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The cost of ‘wait and see’: three things the world needs from the World Humanitarian Summit

Source(s): Huffington Post Inc.
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By Stephen O’Brien and Elhadj As Sy

The premise is simple: investing in national and local skills, systems and knowledge to build resilience and preparedness will save lives, cut costs and preserve hard-won development gains. Yet no matter how forcefully we make this argument, the international community is still nearly always geared towards response.

At the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul next month leaders across states, systems and sectors have an opportunity to rewrite this narrative by moving towards a more diverse, forward-looking humanitarian system that takes preparedness and resilience seriously and puts local response at the heart of these efforts, all the while strengthening principled humanitarian action.

Stephen O’Brien is the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief.

Elhadj As Sy is the Secretary-General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

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Themes Capacity development Governance Economics of DRR Disaster risk management
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