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We inspire bold solutions to humanitarian challenges.

The Global Humanitarian Forum, based in Geneva, is committed to increasing the flow of innovative ideas to the world of humanitarian assistance.

We are a group of professionals from more than a dozen countries that works every day to raise awareness, develop ideas and take action where we can do some good.

We are led by President and former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan; CEO Walter Fust, former director general of the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation; and a Foundation Board of 25 distinguished leaders on humanitarian issues. Our donors and sponsors come from both public and private sectors.

Mission
Results to date
Focus

Our mission is to connect people, from society’s leaders to those at the grassroots level, and inspire them to work together to overcome humanitarian challenges. We work by raising awareness, facilitating discussion and initiating exemplary programmes.

Can the world meet the enormous humanitarian challenges of today and tomorrow? We are confident the potential exists. The world has the technology, expertise, networks and other resources, and people have the will.

In the end it is individuals and their organizations that drive local, regional and global agendas. The particular role of the Global Humanitarian Forum is to raise the level of talk and action from individual effort, as valuable as that is, to collective thought and action, which is so much more powerful.

We are not satisfied with talking a good game. We want to be judged by our actions.

• The Weather Info for All initiative is already making ground-level climate data more available to African governments and, eventually, communities so they can get better control of their agricultural and health planning

• The Time for Climate Justice campaign has inspired millions of people to wake up to the dangers of climate change and its impact on people

• The Annual Forum every year in Geneva in June has produced some bold projects, and we expect the record to continue

• The Forum’s Youth Forum now has hundreds of young people eager to develop and implement their ideas on dealing with climate change as a major humanitarian issue

There is a wide range of issues we could take up. In our Annual Forum we have touched on a few, from food security and innovative financing to civilian-military cooperation in humanitarian work. We have chosen to keep our focus narrow until now: The human impact of climate change. The focus will broaden in the not-distant future.

However, we believe climate change and its effects on people is one of the most underestimated challenges facing the world, and we will continue to monitor this issue even as we begin embracing others.

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