2nd LD Writethru: World humanitarian summit opens with calls for improving response to crisis

The first world humanitarian summit opened here Monday with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urging governments, aid groups, the private sector and other stakeholders to act to improve the global humanitarian system.

In his opening remarks to the two-day summit, Ban called on the participants to make concrete commitments in five areas -- conflict prevention and resolution, strengthening the protection of civilians, leaving no one behind, ending humanitarian need and ensuring funding for humanitarian actions.

He put a particular emphasis on the issue of displaced populations, calling on the world to significantly reduce the number of the displaced in the years to come.

"I urge you to commit to halving the number of internally displaced people by 2030, and to find better long-term solutions for refugees and displaced people based on more equal sharing of responsibilities," he said. "We are here to shape a different future."

Also addressing the opening ceremony, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cited the heavy burden on Turkey in tackling the Syrian refugee crisis and stressed the need to revamp the global humanitarian system.

"The current system fails to meet the demands in the face of emergency problems and fails to develop solutions. Only certain countries take the responsibility," he said. "From now on everyone should share the burden."

"We have to adopt a new system that would put the human beings at the center," he said.

Turkey's aid to refugees has already exceeded 10 billion U.S. dollars, while the international community's support stopped at 455 million dollars, Erdogan said, adding that he hoped "the summit will be a turning point."

Also on Monday, dozens of people protested outside the venue of the summit and 12 of them were detained by police, according to local media reports.

The summit consists of plenary sessions, roundtable discussions, side events, and an exhibition featuring the humanitarian theme.

At the end of the gathering, a chair's summary will be issued to reflect its outcomes, and some time later a report containing commitments to action will be submitted to the UN General Assembly for follow-up.

Attending the summit are some 5,200 participants, including 65 heads of state and government and representatives from crises-affected communities, NGOs, the private sector and UN agencies, according to figures released by the United Nations.

Of the 192 UN member states, 177 are represented at the summit.

The event, which was proposed by Ban Ki-moon in January 2012, is a culmination of a four-year-long preparatory process, including an extensive global consultation with 23,000 stakeholders in 153 countries to identify the key humanitarian challenges facing the world.

The main topic for the summit is the Agenda for Humanity formulated by Ban, which focuses on five core commitments -- preventing and ending conflicts, respecting the rules of war, reaching out to the vulnerable, complementing humanitarian actions with development efforts, and ensuring sufficient funding for humanitarian responses.

Speaking to reporters on Sunday in Istanbul, Stephen O'Brien, UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, described the summit as "a once in a generation opportunity to set in motion an ambitious and far-reaching agenda to change the way that we alleviate, and most importantly prevent, the suffering of the world's most vulnerable people."

The United Nations estimates that more than 130 million people are currently in need of assistance and protection across the world. Due to an increase of conflicts in the past two decades and various natural disasters taking place in the period, the need for humanitarian funding is unprecedented, with UN-led appeals having grown six-fold from 3.4 billion dollars in 2003 to nearly 21 billion dollars at present. Endit