This year's global theme carries a pointed message: the time for concern is over; the time for consequence is now. It is a fitting one. The world is grappling simultaneously with escalating natural disasters and mass displacement, and the two crises are increasingly inseparable. Floods, droughts, storms and earthquakes are uprooting communities at a scale that outpaces the world's capacity and often it will respond.

A world in acute need

The scale of the crisis is stark. Humanitarian needs have surged this year, with tens of millions more people requiring assistance and protection than when the year began, even as funding to meet those needs has fallen dramatically short, leaving only around a quarter of what is required delivered. At the same time, humanitarian workers themselves have faced an unprecedented toll, with hundreds killed in the past year alone while trying to reach the people they serve.

Behind every figure is children, women, persons with disabilities, older persons displaced by rising water, a community rebuilding after a storm, migrant separated from home and unsure of their rights in a new one. Natural disasters do not distribute their harm evenly, the poorest, women, children, persons with disabilities, older persons and most marginalised communities are consistently hit hardest and recover slowest. As displacement grows, so too does the risk that the human rights of the displaced are treated as negotiable. South Africa too is not immune to the global phenomenon. It’s almost three months since marches against illegal migration, and many migrants continue to be displaced across the country. The Commission has been at the forefront of averting a humanitarian crisis by ensuring that the rule of law is always exercised.

Why the Paris Principles matter today

On a day devoted to humanitarian action, SAHRC believes it is essential to also remind ourselves of the Paris Principles the international standards, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1993, that define what it means for a national human rights institution to be genuinely independent, pluralistic, adequately resourced, and equipped with a broad enough mandate to hold power to account.

These principles are not abstract. They are the scaffolding that allows SAHRC, human rights institutions to:

• monitor how governments and agencies treat disaster-affected and displaced populations, without fear or favour;
• ensure that emergency powers invoked during disasters do not become a pretext for rights violations;
• advocate for the rights of children, women, persons with disabilities, migrants, refugees, and displaced people to safety, shelter, documentation, and non-discrimination; and
• hold institutions accountable when the humanitarian response itself falls short of the dignity it is meant to protect.

A humanitarian system without independent, rights-based oversight is a humanitarian system without accountability. As disasters intensify and migration grows, the Paris Principles are not a bureaucratic formality they are a frontline safeguard.

On this World Humanitarian Day, SAHRC calls on:

• governments to uphold their obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law, to ensure disaster response and migration management are conducted with full respect for human dignity, and to protect humanitarian workers and civilians alike;
• international partners and donors to close the humanitarian funding gap and ensure that assistance reaches communities based on need, not visibility;
• national institutions to reaffirm their independence and mandate under the Paris Principles, and to use them actively in monitoring disaster and displacement responses; and
• the public to stay informed, to support credible humanitarian and human rights organisations, and to demand accountability from those with the power to act.

It is time to ask us all of us what we are doing to turn concern into consequence, and principle into practice.

"World Humanitarian Day cannot be a day of words alone. As disasters displace more people and migration reshapes communities across the world, the Paris Principles remind us that human rights protection must be independent, resourced, and unafraid to hold power to account. It is time to act accordingly."

ENDS

ISSUED BY THE SOUTH AFRICAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION