Statement: Informal briefing on the Humanitarian Landscape and Reset

Statement by H.E. Ms. Anna Johannsdottir
Permanent Representative of Iceland to the United Nations 
Informal briefing on the Humanitarian Landscape and Reset 
Trusteeship Council Chamber 
May 15th, 2025

Mr./Madame Chair

Thank you for convening this briefing on the Humanitarian Landscape and Reset. 

I have the honour to deliver this statement on behalf of the Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and my own country Iceland.

I would like to use this opportunity to thank Mr. Fletcher, not just for his insightful briefing, but for his steadfast leadership amid the extreme and ongoing challenges the global humanitarian system is faced with.

The Nordics welcome the Humanitarian Reset initiative, and we will do our utmost to support a strategic and resource efficient outcome.

To that end, we intend to maintain a high degree of flexibility in our funding to sustain a humanitarian system that is locally-led and internationally protected, delivering in line with the humanitarian principles and international law.

The Nordics would like to highlight a few priorities when it comes to the reset:

First, back to basics must not become a return to the past: achievements made in humanitarian assistance and protection over the past decades must be upheld. This includes integrating and placing protection at the center of the response, focusing on prevention, resilience and sustainable solutions, and prioritizing inclusive and gender-responsive approaches.

Second, prioritizing those most at risk and the most severe needs is of critical importance.

Moreover, to ensure quality of response, key enablers such as data and logistics must be increasingly pooled, new technologies and innovative approaches promoted.

Third, local actors, including women-led organizations, should receive significantly more funding and freedom to make operational decisions. In-country leadership must also be empowered, particularly Humanitarian Coordinators.

Fourth, international organizations’ ability to set and protect universal normative standards must be preserved, including through field presence. In this regard, the defense and promotion of universal standards and legal frameworks related to gender, SRHR, LGBTI+, persons with disabilities and climate, is essential.

Fifth, the reset must result in leaner coordination and possibly fewer UN agencies that are more present in the field at the expense of HQ and regional offices. The reset also needs cross-regional ownership and to encompass a broad a set of actors in the humanitarian sector.

Let us use this opportunity to stand together and constructively support the system’s pivot towards a more effective, inclusive, and people-centered humanitarian system, which is locally-led and internationally protected.

I thank you.