Throughout 2015 consultations have been building towards the World Humanitarian Summit, to be held in 2016. All over the world, and in EU Member States, consultations and debates have taken place between humanitarian NGOs, governments, UN agencies, the Red Cross, affected people, private sector organisations and other civil society actors. VOICE members have been heavily involved in this process. They have taken stock of where the humanitarian sector is at and identified what changes they would prioritise to best respond to the needs of people affected by crisis in the future. At EU level so far this has resulted in the European Commission adopting a policy focussed on ‘a global partnership towards principled and effective humanitarian action’. We have invited our contributors to reflect further on some key advocacy issues for them on the agenda of the World Humanitarian Summit and to give a flavour of some national level debates across Europe to prepare this Summit.