{{ARI}}-{ Rwanda’s recommendations to the coming World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) will focus on preparedness. }
Minister of Disaster Management and Refugee Affairs Seraphine Mukantabana reiterated that while opening a consultation workshop held in Kigali to prepare for the WHS expected in 2016.
The consultation workshop brought together experts from government institutions, UN agencies, NGOs and other important actors.
That workshop intended to build a national consensus on how to better address humanitarian needs in the country and the region and elaborate consolidated recommendations to inform the WHS outcome document of the region.
The United Nations Secretary-General will convene the first World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) in 2016 in Istanbul, Turkey.
The summit is organized in order to set the agenda on how the humanitarian challenges of the future will be collectively met.
As a lead up to this Summit, a series of regional consultations is being held for all stakeholders to identify key recommendations to better address humanitarian needs in their respective region.
The Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Consultation Process will take place on 27-28 October 2014 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Rwanda is an active participant to this regional consultation.
The consultation workshop held in Kigali focused on the four core themes of the Summit, as namely: humanitarian effectiveness, reducing vulnerability and managing risk, transformation through innovation, and serving the needs of people in conflict.
While opening the workshop, Minister Seraphine Mukantabana said that Rwanda’s recommendations to the WHS will be mainly oriented to prevention and preparedness.
“The priority for the government of Rwanda regarding disasters and other humanitarian related crisis remains prevention instead of response. That why Rwandan has invested enough efforts in security to prevent humanitarian crisis inside the country and in the region” Said Minister Mukantabana.
“Currently, in Disaster Management, we focus on risk reduction because we have realized that by preventing disasters, we are saving a lot of means that would be used to respond during emergency when disasters strike. So, this is where our recommendations to the World Humanitarian Summit will oriented,” She emphasized.
According to Warigia Razia, expert from the UN Office for the Coordination of humanitarian affairs (UNCOHA) in Easter Africa, Rwanda is expected to provide pertinent recommendations based on its impressive progress in all sectors.
“We have strong hope to get a relevant contribution from Rwanda based on its tremendous progress registered during the last 20 years. The leadership here in Rwanda enables government institutions, UN agencies, NGOs and other humanitarian actors to work in a coordinated framework which shall help to come up with important recommendations.” Said Warigia.
The recommendations from Rwanda will be validated in the Eastern and Southern Region Meeting in Johannesburg.
After all, the World Humanitarian Summit shall adopt an agenda on how humanitarian crisis will be globally addressed.
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