United Nations World Humanitarian Summit

Debate between Baroness Verma and Lord Lansley

Tuesday 12th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right. This is a very important summit. It will tackle a lot of issues, including the agreements that were reached at Sendai and Paris, to ensure that those strong linkages between the disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation agendas continue. On the wider point, it is about making sure that the reforms that are required to ensure preparedness for future crises are also part of the bigger reform agenda. As I said, we also need to encourage other partners and donors and the private sector to step up to the mark.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that the British representative at the humanitarian summit will be able, by virtue of having met our commitment to the 0.7% GDP target, to give a lead to others, and that it is very important that we give that lead in May? Does she also agree that one of the projects that we should take on with our commitment of future resources is to increase the supply of expert humanitarian aid co-ordinators so that there is a corps in place not only for dealing with crises when they happen but of sufficient numbers that they can stay in place and help with the recovery from crises in some of the most desperate areas?

[Baroness Verma]

I am extremely grateful to my noble friend for the points he has raised, particularly on the 0.7% commitment that we have managed to embed and deliver. He is also right that we need to prepare ourselves for future crises but also help build resilience in infrastructure in countries that really need it, particularly in their health systems. My noble friend is absolutely right that we need to make sure that we not only support people with the skills but prepare people locally to have those skills.

United Nations World Humanitarian Summit

Debate between Baroness Verma and Lord Lansley

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

Yes, my Lords. Again, the noble Lord raises some important points. One of the key things we want to be able to do from the summit is to bring together not just Governments but civil society organisations and people from academia to see how we can respond to the growing need to make sure that young people particularly are able to get trained, educated and engaged in employment. They need meaningful life skills so that we do not end up with a generation unable to respond to the ever-growing demands of the 21st century.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend the Minister will be aware that the United Kingdom’s commitment to 0.7% of gross domestic product as international development aid gives us the opportunity to give leadership at the World Humanitarian Summit. Can we use that and our commitment to predictable multiyear financing to lead in the development of training programmes for additional professionals capable of responding to humanitarian crises—not only trained but also available—since the use of additional financial resources depends on trained professionals in the field?

[Baroness Verma]

My noble friend again addresses a real, serious issue—one we recognised when we had to deal with the Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone. Our ambition for the summit is one of radical change to humanitarian action. We need much more efficiency, effectiveness and accountability in our responses and the responses of others, including a much-strengthened professional humanitarian workforce.