Climate change and humanitarian action

Droughts, floods, displacements. The climate change affects all of us. The humanitarian community also realised this and thus focused on the challenges of climate change at this year’s Humanitarian Congress in Berlin.

CHA was represented at the congress for the second time, but this year for the first time with its own stand. Visitors could obtain information of CHA’s work and its publications published in October, including:

• a contribution to the debate by CHA’s new Research Fellow Dr. Kristina Roepstorff on shrinking humanitarian space in Europe;
• an article in the journal welt-sichten by Ralf Südhoff on the progress of the Grand Bargain;
• as well as the statement published in March 2019 on the Federal Government’s latest four-year report on German humanitarian aid, which has now been published in a new layout as a bound brochure (in English).

On the second day of the congress, Ralf Südhoff facilitated a panel on the humanitarian situation in Syria and the impact of Turkey’s recent offensive in the north-east of the country in front of an audience of about 150 persons. As a result of the war, which has been going on for eight years now, the people of Syria are exposed to daily violence, expulsions and catastrophic supply situations. Especially in medical terms. The panelists, including two Syrians Rita Dayoub of Chatham House and Fyras Mawazini, Vice President Médecins du Monde France, reported on the situation on the ground, as did Jordanian Sara Kayyali of Human Rights Watch.

The full recording of the panel can be viewed on the Humanitarian Congress YouTube channel.

The entire programme of the two-days-programme is available on the website of the Humanitarian Congress.

The Humanitarian Congress is organised jointly by Médecins Du Monde, the German Red Cross, the Berlin Medical Association, MSF Germany and this year’s partner Greenpeace. Each year it brings together around 800 people, including experts from medical and humanitarian organisations, ministries, the media and young professionals interested in humanitarian work.