RIYADH: The donor group supporting the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) held its fifth meeting of experts in Geneva, Switzerland, chaired by the Kingdom.
“The donor group supporting the OCHA held the fifth meeting at the expert level. The meeting was chaired by Dr. Aqeel bin Juman Al-Ghamdi, the head of the group and the representative of the Kingdom to the group, who is also the assistant supervisor general of the King Salman Humanitarian and Relief Center,” KSrelief said in a statement to Arab News on Friday.
The agenda of the meeting included reforming the humanitarian program cycle, including a strategic plan, the initiative of the humanitarian affairs coordinator and the intersectoral humanitarian analysis framework.
The meeting also discussed the field visit carried out by the group to South Sudan in March this year.
The topics are included in the Kingdom’s presidency plan for the group.
Donor countries made several interventions during the meeting to highlight the importance of applying reforms to the humanitarian program cycle, and to encourage the OCHA to make the necessary arrangements for carrying out the reform process with the participation of all actors in the humanitarian field and local groups targeted for aid.
The group members highlighted the importance of supporting the OCHA in implementing its 2023-2026 strategic plan.
The group’s meeting at the expert level will continue on Saturday with the participation of representatives of donor countries and senior officials of the OCHA, who will resume the discussion of the raised issues and share the outcomes of the first day’s meeting with the office.
The discussion will be presented by the head of the group and the representative of the Kingdom, Al-Ghamdi, who will give the representatives of the OCHA the opportunity to present their points of view and respond to the inquiries of donor group member states.
In February this year, the donor group supporting the OCHA held a meeting in Riyadh chaired by Al-Ghamdi.
The agenda of the meeting included a discussion on proactive work in the humanitarian field, the visit by donor members to South Sudan in March and a presentation on Yemen by the OCHA.
Al-Ghamdi had said that many stakeholders in the international arena agree on the importance of proactive humanitarian action, emphasizing the great opportunities to protect lives and livelihoods, as well as reduce human suffering and losses.
He added that the development of the humanitarian approach among donors has taken a positive upward trend in recent years. More than 75 governments and 60 humanitarian relief agencies are working to mitigate the expected impact of humanitarian crises.
