On November 22nd, the NGO Coordination for Development-Spain (CONGDE) and its working group on Security, with the support of the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation for Development (AECID), organized the seminar “The Duty of care in Spain: Obligations of humanitarian entities and cooperation towards the safety of their personnel on the field”, held at the headquarters of the FIIAPP in Madrid.
The seminar was mainly aimed at managers and NGDO leaders and professionals related to the field of security in organizations, with the aim of promoting the application of the duty of care and security risk management systems between the Humanitarian and cooperation agencies.
María Beamonte, General Director, and Enric Roig, Director of Humanitarian Aid attended on behalf of the FPSC.
In order to improve safe access to victims of conflict, natural disasters, etc., humanitarian and cooperative entities must provide the means for their national and international staff to work in full awareness of the risks and thus be able to manage them and continue carrying out their work safely.
Specifically, the objectives of the seminar were:
• Clarify the concept of duty of care, such as its legal support in Spain, the rights and obligations of both staff and contracting entities; which may be the consequences of not complying with applicable regulations, as well as the way other countries in the European environment approach this principle.
• Review, in addition to the human consequences of security incidents, a number of recent staff cases that have sued their organizations for failing to comply with their duty of care.