Peter Maurer Quotes
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It has always been clear that any use of nuclear weapons would have catastrophic humanitarian consequences.
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Trust into leadership evaporates with communities when they see that their problems are not adequately addressed, neither at the national level nor at the international arena.
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Short-termism is no longer an option. We have to envisage humanitarian action with a medium- and long-term perspective.
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We need to understand that the Geneva Conventions are not just some historical documents born of another time, created for another purpose.
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We must understand the factors that cause fragility, violence, and conflict in order to develop solutions that will meaningfully reduce instability at its roots rather than merely addressing the symptoms.
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The ICRC did not see Nazi Germany for what it was. Instead, the organization maintained the illusion that the Third Reich was a 'regular partner,' a state that occasionally violates laws, not unlike any army during World War II, occasionally using illegal means and methods of warfare.
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We demonize our enemies at our own peril.
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Where you are born, your parent's beliefs, or your ethnic background should not make you a target.
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Local businesses and communities must be included from the very start in developing solutions to fragility, violence, and conflict.
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The sad fact is that horrendous human conflict is nothing new.
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While the nature of warfare is changing and wars are moving into cities, they are also becoming longer and their consequences more impactful.
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The discourse of sovereignty is a relative one when a crisis has become a global crisis.
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We cannot guarantee that a humanitarian catastrophe of the extent of the Holocaust will not happen again. On the contrary, we witness a catalogue of atrocities every day in wars across the globe.
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Until the last nuclear weapon is eliminated, more must also be done to reduce the risk of a detonation. Nuclear-armed states should reduce the number of warheads on high alert and be clearer about the actions they are taking to prevent accidents.
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The whole essence of humanitarian work and the Geneva Convention is that neutral, impartial organisations can operate during war.
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We see a transformation of warfare from the big armies and battlefields in open spaces to a fragmentation of armed groups and smaller armies, which move into city centres, which increasingly become the theatre of warfare.
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Even in war, everyone deserves to be treated humanely.
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Each day that passes without kids being able to go to school is an enormous burden on the future.
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The relatively unpredictable flow of funds to humanitarian organizations, and the bureaucratic strings often attached to them, can have a highly negative impact on an organization's ability to plan and execute programmes effectively. We need to be able to rely on predictable income flows to plan sustainable programmes.
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If private-sector capital can be harnessed for social good, the potential to scale humanitarian solutions is vast.
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Conflicts are increasingly causing devastation in densely populated urban centres rather than open battlefields, creating a host of new problems through the cumulative impact from the destruction of vital services like water and electricity.
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Economic activity can help repair war-torn societies, but if it's not conducted responsibly, it can also create or prolong violence. Companies and international organisations must help strengthen communities and overcome the trauma of violence.
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Although the ICRC and the World Economic Forum have separate missions, they both are centred on collaboration across sectors and between various actors in order to improve the state of the world.
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Can you really send back people to where they are fleeing from?