Aidex 2024 | Duty of Care Pavilion

GISF is excited to be participating in this year’s AidEx, the world’s leading humanitarian aid and disaster relief event, from 23 to 24 October in Geneva, Switzerland.

One of the largest events of its kind, AidEx brings together thousands of participants from UN agencies, Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, local and international NGOs, donors, foundations, governments, and the private sector.

GISF will be participating in several sessions. These are part of the Duty of Care Pavilion and Conference, hosted by our affiliate International Location Safety (ILS). The Pavilion provides a dedicated space for security managers, HR leaders, and operational staff to discuss challenges, solutions, and the future of integrated duty of care obligations. It aims to support staff working in challenging environments by addressing topics such as safety, security, safeguarding, wellbeing, cyber risk, and travel.

GISF will be participating in the following sessions:

• Has it ever been this dangerous to be an aid worker? (23 October) – With GISF’s Executive Director, Jon Novakovic. 
  2023 presented many challenges for the aid and development sector with multiple concurrent humanitarian crises demanding a response. Looking back at the year, what did we learn about our ability to deliver effective responses safely and sustainably?

• Lessons from “Protect Aid Workers”: Providing Rapid Support to Aid Workers at Risk (23 October)- With GISF’s Head of Global Membership and NGO Services, Heather Hughes.
  Protect Aid Workers is a new initiative that supports humanitarian workers of national and international NGOs across the Middle East that have experienced a critical incident. The session will examine some prominent lessons and present preliminary learnings from the project.

• Policy in Action: Security Risk Management as a Strategic Enabler for Humanitarian Organisations (24 October)- With GISF’s  Research and Programmes Manager, Dimitri Kotsiras
  This session will unpack key learnings from an upcoming Strategy and Policy resource developed by GISF in collaboration with ILS offering organisations practical pathways to integrate security risk management (SRM) seamlessly into their strategic planning processes and goals. This session will examine key approaches and tools that can be leveraged to impact and support broader organisational strategies, policies and functions.

You can find more information about the Duty of Care Pavillion and Conference here, including the full line-up of sessions.

Visitors to AidEx will be able to find GISF at our dedicated stand (F13/a). There we will be engaging with attendees to discuss the latest challenges and solutions for humanitarian security risk management. We will also be sharing copies of our specialist publications, including our upcoming guide on Security Risk Management Strategy and Policy Development. And, we will have plenty of GISF branded merchandise available for visitors too!

We encourage you to register for AidEx, visit our stand, and attend as many Duty of Care conference sessions as you can!