19 August 2017: World Humanitarian Day

World Humanitarian Day, celebrated each year on 19 August, is a time to recognize those who face danger and adversity in order to help others. The General Assembly designated the day to coincide with the anniversary of the 2003 bombing of the United Nations (UN) headquarters in Baghdad, Iraq, which killed 22 UN staff.

Every day humanitarian aid workers help millions of people around the world, regardless of who they are and where they are. World Humanitarian Day is a global celebration of people helping people.

The UN Secretary-General held the first-ever global humanitarian summit of this scale in Istanbul in May 2016. The goal of this summit was to find new ways to tackle humanitarian needs.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is managing this three-year initiative. The summit set a new agenda for global humanitarian action that focuses on humanitarian effectiveness, reducing vulnerability and managing risk, transformation through innovation, and serving the needs of people in conflict.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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