“Collaboration is not an option, it is a necessity. Only by working together can we further our ability to alleviate suffering, and help to restore a measure of hope and humanity to a world sorely in need of both.” – Sir John Holmes, Under-Secretary General for UNOCHA at the 2008 DIHAD: Dubai International Humanitarian Aid & Development Conference & Exhibition.

At this moment in history, non profits and for profit organisations are finding ways to partner, as never before, in combating global issues. Global Hand is all about the‘matching’of such interests and therefore found it ideal to exhibit in the April 2008 DIHAD Conference & Exhibition. This is the fourth year that Global Hand has attended the event and recounts, with gratitude, the generosity of the organisers in making a booth available on a pro bono basis. It is an ideal venue for networking with business, NGO’s and IGO’s.

At this year’s event, much of the focus was on effective partnership building in development work and disaster preparedness, and on strengthening corporate engagement with the NGO sector. The Global Hand team sought to demonstrate the website’s potential for business to NGO connectivity&networking to the attending delegates. Tom Williams, from our UK office, said that those attending “saw that, across the spectrum of the site’s functions, there was a raft of useful harnessed information previously unavailable to them.” As Dubai becomes an increasingly important player in the field of development work throughout the Middle East and beyond, Global Hand is committed to furthering connectivity for business & NGO’s in the region.

“…Humanitarian crises of the future will require wider partnerships and expanded forms of collaboration…Public sector-corporate engagement is a case in point.” – DIHAD Conclusions 2008 "