Warwick District UN Association: Challenge for Humanitarian action in conflicts

The meeting will take place from 12:30pm to 1:45pm at the Leamington Spa Baptist Church, Chandos Street, Leamington Spa, CV32 4RN.

This will be a hybrid meeting both in-person and on-line. Martin will be with us travelling from London.

Dr Martin Barber will be speaking on the role and work of the OCHA - UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - created to strengthen the international response to complex emergencies and natural disasters. It is currently working in Gaza with UNRWA.

In many of the most serious protracted armed conflicts, such as those in Somalia, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen and Gaza, belligerent states and non-state armed groups (NSAG) consistently disregard their obligations under international humanitarian law (IHL), as contained in the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Additional Protocols of 1977.

Furthermore, hostile actors prevent humanitarian organizations from operating in accordance with humanitarian principles– humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence – adopted by the Red Cross movement in 1965.

Martin is a retired international civil servant with experience at senior levels of refugee programmes, coordination of humanitarian operations and peacekeeping, including as director of the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) at UN headquarters from 2000 until 2005. He is the author of Blinded by Humanity: Inside the UN’s Humanitarian Operations (2015).

Before that, he was chief of policy in the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

From 1996 to 1998, he was Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in the UN Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

From 1989 to 1996, he worked with the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance to Afghanistan, serving as UN Humanitarian Coordinator in 1995-6.