Peter Maurer

I think we are challenged in how we define humanitarian action today and how we relate to long-term needs. We are also confronted with legitimate expectations from the people who want us to respond far more thoroughly to their basic pleas than we would have done in a much more contained form of conflict. ”

We must understand the factors that cause fragility, violence, and conflict in order to develop solutions that will meaningfully reduce instability at its roots rather than merely addressing the symptoms. ”

Fragility, violence, and conflict are complex. Fragility is influenced by a wide set of factors, many of which are deeply entrenched, such as high social and income inequality. The lines between criminal, inter-communal, and politically motivated violence are often blurred. ”

Local businesses and communities must be included from the very start in developing solutions to fragility, violence, and conflict. ”

Businesses operating in fragile or conflict-affected environments bear a responsibility to, at the very minimum, do no harm and avoid fuelling conflict or reinforcing fragility. ”

The fragility created by protracted conflicts, resulting in destroyed cities and dramatically insufficient services, is not something that humanitarian organizations can address comprehensively. Only political solutions can end armed conflicts. ”

Concrete steps are needed to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in military plans, doctrines, and policies. ”

Not only does disability impact individual health and well-being, it also leads to social and economic exclusion. ”

We still have a strong commitment to our original mission, which is to protect and assist people who are suffering from the impact of violence, but the violence has changed its character, format, and pattern so that we are now responding year after year. ”

New technologies are rapidly giving rise to unprecedented methods of warfare. Innovations that yesterday were science fiction could cause catastrophe tomorrow, including nanotechnologies, combat robots, and laser weapons. ”