[BLANK_AUDIO]. Global health and humanitarianism. Why link them? If we look at global health as moving towards an equity of access to safe and effective healthcare for everybody, then the need for humanitarian intervention arises out of a failure. To have achieved that. And so they are inextricably linked because of that. But if we move towards true global health, equity of access, then the need for humanitarian assistance. Should diminish, and it should be absorbed into and within healthcare because much of healthcare, and increasingly so, can be commercialized. Can be seen as a business. Can be seen as a product. When it is about, people's lives and the quality of their life and to enjoy in the most fruitful life, you really need a healthy life. And so we need to actually move. From global health and humanitarianism, let the need for the emergency humanitarian assistance diminish as we expand a true global health with equity of access. And the principles of emergency humanitarian assistance and humanitarianism being incorporated clearly. Into the healthcare that we deliver. So that it is humane, that it is acquitable and that it is fundamentally one of reform and so as that those people who. Have limited or no access to healthcare. We put in trained those reforms that will ensure that the health is improved and the access to healthcare is secured. And as we've said throughout all this, this will become a political. An economic movement to make sure that all health, all healthcare, global healthcare is humanitarian healthcare. I would also encourage you to contemplate what the word humanitarian means in the first place. It's a word that means different things in different countries. My experience in North America is that humanitarian is often used in the same breath as global health. Whereas, certainly in the UK, emergency humanitarian assistance is part of the broader global health. It's not. It's not synonymous with it. Historically, humanitarian was first used, most commonly in the English language, around the abolition of the slave trade. And, it brought together groups from varying backgrounds, whether they be religious, political, irreligious, whatever. But, they came together under this banner. To address an injustice and to make a reform and it's the reform that we have lost from the word humanitarian. We just think that we will go out and respond to an emergency, We'll do this, we will repair that. Where's the reform? Where's this stopping this ever happening again? So the humanitarian response, to my mind, must be an integral part of a development response. So, if you are an emergency medical team, for example, that I lead, I have to. Make sure that I plug into the local health services, the local government health services, and that I am part of the establishment of an ongoing development relationship. With that country. And I've tried my best to do that. So after responding to the acute emergency, I still go back. Or members of my team still go back to help in training programs, exchange programs so as they can part of a development program. But we'll move towards. The ideal that we should all be looking to work our, ourselves out of a job, that we can build capacity so which, we can build resilience so much in these vulnerable countries that you won't need emergency humanitarian assistance. >> What do we mean exactly by. Humanitarianism, or humanitarian aid, there is a wide range of definitions, various meanings ranging from just being kind or being confident in the capacities of humankind to improve, which is, in a way, the original sense. Or, on the contrary, making one's self conspicuously attentive to the needs of the rest of the world, which is a very cynical, definition of, humanitarian, which is a, a critical definition of humanitarian, which prevailed. Largely during the 19th century. Now today humanitarianism mean on organized form of assistance which is addressed to meet the needs of the worst off across the world. Alleviating the suffering of distant strangers, to put it in a, more or less academic way. Every word counts alleviating the suffering, doesn't mean just irradiating or just eliminating the suffering, but just trying to make things a bit better. Which limits the ambitions of humanitarian aid and distant strangers, that is, not just my neighbors, or not, not my family, my kids which would be the something else, I mean, just personal relations love interested. Attention. Now distant strangers is a, a way to, to address the needs of humankind, in general, but limited to the, the worst part of them. This is basically what humanitarianism is all about. Now it's in fold in various. Fields of various directions war materialism, where you bring medical assistance and life saving assistance to war affected populations. Trying to be neutral and impartial in order to be credible and to address the needs of the worst off. This is not as simple as it looks when we say it, but this is a very clearcut objective. Or it can unfold in peaceful settings just fight misery or to help people who find themselves in a, in a miserable. Situation. Which raises the issue of how do we make a choice? I mean, who do we pick up? Is it, some kind of, let's acknowledge it, it's a kind of cherry picking exercise. We throw variety of reasons. We, some have been there. There was a war mission in a country. That the war seized. And the, there, the, humanitarian mission continues to address other needs that the needs, the needs caused by the war. There's natural disasters of course, which is a very classical and important though very limited field of activities of humanitarian organizations. And that would add. To this that it's very, it's a, we can observe empirically, including in our own persons that we tend to be more sympathetic to certain places, to certain situation, to certain people. Than to other places or situations. Or, people. This is only natural. This is, the way we all function. We can't suffer exactly the same way for everyone, across the world. Now, there's an important social and ethical role which is played by humanitarian organization. Which is a way to level down. Sympathies. And to act on the basis of needs or at least what we mean by needs and we have to explicit of this. But act on the basis of needs and not of sympathy. And this is I think, the bottom line of humanitarian aid. >> The humanitarian instinct. That is, the desire to help another human being in distress is as old as humanity, itself. It's been called humanitarianism in more recent years, as the business of humanitarianism, and the growth of humanitarian. Organizations, disaster response or operations, refugee care and management, all these have risen in the past few years. But, the humanitarian spirit is all about helping another human being regardless of conditionality. And guided only by the principle of need. So, the key humanitarian principles which guide modern humanitarian work is our neutrality, in other words, not taking sides, impartiality, in other words, ensuring that all those in need. Have those needs met. And universality. In other words, ensuring that the humanitarian spirit covers all the populations that might be needing help. The difference between humanitarianism. And charity is that the humanitarian spirit is guided not just by a patronizing approach to helping the poor and fortunate, but also asking the question, why is there suffering? What can we do about the causes of the suffering? So it's not about simply picking up the pieces or applying the Elastoplast on the wound, but asking the question, Why is society in pieces? Why is the person injured or wounded? Today however humanitarianism is in a crisis. This is because we have competing notions of the humanitarian enterprise. In the western world. It is about raising money, giving it to organizations. And the organizations then fly their flag in different parts of the world and while helping people, are also promoting their own brand. And today's humanitarian organizations. A big, big multimillion enterprises. However, from the recipients angle, those affected by disasters, conflicts and crisis. They don't like to be at the receiving end of charity. They don't like to be treated simply as beneficiaries who should be grateful for the kindness of strangers. They want to be involved in changing their own lives. They want ownership of the sort of help they want to receive and the way they want to receive it. They want to have their dignity restored as human beings rather than just being turned into and kept as victims. So, the challenge for humanitarianism is. About how to move from patronizing charity, to dignified partnership. We must remember that the word humanitarian contains the word human. And essence of being human, is about. Self actualization. For a person to be able to stand up as a human being and face the world. So the real notion of humanitarianism is about restoring a human being who has been crushed by. Disaster or misfortune and helping them to regain their lives and move on with confidence and dignity.
