World Humanitarian Summit: Localizing preparedness and response in South and Central Asia

Speakers: Priya Marwah, Amjad Mohamed-Saleem, Abdullah Al Razwan (Nabin), Sema Genel Karaosmanoğlu, Graeme Smith, Amar Nayak

Localizing humanitarian preparedness and response has emerged as an important cross-cutting theme for the regional consultation for South and Central Asia. The WHS regional consultations to date have called for more discipline and predictability in triggering regional and international humanitarian support, and have emphasized that international humanitarian action should be driven by the concept of subsidiarity – ensuring that it supports local decisions and systems instead of supplanting them. To achieve this, the capacity of first line responders at local and national level needs strengthening.

Recommendations to date have included increasing the level of finance going directly to local and national responders; making national coordination and response mechanisms the default in disasters; and building a strong network of deployable capacities, especially in the Global South.

However, different humanitarian crises call for different kinds and degrees of localization. Building on the discussions in the World Humanitarian Summit consultation forum, this event will focus on what localization should mean in practice for different actors involved in the response to natural disasters, protracted crises, and armed conflicts in South and Central Asia.

Read more at https://phap.org/WHS-14Jul2015