World: Mr. Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator – Remarks at the High-Level Meeting on the Declaration for the Protection of Humanitarian Personnel, 23 September 2026

Please refer to the attached file.

As delivered

Thank you, Penny [Wong, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Australia], thank you, friends, thank you, Ayman [Safadi, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Jordan] and colleagues for bringing this group together, and to the Ministerial Group as well for your leadership.

So, you came together a year ago on the lawn outside to make this powerful commitment to protect our colleagues and to protect the law, which is there, meant to be there, to protect us.

And today, it's extraordinary that 130 Members [States] have already signed this Declaration, a powerful show of common purpose, but also a powerful challenge to those who have chosen not yet to sign this declaration.

The test, of course, now is whether what we wrote, what you wrote, becomes genuine protection.

Among us are heroes of the humanitarian movement, and they are here: Moussa [Abba Diallo founder of Malian NGO AMSODE], Christian [Tanyi Eselekwe, founder and CEO of LUKMEF-Cameroon], Mama Noor [Hussein Al Sewaty Mohammed, humanitarian leader, activist and founder of the Shamaa “Candle” Organization in Sudan], Sami [Khader, Director General and co-founder of the MA’AN Development Center in the Occupied Palestinian Territory], to represent the thousands of our colleagues who cannot be here, but who are right now running the risks on behalf of all of us to save lives.

And that group know far better than any of us that the credibility of this Declaration will be decided far from this room.

Their presence is the most eloquent statement possible for why this Declaration matters.

It matters when we are distributing food and water. When we are caring for women and children. When we're on the checkpoints. When we are in the torture chambers. When we are under fire.

So, the test is brutally simple: are humanitarian workers safer tomorrow because of what we in this room commit once again to today.

Can they reach people in need without being attacked, detained, obstructed?

And when they are attacked, will anyone pay the price?

Too often, I'm afraid, the answer has been a resounding no.

More than 1,000 humanitarians killed over three years, many more wounded, kidnapped, detained.

We grieve them. We honor them. And we commit again to this work in their memory.

Far too often, it is Member States who are responsible.

So, a signature, I'm afraid, is not a shield. A declaration is not protection. Concern alone is not consequence.

We need you to build on this leadership, to use your diplomatic, political, economic power to change the behaviour of parties to conflict.

Press them to protect civilians, respect humanitarian law.

Not selectively. Not when it's convenient. And, I'm afraid, not only when the perpetrator is your adversary.

Let's also end the hierarchy of outrage. An attack on our local colleagues is just as much an attack on us as an attack on any international staff member.

So, we need credible investigations, prosecutions, justice for victims and families.

Justice. Those who fire the weapon. Those who provide the weapon. Those who sell the weapon. Those who design the weapon.

Many of them, in countries represented here today.

Over those three years, 1,000 deaths.

How many investigations can we, between us, recall?

How many perpetrators could we name today who were brought to justice?

How many States really felt pain and pressure for what for what they have done?

So, Excellencies,

On behalf of the humanitarians on the front lines, please make this Declaration a living document.

In decisions on who you arm. In how you talk to parties to conflict and those who back them. In the decisions that require political courage at home.

Let us be clear what success looks like: fewer dead humanitarians, attacks investigated and more people, therefore, reached with life-saving support.

There is no delivering aid without defending those who deliver it.

Thank you.