Speakers

Olivier Vandecasteele is an experienced humanitarian leader who recently founded Protect Humanitarians, a global alliance to enhance the safety and care to frontline humanitarian aid workers. For 20 years, Olivier has himself responded to humanitarian crises in challenging contexts: health emergencies in Afghanistan and Mali, essential aid to refugees and migrants in Morocco and Iran. After being Country Director for various NGOs, Olivier was wrongfully detained by Iran for 455 days. Amnesty International and the United Nations recognized he was subjected to enforced disappearance and torture. One year after he regained freedom, Olivier leads Protect Humanitarians, a sector wide initiative which advocates better protection of aid workers, improved mental health support to survivors, and increased litigation to bring perpetrators of attacks against humanitarians to justice.