Qatar Charity signed a partnership agreement with UNOCHA on Monday, in a bid to provide effective humanitarian assistance in response to urgent and neglected emergencies around the world
The United Nation’s Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths dedicated an unscripted moment during his speech at the Doha Forum 2023, to thank Qatar’s prime minister and the government for its continuous efforts in seeking peace and justice in Gaza.
“Thank you, honourable prime minister, for what you and your government do daily to seek for peace, to provide for humanitarian assistance, to understand the relationship between the two because I have direct experience of in the case of Gaza,” said the top UN official on Monday.
“We are hugely in your debt due to your creative diplomacy, your humanitarian diplomacy, your political diplomacy. There’s a generosity that goes with it, so thank you very much indeed,” Griffiths added, directing his message to the Qatari Prime Minister who is also the country’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.
On December 11, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is set to organise one of the three introductions of the 2024 Global Humanitarian Overview (GHO) in Geneva. Simultaneous events are scheduled in Qatar and Ethiopia., aimed at bringing attention to urgent humanitarian needs globally and contributing to the mobilisation of resources across the system.
“It is not a coincidence that this is the first-ever humanitarian global overview presented outside Geneva by one of my successors than to be here in Qatar,” Griffiths said.
The UN official went on to address the topic of Palestine, which has been heavily on the agenda of this year’s two-day event of the Doha Forum 2023 held in the Sheraton hotel.
“The situation is bad and getting worse. The efforts of Gaza to bring moments of peace, which last week were of the greatest importance will be still of greatest importance,” he said.
The official also shed light on some of the humanitarian issues plaguing parts of the world.
“More people are displaced than at any time since the beginning of this century, one in every 73 people around the world, a ratio that has doubled in more than 10 years. Nearly one in five children around the world is either living in or fleeing from conflict,” Griffiths detailed in his remarks.
“The deadly cholera outbreaks in 29 countries,” he added.
“Shortages of vaccines and lack of access to clean water and sanitation,” was also a matter Griffiths brought to the attention of the audience as yet another humanitarian issue the world is facing.
“There are more than four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and we are seeing them every day,” he stated.
“There are many and we have seen them every day. In the face of these event’s challenges, the humanitarian community, once again, as the Secretary-General said, showed its mettle by providing some formal assistance this year,” he added.
He then went on to thank the generosity of humanitarian funding that came from various people in general and “here today,” Griffiths said on Monday at the Doha Forum.
“Humanitarian assistance cannot be the entire solution, everyone has to be part of the process. […] It is time that we make a reality in the field, not in panel discussions,” he noted.
Also during the forum, Qatar Charity signed a partnership agreement with UNOCHA, in a bid to provide effective humanitarian assistance in response to urgent and neglected emergencies around the world, including the unfolding genocide in Gaza.