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
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.
there are many thousands, potentially tens of thousands, up there in the mountains that are wounded we haven't gotten to.
We still are not reaching all below the snow line.
We're doing too little combined as an international community because it's too vast. We have 140,000 tents now in the area. Normally, that is more than enough for even large-scale emergencies. This is probably only one-fourth of what is needed.
This would mean the saving of hundreds of thousands and millions of livelihoods.
If it continues to be so dangerous to do humanitarian work, we may not be able to sustain our operations for 2.5 million people,
We are humanitarian workers, we are apolitical, impartial. We hope to be successful in our dialogue (with Pyongyang) so we can have a phased end to the program.
We are humanitarians, we don't know how to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people in the Himalayas. But the most efficient military alliance in the world should be able to.
We did well in the emergency phase, ... But the reconstruction went slower than we had hoped.
Finally, I also come in recognition of the great work that has been undertaken by the NGOs and UN agencies that have been active for many years here, especially through the local staff and international staff here in Somaliland and in Somalia at large.
I have been working, as emergency relief coordinator, on an international scale, very hard to build a wider alliance of partners in assistance efforts.
I think now Somalia is turning a corner and we can, with the new political development, build on momentum - really build a peaceful future.
In the Horn of Africa now, there are tens of thousands dying from the extreme vulnerability they are living in.