Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Weeks

Session title: Optimizing Resources and Collaborative Strategies in Field Security for Humanitarian Impact: 2023 Lessons Learned

Organizer(s): UNHCR

6 May 24 09:00-10:30 UTC+2 (Pleniere B)

SessionAbstract

The number of new and ongoing humanitarian and security crises during 2023 continued to stretch the resources of the global humanitarian community. In particular, levels of conflict and instability have put great demands on organisations’ limited safety, security and access capabilities.

This session will be a discussion on how organisations managed competing security priorities during 2023, and how existing resources can be better utilised, opportunities for inter-agency cooperation, and going forward how to optimize resources and collaboration to ensure that humanitarian services can safely and sustainably reach those in need.

Speakers

UNICEF Principal Security Coordinator, Paul Farrell

Paul Farrell (Canada) is a strategic security risk-management expert with 40 years of military and security experience, 26 at the international level in the United Nations. Paul is presently the Principal Security Coordinator/Director of Global Security for UNICEF. He has served in multiple roles in UN Security, including as the Director of Policy and Compliance in the UN Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS), Principal Security Adviser for the UN in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chief of the Peacekeeping Operations Support Section in UNDSS, Regional Security Adviser for UNICEF in West and Central Africa, and Security Coordinator for the Witness and Victim Support Section in the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Paul was the key architect of the “risk-based” approach to security in the UN and is the foremost expert in the UN on Security Risk Management (SRM). Paul is presently the Chair of the UN Inter-Agency Security Management Network (IASMN) working group on SRM. He has extensive crisis-management experience, including with hostage incident management. Paul holds a Bachelor of Education (BEd) from McGill University and Master of Science (MSc) in Security Risk Management from the University of Leicester.

UNDSS Deputy Director, Division of Field Operations, Florence Poussin

Oxfam Global Head of Security, Neil Elliot

UNHCR Senior Field Security Officer, Guibril Camara

Guibril Camara is a UNHCR Senior Field Security Officer with over a decade-long experience in the UN system and more than two decades in the Senegalese military. Currently based at UNHCR HQ’s Field Security Service (or FSS) within the Division for Emergency, Security and Supply (DESS), Guibril has served in the same capacity as a Senior Field Security Officer in the field in Chad and Mali and as a roving Field Safety Adviser at FSS in Switzerland. In this latter role, he provided support, training or deployed in Africa (Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, DRC, Mali, Uganda), Europe (Greece, Turkey), and the Middle East (Iraq). Before UNHCR, Guibril served as a Military Expert for a UNOHCHR human rights profiling project and, years earlier, as a Military Advisor of the MONUSCO Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the Rule of Law (DSRSG/RoL) in DRC. His academic and professional qualifications include aviation, computer science, military art and science, geopolitics and international relations, business administration, security management and organizational resilience.

UN Women Deputy Regional Security Specialist, Zina Abdin