Luxembourg has joined the campaign for this year's World Humanitarian Day, held this Sunday 19 August 2018.
World Humanitarian Day is an opportunity to highlight global humanitarian challenges and pay tribute to the work of humanitarian actors. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the adoption of the UN General Assembly resolution that designated 19 August as World Humanitarian Day.
On this occasion, the focus is once again on the #NotATarget campaign aimed at denouncing abuses committed against people in situations of armed conflict, particularly civilians in urban areas, children, people subjected to sexual violence, humanitarian workers including health workers and forcibly displaced persons. At the heart of the commitments of the 2018 World Day is the affirmation that civilians and humanitarian workers caught up in armed conflict are not targets.
Luxembourg has joined this campaign by emphasising that among the populations affected by conflicts, there are particularly vulnerable people, particularly those with physical and or mental disabilities. For this reason, Luxembourg has included the issue of disability in its humanitarian action strategy by reiterating the need to take into account this population in any area of intervention or action and even more so in areas of armed conflict.
In the face of growing humanitarian needs, Luxembourg is also drawing attention to the importance of the humanitarian-development nexus. The actors of international solidarity can no longer be confined to their traditional fields of intervention, urgency or development, but must imbricate their tools and know-how. It is no longer a question of responding to humanitarian crises through ad hoc emergency aid, but the structural weaknesses of societies must now be addressed through sustainable partnerships. This concept has been duly taken into account and will continue to receive special attention in the Sahel region.
Luxembourg spends about 15% of its official development assistance (ODA) on responses to humanitarian crises.
