Turkey and India as Global Development and Humanitarian Actors

Executive Summary

In recent years, particularly over the past decade, new humanitarian actors have emerged on the international stage, bringing fresh momentum to a field that had long been dominated by traditional organisations. At the same time, the transition from the Millennium Development Goals to the Sustainable Development Goals within the United Nations system in 2015 highlighted the growing need for stronger international responses to the increasing number of human-made and natural humanitarian crises.

Against this backdrop, the conference "Turkey and India as Global Development and Humanitarian Actors" was held on 8 October 2015 in New Delhi under the auspices of the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences at South Asian University, the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA), and the Istanbul Policy Center. The event formed part of a series of workshops organised within the framework of the Project on Turkey's International Humanitarian NGOs and Peacebuilding.

The conference aimed to examine the roles of Turkey and India as emerging actors in global development and humanitarian assistance. Through two panel sessions, participants discussed the development and humanitarian approaches adopted by both countries while also exploring case studies on their engagement with Africa and Turkey's response to the Syrian crisis.

This report provides a summary of the key discussions and highlights presented during the conference.