There is never a humanitarian solution for a humanitarian crisis. The solutions for the humanitarian crisis are always political ones.
Antonio GuterresRead
The humanitarian aid system is built on a concept that when disaster strikes, outside agencies provide a temporary helping hand until people can take back control of their own lives. But across the world, we see millions of people caught in semi-permanent crises. As each year goes by, they are less and less likely to break free.
Interpretation
Disaster relief is meant to be temporary, but many people remain in crisis for extended periods.
Antonio Guterres emphasizes that the humanitarian aid system is designed to offer temporary assistance during disasters, enabling individuals to regain control over their lives. However, he highlights a concerning trend where millions find themselves trapped in prolonged crises, making recovery increasingly unattainable as time progresses.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about the importance of sustainable humanitarian efforts.
There is never a humanitarian solution for a humanitarian crisis. The solutions for the humanitarian crisis are always political ones.
As a global society, we have the technology, resources and the know-how to make a massive difference to living standards everywhere, including for refugees.
The world's problems transcend borders.
Humanitarian response, sustainable development, and sustaining peace are three sides of the same triangle.
The fact that societies are becoming increasingly multi-ethnic, multicultural, and multi-religious is good. Diversity is a strength, not a weakness.
Syria has become the great tragedy of this century - a disgraceful humanitarian calamity with suffering and displacement unparalleled in recent history.
So long as freedom from hunger is only half achieved, so long as two thirds of the nations have food deficits, no citizen, no nation can afford to be satisfied. We have the ability, as members of the human race, we have the means, we have the capacity to eliminate hunger from the face of the earth in our lifetime. We only need the will.
It's very fashionable to talk about human trafficking, in this fantastic A-C hall. It's very nice for discussion, discourse, making films and everything. But it is not nice to bring them to our homes. It's not nice to give them employment in our factories, our companies. It's not nice for our children to study with their children. There it ends. That's my biggest challenge.
My first big mission for UNICEF in Ethiopia was just to attract attention, before it was too late, to conditions which threatened the whole country. My role was to inform the world, to make sure that the people of Ethiopia were not forgotten.
The war against hunger is truly mankind's war of liberation.
I want to bring clean water to people who do not have it. What I'm trying to do now is think of ways to build a well-drilling machine that is low-cost so people in rural areas can afford it.
My most important projects have been the building and maintaining of schools and medical clinics for my dear friends in the Himalaya and helping restore their beautiful monasteries, too.
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