The UN must be empowered to lead humanitarian reform as we head into a more dangerous, disaster-prone future
Valerie Amos
Testimony from Lord Ashdown and others to MPs on the humanitarian response to the Pakistan floods disaster rightly acknowledged that only the United Nations had the credibility and capacity to organise and lead major humanitarian operations on the scale needed in Pakistan.
Where the House of Commons committee erred was in concluding that because not everything happened as it should have in Pakistan, another root-and-branch review of the United Nations' humanitarian leadership was needed.
This proposal may end up weakening consensus around concrete measures for much-needed changes which are already under way, actually delay the implementation of the improvements which the House and the United Nations both want to see and distract attention from a serious problem: that the humanitarian system currently discourages collaboration and collective accountability for successes and failures.
Read the full article in the Guardian.