World Humanitarian Day is commemorated every year on 19 August to pay tribute to humanitarian workers killed and injured in the course of their work, and to honour all aid and health workers who continue, despite the odds, to provide life-saving support and protection to people most in need.
World Humanitarian Day is also marked as the day to remember and honour Special Representative of the secretary-general to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and 21 aid workers who were killed in a bombing of the UN Headquarters in Baghdad, Iraq, on August 19, 2003. It was after this tragedy that the UNGA designated August 19 as World Humanitarian Day in 2009.
Every year, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs sets a theme to raise awareness to a cause or crisis that needs the world’s attention. This year’s theme is focused on the severe climate crisis that has gripped several countries across the world.
The climate emergency is wreaking havoc across the world at a scale that people on the front lines and in the humanitarian community cannot manage. Time is already running out for the world’s most vulnerable people — those who have contributed least to the global climate emergency yet are hit the hardest — and millions of others that are already losing their homes, their livelihoods, and their lives.
With most climate campaigns focused on slowing climate change and securing the planet’s future, World Humanitarian Day 2021, will highlight the immediate consequences of the climate emergency for the world’s most vulnerable people and ensure that their voices are heard, and their needs top the agenda at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in November.
