This week, hundreds of humanitarians meet in Geneva to advance best practices and address shared challenges in humanitarian action. The Humanitarian Networking and Partnership Weeks, HNPW, co-hosted by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), gathers participants from the UN, NGOs, Member States, the private sector, the military, academia and beyond. The private sector plays an increasingly important role in the humanitarian response, and several events at HNPW will focus on this trending issue.
Here is a snapshot of in-person events that may be of interest to the private sector.
Welcome and orientation session for private sector participants
Introduction by OCHA Private Sector Engagement Advisor
Monday 9 May | 2 PM – 3 PM CET | Plenière C - CICG
To help private sector participants navigate through the various sessions and amplify their voice in the discussions, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in collaboration with humanitarian partners will organize a welcome and orientation session for private sector participants. The session will serve as an introduction, highlighting key trends in private sector engagement in humanitarian action and provide an overview of the HNPW week program.
Dubai Humanitarian Community Model
The International Humanitarian City
Tuesday 10 May | 10 AM – 11 AM CET | Plenière C – CICG
The International Humanitarian City is the only non-profit, independent, humanitarian free-zone Authority hosting a community of more than 80 members comprised of UN organisations, Governmental and non-governmental organisations, in addition to commercial companies. The International Humanitarian community in Dubai consists of about 500 people representing more than 68 nationalities.
IHC, due to its strategic geographical position, became in the past 20 years the largest humanitarian logistics hub, hosting members’ prepositioned humanitarian aid stock currently over 140 million USD. IHC created an ecosystem by partnering with private sector, academic institutions and foundations, thus creating proper environment for innovation and sharing knowledge. IHC vision is to promote a network of sister humanitarian hubs dedicated to Emergency Preparedness and Response and focused on sustainable humanitarian action, through sharing best practices and partnership model with government, non-profit and private sectors.
How can we do local humanitarian aid procurement better?
Local Procurement Learning Partnership
Tuesday 10 May | 11 AM – 12.30 PM CET | Salle 15 – CICG
The Local Procurement Learning Partnership (LPLP) is a multi-stakeholder partnership hosted by the Humanitarian Logistics Association. We provide capacity building, technical assistance, information sharing and policy advice to increase the local procurement of humanitarian aid supplies. Partners include humanitarian agencies, suppliers and manufacturers, and we aim to make aid more efficient, to build resilience and to support local markets.
The LPLP is built on the premise that the future of aid is local, and that procurement offers us the opportunity to engage directly with the affected populations. This learning partnership will ask us to rethink the way we procure, but also the ways we programme activities and the ways we ascribe value.
COVID-19 Health Emergency Response in Interconnected Systems
The Heros Project
Tuesday 10 May | 11 AM – 12.30 PM CET | Salle 16 – CICG
This session will present findings from the EU funded HERoS project. The overall objective of HERoS is to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the response to the Covid-19 outbreak. HERoS creates and provides policies and guidelines for improved crisis governance, focusing on responders to public health emergencies, and their needs to make informed decisions. HERoS further improves the predictions of the spread by understanding and modelling the impact of local behaviour on the spread of the disease. Furthermore, HERoS improves the management of medical supply chains for preparedness and response, as well as evaluates the impact of cascading effects across global supply chains.
Act Local, Think Global - Humanitarian action and the private sector
OCHA / UNDP Connecting Business initiative (CBi)
Tuesday 10 May | 2 PM – 4 PM CET | Amphithéâtre D – CICG
Locally led humanitarian action is more effective, efficient, inclusive, and sustainable than “traditional” internationally led humanitarian response. A common goal is for humanitarian action to be “as local as possible, as international as necessary”. What role do local businesses play in achieving the humanitarian localization agenda?
Join speakers from the UN Development Programme (UNDP), US Agency for International Development (USAID), and CBi Member Networks from Haiti, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines for this interactive moderated discussion.
Feeling The Heat - How local businesses are responding to the climate emergency
OCHA / UNDP Connecting Business initiative (CBi)
Tuesday 10 May | 4 PM – 5.30 PM CET | Amphithéâtre D – CICG
A global climate emergency is upon us. The past six years were the hottest on record, and 2010-2019 was the hottest decade since modern recordkeeping began in the late 1800s. Almost 400 climate-related disasters were recorded last year, affecting millions of people around the world. For many businesses around the world, adapting to climate change and preparing for climate-related disasters is a matter of life or death.
Join speakers from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the Sunway Centre for Planetary Health, and CBi Member Networks from Fiji, Madagascar, Turkey, and Vanuatu to learn more about how and why businesses are responding to the climate emergency.
Climate security – Leave no one behind
Tuesday 10 May | 4 PM – 5.30 PM CET | Pléniere E – CICG
Over the last 50 years there has been a five-fold increase in recorded weather and climate related hazards. Last year’s devastating floods in Europe and the deadly heatwave in North America has shown that developed and developing countries alike are exposed. But there is an ever-widening resilience gap between rich and poor nations that lack multi-hazard early warning systems. The seminar is looking for new forms of collaboration on how to investing in local action and empowering the most at risk.
Inter-Network Collaboration Day
Wednesday 11 May | All day
The opening of the Inter-Network Day will introduce the new concept for inter-network collaboration in the Areas of Common Concern (previously Priority Topics), which will be piloted at the HNPW 2022.
Achievements in the “Areas of Common Concern” over the last years will be translated into “Actionable Recommendations" with the aim to provide guidance for concrete action to HNPW networks and partnerships to improve humanitarian preparedness and response.
Sustainable procurement - Key to greening humanitarian responses and localization
Solvoz – Responsible Procurement
Wednesday 11 May | 11 AM – 12.30 PM CET | CICG
Sustainable procurement will take into account selecting the right products, and also service aspects (e.g. repair, recycling) to minimise waste, extend the lifecycle of products, and to reduce any final downstream effects of waste disposal from any product to be procured. In summary, the partnership (Innovation Norway, IOM - WASH and Solvoz) recognises that greening humanitarian responses start at both technical selections of items as well as procurement decisions including service contracts.
In addition, in the outcomes we are providing detailed technical guidance on products and services, enabling local service providers to more easily engage with the wider humanitarian sector, green their procurement, as well as strengthen the localization of humanitarian procurement.
Our approach to sustainable procurement for solar products will be presented during the session, which is envisaged to be extended beyond solar products in future, to encompass the energy sector and other electronic devices.
Innovative Business models in humanitarian response
The Humanitarian Innovation Programme
Wednesday 11 May | 2 PM – 3.30 PM CET | CICG
How can we design humanitarian response in ways that help bridge the financing gap, green the response and create livelihoods? Join our in-person session at HNPW in Geneva to learn more about innovative business models and discuss how they can address humanitarian challenges in a more sustainable way.
HNPW Welcome reception
Wednesday 11 May | 6 PM – 8 PM | Exhibition Area
The reception is hosted by Swiss Humanitarian Aid
Fixing the Blind Spot: Private security contracting in the humanitarian sector.
Global Interagency Security Forum - GISF
Thursday 12 May | 9 AM – 10 AM CET | Salle 16 – CICG
Private security has never been on the agenda of humanitarian conferences, yet yhe use of private security companies by aid agencies is a growing phenomenon and should be a matter of concern for security and operational managers as well as for humanitarian donors.
In the not-so-distant past, international aid agencies used to manage their security much more through dialogue, negotiated access, and trust-building with the communities, local authorities, and armed actors in the areas where they were operating. But UN and NGO clients alike now pay security companies dozens of millions and it can make up a fair percentage of their overall spending in some of the most dangerous countries. Contracting PSPs may create serious concerns in terms of adhesion to humanitarian principles, leading to risks for the security, reputation, and acceptance of humanitarian organisations.
Panelists will discuss the findings of a recent joint research by the ICoCA and GISF Private security contracting in the humanitarian sector: time to take responsibility“”. They will also come with recommendations for humanitarian actors, their donors and the private security sector.
Advancing Multi-Sector Engagement in Humanitarian Supply Chains
Help Logistics
Thursday 12 May | 11 AM – 12.30 PM CET | Pleniere F – CICG
Climate change, economic inequity, access restrictions, geopolitics and health crises have created a ‘perfect storm’ that sharply increases the demand for humanitarian aid and development assistance. According to OCHA, the number of individuals in need of humanitarian assistance has increased by over 100 million from 2020 to 2022. In addition, a global pandemic has challenged existing global supply chains and logistics, which now offers a prompt to actors in the humanitarian sector to re-examine their supply chain needs and models to guarantee their resilience to global, regional and local-scale shocks. Against this backdrop, whilst progress has been made towards the SDGs, the question remains whether the existing business model is effective in building the partnerships required to achieve the goals by 2030.
Emerging from a global pandemic presents a unique opportunity to explore the nature of humanitarian operations of the future: blending localization and preparedness, sustainability and resilience, to ensure that supply chains remain functional after shocks thanks to the continued presence and inter-operability between commercial and humanitarian supply chain actors, and to an efficient use of investments from donors and governments.
Implementing the Climate and Environment Charter: Green Logistics and Collaborative Action
Environment and Humanitarian Action Network
Thursday 12 May | 2 PM – 2.30 PM CET | Salle 1 – CICG
Greening logistics in the humanitarian sector is a challenge that requires collective action, mutual learning and private sector expertise to bridge efficiency and sustainability. Many organisations and networks are currently making progress towards greener logistics by tackling this challenge from different angles, such as procurement, transport, waste management, among others. This session will highlight some practical examples and lessons learnt from the Global Logistics Cluster, the Joint Initiative for Sustainable Humanitarian Assistance Packaging Waste Management, the Inter Agency Procurement Group (IAPG), representatives from donor agencies, as well as the CHORD (Center for Humanitarian Logistics and Regional Development) etc.. Presentations will be followed by a panel discussion.