Global Humanitarian Forum
Encyclopedia
The Global Humanitarian Forum was a non-profit foundation in Geneva
, Switzerland, active from 2007 to 2010. Presided over by former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan
, its secretariat was led by CEO and Director General Walter Fust. The Forum intended to serve as an independent platform for debate and collaboration on global humanitarian issues. Its activities included research projects, advocacy and projects to deal with humanitarian concerns.
The organisation encountered serious financial diffulties due to which the Forum had to dismiss senior staff such as its Director Martin Frick and its Communication Director in March 2010. On 31 March 2010 the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs
announced that the Forum was over-indebted and obliged to cease its activity.
Other Forum projects included:
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
, Switzerland, active from 2007 to 2010. Presided over by former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan
Kofi Annan
Kofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006...
, its secretariat was led by CEO and Director General Walter Fust. The Forum intended to serve as an independent platform for debate and collaboration on global humanitarian issues. Its activities included research projects, advocacy and projects to deal with humanitarian concerns.
The organisation encountered serious financial diffulties due to which the Forum had to dismiss senior staff such as its Director Martin Frick and its Communication Director in March 2010. On 31 March 2010 the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs
Federal Department of Foreign Affairs
The Federal Department of Foreign Affairs is a department of the federal administration of Switzerland. It is charged with maintaining the foreign relations of Switzerland and serves as Switzerland's ministry of foreign affairs...
announced that the Forum was over-indebted and obliged to cease its activity.
Projects
The Forum’s centerpiece event, the Annual Forum, was held each summer in Geneva. It gathered some 400 senior international participants from public, private and non-governmental sectors.Other Forum projects included:
- The ‘tck tck tck’ campaign was created by the Global Humanitarian Forum and strategic communications partner Havas Worldwide/Euro RSCG. ‘tck tck tck’ was subsequently adopted as the unifying symbol for many civil society organizations worldwide, including a coalition of leading NGOs who campaigned for a fair and ambitious global agreement on climate change to be reached at the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference (COP15). The Forum and Havas launched their own ‘tck tck tck Time for Climate JusticeClimate justiceClimate Justice is generally used as a term for viewing climate change as an ethical issue and considering how its causes and effects relate to concepts of justice, particularly social justice and environmental justice. For example examining issues such as equality, human rights and historical...
’ campaign on June 2009 at the 56th Cannes International Advertising Festival. The 'tck tck tck’ symbol communicates a sense of urgency as time ticked down to the start of COP15 as well as the level of urgency for taking serious action to tackle climate change itself. All ‘tck tck tck’ material is open source and its creative use is encouraged.
- The Weather Info for All InitiativeWeather Info for All InitiativeThe Weather Info for All Initiative is a public-private partnership that works to reinforce the capacities and the capabilities of national meteorological services with the goal of supporting local communities worst impacted by climate change through the improvement of weather monitoring...
was a public-private partnership that supported adaptation to climate change worldwide by reinforcing the capacities of National Meteorological Services. The Initiative harnesses the growth of telecommunications services to install automatic weather stations (which report on humidity, temperature and other basic measures) at mobile network sites across the African continent. These locations are ideal as they provide connectivity, power and security. The automatic weather stations help fill the existing ground level weather observation gap and the delivery of accurate weather forecasts and early warnings via mobile short message service (SMS), thus aiming to help those worst affected by, and most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Strategic partners include The Earth Institute at Columbia University, Ericsson, the World Meteorological Organization, Zain and Fairmount Weather Systems, Ltd.
- The Youth Forum was a platform for young people to come together and help solve humanitarian problems.
- The Human Impact Report was a major research project launched in May 2009. The resulting report has been widely criticised upon its publication. The first flagship research publication of the Forum, it was intended to be the first report comprehensively documenting the adverse impacts of climate change on human society. It was reviewed by a panel including climate change experts such as Saleemul HuqSaleemul HuqSaleemul Huq is a Bangladeshi scientist based in London. He is a Senior Fellow in the Climate Change Group at the International Institute for Environment and Development. Huq was awarded the Burtoni Award in 2007 for his work on climate change adaptation....
and Hans Schellnhuber, and development and disaster management experts such as Nitin DesaiNitin DesaiNitin Desai is an Indian economist. He was Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations from 1997 to 2003.-Early life and academic career:...
, Jeffrey SachsJeffrey SachsJeffrey David Sachs is an American economist and Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University. One of the youngest economics professors in the history of Harvard University, Sachs became known for his role as an adviser to Eastern European and developing country governments in the...
and Margareta Wahlström. The report notably includes global estimates of loss of life, economic losses and other impacts linked to climate change, including that over 300,000 people die each year due to climate change - numbers which were subject to debate.
- Energy for the Poor was a project for launching a global study into the energy needs of the 1.6 billion people worldwide who lack access to any modern forms of energy whatsoever, together with The Energy Resources Institute, India (TERI).
- Drylands: Climate Change and Development was a regional initiative to boost adaptation measures in one of the most climate-stressed regions of the planet, together with the Earth Institute at Columbia University New York.
The Foundation Board
The Foundation Board was the supreme governing body of the Forum, composed of senior members from the academic, business, government, international, and civil society fields. Members included:- Kofi AnnanKofi AnnanKofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006...
, President - Ivan Pictet, Vice-President
- Catherine BertiniCatherine BertiniCatherine Bertini is an American public servant. She was the Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Program from 1992 to 2002. Currently, she is a Professor of Public Administration and International Affairs at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs of Syracuse University...
- Lakhdar BrahimiLakhdar BrahimiLakhdar Brahimi is a veteran United Nations envoy and advisor. He retired from his duties at the end of 2005. Brahimi is a member of the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, the first global initiative to focus specifically on the link between exclusion, poverty and law...
- Michel CamdessusMichel CamdessusMichel Camdessus is a French applied economist and administrator who was Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund from 16 January 1987 to 14 February 2000. To date, he is the longest serving Managing Director of the IMF....
- Mary Chinery-Hesse
- Jan EgelandJan EgelandJan Egeland was the United Nations Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator from June 2003 to December 2006. Egeland was appointed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan and succeeded Kenzo Oshima...
- Jacques Forster
- Goh Kee Nguan
- Rita HauserRita HauserRita Eleanor Hauser is an international lawyer known for persuading Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization to renounce violence in 1988. She also served as United States Ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights from 1969 to 1972. George W...
- HRH Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein
- Dean Hirsch
- Alois Hirschmugl
- Hans KüngHans KüngHans Küng is a Swiss Catholic priest, theologian, and prolific author. Since 1995 he has been President of the Foundation for a Global Ethic . Küng is "a Catholic priest in good standing", but the Vatican has rescinded his authority to teach Catholic theology...
- Ricardo LagosRicardo LagosRicardo Froilán Lagos Escobar is a lawyer, economist and social democrat politician, who served as president of Chile from 2000 to 2006. He won the 1999-2000 presidential election by a narrow margin in a runoff over Independent Democrat Union candidate Joaquín Lavín...
- Dante Martinelli
- Rajendra Pachauri
- Mary RobinsonMary RobinsonMary Therese Winifred Robinson served as the seventh, and first female, President of Ireland from 1990 to 1997, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, from 1997 to 2002. She first rose to prominence as an academic, barrister, campaigner and member of the Irish Senate...
- Judith RodinJudith RodinJudith Rodin was the 7th president of the University of Pennsylvania from 1994 to 2004 and the first permanent female president of an Ivy League university. She is currently the president of the Rockefeller Foundation, a position she has held since 2005. A University of Pennsylvania alumna, she...
- Jean-Louis SchiltzJean-Louis SchiltzJean-Louis Schiltz is a Luxembourgian lawyer and retired politician for the Christian Social People's Party ....
- Amartya SenAmartya SenAmartya Sen, CH is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members...
- Barbara StockingBarbara StockingDame Barbara Mary Stocking, Mrs. MacInnes, DBE is Vice Chair of the SCHR and Chief Executive of . She joined the latter in 2001....
- Marianna VardinoyannisMarianna VardinoyannisMarianna Vardinoyannis is an UNESCO advocate and an active personality in both regional and international level that fights for the rights of children and the family, and she is known for her combats against the sexual abuse of children, via the Foundation for the Child and the Family which was...
- James WolfensohnJames WolfensohnSir James David Wolfensohn AO KBE FKC was the ninth president of the World Bank Group.-Early life:James Wolfensohn was born in Sydney, Australia, on 1 December 1933...
- Muhammad YunusMuhammad YunusMuhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi economist and founder of the Grameen Bank, an institution that provides microcredit to help its clients establish creditworthiness and financial self-sufficiency. In 2006 Yunus and Grameen received the Nobel Peace Prize...