respected and are fulfilled. And whether it is coming from a finance, an instrument that is humanitarian or development may not sometimes matter so much, but that their rights actually met. So, but where it matters from an NGO perspective is, for example, if these instruments being rolled out by the UN and others become instruments for financing, for coordination or for accountability in a different manner that, for example, changes the way things are done now, then we will need to differentiate them and we would really need to ask those questions as Widoma said, let's engage, let's clarify, how will they influence the way financing is done on the ground? How will they influence the way accountability is upheld? How will they influence the way in which coordination will be facilitated? But in the end, really what matters is that the rights for the people are honored. Thank you. Thank you so much, Lokiru. It's very clear and the role of NGOs and Facebook organization is really key. So I will pass the floor to Sara now over to you. Hopefully the connection will be okay. Yeah, thanks, Valerie. It was fine in the beginning and then midway through, but it's working now. Do you hear me? Very well. Okay. So to speak to the first question on what is the role of the protection cluster in advancing the agenda for protection, I think. I think, first of all, the platform that we are in terms of building a partnership and bringing different actors together around analysis but also very much in terms of drawing on the, I mean, I'll echo what Cecilia said as well, the complementarity and within the broader framework of what protection is, we need to rely on a wide range of expertise and knowledge to make protection a reality. And as a cluster, we have the ability to speak with one voice, which is a lot more powerful and to use for us, such as the humanitarian country team, the decision making, the leadership of the humanitarian country team will listen to us when we join together. So I think we have a very important role to play also to facilitate awareness raising, capacity building within all the different areas of responsibility of protection. And I do think that more has to be done in terms of localization and supporting local NGOs, especially with the funding opportunities so that they are, because they're often the ones on the front lines with knowledge and contact and access to the people that international actors don't have to the same degree, but they struggle the most, I would say in obtaining funding and more dedicated support is needed to ensure that they have the best chances of unfamiliarity also with donor opportunities for funding. So that's something that we're trying in chat to look at as a focus area, how we can better support our NGO partners who have access, who have knowledge, local knowledge that is incredibly important, but maybe perhaps sometimes struggle with the funding side of things to have an operational impact. I think that's what I would say in addition to what has already been said, thank you. Thank you so much to all colleagues who provided very insightful answers. We have about five minutes for the second round of comments and I think they actually are very complimentary to what we have already addressed, but I would like to put a few questions to you, dear panelists, and please feel free to raise your hand if you would like to address briefly than some of them. So first one, and there were several questions about the topic, how we can use the call to action to work with governments on the human rights aspect and durable solution. So how we can seize this momentum to really convince or I would say strengthen the state's approach and commitment to human rights based approaches. So this is one set of questions. Then there was a question in the myriad of different terminology and as we speak is for example, age gender and diversity approach part of what we are trying to seek through the call to action. Can we get some insight of the links? And finally, if we can have also some outline of what the secret originals team or the leading team behind the call to action is planning for the future, how to make it in practice, what are the next steps? So I'm looking to our dear panelists, if you would like to take the floor to address some of them. I think at the meantime, I will draw on James because there is a clear question coming to you if you can take the floor over to you James. Thanks, yes, I saw that coming. I think what we can say is that the, so I'm working specifically on the agenda for protection. The call to action is a much broader thing and there's a team in EOSG and in OSHR working together on that. The agenda for protection is the specific thing that I'm working on with Schreter. And the aim is for that to be sort of ready probably towards the end of the year after there's a lot of stuff happening at the GAIR and the common agenda, which is another thing. So what we're doing at the moment is we have a task team which is made up of several UN agencies including Valerie is a member of it and the GPC is also part of it. And we're really at the stage of just looking for the practical input on the operational plan that's the core of the agenda. So the agenda is at one level, just a set of broad commitments that the UN is gonna make that won't surprise anyone there based on things like rights upfront. But what we wanna do to make it distinctive and really move things forward is very much focused on the operational aspect. So what practically can be done to move this forward? What are the tools out there that we can make available to UN actors and others? And there's another piece which I think will come through from the common agenda which is about how we engage with member states and what the member states responsibilities are and how to take those forward. So it's gonna play out during the course of the summer. There's a process, a classic UN process. So I guess if any participants have ideas they wanna feed in then the way to do it is either through Valerie or through the GPC members. And yeah, we'll see where that leads. But I think the other thing I would say is that the call to action in any case is a very general call to action. And it doesn't need to be directed from the center. The objectives are pretty clear. So any organization, any individual, any entity can and many are look at what you can do to get to the objectives that the SG said. What struck me today in the discussion I think is fantastic is that there's a very broad understanding and embracing of the objective. And it seems very much a complimentary effort to what the immunitarians are doing anyway across the board. So it should help you move that work forward and I wouldn't wait to be told from the center what that means. And I think we can all work out what we can contribute. Thanks. Fantastic. Thank you, James. And I think you understood all the questions in cross-cutting way. So I think actually we can start slowly moving towards closing of our today's webinar. Unfortunately, the time is running up and I will give the floor back to William, the Global Protection Cluster Coordinator over to you. Thank you so much, Valerie. And thanks all for the engagement. And that was a large number of questions and very, very good panel. It's always a pleasure to have colleagues from the field, always wonderful to have a special reporter Jimenez with us. And of course, having the colleagues from the SG office working on this agenda for protection is super important, both for the wider community to understand and also for, I believe for them to hear the feedback. I would like to close really without summarizing but having a call to action from all of us. This effort of a rights-driven approach to international engagement and aid and development and humanitarian action is of course not new and we've heard that through most interventions. I think what's special now is a serious political momentum that is not standalone, it comes as part of a wider reform. The current SG is undertaking, the current leadership is undertaking. And while it is somehow centered around the UN, it is centered in a way that acknowledges that partnerships is very important. That partnerships is on the hands and foot that we have. So I truly would like to call on everyone to reach out to the task team on a human rights engagement to Valerie if we can put some kind of email address in the chat to continue this dialogue. We want to be one of the bridges between the reality on the ground and the political willingness to drive this human rights agenda forward. And the more we can have concrete ideas, concrete problems that needs to be addressed and concrete solutions that would be helpful to be endorsed and adopted and become the norm. Then we are making use of this noble ideas and good political drive that is driven by savvy people who would take us far should we take on the opportunity. Working against odds that are impossible is probably the very definition of being a human rights activist or a humanitarian worker. So the challenges are big and we need all the possible tools and avenues and channels that we've got. I would worry less about confusion I would put a lot of energy in trying to use every opportunity that could matter. And this is one that is promising. So let's engage. We have a lot of skepticism that we fight with around us every day on the front lines and your offices and your jobs. What we need is as a hopeful driven engagement and I think we have heard today good energy, good precise questions and hopefully we can accompany this process and benefit with it. So thanks again to all the participants. Thank you again to all the panelists and big thanks to the task team for one more pit stop on this road today. And I am hopeful and call on the task team to remain that one of the channels from local to global. Thanks again Valerie and everyone and have a good afternoon, evening, at morning, wherever you are. Thank you so much. Thanks everybody. Bye.