Jan Egeland
Jan Egeland
Jan Egelandis a Norwegian politician, formerly of the Labour party. He has been the Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council since August 2013. He was previously the Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch and the Director of Human Rights Watch Europe. Egeland formerly served as director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and Under-Secretary-General of the UN. Egeland also holds a post as Professor II at the University of Stavanger...
NationalityNorwegian
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth12 September 1957
CountryNorway
I had, in my capacity as a state secretary in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the 1990s, many contacts with the Somaliland authorities.
I have asked NATO, and I will reiterate that appeal: think bold, think big, think creatively.
This year has really been the year of natural disasters, with nature at its worst and humanity at its best.
This will help energize further the struggle to reach the earthquake stricken communities in the Himalayas.
There are issues we disagree on frankly, but we also agree on the importance of the international community to raise its profile in pursuing humanitarian principles.
We must be acutely aware that all that has been built up by the thousands of relief workers and hundreds of millions of dollars in donor contributions could be destroyed, and we could be on the brink of losing this huge humanitarian operation.
The Oslo process was a road to peace,
Too often, aid resembles a lottery, in which a few win, but most lose, based on considerations other than need.
This time, at least, people heard about the earthquake. Many people fled inland.
The good news is that we have very good pledges. The bad news is that we still have too few concrete commitments to the U.N. flash appeal.
The good news is that we have very good pledges, but the bad news for us is that too little is committed to the UN's flash appeal.
We're in a bad year. There have been more international disasters than usual. All the wars are continuing. The Pakistan situation will have an effect elsewhere.
We need to have a sense of urgency here like we had in the tsunami.
We, as internationals, deal with mass natural disasters around the globe a number of times a year, so we have well-tested systems which have now been appreciated by many of these U.S. agencies.