2009 Humanitarian Action Summit

The Humanitarian Action Summit (HAS), hosted by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative with partners from dartmouth Medical School, has emerged as a forum that allows strategic level humanitarian actors to work with counterparts from Ios at every level, along with funding agencies and donors, to address some of the key challenges facing the humanitarian health environment.

The 2009 Summit was organized around six major themes in the humanitarian environment:

• Human Resources Development: Defining the profession of humanitarian response
• Civilian Protection in Conflict: Implementing human rights principles on the frontlines
• Information Communication & Data Management: Advancing evidence-based practice
• Collaboration & Collective Action: Facilitating inter-agency dialogue for increased effectiveness
• Mental Health in Crisis & Conflict: Developing minimum standards for emergency mental health services
• Global Burden of Surgical Disease: Improving surgical epidemiology in war and disaster