World Humanitarian Summit aims to tackle crisis

ISTANBUL — An ambitious summit to revamp humanitarian aid and global responses to modern-day crises opened on Monday in Turkey with lofty goals and financial targets overshadowed by concerns that key participants are violating refugee rights and humanitarian law.

The first World Humanitarian Summit was convened in Istanbul in a bid to better tackle what the United Nations has described as the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II.

The two-day gathering was conceived four years ago by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. In preparation, 23,000 people were consulted in over 150 countries, according to U.N. officials.

"We are here to shape a different future," said Ban at the opening of the summit. "Let us resolve ourselves here and now not only to keep people alive but to give people a chance at life in dignity."

An estimated 125 million people worldwide require humanitarian assistance, among them 60 million people displaced from their homes.

Ban urged those gathered to commit to reducing the number of people displaced from their homes by half by 2030.

The guiding principles of the summit include conflict prevention and resolution, strengthening the protection of civilians, and reducing humanitarian funding shortfalls.

"Very often pledges are being made but the money doesn't get where it is most needed," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in her opening remarks.

She also called for a renewed global consensus regarding humanitarian principles, saying it is a "disaster" that leaders "need to talk about international humanitarian law being adhered to" in the face of schools and hospitals being bombed in Syria.

In Syria, at least 5,000 schools can no longer be used because they are destroyed, damaged or shelter displaced families, according to UNICEF. Hundreds of schools have also closed as a result of crises in Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon.

UNICEF and partner organizations announced at the summit they are hoping to raise $4 billion to give access to learning to 13.6 million children within five years. "Even in the direst circumstances, children want an education," UNICEF's Deputy Executive Director, Justin Forsyth, told AP.

Another focal point of the conference was rendering financial aid more efficient, mobilizing more funds to those in greatest need, and closing the $15 billion funding gap — three goals laid out under another UN-backed initiative dubbed the "Grand Bargain".

"We are a world that is capable to produce $73 trillion GDP," said Kristalina Georgieva, European Commissioner for the Budget and Human Resources. "We surely can find this missing $15 billion for the most noble of purposes of humanity."

Humanitarian aid needs have risen from $2 billion in 2000 to $28 billion dollars in 2015. Georgieva said that $1 billion could be saved on an annual basis if overhead costs in humanitarian aid were reduced by 4 percent.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed hope that the summit will prove a "turning point" and encouraged more countries to share the burden of emergency response. Turkey is home to more than 3 million refugees, making it the world's largest host of refugees, but it has come under growing criticism from rights groups.

The summit and its host are under sharp scrutiny at a time when the migrant crisis dominates the global agenda and an EU-Turkey deal to address the problem faces growing controversy and the Syrian conflict grinds on.

Doctors Without Borders pulled out of the event weeks ago saying it had "become a fig-leaf of good intentions" at a time when "shocking violations of international humanitarian law and refugee rights" are left unchecked.

Amnesty International Secretary General Salil Shetty said Monday the world is witnessing the "complete collapse of humanitarian law" and criticized the EU for "looking the other way when it comes to rights violations in Turkey itself" and "abdicating its responsibilities" toward refugees.

Shetty pointed out that the 12 Syrians who were returned from Greece to Turkey in line with the EU-Turkey deal have been held in a detention center without access to a lawyer. He also stressed that Turkey, which lacks an asylum system and is either turning back or detaining new arrivals, cannot be considered a safe country.

While the first day of the summit put emphasis on addressing the root causes of conflict and doing more to uphold international humanitarian law, the leaders of the United States and Russia, who are trying to broker a solution to the Syrian conflict, were notably absent.