Human Appeal’s Chief Executive, Othman Moqbel, returns from the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul today, where he delivered a speech on the importance of faith in playing a positive and underestimated role in all facets of preparedness, prevention, mitigation, response, rehabilitation, recovery and reconciliation in both natural and human-made disasters.

Human Appeal’s experience in delivering humanitarian aid to some of the world’s poorest countries places Othman in an ideal position to advise other humanitarian leaders on what works in emergency situations. Othman spoke on the importance of empowering teams and building capacity of humanitarian aid workers in the field.

In addition to Othman’s speech on the UN Humanity Agenda, he also spoke about his experience of working in the field. He called for an easing of restrictions on direct humanitarian access, and spoke of the difficulties of transferring funds to some parts of the world, leading to the erosion the independent and impartial delivery of humanitarian aid.

Othman said: “Faith binds humans together; it is a true motivating force to achieve other shared ends. It was a privilege to submit Human Appeals testimony to world leaders and fellow NGOs at the World Humanitarian Summit. The conclusions of the Summit will enable Humanitarians to work together better to make the world a safer place.”