Strengthening of the Coordination of Emergency Humanitarian Assistance of the United Nations

A/RES/76/124View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 75a Strengthening of the coordination of emergency humanitarian assistance of the United Nations, published in 2021.

What other versions does this mandate have?

30 versions · 1996–2024

This is an older version — the most recent is A/RES/79/140

Year	Symbol	Title	Word length	Text similarity
2024	A/RES/79/140	Strengthening of the coordination of emergency humanitarian assistance of the United Nations	10,870	92%Compare
2023	A/RES/78/119	Strengthening of the coordination of emergency humanitarian assistance of the United Nations	10,024	91%Compare
2022	A/RES/77/28	Strengthening of the coordination of emergency humanitarian assistance of the United Nations	9,324	94%Compare
2021	A/RES/76/124	Strengthening of the coordination of emergency humanitarian assistance of the United Nations	8,836	87%Compare
2020	A/RES/75/127	Strengthening of the coordination of emergency humanitarian assistance of the United Nations	7,788	100%Compare

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

41 reports · 2005–2025

Year	Symbol	Title	Mandate resolution
2025	A/80/384	Central Emergency Response Fund report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/79/140
2025	A/80/75	Strengthening of the coordination of emergency humanitarian assistance of the United Nations report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/79/140
2024	A/79/327	Central Emergency Response Fund report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/78/119
2024	A/79/78	Strengthening of the coordination of emergency humanitarian assistance of the United Nations report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/78/119
2023	A/78/365	Central Emergency Response Fund report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/77/28

What subjects does this mandate have?

8 subjects

Aid Coordination Coordination Within UN System Disaster Preparedness Disaster Prevention Emergency Relief Humanitarian Assistance Humanitarian Emergencies Relief Personnel

What’s in this document?

81 operative paragraphs

Welcomes the outcome of the twenty-fourth humanitarian affairs segment of the Economic and Social Council at its substantive session of 2021,¹¹ and also welcomes the adoption of Economic and Social Council resolution 2021/17 of 25 June 2021;

¹¹See Official Records of the General Assembly, Seventy-sixth Session, Supplement No. 3 (A/76/3), chap. X.

Requests the Emergency Relief Coordinator to continue his efforts to strengthen the coordination and accountability of humanitarian assistance and leadership within the United Nations humanitarian response system, including through the transformative agenda of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, and calls upon relevant United Nations organizations and other relevant intergovernmental organizations, as well as other humanitarian and development actors, to continue to work with the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs of the Secretariat to enhance the coordination, effectiveness and efficiency of humanitarian assistance;

Also requests the Emergency Relief Coordinator to continue to improve dialogue with all Member States on the relevant processes, activities and deliberations of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee;

Encourages Member States and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs to continue to improve dialogue and collaboration on humanitarian issues, at the global and field levels, including on policy, in order to foster a more consultative and inclusive approach to humanitarian assistance;

Welcomes the continued efforts by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs to build partnerships with regional organizations and non-traditional donors and the private sector, and encourages Member States and the United Nations system to continue to strengthen partnerships at the global, regional, national and local levels in support of national efforts in order to effectively cooperate to provide humanitarian assistance to those in need and ensure that their collaborative efforts adhere to the principles of neutrality, humanity, impartiality and independence;

Encourages Member States, the United Nations system and humanitarian and development organizations to continue to assess and improve, together with other relevant stakeholders, including the private sector, how innovation can be more proactively and systematically identified and integrated into humanitarian action in a sustainable manner and to promote the sharing of best practices and lessons learned on innovative tools, processes and approaches, including those from large-scale natural disasters and humanitarian crises of a protracted nature, that could improve the effectiveness and quality of humanitarian response, and in this regard encourages all relevant stakeholders to continue to support the efforts of Member States, in particular developing countries, to strengthen their capacities, including through facilitating access to information and communications technologies;

Welcomes innovative practices that draw on the knowledge of people affected by humanitarian emergencies to develop locally sustainable solutions and to produce life-saving items locally, with minimal logistical and infrastructure implications;

Calls upon the relevant organizations of the United Nations system and, as appropriate, other relevant humanitarian actors to continue efforts to improve the humanitarian response to natural and man-made disasters and complex emergencies by further strengthening humanitarian response capacities at all levels, by continuing to strengthen the provision and coordination of humanitarian assistance at the global, regional and field levels, including through existing cluster coordination mechanisms and in support of national authorities of the affected State, as appropriate, and by further enhancing efficiency, transparency, performance and accountability;

Recognizes the benefits of engagement and coordination with relevant humanitarian actors to the effectiveness of humanitarian response, and encourages the United Nations to continue to pursue efforts to strengthen partnerships at the global level with the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, relevant humanitarian non-governmental organizations, other participants in the Inter-Agency Standing Committee and other relevant stakeholders;

Requests the Secretary-General to continue to strengthen the support provided to United Nations resident/humanitarian coordinators and to United Nations country teams, including by providing necessary training, identifying resources and improving the identification of and the selection process for United Nations resident/humanitarian coordinators, and enhancing their performance accountability;

Calls upon the Chair of the United Nations Sustainable Development Group and the Emergency Relief Coordinator to continue to enhance their consultations before presenting final recommendations on the selection process for resident coordinators in countries likely to require significant humanitarian response operations;

Requests the United Nations to continue to strengthen its ability to recruit and deploy appropriately senior, skilled and experienced humanitarian staff quickly and flexibly, giving paramount consideration to the highest standards of efficiency, competence and integrity, while paying due regard to gender equality and to recruiting on as wide a geographical basis as possible, and in this regard encourages the United Nations Sustainable Development Group to continue to strengthen the resident coordinator system, on which the humanitarian coordinator system is based, ensuring, inter alia, full implementation of the management and accountability system of the Group and the resident coordinator system;

Recognizes that diversity of humanitarian staff brings value to humanitarian work and understanding of developing countries’ contexts, and requests the Secretary-General to address further the insufficient diversity in geographical representation and gender balance in the composition of the humanitarian staff of the Secretariat and other United Nations humanitarian agencies, in particular regarding professional and high-level staff, and to report on concrete measures taken in this regard in his annual report;

Also recognizes that accountability is an integral part of effective humanitarian assistance, and emphasizes the need for enhancing the accountability of humanitarian actors at all stages of humanitarian assistance;

Urges Member States to continue to give priority to efforts to prevent, respond to, investigate and prosecute acts of sexual and gender-based violence in humanitarian emergencies, calls upon Member States and relevant organizations to improve coordination and strengthen capacity, to ensure that humanitarian relief integrates prevention of, and risk mitigation for, sexual and gender-based violence and makes greater use of sex- and age-disaggregated data and to strengthen support services for victims, survivors and others affected by such violence beginning in the earliest stages of emergency response, taking into account their unique and specific needs resulting from the impact of such violence, and notes the Call to Action initiative;

Underscores the critical importance of protecting all persons affected by humanitarian crises, in particular women and children, from any form of sexual exploitation and abuse, including those perpetrated by humanitarian personnel, welcomes the determination of the Secretary-General to fully implement the United Nations policy of zero tolerance for sexual exploitation and abuse and stresses that victims and survivors should be at the core of such efforts, notes the six core principles relating to sexual exploitation and abuse adopted by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee,¹² and encourages Member States to make greater efforts to prevent and respond to sexual exploitation and abuse and to ensure that perpetrators are held accountable;

¹²A/57/465, annex I, para. 10 (a).

Urges Member States to continue to seek to prevent, respond to, investigate and prosecute violations and abuses against children, including exploitation, in humanitarian emergencies, calls upon Member States and relevant organizations to strengthen support services for children affected by humanitarian emergencies, including those who have experienced violations and abuses, and calls for a more effective response in that regard, guided by the rights of the child;

Reaffirms the importance of implementing the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 to ensure the substantial reduction of disaster risk and losses in lives, livelihood and health and in the economic, physical, social, cultural and environmental assets of persons, businesses, communities and countries, and underlines the importance of tackling the underlying disaster risk drivers, of considering the impact of climate change and of integrating a disaster risk reduction perspective into humanitarian assistance to prevent new and reduce existing disaster risk;

Calls upon Member States, the United Nations and relevant humanitarian and development organizations to continue to support multi-year investment, when possible, in preparedness, response and coordination capacities, and build the capacity at all levels of government, including local government, of organizations and of communities, particularly in communities exposed to disasters, to better prepare for hazards, reduce disaster risk and the risk of displacement within the context of disasters, build resilience and better respond to and recover from and build back better after disasters, and also calls upon all relevant stakeholders to complement, rather than substitute for or displace, national capacities to respond to crises, especially where those crises are prolonged or recurrent;

Calls upon Member States and the international community to provide adequate, sustainable and timely resources for disaster risk reduction in order to build resilience and reduce the risk of displacement within the context of disasters, environmental degradation and climate change, including through complementary humanitarian and development programming and the further strengthening of national and local capacities to prevent, prepare for and respond to humanitarian emergencies, and encourages closer cooperation between national stakeholders and humanitarian and development actors in this regard;

Urges Member States, the United Nations humanitarian system, regional organizations, non-governmental organizations, the private sector and other humanitarian actors to reinforce preparedness and response capabilities in relation to those outbreaks of infectious disease that trigger or exacerbate a humanitarian crisis, including by fully implementing the International Health Regulations (2005), and calls upon the United Nations humanitarian system and humanitarian organizations to respond rapidly, based on the level 3 activation procedure for infectious disease events in humanitarian contexts, in close coordination with affected States;

Calls for the strengthening of national and multilateral approaches and international cooperation, such as the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) and its COVAX Facility, and other relevant initiatives in order to enable the fair, equitable, timely and affordable access to safe, quality, efficacious and effective COVID-19 vaccines, testing and treatment to prevent and contain transmission in order to bring the pandemic to an end, while also noting the importance of inclusive national vaccination programmes covering internally displaced persons, migrants, and refugees, and encourages United Nations agencies and other relevant stakeholders to support Member States, including refugee-hosting countries and countries of origin, in full coordination with their national government;

Calls upon Member States, the United Nations and other relevant organizations, as appropriate, to address non-communicable diseases and their risk factors and to treat people living with them in humanitarian emergencies;

Encourages closer cooperation between development and humanitarian actors, in coordination with Member States, to ensure that all relevant actors work together, in accordance with their mandates, towards common results ‎with the aim of reducing need, vulnerability and risk over multiple years, based on shared understanding of the context and each actor’s operational strengths, in support of national priorities, while fully respecting the humanitarian principles for humanitarian action;

Encourages humanitarian and development actors to pursue, where appropriate, common risk-management and resilience objectives, achievable through joint analysis and multi-year programming and planning cycles;

Encourages the United Nations system, humanitarian organizations and development organizations to continue their efforts to mainstream preparedness, early action and early recovery into their programming, acknowledges that preparedness, early action and early recovery should receive further funding, and in this regard encourages the provision of timely, flexible, predictable and adequate resources, including from both humanitarian and development budgets, as appropriate;

Urges Member States, the United Nations and other relevant organizations to take further steps to provide a coordinated emergency response to the food and nutrition needs of affected populations, while aiming to ensure that such steps are supportive of national strategies and programmes aimed at improving food security and nutrition;

Calls upon Member States, parties to armed conflict, the United Nations, humanitarian and development organizations and other relevant actors to urgently increase their measures to prevent famine and to reduce and address acute food insecurity, which is compounded by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and effectively respond to, prevent and prepare for rising global food insecurity affecting millions of people, especially those who are facing famine or the immediate risk of famine, including by enhancing humanitarian and development cooperation and providing urgent funding to respond to the needs of the affected population, supported by multisector early warning and analysis; and stresses the need to address food insecurity, including through: respect for international humanitarian law, investing in gender-sensitive humanitarian assistance and protection, livelihoods, climate adaptation and mitigation, health, water, sanitation and hygiene, nutrition, sustainable food systems, access to healthy diets, energy, poverty reduction, and addressing inequalities, including gender inequality, and providing for the peaceful resolution of armed conflict, and encourages strengthening efforts to empower rural women as essential actors in achieving food security and improved nutrition, as well as to prevent and respond to negative coping mechanisms, recognizing their disproportionate impact on women and children; and calls upon Member States and parties to armed conflicts to respect international humanitarian law and ensure safe and unhindered humanitarian access;

Condemns strongly the use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare and prohibited by international humanitarian law;

Expresses concern about the challenges related to, inter alia, safe access to and use of fuel, firewood, alternative energy, water and sanitation, shelter and food and health-care services, including mental health and psychosocial services, in humanitarian emergencies, and notes with appreciation initiatives at the national and international levels, including those that systematically identify and integrate innovative approaches and share best practices, that promote effective cooperation in this regard;

Encourages the international community, including relevant United Nations organizations and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, to support efforts of Member States aimed at strengthening their capacity to prepare for and respond to disasters and to support efforts, as appropriate, to strengthen systems, especially early warning systems, for identifying and monitoring disaster risk, including vulnerability and natural hazards, and especially to substantially increase the availability of and access to multi-hazard warning systems;

Welcomes the growing number of Member States and regional organizations that have taken steps to promote the implementation of the Guidelines for the Domestic Facilitation and Regulation of International Disaster Relief and Initial Recovery Assistance, encourages others to do so, as appropriate, and welcomes the valuable support that national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies are providing to their Governments in this area, in collaboration with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and other partners;

Encourages States to create an enabling environment for the capacity-building of local authorities and of national and local non-governmental and community-based organizations in order to ensure better preparedness in providing timely, effective and predictable assistance, and encourages the United Nations and other relevant organizations to provide support to such efforts, including, as appropriate, under the Common Framework for Preparedness of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, the United Nations Sustainable Development Group and the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, through the transfer of technology, on mutually agreed terms, and expertise to developing countries and through support to enhance the coordination capacities and build capacity in science and technology of affected States;

Recognizes the increase in the number and scale of disasters, including those related to the adverse effects of climate change, which in certain instances may contribute to displacement and to additional pressure on host communities, encourages Member States, the United Nations and relevant organizations and actors to further strengthen the efforts aimed at addressing the needs of persons displaced within the context of disasters, including those induced by climate change, and notes in this regard the importance of sharing best practices to prevent and prepare for such displacements;

Calls upon Member States, the United Nations and humanitarian organizations to provide emergency assistance in ways that are supportive of recovery and long-term development, where appropriate, including through multi-year funding and prioritizing humanitarian tools that strengthen resilience, such as, but not limited to, cash-based transfers, local procurement of food and services, including for school feeding programmes, and social safety nets;

Encourages Member States and the United Nations funds and programmes and the specialized agencies to respond more effectively to needs in humanitarian contexts by, inter alia, scaling up social protection policies and cash-based transfer mechanisms, where feasible, including multipurpose cash programming, as appropriate, to offer affected people flexibility on how to meet their humanitarian needs, and to support the development of local markets and strengthen national and local capacities, and in this regard calls upon the United Nations humanitarian organizations to continue building their capacity to systematically consider cash-based transfer programming, alongside other forms of humanitarian assistance;

Encourages Member States, the United Nations system and other relevant organizations to improve, where possible, fast and flexible financing for preparedness, early action, early response and early recovery, and in this regard encourages exploring, developing and, where appropriate, the strengthening of innovative and anticipatory mechanisms and approaches, such as forecast-based financing and disaster risk insurance, to reduce the impact of disasters and address humanitarian needs;

Encourages States, as well as the United Nations, and humanitarian organizations, in accordance with their respective mandates and in line with humanitarian principles, learning from the COVID-19 pandemic experience, to continue to scale up anticipatory approaches, early warning early action systems, forecasting, prevention-oriented responses and emergency preparedness, and improve predictive and risk data analytics across sectors, reinforce systematic risk monitoring, early warning and preparedness capacities at local, national, regional and global levels, including, inter alia, those associated with health risks and disease outbreaks, and takes note of the relevant United Nations frameworks and initiatives related to health emergency preparedness;

Takes note of the efforts of Member States, the United Nations system and the international community to strengthen preparedness and local, national and regional humanitarian response capacity, calls upon the United Nations and relevant partners to support capacity-building of Member States, and calls upon Member States to continue to provide funding to humanitarian country-based pooled funds;

Encourages Member States, and calls upon relevant humanitarian organizations, to work closely with national institutions, including local governments and the private sector, as appropriate, to examine effective, context-specific ways to be better prepared for, respond to and recover from increasing emergencies in urban areas, which may have an impact on the provision of such life-saving essential services as water, energy and health care;

Reaffirms the right to education for all and the importance of ensuring safe enabling learning environments in humanitarian emergencies, as well as quality education at all levels, including for girls, including technical and vocational training opportunities, where possible, including through adequate funding and infrastructural investments, for the well-being of all, in this regard recognizes that access to quality education in humanitarian emergencies can contribute to long-term development goals and reiterates the need to protect and respect educational facilities in accordance with international humanitarian law, strongly condemns all attacks directed against schools and the use of schools for military purposes, when in contravention of international humanitarian law, and encourages efforts to promote safe and protective school environments in humanitarian emergencies;

Urges Member States, the United Nations and relevant humanitarian actors to scale up support for humanitarian programming and response for safe, inclusive, equitable and quality education at all levels and ages, in order to mitigate the direct and indirect impacts from the closure of schools and other educational institutions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, among other causes, in order to help to ensure the continuation of education services, particularly for women and children, especially girls;

Calls upon the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and other United Nations organizations to continue to work with Member States and relevant United Nations entities to facilitate the exchange of updated, accurate and reliable information, including through mutually comprehensible, disaggregated and harmonized data, to ensure better assessment and analysis of needs in order to improve preparedness and humanitarian response;

Calls upon relevant United Nations organizations to support the improvement of the humanitarian programme cycle, including the development of coordinated and comprehensive needs assessment tools, such as multisector initial rapid assessments, the implementation of joint, impartial and timely needs assessments and prioritized needs-based humanitarian response plans, in consultation with the affected States, in order to strengthen the coordination of humanitarian action to meet the needs of people affected by humanitarian emergencies;

Encourages Member States to commit and to disburse in a timely fashion humanitarian funding based on, and in accordance with, the humanitarian appeals brought forward by the United Nations;

Encourages Member States and relevant United Nations organizations to explore innovative risk-sharing mechanisms and to base risk management funding on objective data;

Encourages United Nations and humanitarian organizations to further advance efficiencies in delivering assistance through reducing management costs, harmonizing partnership agreements, providing transparent and comparable cost structures, and strengthening measures to achieve greater accountability by taking further actions to reduce fraud, waste and abuse and identify ways to share incident reports and other information among United Nations agencies, where appropriate;

Requests Member States, relevant humanitarian organizations of the United Nations system and other relevant humanitarian actors to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women in all stages of humanitarian response, to take measures to ensure the full participation of women, girls, men and boys, including persons with disabilities and older persons, in all stages of decision-making, as appropriate, in order to, inter alia, reduce gender inequalities and ensure that humanitarian assistance is informed, adapted, appropriate and effective, and to take into account the specific needs, vulnerabilities and capacities of women, girls, men and boys, taking into consideration age and disability, in the design of needs assessments and the implementation of all programming, including by seeking to ensure the provision of access to the full range of medical, legal and psychosocial and livelihood services, without discrimination, and in this regard encourages efforts to ensure gender mainstreaming, including in the collection and analysis of disaggregated data, in the analysis of allocations and programme implementation, and through greater use of the Gender with Age Marker;

Recognizes the important role that women can play as first responders, and encourages Member States, the United Nations and other relevant humanitarian organizations to support women’s leadership and meaningful participation in the planning and implementation of response strategies, including by strengthening partnerships and building the capacities of national and local institutions, including national and local women’s organizations, and other civil society actors, as appropriate;

Calls upon Member States, relevant humanitarian organizations of the United Nations system and other relevant humanitarian actors to ensure non-discrimination and opportunities for persons with disabilities to participate on an equal basis with others in humanitarian preparedness and response;

Calls upon the United Nations and humanitarian and development organizations, in coordination with Member States, to engage all people affected by disasters and crises, in particular those most at risk, including through communication, enabling their participation in relevant processes and supporting their efforts and capacities to meet their different needs, while taking into account, as appropriate, their culture, traditions and local customs;

Calls upon United Nations humanitarian organizations, in consultation with Member States, as appropriate, to strengthen the evidence base for humanitarian assistance by further developing common mechanisms and methodologies for improving the quality, transparency, reliability, compatibility and comparability of common humanitarian needs assessments, needs data and analysis, including through improved collection, analysis and reporting of data disaggregated by sex, age and disability and taking into account environmental impact, to assess their performance in assistance and to ensure the most effective use of humanitarian resources by those organizations;

Calls upon the United Nations and its humanitarian partners to enhance accountability to Member States, including affected States, and all other stakeholders, including local governments, relevant local organizations and other actors, as well as affected populations, and to further strengthen humanitarian response efforts, including by monitoring and evaluating the provision of their humanitarian assistance, incorporating lessons learned into programming and consulting with the affected populations in the planning and implementation of humanitarian assistance, and making greater efforts in this regard, so that their needs are appropriately assessed and effectively addressed;

Calls upon Member States, the United Nations and humanitarian organizations to identify better ways of working to address the increasing capacity and resource gap, in order to effectively meet the needs of affected populations, including by harmonizing and, where possible, simplifying reporting requirements, increasing the flexibility of humanitarian funding, including through reduced earmarking and further minimizing the duplication of costs, and making more use of innovation in humanitarian response;

Calls upon donors to provide adequate, timely, predictable and flexible resources based on and in proportion to assessed needs and to mobilize support for addressing underfunded and forgotten emergencies, to consider providing early and multi-year commitments to pooled humanitarian funds, including the Central Emergency Response Fund and country-based pooled funds, and to continue to support diverse humanitarian funding channels, encourages efforts to adhere to the Principles and Good Practice of Humanitarian Donorship¹³ and to improve burden-sharing among donors, and in this respect encourages the private sector, civil society and other relevant entities to make relevant contributions, complementary to those of other sources;

¹³A/58/99-E/2003/94, annex II.

Welcomes the important achievements of the Central Emergency Response Fund in ensuring a more timely and predictable response to humanitarian emergencies, stresses the importance of continuing to improve the functioning of the Fund, and in this regard encourages the United Nations funds and programmes and the specialized agencies to review and evaluate, where necessary, their partnership policies and practices in order to ensure the timely disbursement of funds from the Fund to implementing partners in order to ensure that resources are used in the most efficient, effective, accountable and transparent manner possible;

Calls upon all Member States, and invites the private sector and all concerned individuals and institutions, to consider increasing their voluntary contributions to the Central Emergency Response Fund in order to achieve an annual funding level of 1 billion United States dollars and to continue to reinforce and strengthen the Fund as the global emergency response fund, and emphasizes the need to broaden and diversify the income base of the Fund and that contributions should be additional to current commitments to humanitarian programming and should not be to the detriment of resources made available for international cooperation for development;

Urges Member States and relevant stakeholders to mobilize resources to support humanitarian response plans, which respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences, underlining the importance of rapid, flexible, predictable, adequate and effective funding, and for support to the Central Emergency Response Fund and country-based pooled funds which have played a key role in the COVID-19 humanitarian response, and calls on the United Nations and relevant partners to continue to ensure that the most critical humanitarian needs are prioritized, so that these efforts do not replace or divert resources away from pre-existing humanitarian needs and encourages efforts to provide transparency of where and how this funding delivers impact;

Encourages Member States, the private sector and all relevant individuals and institutions to consider increasing their voluntary contributions to country-based pooled funds and, as appropriate, other pooled funding mechanisms, to facilitate humanitarian assistance to people in need;

Calls upon Member States that are in a position to do so and development and humanitarian partners, in their efforts to provide flexible resources, to consider ways of better mainstreaming the need for preparedness and building resilience in the provision of humanitarian and development assistance, including reconstruction and rehabilitation, inter alia, with a view to ensuring smooth transition from relief to development;

Calls upon all Member States that are in a position to do so to increase their voluntary contributions to humanitarian emergencies, including through flexible, unearmarked and multi-year funding where possible, in this context reiterates that the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs should benefit from adequate and more predictable funding, and underscores the importance of adequate, timely and flexible voluntary funding for the Office to enable it to carry out its mandate;

Encourages Member States, in cooperation with relevant United Nations humanitarian organizations, to ensure that the basic humanitarian needs of affected populations, including clean water, food, shelter, health, including sexual and reproductive health, education and protection, energy and information and communications technologies, where possible, are addressed as components of humanitarian response, including through providing timely and adequate resources, while ensuring that their collaborative efforts fully adhere to humanitarian principles;

Also encourages Member States, in cooperation with relevant United Nations humanitarian organizations, to ensure that women and girls have access to basic health-care services, including reliable and safe access to sexual and reproductive health-care services and mental health and psychosocial support, from the onset of emergencies, in this regard recognizes that such assistance protects women, adolescent girls and infants from preventable mortality and morbidity that occur in humanitarian emergencies, and calls upon Member States, the United Nations and other relevant actors to give such programmes due consideration;

Urges Member States and humanitarian organizations to integrate protection and health risks, as components of humanitarian response, into humanitarian assessment, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, and increase efforts to reinforce local and national systems, capacities and local communities and actors, including women-led organizations;

Urges Member States, the United Nations and humanitarian organizations to increase efforts to provide and fund cross-sectoral mental health and psychosocial support service that are of quality, contextually sensitive, gender-sensitive, and provided with respect for human rights, to ensure that such services are incorporated into humanitarian needs assessments and humanitarian programmes for preparedness, response and recovery, to meet the needs of all affected populations in humanitarian contexts, and to reinforce local and community-based efforts, which will be all the more important in mitigating and responding to additional psychological consequences experienced in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, and calls on the United Nations and all relevant humanitarian organizations to scale up mental health and psychosocial support capacity accordingly, and report on mental health and psychosocial support programmes and funding in support of the recovery and resilience for the mental health and psychosocial well-being of all those affected, while also recognizing the impacts on humanitarian personnel and volunteers;

Encourages Member States, the United Nations and humanitarian organizations to continue to work together to understand and address the different protection needs of affected populations, particularly the most vulnerable, in humanitarian crises and ensure that these needs are adequately integrated into preparedness, response and recovery efforts;

Calls upon Member States and relevant organizations and actors to recognize and address the consequences of humanitarian emergencies for migrants, in particular those in vulnerable situations, and to strengthen coordinated international efforts for their assistance and protection in concert with national authorities;

Calls upon Member States to take steps to ensure the international protection of and respect for the rights of refugees, including respect for the principle of non-refoulement and adequate standards of treatment in accordance with international law, including, as applicable, the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees¹⁴ and international human rights obligations;

¹⁴United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 189, No. 2545.

Recognizes the importance of early registration and effective registration systems as a tool of protection and as a means of carrying out the quantification and assessment of needs for the provision and distribution of humanitarian assistance, notes the many and diverse challenges faced by refugees who remain without any form of documentation attesting to their status, and underlines the importance of increasing accountability to ensure that humanitarian assistance reaches its beneficiaries;

Reaffirms the obligation of all States and parties to an armed conflict to protect civilians, in accordance with international humanitarian law, encourages States that are parties to an armed conflict to take all measures necessary to enhance the protection of civilians, and invites all States to promote a culture of protection, taking into account the particular needs of women, girls, boys and men, older persons and persons with disabilities;

Urges Member States to continue to take the steps necessary to ensure the protection of the wounded and sick, as well as the safety and security of medical personnel and humanitarian personnel exclusively engaged in medical duties, their facilities, equipment, transports and supplies, including by developing effective measures to prevent and address acts of violence, attacks and threats against them, and in this regard reaffirms the need for States to ensure that those responsible for violations of international humanitarian law do not operate with impunity, urges States to conduct full, prompt, impartial and effective investigations within their jurisdiction of violations of international humanitarian law with a view to ensuring accountability, as provided for by national laws and obligations under international law, and to ensure that the wounded and sick receive, to the fullest extent practicable and with the least possible delay, the medical care and attention required, and notes the applicable rules of international humanitarian law relating to the non-punishment of any person for carrying out medical activities compatible with medical ethics;

Also urges Member States to continue to take the steps necessary to ensure the safety and security of humanitarian personnel, their facilities, equipment, transports and supplies, including by developing effective measures to prevent and address acts of violence, attacks and threats against them, requests the Secretary-General to expedite his efforts to enhance the safety and security of personnel involved in United Nations humanitarian operations, and in this regard reaffirms the need for States to ensure that those responsible for violations of international humanitarian law do not operate with impunity, urges States to conduct, full, prompt, impartial and effective investigations within their jurisdiction of violations of international humanitarian law with a view to ensuring accountability, as provided for by national laws and obligations under international law, and urges Member States to scale up their efforts to ensure the safety and security of humanitarian personnel;

Emphasizes the responsibility of States to adopt preventive measures and effective responses to acts of violence committed against civilian populations in armed conflicts and to comply with the relevant obligations under international law to end impunity and to ensure that those responsible for violations are promptly brought to justice, in accordance with national law and their obligations under international law;

Calls upon all States and parties in complex humanitarian emergencies, in particular in armed conflict and in post-conflict situations, in countries in which humanitarian personnel are operating, in conformity with the relevant provisions of international law and national laws, to cooperate fully with the United Nations and other humanitarian agencies and organizations and to ensure the safe and unhindered access of humanitarian and medical personnel, including those responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as their means of transport, supplies and equipment, and to support, facilitate and enable transportation and logistical supply lines, in order to allow such personnel to efficiently perform their task of assisting affected civilian populations, including refugees and internally displaced persons; and urges all parties to armed conflicts, consistent with international humanitarian law, to protect civilian infrastructure which is critical to the delivery of humanitarian assistance for the provision of essential services, including for vaccinations and related medical care;

Urges States, while undertaking counter-terrorism activities, to respect their international obligations, including whenever international humanitarian law is applicable, in particular regarding the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilian populations, as well as recognizes the key role humanitarian organizations play in the provision of principled humanitarian assistance, while also recognizing the importance of preventing and suppressing the financing of and other forms of support to terrorism;

Recognizes the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement¹⁵ as an important international framework for the protection of internally displaced persons, and that forced displacement is not only a humanitarian but also a development challenge, encourages Member States and humanitarian agencies to continue to work together, in collaboration with host communities, in endeavours to provide a more predictable response to the needs of internally displaced persons and in particular to address the long-term nature of displacement by adopting and implementing long-term strategies and coherent multi-year planning, including in relation to issues such as livelihoods, and in this regard calls for continued and enhanced international support, upon request, for the capacity-building efforts of States and encourages humanitarian organizations to improve coordination, including with development organizations, to better address the needs of internally displaced persons in support of Member States to promote durable solutions;

¹⁵E/CN.4/1998/53/Add.2, annex.

Welcomes the progress made towards further enhancing the security management system of the United Nations, and supports the approach taken by the Secretary-General to focus the efforts of the security management system on enabling the United Nations system to “stay and deliver” its most critical programmes even in high-risk environments by effectively managing the risks to which personnel are exposed, including in the provision of humanitarian assistance, and to adapt quickly to changes in local security conditions;

Encourages the United Nations and other relevant humanitarian actors to include, as part of their risk management strategy, the building of good relations and trust with national and local governments and to promote acceptance by local communities and all relevant actors, including religious leaders where appropriate, in order to enable humanitarian assistance to be provided in accordance with humanitarian principles;

Requests the Secretary-General to report on actions taken to enable the United Nations to continue to strengthen its ability to recruit and deploy staff quickly, effectively and flexibly, to procure emergency relief materials and services rapidly, cost-effectively and locally, where applicable, and to quickly disburse funds in order to support Governments and United Nations country teams in the coordination of international humanitarian assistance;

Urges all countries to integrate into their respective national policies and development frameworks the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,¹⁶ and urges Member States, the United Nations and relevant stakeholders to work together to reduce the needs and build the resilience of the most vulnerable in order to contribute to the achievement of the Goals included in the 2030 Agenda, including the call to leave no one behind;

¹⁶Resolution 70/1.

Requests the Secretary-General to report to the General Assembly at its seventy-seventh session, through the Economic and Social Council at its 2022 session, on progress made in strengthening the coordination of emergency humanitarian assistance of the United Nations, and to submit a report to the Assembly on the detailed use of the Central Emergency Response Fund.

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

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