Overview
Humanitarian assistance must be provided following the basic humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, and neutrality, as stated in General Assembly Resolution 46/182. Also, the UN seeks to provide humanitarian assistance with full respect for the sovereignty of states.
Assistance
Assistance may be divided into three categories—direct assistance, indirect assistance, and infrastructure support—which have diminishing degrees of contact with the affected population. Humanity faces decreasing ecosystem quality and an increased risk of tipping the biosphere into a state where it would be difficult or impossible to maintain. The human civilization's continued population growth adds to the challenge. Also, humanity faces social sustainability challenges.
Trust
There are indications of decreasing levels of trust in many societies, aside from being a severe social problem in itself, which also implies a low potential to cohesively address ecological challenges. There are also increasing financial challenges related to the unsustainable nature of the ecological and social systems. All three types of capital—ecological, social, and financial—are essential to a sustainable society and to the transition toward such a society.
Transitioning to a sustainable society is a complex endeavor, requiring, e.g., extensive coordinated collaboration across disciplines and sectors. How can humanity hope to succeed? To achieve societal changes at a scale and rate that can be maintained for sustainability, we believe it is necessary to establish a thorough understanding, not least among leaders, of the character, magnitude, and urgency of the sustainability challenge, as well as the self-benefit of competent proactivity for sustainability. We also believe that concrete methodological support for such proactivity is needed.