I am pleased to convey best wishes to Interaction’s network of more than 180 organizations working at the forefront of sustainable development and humanitarian response.

Your efforts are crucial at a time of multiple crises and in a year in which we are hoping to take ambitious steps towards a world of dignity for all.

The months ahead bring once-in-a-generation opportunities for common progress.  In July in Addis Ababa, the international community will agree on a comprehensive financing framework for the future development agenda.  In September at UN Headquarters in New York, world leaders will adopt a transformational post-2015 development agenda, including a set of Sustainable Development Goals.  In December in Paris, we anticipate the adoption of a meaningful and universal agreement on climate change.  And at the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul next May, we can to set an ambitious, forward-looking agenda for humanitarian action.  I will look to Interaction to continue mobilizing and building momentum around these events and especially for the crucial job of implementation.

The links among poverty, environmental degradation, chronic vulnerability and state fragility remain painfully clear.  The UN Refugee Agency has just reported that at least 59.5 million people have fled their homes -- the highest level of displacement since the Second World War.  The United Nations and its partners are aiming to reach 78.9 million of the world’s most vulnerable people with life-saving humanitarian assistance -- nearly double the number of just ten years ago.  More than eighty per cent of humanitarian work is now in protracted situations, where humanitarian organizations are being asked to stay longer and do more. Humanitarian donors have been generous, but the gap between needs and the funds available to meet them continues to grow, as do imbalances between funding for different crises.

The international community needs to do more to promote resilience, invest in prevention, address the roots of extremism and persecution, and to protect women and girls from gender-based violence and sexual exploitation.  Development and humanitarian communities need to work together to build stronger bridges between early recovery and longer-term development.  Tapping all funding sources will be critical for the new sustainable development agenda and for climate action.

Interaction continues to be a dynamic partner of the United Nations.  The world will continue to need your advocacy, expertise and ingenuity to ensure a safer, more sustainable, prosperous and equitable future.  In that spirit of common cause, please accept my best wishes for a successful forum