 I am very honored to be here on the grounds of Irish aid under the auspices of the Institute of International and European Affairs in what I understand is a series called Development Matters. I spent most of my professional life witnessing that development matters in places as close to my own country, Bulgaria, to China, Indonesia, Africa, Latin America. But now I am Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and my job is to witness the devastating consequences of when development fails and take action to compensate for it and give hope to people. My first order of business today is to say thank you to Ireland, to you Minister Costello, to the Irish authorities, to the Irish people for sustaining your commitment to development, to helping the most needed people even when there is hardship at home. How many here are Irish in the audience? Irish? I'm not Irish, but Irish? Thank you to all of you. You have all the reasons to be proud, to be proud of your country and to be proud of what you do. And this leadership I am sure would blossom when Ireland holds the presidency of the European Union next year. So why is it that in a world of plenty we still have the famous bottom billion of Paul Collier not shrinking? Why is it that again the trend of reducing those going to bed hungry, that was with us for some time, we reached a number of 800 million, is now reversed and it is going up again? Why is it that humanitarian needs are actually growing? I mean there are two drivers and Minister Costello talked about it. First nature, we unfortunately are hammered by climate change, it is a reality. And what you see on the map here is a very clear demonstration of where the problems are more severe, red and orange and yellow, this is where the frequency and intensity of disasters leads to loss of lives, leads to tremendous human suffering. And what the map tells us is that unfortunately these are primarily the poor countries of the world, but also some of us in Europe are at risk. And of course we know from last year in Japan and Australia, so no country rich or poor is spared but most of the danger zones are in countries that have low income and poor people. And if you put on top of it where famine occurs, crop fails, drought hits countries, population growth is so fast that it adds more difficulties on already burdened populations where coastal areas are at risk. And more importantly where conflicts happen, you get a picture of, actually this last one is Libya and now we have a new star which is Syria. What you see is a picture of the world that may have become richer, but it is certainly also a more fragile world today compared to the one I grew up when I was a kid. So I opted to put on this map something that we need to put on the back of our mind that shocks can be dramatic even for rich countries. What you see is where in 2011 the most devastating natural disaster happened, making 2011 the most expensive year in history, $380 billion in damages. And of course there is logic in that because when you have more wealth and you are hit by a disaster there is more to lose. But it is also a reminder to all of us that we need to think of solidarity as a global concept not solidarity of just the richer world toward the poorer world. Last year for the first time the European Commission provided humanitarian aid to a rich country to Japan because of the enormous disaster the country suffered. So on that background what I want to talk to you about today is why principles matter and why priorities underpinning humanitarian aid have to be clear and drive us to deliver more to people at higher risk. Principles the minister talked about it. humanitarian aid in Europe is based on a very strong consensus that it is about humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence. What does that mean? It means that we strive to leave space for care for the victims of even the most devastating conflicts, that there is space for humanity even when everything else affairs, that we are blind for the ethnicity, religion, color of the skin, sight of the conflict of those who need our help, that we don't sight with anybody. The humanitarians are there to help people, whichever side they are, and that we do not mix up our politics with our humanitarian action. So all of this boils down to two things. When I make decisions to help people my team and I are driven by only two considerations are the needs profound and can we reach people? Do we have access to those who are in need? Nothing else. And just to give you a sense of this following the needs, here is the map of where the dangers are of the world. Here is where Europe is present, where our work is, they match, these two maps match exactly one another. So to make it more concrete, I will talk about the principles on the basis of my experience over the last two years. I will give you a couple of, actually four examples of things that I was part of and they made me appreciate these principles day in, day out. The first story is from North Korea. We know about North Korea of being a difficult state and the political dialogue with North Korea is totally stalling. The population of North Korea suffers from this more than the rest of us at this point. And what happened last year was that on top of a structural problem of people going to back hungry because bad hungry because agriculture, agricultural productivity is pathetic because distribution is tilted towards feeding the army first and not the people. On top of this, there was a failing of harvest, bad weather, and then foot and mouth disease and children, women, elderly were at the risk of dying. This is a picture taken in North Korea. We had to make a decision in European Commission, are we going to help, are we going to try to help? And we base this decision on these two questions, are the needs profound? Yes, they are. And secondly, can we be sure that the sacrifice of each and every one of you, of our taxpayers is actually going to reach these kids and not turning to foot for the army? For that, we needed to have a verification mechanism. I sent a team twice to North Korea, the World Food Program, we set to the World Food Program, we want you to monitor from the arrival to the kids we are helping your food. We were satisfied that, I mean, surprisingly to us, North Korea did allow access. So my team can go there and say, tomorrow we want to visit X and they would be allowed to go to X. And on the basis of these two things, we provided assistance to North Korea. It wasn't a non-questionable decision. There were some that were saying, don't do it, but we had needs and access, we did it. In this particular case, the U.S. opted not to. And I would say this for the pride of Europe. In the U.S., they do have humanitarian aid as part of the State Department. And actually I think this is wrong, because it throws a shadow. As much as you struggle not to, it throws a shadow over your decisions. My second example is actually my, I keep saying this, but it's true. My most memorable trip, my favorite trip of the year, not because it was easy, but because it was such a strong proof of why neutrality and independence pay off. This is a visit to Yemen in the north of Yemen in Houthi controlled territories. How many of you know who are the Houthis? How many? Oh well, okay. I mean, I didn't know until I went there, so you're in good company with me. The Houthis are a rebel group in the northern part of Yemen that had seven wars in seven years against the central government for control over their territories. The people with me are Houthi commanders. We've had a real serious problem, because the war led to some 250,000, 300,000 people being displaced. But no humanitarian organizations had access to these people. So Antonio Guterres, the High Commissioner for Refugees, and I went to Yemen and we requested to meet with the Houthis. And after a lot of negotiations and yes, no, yes, no, finally we were taken on Toyota trucks with guns and in a cloud of dust we arrived in a house where the Houthi commanders were. A big room like this, big room, many of them and few of us, all the Houthi commanders with their big Kalashnikovs. And Antonio Guterres and I, we were armed with our neutrality actually. And our ability to say we are here, we are here with no political agenda, we do not represent your government or any other government, we are here to ask you to help us to help you. And we negotiated an agreement that a year later today still holds. These people, actually they send me a fax and I will hold this for as long as I live. In which they signed that they agree on three things, to allow the humanitarian organizations in particular across Red Crescent to bring assistance, to guarantee the security of humanitarian workers and not to interfere in the distribution of help. All the principles we hold dear. Were we political representatives with political objectives, this would have not happened. My third example is from Libya. And Libya was a very difficult crisis as you all well know. There was a responsibility to protect the city of Benghazi, the United Nations Security Council came together unanimously with the resolution to protect Benghazi. And then there was a very tough time on to what extent military is part of the provision of humanitarian aid. We hold dear the principle that military comes only as last resort. And we kept proving that humanitarians can reach to needed people in Benghazi, in Misrata, in Tripoli, elsewhere. And so finally we managed to have a humanitarian operation inside Libya but also in Tunisia, in Egypt to help the migrant workers get home. That is actually a plane that participated in evacuation of migrant workers. Where inside Libya it was strictly humanitarian organizations delivering help to people. And the military contributed aircrafts for evacuation of migrant workers leaving Libya into Tunisia and into Egypt and actually Algeria and Chad so they can get home. We had the U4 that was a military operation to deliver humanitarian aid. It was not necessary, we never called for it. If it was to be necessary of course we would have used it. But here is a case when last resort meant last resort, it didn't come to it. And my last forth and actually most depressing example is from Sudan, Sudan and South Sudan. As you know this is a very dramatic environment and two parts actually of Sudan, South Cordo Fan and Blue Nile are not accessible for humanitarian workers. We have no access. They are needs, they are dramatic needs but no access. And here is the question. Some would say and there are some who are saying that, well let's just cross the border without the permission of the authorities in Khartoum and deliver assistance to these people, cross border operations. We discussed it and we decided categorically, no we won't do that, why? Because it is disrespect for international law. It is disrespect for the sovereignty of Sudan. And in my mind two wrongs don't make one right. And we will not go for a cross border operation. We will continue to press for access because what we have in this case is the worst of our cases when we have needs and we don't have access. People suffer, we cannot help. But helping is actually more damaging. Why? It puts at risk the humanitarians everywhere else in Sudan, in Darfur. Puts their lives at risk. It puts our principles at risk. As a result more people may suffer because organizations are thrown out of where they currently have access. So one has to measure, one has to think of the unintended consequences of good action. Because once you, in other words you undermine the principles yourself, you pay a price if you do it. You pay a price and this is where we are. It is the story that makes me actually more depressed than anything else. Let me go from principles to priorities. And I would try to be very tight in summing up where we are headed. For me and my team our number one overwhelming priority is to anticipate crisis, act swiftly, target the most vulnerable, do as much as, as much good as possible within the resources and capabilities we have. To do so we have placed the majority of our staff actually not in Brussels but in the hot spots of this planet. In Juba, in Darfur, all these places in Yemen, in Syria, we have 140 Europeans that are our eyes and ears and it is their job as well as our partners to be sure that we are not slow on the uptake that when a crisis is to come, I mean basically when you look at the crisis horizon you have the crisis you can predict. You know today these are Sahel as the minister said and actually minister thank you very much for the announcement of five million, much, much needed Sahel, Syria, the Sudanese, Somalia, DRC, Democratic Republic of Congo, Yemen. This crisis we know they are there and they are the crisis we don't know but we know they will happen. They will be an earthquake, they will be floods, they will be a devastating drought, well droughts actually we can see early, earthquakes we cannot, sometimes floods we cannot. But we have to have the ability to anticipate and mobilize our resources deployed quickly and for that having this team and having our partners is absolutely essential. Every action is also critical because this is the only way to do what the minister told us we need to do, which is to do more with less. Because if we anticipate, I keep showing this, if we anticipate this is the upper arm measurement. You put it on the upper arm of a kit from seven months to 59 months, if it is green the kit is well, if it gets into yellow or orange this is the dangerous art and if it is red, I mean this is the one centimeter the distance between life and death for children. We know we can catch malnutrition before it kills a kit or before it damages forever the development of this kit. But not only we can do good, if we catch malnutrition before it happens it costs 20 euros, costs 20 euros to save a kit early. It costs 100 euros to treat this child when there is already severe acute malnutrition. And just think of the good you can do for the same kit with additional 80 euros to immunize, to educate, to give a chance for development. Our second priority and this is very important for us is to what we call smart aid to try to do with the same euro both help life saving action and development. We cannot prevent humanitarian catastrophes but we can cut the future humanitarian costs if we invest in prevention as the minister said and if we invest in linking relief to rehabilitation and development. One example, instead of bringing food we can fund, we can give cash for work for people to grow food and reduce their dependence. We can't do it always but there is no excuse when we don't do it and of course we can do much more in increasing resilience of communities to droughts and floods to the natural hazards. Our third priority very similar to what the minister said is to work for the professionalism of the humanitarian system, professionalism of United Nations, capability of United Nations to provide the leadership we need, the transformative agenda that Valerie Amos is taking. But also we are urging our partners and I see some of them in this room from the humanitarian and from the NGO community work together, figure out a way in which we can do more with less collectively. One of the things we get criticized and I'll be very, very open on that is that sometimes when there is a disaster the outpour of good will is also a march of many good wishers who may or may not be well qualified to do the job and as donors we have a responsibility to keep the bar very high for professional humanitarian service because we do nobody a favor if we don't hold the standard high. Our fourth priority is to work with new donors. It's very simple with more wealth comes more responsibility and we need to bring Turkey and China and India and the Gulf States and Russia more on board and Brazil more on board. Not easy but we have to do it. We owe it to our taxpayers. More importantly we owe it to the people who need help. Last but not least, we have to be equipped to look in the future and identify the problems that are growing in front of our faces and deal with them. One such problem is the refugee problem. Not very well known but the refugee, the high commission for refugees was created after the Second World War. Why? To help Europe. There were 3 million Europeans at that time who were displaced from their homes and the idea then was that the job would be done and the high commission for refugees would disappear. Today we have 44 million refugees and internally displaced people, 44. The vast majority of them move from one poor country to another poor country from Somalia to Kenya to Ethiopia to Yemen and as this problem grows we have to address it for what it is. It is a very different problem than the one that we have been dealing with in the past and yet we are still treating refugee situations as if they are simple temporary 3-6 months. The second largest Somali city, do you know where it is? The ambassador for Kenya of course knows. Where is the second largest Somali city? It is in Kenya. It is in Dadaab. 460,000 people. Next to the regional city of Dadaab which is 120,000 people and I am asking because the Europeans, how many of our countries are prepared to have a 460,000 population next to 120,000 of our cities? How many of us can deal with this? So there are problems that we are bound to address in a different way and that is the task that we will have for the next years. Let me finish with saying that one thing that my team is very much aware of and this is what brings me here is that it is not good enough for us to do a good job. We also have to tell you what we do. We owe our taxpayers information on what we do because it is a matter of accountability but also because when we do it, you will raise the bar for us and we will do a better job for the people we serve. Thank you.