Attachments
The World Humanitarian Summit’s regional consultation for West and Central Africa was held in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire on 19-20 June 2014. It was co-chaired by the Governments of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Côte d’Ivoire, representing the Regional Steering Group.
In the spirit of the summit process’ multi-stakeholder approach, the consultation brought together over 200 participants from 24 countries. This included representation from regional organisations, national and local governments, non-governmental organizations, affected communities, local and international civil society, the private sector, academia, the media, and United Nations organizations.
The consultation was organized around the four themes of the Summit: accountability, innovation, reducing risk and vulnerability and addressing the needs of people in conflict.
Participants worked in groups to discuss the diverse humanitarian needs in the region and to come up with recommendations on how best to meet the humanitarian challenges of the future. The discussions covered issues such as how to address the gap between early warning and response, in particular for the region’s recurrent, seasonal shocks; the rising humanitarian risks in urban areas and how to better support municipalities and civil society to address them; how to put into practice accountability to affected people above all; and how to conduct effective, principled humanitarian action in the region’s conflict situations.
This summary highlights some of the emerging recommendations. A full consultation report, which the Regional Steering Group will publish in the coming weeks, will capture the complete array of recommendations and common observations. The co-chairs encourage regional actors to quickly turn a number of the recommendations into specific action and programmes.