Peter Maurer Quotes

We're creating an attitude that disaster relief is an entitlement program like Medicare of Social Security ....

As conflicts last longer, as the scale of needs increase, we are having to adapt. There is an increasing blurring between immediate humanitarian assistance and long-term development needs.

Governments of rich countries spend some $6bn of tax money a year on disaster relief and development aid overseas, while each new earthquake, famine or tidal wave can attract 1,000 aid organisations, from the United Nations Children's Fund and Oxfam to the 'Jesus Brigades' of the American south and other charitable adventurers.

Humanitarian issues must bring together all people who act in good faith trying to alleviate the suffering of people in dire need - especially women, children and the elderly.

C-17s should be ready to go at various military bases around the world packed with water, food, medical supplies, sleeping bags and tents, all prepared to be air dropped in alongside soldiers and doctors to begin relief efforts.

I am grateful to President George W. Bush for PEPFAR, which is saving the lives of millions of people in poor countries and to both Presidents Bush for the work we've done together after the South Asia tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the Haitian earthquake.

The humanitarian aid system is built on a concept that when disaster strikes, outside agencies provide a temporary helping hand until people can take back control of their own lives. But across the world, we see millions of people caught in semi-permanent crises. As each year goes by, they are less and less likely to break free.

Well-spent aid money is saving lives for a few thousand dollars per life saved.

Access to humanitarian assistance and information are all the more important during the Covid-19 pandemic.

When we know where the hungry, the homeless and the sick exist, then we can help.

Who takes care of their people better? FEMA or Hezbollah?

We need to be able to demonstrate that what we do in today's world, in humanitarian aid, the enormous effort to minimize the tragic situations that we see all over the world, I think, without the U.N., people would suffer much more, and the situation would be much more terrible.

By pouring money and goods into devastated regions, foreign aid workers sometimes compound the disruption and debauch the survivors.

Our goals and what we hope to achieve by moving to food assistance is even in supporting the crisis needs of the most vulnerable people, we provide them with the capacity to be more resilient to the next shock.

The goal of my work is to help assure that we can create a world of abundance in which we meet the basic needs of every man, woman and child.

The true measure of success for the U.N. is not how much we promise, but how much we deliver for those who need us most.

Too often, as a global community of humanitarians, we meet the needs of the same families, the same individuals, the same communities crisis after crisis, when we are focused on meeting crisis needs but not on building resilience.

When countries commit to protecting vulnerable lives, they should receive support from those who can provide it in order to make their programs a success.

His unit is in charge of 5,000 homes, and they've only been able to search about 2 percent of them. People are standing on roofs or sticking their hands out of air vents so they can get rescued.

Famine has wreaked havoc in Ethiopia for so long, it would be stupid not to be sensitive to the risk of such things occurring. But there has not been a famine on our watch - emergencies, but no famines.

The first law of disaster relief could well read: every political decision has humanitarian consequences, and every humanitarian program has political implications.

The outpouring of support from millions of people in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti has been impressive.

What I've said from the beginning is that I am going to try to help all the vulnerable populations in Afghanistan - and to a certain extent, that's the majority of Afghanistan.

I think we are challenged in how we define humanitarian action today and how we relate to long-term needs. We are also confronted with legitimate expectations from the people who want us to respond far more thoroughly to their basic pleas than we would have done in a much more contained form of conflict.

During my time in Pakistan, I was asked to lead an expedition to Azad Kashmir following a devastating earthquake in 2005 that claimed the lives of 80,000 people.