The Summit, now in its third year, was developed to address some major points of need and controversy in the humanitarian field, to establish a dialogue among practitioners and humanitarian strategists, and to promote discussion about complex and controversial issues that face the humanitarian community. What follows in this publication is a detailed review of the goals, deliberations, and recommendations of the Working Groups, concluding with an analysis of future needs. The authors hope that the Summit, and the resulting action items, serve as a launching point for organizational, governmental, and United Nations practices and policies to advance the professionalism, quality and accountability of humanitarian intervention.

Humanitarian responses to conflict and disasters due to natural hazards usually operate in contexts of resource scarcity and unmet demands for healthcare workers. Task shifting is one avenue for delivering needed health care in resource poor settings, and on-the-ground reports indicate that task shifting may be applicable in humanitarian contexts. However, a variety of obstacles currently restrict the ability to employ task shifting in these situations, including issues of regulation, accreditation, funding, and a lack of commonly agreed-upon core competencies for different categories of humanitarian health workers. The Human Resources in Humanitarian Health (HRHH) Working Group during the 2009 Humanitarian Action Summit evaluated the potential strengths and weaknesses of task shifting in humanitarian relief efforts, and proposed a range of strategies to constructively integrate task shifting into humanitarian response.

It is common for students and professionals considering a career in humanitarian health to have questions regarding the scope and nature of humanitarian work as well as the avenues by which one can enter the field. Because the profession is emerging and complex, answers to these questions may be difficult to find. This paper addresses several frequently asked questions of prospective humanitarian health professionals with information, experience and advice from current experts in the field. Special thanks to the distinguished contributors.

The concept of protecting civilians in armed conflict is enshrined in international humanitarian law and widely acknowledged in humanitarian norms. Making this concept operational in humanitarian service delivery is a challenge. Yet, there are many ways in which humanitarian workers could learn from local people about underlying tensions in their community and with these new insights adjust service delivery accordingly.

The 2009 WG developed a qualitative verbal tool that could be used by humanitarian field staff to assist them in understanding issues of civilian protection from the local perspective. The attributes and uses of this tool are described in detail in this WG report. The fundamental aim of this tool is to enhance the capacity of humanitarian workers in their daily work to observe markers of activity and behavior and to inquire and listen from local people about what these markers might or might not mean. The WG emphasized the needs for confidentiality, focus on service delivery (not legal or advocacy work), and iterative routine integration of information gained into field team deliberations. The proposed tool is offered as a possible pilot step towards improving humanitarian understanding and response to local civilian protection needs.

Information and communication technologies, especially in the forms of mobile telecommunications, satellite imaging, and geographical information systems, promise to significantly improve the practice of humanitarian relief. A working group convened at the Humanitarian Action Summit 2009, has begun investigating the challenges to implementing these technologies in field operations, keeping in mind the ethical considerations of linking people to place, and pledging to build a community of practice among academics, practitioners, and developers.

The World Health Organization estimates that the burden of surgical disease due to war, self-inflicted injuries, and road traffic incidents will rise dramatically by 2020. During the 2009 Harvard Humanitarian Initiative's Humanitarian Action Summit (HHI/HAS), members of the Burden of Surgical Disease Working Group met to review the state of surgical epidemiology, the unmet global surgical need, and the role international organizations play in filling the surgical gap during humanitarian crises, conflict, and war. An outline of the group's findings and recommendations is provided.

The Humanitarian Action Summit is unique in that it focuses solely on chronic, unsolved problems facing the humanitarian community. As an academically-based format, it provides an environment whereby health professionals, non-governmental organizations, donors, academic institutions, governmental agencies, advocates, and the media address and identify potential deliverables and products to improve best practices, field implementation, and policy promotion and acceleration. The Humanitarian Action Summit was preceded by year-long, online Working Groups that addressed human resource development, civilian protection in conflict, information communication and data management, collaboration and collective action in the health sector, mental health in crises and conflict, and the global burden of surgical disease. The Humanitarian Action Summit also addressed new and emerging humanitarian crises such as climate change, the influence of the military on humanitarian aid, and urbanization. This article focuses primarily on an inherent weakness of the humanitarian community—that of promoting humanitarian action into policy. The goal and process of developing a partnership relationship with a policy level institution to address this problem is described in detail.