“Listen to what refugees are telling us” was the simple advice that Volker Türk, Assistant High Commissioner for Protection at the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), gave to an IPI meeting on November 2nd on Addressing Contemporary Protection Challenges in Complex Crises.He spoke at a time when displacement has reached critical dimensions, with 68.5 million […]
Read more
The implementing of United Nations counterterrorism (CT) measures can end up impeding principled humanitarian action and the provision of essential and life-saving medical care in armed conflict, and on October 17, IPI held a policy forum to discuss this dilemma and how to disentangle it.Central to the conversation was a newly launched IPI report, Safeguarding […]
Read more
Philippe Lazzarini, the United Nations Deputy Special Coordinator, Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon, was recalling how Jan Eliasson, the former UN Deputy Secretary-General, described the country to him before he first went there on assignment 30 years ago.“It’s like a man hanging on the twelfth floor of a building, having a neighborhood looking […]
Read more
In the past decade, counterterrorism measures have had an increasingly adverse impact on the provision of medical care and the conduct of principled humanitarian action in armed conflict settings. Whether inadvertently or not, they have impeded, and at times prevented, the provision of essential and lifesaving aid, often in violation of international humanitarian law (IHL).This […]
Read more
Meeting the needs of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)—people who have been forced from their homes but are still within their national borders—is essential to the successful fulfillment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), participants at an IPI July 17th high-level event said.“For many, many IDPs, once they enter displacement, and it’s multiple displacement; […]
Read more
The international community has developed a wide array of policies, frameworks, and structures to help respond to health needs in conflict-affected settings, but the international health response still faces gaps and challenges. On June 7th and 8th, 2018, IPI and the Global Health Centre of the Graduate Institute took up this subject in a retreat […]
Read more
Counterterrorism measures are developed to ensure individual and collective security in response to terrorist attacks, but there is growing evidence that counterterrorism measures can infringe upon the protection of civilians by inhibiting the provision of assistance and protection. This tension was the subject of an IPI policy forum on May 23rd, entitled, “The Protection of […]
Read more
A May 18th IPI policy forum co-sponsored by Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF), explored concrete ways to reinforce the emergency response capacity of the humanitarian sector in complex, acute crises and to ensure that humanitarian actors adequately act in both emergencies and more protracted crises.Moderator and IPI Vice President Adam Lupel referenced research from […]
Read more
While humanitarian action was traditionally designed to be a short-term emergency response, this is increasingly perceived as inaccurate and even undesirable. Humanitarian actors have acknowledged a responsibility to work toward bridging the “humanitarian-development divide” and not to overlook the nexus between addressing and reducing humanitarian needs and building the foundations for sustaining peace.This issue brief […]
Read more
Shahidul Haque, the Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh, told an IPI audience on February 15th that his government was committed to accommodating the 1.1 million Rohingya people who had fled Myanmar and crossed into Bangladesh but that the overwhelming numbers of the refugees and the speed with which they were arriving had presented Bangladesh with “formidable […]
Read moreThe situation represents a “perfect storm” characterized by weak health systems; proximity to borders with Uganda and Rwanda; a dense and mobile population…
The confrontation between Ukraine and Russia serves as a warning signal that conflict in and around Ukraine has the potential to…
United Nations
Vienna Office Freyung 3
1010 Vienna, Austria
Phone: +43-1-533-8881
Middle East Regional Office
51-52 Harbour House,
Bahrain Financial Harbour
Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain
Phone: +973-1721-1344
The International Peace Institute is an independent, international not-for-profit think tank with a staff representing more than 20 nationalities, located in New York across from United Nations headquarters. IPI is dedicated to promoting the prevention and resolution of conflicts between and within states by strengthening international peace and security institutions. To achieve its purpose, IPI employs a mix of policy research, convening, publishing and outreach.
The Global Observatory provides timely analysis on trends and issues related to global security.
777 United Nations Plaza, New York
