A farewell message after three decades at the ICRC

As I near the end of my four-year term as Director-General of the ICRC – the culmination of an almost 30-year career in the organisation – I would like to take the opportunity to reflect on this last part of the journey, its ups and downs, and briefly on what I hope comes next.

I started in my current role in 2020 just as the COVID pandemic was unfolding, causing global disruption on an alarming scale. For more than two long years, this profoundly affected everyone, everywhere, but especially those living in the midst of armed conflict or violence, for whom it was one more deadly threat among many others. Thanks to the remarkable efforts of our ICRC staff around the world – all of whom faced their own personal and professional challenges in the face of the pandemic – we managed to maintain operational and business continuity through unprecedented challenges.

But just as the pandemic started to ease its grip somewhat, in 2022, other crises came thick and fast. A massive cyber-attack targeted the data and personal information of more than half a million people receiving services from the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. A full-blown international armed conflict erupted between Russia and Ukraine, with devastating humanitarian consequences, and still has no end in sight. Ongoing complex and compounded humanitarian crises elsewhere fell even further below the international radar – in places like Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Yemen and many more. In 2023, there were dramatic upsurges in the armed conflicts in Sudan, Nagorno Karabakh and Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which saw the deadliest chapter in its history and where the repercussions will be felt for generations.

All the while, a toxic mix of food and fuel crises, soaring inflation and economic pressures, not to mention the accelerating impact of climate change, continued to make life difficult for many millions of people around the world.

This perfect storm of rising humanitarian needs globally, increasing operational constraints and shrinking aid budgets resulted in a financial crisis affecting the whole humanitarian sector. For the ICRC, this necessitated difficult reductions to all programmes and major operations, and a very painful cost to staff, with a total of more than 4,000 colleagues impacted by position cuts between early 2023 and early 2024. Yet a robust two-year financial response plan, led by the Directorate and comprising savings and fundraising components, helped to ensure that the ICRC was equipped to reinforce its value proposition in relation to the consequences of armed conflict and other situations of violence, with a clear focus on protection outcomes and our mandate and role under international humanitarian law (IHL).

Despite the myriad constraints – including an alarming surge in misinformation, disinformation, hate speech and fierce power competition – the ICRC kept a spotlight firmly on many of the world’s most neglected and most underfunded humanitarian crises, demonstrating the vital importance of a neutral and impartial approach. A few examples of notable achievements included visiting hundreds of prisoners of war on both sides of the Russia-Ukraine international armed conflict (while persistently pushing for access to all of them); continuing our operations in Ethiopia during the conflict in Tigray, providing vital support to healthcare facilities; transporting nearly 1,000 detainees from all sides of the Yemen conflict back home; in Sudan, facilitating the evacuation of hundreds of orphans and their carers to a safe location; delivering desperately needed aid and carrying out medical evacuations in Nagorno Karabakh; and successfully concluding several healthcare interventions in Haiti. In Israel and Gaza, where the conflict entered a catastrophic new chapter in October 2023, the ICRC resolutely pushed for respect of IHL by all parties and humanitarian access to all sides, in the face of unprecedented challenges on all levels.

For the ICRC, a neutral, impartial and independent humanitarian approach has always meant addressing actual needs, wherever they may be found – needs which, inevitably, evolve as armed conflicts drag on, the nature of warfare and the actors change, and the impact is exacerbated by other trends (such as climate change, urbanisation and AI-generated mis/disinformation, to name but a few). To this end, the ICRC made important progress in a number of key areas, adapting to the changing humanitarian landscape and ensuring the relevance and effectiveness of our approach for conflict-affected people and communities.

For example, with the convergence of climate change and conflict, one outcome of our efforts to steer and galvanise humanitarian action was the 2021 Climate and Environment Charter for humanitarian organisations (developed with the IFRC and others), committing all signatories to focus on limiting people’s exposure by reducing risks and strengthening their resilience to shocks, while reducing our own carbon footprint. Another achievement was the Climate and Environment Transition Fund in 2022 – a key enabler to implement our own commitments under the Charter. We also worked to mobilise those best placed to ensure that climate action and finance reaches communities affected by conflict – including national and local authorities, international financial institutions (such as the World Bank) and the private sector. One example was the Goma West Water Project, bringing together humanitarian and development funding with private sector participation and investment. Another was the Declaration on climate, relief recovery and peace, adopted at COP28, which the ICRC was instrumental in making happen. This sent an unequivocal signal that it is possible to address climate risks in conflict settings through collective action.?

Another pressing challenge and priority has been “embracing the digital transformation” – a key pillar of our current and previous Institutional Strategies, cutting across every aspect of our organisation. Through our strategic techplomacy efforts we have engaged with States, the private sector (including tech companies), civil society organisations, academic and policy centres and many more with the aim of creating trust and contributing to addressing protection and other humanitarian challenges in the digital space, while enhancing our own capacity to operate safely. Just a few examples of recent collaborative and innovative initiatives include the promotion of a digital emblem; the opening of a delegation to cyber space, based in Luxembourg; and advanced research on how to exercise full control over our data and data protection by design.

Clearly, collaboration and developing and strengthening partnerships, in every area and at every level, has been vitally important and a top priority – all with a view to achieving relevant, effective and sustainable humanitarian impact. Movement relations in general were given a boost by the Movement Coordination for Collective Impact Agreement/Seville 2.0 in 2022, and other initiatives such as work on a draft resolution on protection in the Movement, to be adopted at the 2024 Council of Delegates. But it would be disingenuous to pretend that significant challenges don’t remain – and they need to be overcome to leverage the full potential of our Movement.

Internally, considerable progress was made on a number of key institutional priorities – helping to ensure that the ICRC remains future-fit in an extraordinarily turbulent global environment. One was our wide-ranging work on diversity and inclusion in our workforce (including our strategy and framework – resulting in measurable progress in representation by gender, nationality and contract type; our Vision 2030 on disability and follow-up on our all-staff surveys). This went hand-in-hand with our work on institutional values (with our Values Compass). Another priority was our transformative work on institutionalizing ethics, risk management and compliance across the organisation. Yet another was the transformation of the Central Tracing Agency and implementation of the new model in ongoing crises – which soon showed its value as the international armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine unfolded.

In terms of our humanitarian diplomacy efforts, just as with our prevention work, it is often hard to see and measure the outcomes, which require patience and persistence, and may accrue quietly over time. But there were some notable successes. To give just two examples, one was the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in 2022. Another was the humanitarian exception in the UN sanctions regime applicable in Afghanistan, adopted by the Security Council in late 2021, critical concessions at a time when sanctions and freezing of aid had brought the country to the verge of total collapse. One year later, UNSC resolution 2664 provided a standing humanitarian exemption to the asset freeze measures imposed by UN sanctions regimes more broadly. And late last year, the European Union introduced a humanitarian exemption across 12 of its autonomous sanctions regimes, following concerted diplomatic and advocacy efforts by the ICRC at all levels.

On a personal note, the highlights of my many years at the ICRC are too many to list – although I can honestly say that the same motivation, pride and passion I felt joining the organisation as a young engineer in 1997, with a first mission in Rwanda, remain with me today. While I have seen terrible suffering in conflict zones around the world – from Afghanistan to Mali, Ukraine, Yemen and many more – I have always found reasons for hope and inspiration too. I have seen real dignity and determination among people who want to be self-sufficient, to rebuild their homes and livelihoods, and to live in peace – reconfirming the importance of supporting them on pathways to self-reliance.

I have always been greatly inspired too by the dedication of ICRC and Movement colleagues working in the most difficult environments, with professionalism, determination, a prevailing sense of humanity and even humour.

One big regret is that, despite our relentless crisis resolution efforts, we have still not been able to ascertain the whereabouts or fate of our dear colleagues who were abducted – one in Somalia in 2018 and three in Syria in 2013. The search for answers will continue for as long as it takes, as our thoughts remain always with our colleagues and their loved ones.

Looking ahead, if I had three wishes for the future of the ICRC and humanitarian action broadly, they would be the following. One, that we collectively unlock the full potential of partnerships across the sector and beyond for greater humanitarian impact. Two, that the values and ethics that define us, internally and externally, are demonstrated in everything we do and in how we treat each other. And three, short of conflict resolution – which of course remains the ultimate wish – that States and donors continue to give strong and consistent support to IHL and principled humanitarian action. For the ICRC, this means being able to continue influencing key stakeholders and remaining the ultimate safety net for people affected by conflict no matter where the battleground – on land or at sea, in the air, in outer space or in cyber space. It means truly standing the test of time, even after 160 years and into the future.