One of the eight regional preparatory consultations of the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) to be held in Istambul in 2016 initiated by the Secretary General of the United Nations will take place in Hungary, 3-4 February, 2015. The host of the Conference is H. E. Mr. Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary.
The Budapest regional preparatory conference will be the biggest among the eight similar events because it provides forum for 54 states of the Eastern European Group (EEG), the Western European and Others Groups (WEOG) from the regional groupings of the United Nations General Assembly. This consultation is co-chaired by the governments of Hungary and Finland, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection Directorate (DG ECHO).
The task of the regional consultation is to discuss the four main themes of the WHS (humanitarian effectiveness, reducing vulnerability and managing risk, transformation through innovation, serving the needs of people in conflict) and bring about recommendations due to be adopted by the Summit for the humanitarian actions Post-2016 formulated by the UN Secretary General Report. The Report of the UN Secretary General will contain the future structure, financial and organizational framework of the international humanitarian aid activity coordinated by the UN OCHA. The process leading up to the World Humanitarian Summit and the regional preparatory consultations are closely linked to other major humanitarian conferences like among others to the Conference organized by Japan and UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR), in Sendai, March 14-18, 2015 aiming at drawing up the international disaster reduction framework, furthermore to the next 2015 November International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement in Geneva. The event is connected to the international processes dealing with the climate change and Post-2015 sustainable development framework challenges as well.
The venue of the regional conference is the Budapest Congress Center. The total participation at the Budapest event will be about 250 people, including foreign and Hungarian partners. Besides the leaders and experts of OCHA, UNHCR, IOM, European Commission, IFRC and the above mentioned 54 states there will be the representatives and activists of local and international civil organizations, the private sector and the academic life.
For more background and further information about the online consultations please visit the following website: http://www.worldhumanitariansummit.org/whs_weog
