1 October 2014 Geneva, Palais des Nations
Mr. Chair,
Mr. High Commissioner,
Excellencies,
Delegates,
At the outset, let me thank the High Commissioner for his opening statement that gave us a useful insight in the humanitarian situation on global stage and underlined the seriousness of the challenges ahead of us.
Estonia fully aligns itself with the statement made on behalf of the EU and its Member States.
Mr. Chair,
In 2014 the international community witnessed a sombre milestone – the number of people forced to flee their homes across the world exceeded 50 million due to an unprecedented number of level 3 emergencies and an increase in protracted situations. Moreover, new crises have arisen as the worrying situations in Iraq and Ukraine. Witnessing the growing number and needs of forcibly displaced people, we believe there is a clear need to do more to address the root causes of instability and underlying drivers of conflict.
In this highly challenging environment, we recognize the UNHCR’s mandated lead role for the provision of international protection to refugees. We appreciate the UNHCR’s response to acute and protracted situations of forced displacement in many complex settings around the world and remain deeply concerned that the humanitarian access remains too often an obstacle. Moreover, we commend the excellent humanitarian work of the UNHCR staff, who organizes and delivers assistance often by risking their own lives. Security of the humanitarian workers has become a great challenge and has to be tackled systematically.
The engagement of UNHCR in the Transformative Agenda and its continued key role in the Protection, CCCM (camp coordination and camp management) and shelter clusters both globally and at the country level are highly acknowledged. We urge UNHCR to continue to strengthen its inputs particularly through the Global Protection Cluster, in all major emergencies.
We welcome the UNHCR’s continued focus on stronger partnerships: within the UN system; with OCHA and the other agencies; with NGOs that are implementing an increasing share of UNHCR’s programmes; and with States. In the situation where the international humanitarian system is stretched to its limits partnerships and effective coordination are of greater importance as ever before.
In this regard, we welcome the dialogue and agreement reached last April between the High Commissioner and Emergency Response Coordinator (Valerie Amos’s) on how UNHCR and OCHA should work together in ‘mixed’ refugee and IDP situations. We urge both UNHCR and OCHA to continue this constructive cooperation, including addressing in the most difficult Level 3 emergencies and ensure the agreement penetrates down throughout their organizations. We believe that coordination helps to enhance the overall humanitarian response across the UN system.
Mr. Chair,
The landscape of humanitarian assistance is multi-layered. Humanitarian principles as impartiality are constantly challenged and assistance is sometimes used as pretext to deliver political messages. Unfortunately, man-made humanitarian crises tend to be long lasting, as their solution is political. In this regard, we are concerned by the increasingly complex situation at the European Union’s immediate neighbourhood.
Although the solutions to man-made crises are not in the hands of the humanitarian community, we believe that continuous humanitarian information creates wider awareness and thereby a certain pressure on political decision makers and is therefore essential.
Mr. Chair,
Estonia, among many other countries, has focused on helping those who have been forced to flee from their homes and on protecting the most vulnerable members of the society – women and children. Considering that children constitute half of all forcibly displaced people, we stress that the emergency response operations have to address also the social, developmental and economic needs of the forcibly displaced people. Despite limited resources that must be prioritized for life-saving operations, there is need do more in granting refugee and IDP children access to education.
Finally,
We commend the increased effectiveness of the UNHCR in fulfilling its important humanitarian mission. Estonia has supported the work of the UNHCR for more than a decade and will continue to support its operations and programs today and in the future.
Thank you!