 a context when we've got our upcoming International Conference, we've got the World Humanitarian Summit and we've got the 50th anniversary of the Fundamental Principles, they appear to be discussed and debated more than ever before. I think what we learnt was that many of the principles that we talk about today have different meanings for different actors and we really need to start debating and discussing what are their intrinsic values otherwise we risk the fact that they might turn into a hollow mantra, words that we say but we don't actually really know what they mean. I think the humanitarian system is also coming under increasing pressure, we've got the politicisation of aid and we've got very complex emergencies to deal with. The principles can provide really strong tools to cut through and assist us in decision making. So I think we heard tonight that there are principles for aspiration such as humanity and impartiality in a way to make sure we have the moral value of non-discrimination but we also have operating principles such as neutrality and the issue of independence. I think as the movement we've got a lot of work to do to demonstrate the operational relevance of the principles. I think too often we presume that because we're part of the movement that we all understand them, that we all apply them and that they're relevant. I think we've a lot of work to do to demonstrate how they're actually relevant on the ground. We've done some work in the British Red Cross on trying to analyse the operational relevance of the principles, looking in particular at the work of the Lebanese Red Cross and the Somali Red Crescent. I think those two national societies are inspiring in terms of how they've implied the fundamental principles. In Lebanon, in a country that is often divided on confessional grounds, the Lebanese Red Cross that is built up around a very diverse volunteer force has access across all communities and is able to provide medical services to everyone in need across often some very divided communities and they do that by virtue of a very strong leadership that develops an ethos and a culture where the principles matter. They do that because they hire volunteers who come to the Red Cross because of the principles and demonstrate that in their work. They do that because they communicate the principles to communities and the principles imbue everything that they do and underpin their work. In the Somali Red Crescent, it's similar. Somalia, Somaliland and Kuntland, the Somali Red Crescent operates across all of these different territories. In fact, it's the only national institution to do so. It has access in many areas in south central where other organisations are very challenged and some of this access comes because of a legacy of principles action. The Somali Red Crescent is known because the effective and reliable humanitarian services are provided during the 1990s and it can draw on that in terms of demonstrating how it is providing impartial services across the territory. I think we need to do more showcasing of this important work in the movement to learn from it but also to look at dilemmas, to see the principles not as a rule book that we apply but rather as a framework, as a formula for action and to understand where are the tricky dilemmas, where are the trade-offs and being honest about them. I'm saying that it's not easy but we actually do think that they're relevant to today to providing assistance to those who need it most. Answering a question of what should we do here, what's best, how do we help people most is often very hard and very difficult because these contexts are extraordinarily complex and sometimes what helps is to move that discussion up a level and to say, okay, what does impartiality tell us? Impartiality tells us to look for those who are most in need. And how can we do that here? Oh, we actually could. We could measure, for instance, levels of malnutrition and find the communities that are most in need and that would tell us where to go. So there's that level in which it's actually determining where your project might go. Now, the next thing that might happen there is that in trying to get to that area where people are most in need, there's, yeah, whether it's a government or an armed group or even the community themselves might not understand what you're doing there. And, you know, are you just helping one side? Are you favoring one side? And that's where you have to be able to talk to them. And if you just go and say, hey, we're really good people. We come in, we're good and we want to do good things, well, that might work. But I don't think it's going to work because these are very polarized environments, especially where there's conflict involved. There are enemies of the people you're talking to. And if they are concerned that you are there in order to help their enemy, they're not going to let you do anything. And so you have to be able to talk to them and say, no, we are independent. We are not being given money to do this. We are not being given money to help one side or another. We are neutral here. We don't want to help one side or another. But we are going to help that community there not because of their ethnic identity or their religious identity or their political or what geographic region they're in. We are going to help them because we have measured the situation in terms of, let's say, malnutrition. And that's where the highest levels of malnutrition exist. And when those same levels, when we find equally high levels in your part of the country, we would go there. And that's who we are. And that's why we're doing what we're doing. Well, FCHR carried out a piece of work over a two-year period. So it was quite an intensive piece of work to look into whether or not the principle of impartiality could be measured. And the reason we focused on the principle of impartiality was that this is really at the core of humanitarian response. It's about the allocation of resources and the prioritization of responses. We decided to carry quick and dirty, peer review of organizations' responses in the Columbia context. Very broadly, what we find in terms of key finding is that when you're looking at measuring the principle of impartiality, you need to look at what scale are you measuring. Are you measuring at the project level? That's relatively straightforward. The issue of timeframe was another one. I mean, do you position yourself in an area which is potentially at risk of a crisis? So to be able to respond to the crisis, you may not be respecting principle of impartiality by being operational there. For example, Norse Mali before the most recent conflict. But at the same time, it means that you are able to operate once the crisis hits. The other big area that we saw is that there's a constant trade-off around humanitarian principles. It's not the clear tick the box, yes, we met it, no, we didn't met it. There's a trade-off to be done in terms of decision-making. In certain cases, you may have to compromise the principle of impartiality to meet the perception of neutrality or vice versa. Welcome to this first expert panel of a cycle of events and conferences, which we started a few months ago at the Maison de la Paix in Geneva on the principles guiding humanitarian action. I will introduce the discussion tonight, but mostly talking about this cycle we are having in 2015 to study the topic of principles guiding humanitarian action, and I see that there is a large interest for this issue, looking at the crowd this evening. We are co-organizing this event with here, so I will give the floor soon to Ed Schenkenberg, who is the CEO of this new organization in Geneva. We will introduce also the organization before moving to the discussion tonight, which is called Work the Talk, Assessing the Application of Humanitarian Principles on the Ground. So as I said, this is part of a broader cycle of events, which will take place in Geneva, but also in other locations. Last year, we had a cycle of conferences and debates on new technologies and the modern battlefield. This year, we decided to study this topic of principles guiding humanitarian action, together with our colleagues from the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, with various humanitarian actors, with also experts from the military, from government, to look at the challenges regarding the application of humanitarian principles in the field. So we are not aiming at having theoretical discussions on the values or the theories underlying humanitarian action or humanitarian principles, but looking at how they are applied today. And this event takes place, or this series of events will take place at a time when humanitarian principles are challenged, first because we see new emerging actors involved in the humanitarian organization, and we may need to build a new consensus on what these humanitarian principles are, but also because we see many restrictions imposed on humanitarian action in the field, in conflict situations, sometimes also in disasters, imposed by parties to the conflicts, and so there is a need also to respond to these challenges. 2015 also gives us a good pretext to explore these issues, because it's actually the year which marks the 50th anniversary of the adoption by the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement of its seven fundamental principles. This year we will have also in Geneva the next international conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent in December, which has chosen to, or the main theme, the overarching theme of the conference will be the fundamental principles, principles in action. So there again, I think that our discussions, our cycle of events will feed the discussions at the conference. Further ahead we will have in 2016 the World Humanitarian Summit, convened by the UN Secretary General, which will be a first summit of this importance on humanitarian action. And we hope that the discussion on humanitarian principles, on the fundamental principles, but also principles guiding humanitarian action at large will also inspire discussions during this World Humanitarian Summit. So that's why we have this series of discussions and we invite you to follow them as you are interested by this topic. You can find more information on our future events, looking at this QR code at the back of the leaflet on your seats. You will be able to register to our newsletter and be informed about our future events, cycle of debates here in Geneva, but also in many locations, on site and online. Last comment, we'll have also an issue of the international review of the Red Cross tackling this subject. At the moment we are receiving contributions from all over the world on contemporary practice of humanitarian principles. So thank you for coming this evening. And after this short introduction, I'd like to give the floor to Ed. I don't know, there you are. So just one word of introduction. Ed Schaikenberg was previously Executive Director of the International Council of Voluntary Agencies, IGVA. He was also Chief Executive of DARA, Development Assistance Research Associates. He has done extensive research in the field of humanitarian action and in the field of the humanitarian principles. He's here today to present the Humanitarian Exchange and Research Center here. The new organization is leading E&G. Thank you. Thank you very much, François. Thank you very much for those kind words. Let me also express a word of warm welcome to all of you. It's a real pleasure and honor, in fact, to be here and to be one of the co-organizers of this debate. There's two questions I've been receiving. I'm not entirely new, as some of you know, to Geneva. And there have been two questions I've been receiving in the last couple of weeks, quite regularly. One who is involved and I'm actually quite happy that all my colleagues are here, which is a small team for now, but and also some board members, in fact. And then the next question I get. So what is it that you do? Let me just say a few things on that. Because when I get that question, what I answer is, well, in fact, what we do is we look at the gap between policy and practice. And about 10 days ago, I was at a meeting in the Hague, the Dutch Humanitarian Summit, a rather large event in a rock hole, actually, which a rock concert hall that was quite an actually interesting environment. But what I really wanted to say, in fact, was one person here who was also there. And I think Tomon, I know you're here. We saw each other exactly. We saw each other already before the meeting. Tomon is a medical doctor working with MSF. He's from Damascus. And at that meeting, I think Tomon, you made a very passionate point. You said, actually, all of us here in that room, so perhaps all of us here also today, we need to be on the ground. We need to be where it matters, where it matters most. Because particularly in meeting rooms in Geneva, and that's certainly my experience in Geneva, we create our own reality, which is not the reality when we see it as we are on the ground. And the few times I do go out to the field, indeed, I do see things that are very different the way that they're portrayed here. So that's exactly why I think we get created here to try actually to bring that reality as we see it at the field level, to bring that to meeting rooms such as this one. So in that sense, this theme of today for us is a very logical one. Humitarian principles. It's our DNA. It's what our common denominator will bring us together. And precisely on humitarian principles, what I'm hearing these days in meeting rooms in Geneva is that we're delivering principled humitarian action. That's great. But what I get a little suspicious when I hear, as we all know, the humitarian community is growing. It's growing in numbers and it's growing in terms of its diversity. And when all these very different actors are saying the same thing, we're delivering principled humitarian action. I get a little bit suspicious. What actually do we mean by that? We're saying we're delivering principled humitarian action, but we don't really talk about principles. And that's exactly what I hope we'll do today. Lastly, this meeting in that sense, and this theme in particular, does, I think, come at the right time. We have to vote humitarian summit going on, the Red Cross movement conference late this year. Other processes going on in Geneva, like the core humitarian standard. And I think it's essential that those processes are informed by humitarian principles and that they really, in that sense, look at the content of humitarian principles instead of just saying, well, we're delivering principled humitarian action. So that's what I hope we'll do today. That, in fact, we are influencing those processes. And I really hope that you will contribute, in that sense, your experience and thinking to our discussions. Thank you very much. After this introduction, I'd like simply to give the floor to the moderator. So Dr. Helen Doham, who is the director of our Department of International Law and Policy here at the ICRC. Before becoming director at the ICRC last July, Dr. Doham served in the ICRC and also in the Australian Red Cross. She was director of International Law Strategy, Planning and Research. And she is also a senior fellow at Melbourne Law School. So she will introduce the panel and the panelist. Thank you, Helen. Well, thank you very much. And may I add my very warm welcome to you here this afternoon. I was going to say this evening, but it is quite delicious to have an event at this time. We could pretend we're still working, but it's almost evening time. So a warm welcome. And we were delighted to see with the number of different numbers and the types of representation that we have here today. So welcome on that. As has been said by the two previous guests, it's a time at the moment where we hear a lot about humanitarian principles. And I'll put them in talking marks for a minute, because we hear them articulated at the World Humanitarian Summit. We're looking at them with our upcoming international conference. They seem to be everywhere. But in reality, how can we make sure that they don't become an empty mantra? Words that we say and we all not ahead about, but actually have different visions about, have different attitudes and implementation. It's fine to have a diversity when we discuss things. But do they still have resonance? And how can we stop just listing them and start really digging down and working out what they are and what we need to do? If we're not careful, there could be the chance that they could risk losing their practical and very moral compass that provides many of us with the capacity to move forward, as well as a practical, operational element, unless we really start having hopefully discussions like we're having tonight. Because in fact, the fun, the principles, the humanitarian principles, and certainly from the Red Cross and Red Crescent's point of view, the fundamental principles have that too dual purpose. They provide with for us some sort of compass where we go in our humanitarian DNA. But they also provide in some of the principles such as neutrality and independence, a really practical tool to help us implement our mandate and to make sure we do so with as close as proximity to those who have needs as possible. But today we see, as was also alluded to by the previous speakers, an increased polarization of aid. In the last few decades, we've seen the development of the term stabilization and whole of government approaches to tackle fragility in other complex emergencies. Now, in this framework, some organizations have embraced a broader political approach of a transformative nature, transforming the society, transforming the economic or political structure of the countries in which they're working. Now, these organizations often claim to be principled on one hand, but on the other hand, to be rights based and very much embedded in the work, whether it be peace building or conflict resolution. And this, I think, we have to look at and reflect upon really deeply these tensions and how we can as a sector perhaps be more honest at times in articulating what principles we are utilizing in our activities. We've also got the very obvious issue, which is of concern to all organizations and states of the practical safety of humanitarian workers and that those organizations that actually distort or even reject the idea of the fund of the principles. And in particular for the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement, the fundamental principles can create real problems in terms of security on the ground. And we've seen that sadly recently. On the other hand, there are studies that show whilst principles such as neutrality independence are not the silver bullet by any means, they can significantly assist or at least contribute to safe access in some insecure areas. So I think we have to be careful. They're not the panacea, but they can have some practical value. Now, getting back to the panel here today, what we're really going to focus on is a range of questions. And the way I'm going to undertake it is introduce each of the of our panelists and I'm delighted with the superb representation we have today. Ask them to give a five minute snapshot of the vision or the views they have in relation to the humanitarian principles. I'll then go to a question and answer mode. Well, ask them to engage on particular topics and then we'll throw it open to the audience. I see in the audience are richness and depth of people who've got experience in this area. So we also want to engage with you. But to start with may I introduce the panelists to my right is Kate Hull, Executive Secretary of the Steering Committee for Humanitarian Response. Welcome, Kate. To my left, I have Mark Dubois, the former Executive Director of MSF UK, but now more importantly, an independent writer and researcher in this area. And then to the far left, we have the pleasure of having Socha O'Callaghan, who is the Head of Humanitarian Policy at the British Red Cross and is the co-author of numerous publications. So we've got a nice, a nice narrative at the table here of different experiences and different institutional takes on these issues of humanitarian principles.