Not Beyond Our Reach: Overwhelming Challenges to Humanitarian Access – A photo exhibition by the EU Delegation to the United Nations in Geneva and the Norwegian Refugee Council in the margins of the 2022 Humanitarian Networks and Partnership Weeks

Today, 31 million people are in acute need of food assistance in Central and West Africa. Among the people in need, many are also trapped in hard-to-reach areas and unable to receive any form of assistance. We do not see them, hear about them, or know the horrors they experience.

The EU Delegation and the NRC co-organised the photo exhibition “Not Beyond Our Reach" in the margins of the 2022 Humanitarian Networks and Partnership Weeks. The initiative seeks to raise awareness on access challenges in Central and West Africa’s worst humanitarian crises.

 

The EU Delegation and the Norwegian Refugee Council co-organised the photo exhibition “Not Beyond Our Reach: Overcoming challenges to humanitarian access in conflict zones in Central and West Africa” in the margins of the 2022 Humanitarian Networks and Partnership Weeks. The initiative seeks to raise awareness on access challenges in Central and West Africa’s worst humanitarian crises.

At the official opening on Tuesday 10 May, Ambassador Thomas Wagner reaffirmed the EU’s commitment to humanitarian action in all crisis contexts and to keeping forgotten crises high on the agenda, despite the current strong focus on Ukraine.

”The EU is continuing to deliver, on old and new crises, on crises in the spotlight and forgotten ones. We as EU want to ensure that principled humanitarian aid continues to be delivered to all people in need, ensuring their plight is not forgotten, and working actively with partners to ensure access”, affirmed Ambassador Wagner. 

 

"Not Beyond Our Reach" photo exhibition - EU Ambassador Thomas Wagner opening remarks

Cecilia Roselli, Director of NRC Geneva, outlined the escalation of humanitarian access challenges in the areas highlighted by the exhibition (Nigeria, DR Congo, Central African Republic, Cameroon, and Central Sahel) and appealed to participants not to forget these crises. NRC publishes an annual report on the most neglected displacement crises; this year, all of them are on the African continent.

Tom Peyre-Costa, photographer and NRC Regional Media Advisor for Central and West Africa, shared personal insights into his journeys in hard-to-reach areas.

 

Background

Violent conflict in Central and West Africa has reached record highs, and so have humanitarian needs.

Today, 31 million people are in acute need of food assistance across the region. Among the people in need, many are also trapped in hard-to-reach areas and unable to receive any form of assistance. We do not see them, hear about them, or know the horrors they experience.

Despite the soaring needs, there has been a steep escalation in the deliberate, wilful obstruction of access to aid in Central and West Africa. The obstruction of humanitarian access takes many forms, resulting in a shrinking humanitarian space. From bureaucratic delays to horrific attacks on civilians and aid workers. In some areas, access denial has shifted from being an unintended consequence of conflict to a weapon used to advance political agendas or military gain.

Safeguarding humanitarian access is essential to protecting the rights, dignity, and safety of civilians affected by conflict. The increasing inability to deliver aid to the people who need it, especially in areas where essential services are lacking, exacerbates their vulnerability and makes them double victims. First, they are hit by a disaster or conflict, and then they are denied their basic right to receive vital assistance. 

Through this curated exhibition of its strongest pictures and stories published in the international media, the European Union and the Norwegian Refugee Council seek to raise awareness, provoke conversation and discuss concrete solutions to overcome access challenges in West and Central Africa’s worst humanitarian crises.

 

"Not Beyond Our Reach" - overview of the photo exhibition

EU humanitarian actions

As the world’s leading humanitarian donor, the European Union remains at the forefront of intervening in crises that are not sufficiently in the spotlight. For a number of years now, the EU has devoted at least 15% of its humanitarian funding to so-called ‘forgotten’ crises, a status the EU monitors through evidence-based tools such as the INFORM indexes, the Europe Media Monitor Tool, and inputs from field experts.

The 2021-22 assessment of forgotten crises includes 16 crises, from the internal armed conflict in Colombia to the clashes in Mindanao, as well as several crises in Africa such as Cameroon, CAR, DR Congo, Burundi, South Sudan, Sahrawi refugee crisis, Somalia, or Madagascar, which are not receiving the political and financial attention they deserve.

Beyond funding, we are engaging in advocacy and in drawing international and media attention to these crises. The focus on forgotten crises is an important demonstration of EU solidarity and an important part of its global commitment and responsibility to supporting people in need, wherever they are. “We must do all in our power to ensure access to all affected people in these crises as a secondary constraint” pointed out EU Ambassador Thomas Wagner at the opening of the photo exhibition.

The EU’s humanitarian efforts in Ukraine do not come at the expense of other crises.  To the contrary, in the humanitarian pledging events that have taken place in April and May 2022, the European Union and its Member States have committed more, rather than less, funding than last year. This has been the case for the pledging conferences for Yemen and Afghanistan, as well as the events on Sahel and on the drought in the Horn of Africa that the EU co-hosted in Geneva.