The International Humanitarian City (IHC), the world’s largest humanitarian hub, is an extension of the Dubai government. Founded in 2003 by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and Ruler of Dubai. “IHC was founded with the mission to provide home to the global humanitarian community with clear objectives to assist humanitarian organizations in providing international assistance during emergencies” said Mr. Giuseppe Saba, the CEO.
IHC, the only non-profit free zone in the UAE, hosts 87 different organisations including some of the world’s largest, such as the World Food Programme (WFP), the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, United Nations as well as NGOs and related commercial companies that work closely with those organizations. “What makes our Freezone so important for humanitarian missions is the fact that Dubai is centrally located, just 4 hours away from the majority of the world’s population that requires the most humanitarian assistance in the Middle East, Africa and South-East Asia” explained Saba.
Following the Abraham Accords, Israeli organizations and companies have expressed interest to join the IHC as they recognised the advantages of the hub and are interested in becoming part of this large humanitarian community. “We welcome our Israeli friends and colleagues to join our humanitarian Freezone so we can both work towards providing a unifying emergency response to the people in need” said the CEO.
During the interview, IHC CEO Guiseppe Saba told Mercury Global Reports Director, Marios Tsokkos:
“We welcome our Israeli friends and colleagues to join our humanitarian Freezone so we can both work towards providing a unifying emergency response to the people in need”
Saba sees the way forward as getting together governments, private sector companies and the humanitarian community to head towards the same direction in order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. “We started mapping the humanitarian hubs worldwide, especially those hosting humanitarian stocks for international emergency response, and we have also created a humanitarian logistics databank. Step by step we want to include all the countries in this databank, so they cooperate together for the best, most efficient and sustainable humanitarian action for emergency situations” he explained.
“The challenges are enormous but if we all work together, we will be able to provide the necessary assistance for the people in need, not only regionally, but globally as well.”