Explore every episode of the podcast The New Humanitarian

"We came mainly seeking safety, seeking to live a decent life. But then we found another war"

Our First Person narratives dig into the humanity of humanitarian challenges. This episode tells a story of the 15,000 Sudanese people living in Egypt's Masaken Osman area. When the war broke out in April 2023, these tower blocks on the dusty outskirts of Cairo became home to a group of refugees. Meet them as they gather to discuss their current challenges and collective efforts to overcome them.

The New Humanitarian aims to amplify the voices of refugees, asylum seekers, and people affected by conflict and disaster – placing them at the centre of the conversations about the policies and events that shape their lives. Find more first-person stories at TheNewHumanitarian.org.

Our First Person narratives dig into the humanity of humanitarian challenges.

In this episode, Zeina Shahla, a reporting fellow with The New Humanitarian based in Damascus expresses what it is like to live in the shadow of war. With everyone in Syria living on edge since the political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated last month in Tehran, Shahla worries if a regional war is going to break out. 

The New Humanitarian aims to amplify the voices of refugees, asylum seekers, and people affected by conflict and disaster – placing them at the centre of the conversations about the policies and events that shape their lives. Find more first-person stories at TheNewHumanitarian.org.

Viewed from Western aid capitals, the international humanitarian system is overwhelmingly secular. But for much of the rest of the world, people's lived realities are very different. As Amjad Mohamed Saleem, a development and peacebuilding entrepreneur tells host Obi Anyadike, being a person of faith in the aid industry is a "dynamic struggle".

What's Unsaid is a bi-weekly podcast by The New Humanitarian, where we explore open secrets and uncomfortable conversations around the world's conflicts and disasters. 

One and a half million people have been uprooted by the conflict between the M23 rebel group and the national army in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Many are now living with host families, little-heralded frontline responders who play a central role in relief efforts across the region. Nicholas Bahati Ndoolé, a humanitarian worker based in the city of Goma, is one such host. In this First Person essay, he shares the many challenges his family faces, and explains why he feels he must shelter his relatives. 

The continuing conflict in the DRC is featured in The New Humanitarian's annual list of ten crises that demand your attention now, which highlights places in the world where needs are rising, aid budgets have been cut or are insufficient, and where people feel forgotten by the international community. Over the coming months, our First Person series will feature aid workers and people affected by the crises on this year's list.

*As Martin Griffiths serves his last month at the helm of OCHA, take another listen to this episode from January 26, 2022 on his vision for the future of humanitarian aid, and his hopes for a non-British successor.

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In the final episode of Season 2 of the Rethinking Humanitarianism podcast, host Heba Aly sits down with UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths to discuss his priorities in the role, how he intends to address unequal power dynamics in the aid sector, the increasing influence of donors, and why humanitarians should push back against an ever-expanding scope of activity.

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Got a question or feedback? Email podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org or have your say on Twitter using the hashtag #RethinkingHumanitarianism.

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SHOW NOTES

• Griffiths steps down as relief chief
• UN aid chief seeks more focused and inclusive humanitarian efforts
• The next UN humanitarian chief should be picked on merit

India's incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been accused of hate speech against Muslims during the election campaign. But Harsh Mander, a writer and peace worker, tells host Ali Latifi that Muslims are being mistreated and discriminated against at all levels of civil and political society. With results looming, he warns that Modi's India is starting to head in the direction of Nazi Germany. 

What's Unsaid is a bi-weekly podcast by The New Humanitarian, where we explore open secrets and uncomfortable conversations around the world's conflicts and disasters. 

After 25 years as an international humanitarian worker, Susana Raffalli returned to Venezuela only to find herself at the centre of a humanitarian, political, and economic crisis in her own backyard. She describes the devastating impact that 10 years of crisis has had on Venezuelans and argues that the Latin American country has been largely neglected by the international aid sector.

The ongoing turmoil in Venezuela is featured in The New Humanitarian's annual list of ten crises that demand your attention now, which highlights places in the world where needs are rising, aid budgets have been cut or are insufficient, and where people feel forgotten by the international community. Over the coming months, our First Person series will feature aid workers and people affected by the crises on this year's list.

Humanitarian organisations often push an image of refugees as passive victims in need of help. But refugees themselves say they have voices and need to be listened to. Refugee advocate Jean Marie Ishimwe tells host Obi Anyadike why it's time for the refugee-led organisation, or RLO, 'revolution'.

What's Unsaid is a bi-weekly podcast by The New Humanitarian, where we explore open secrets and uncomfortable conversations around the world's conflicts and disasters.

*This episode was originally published on December 14, 2022. 

The call for reparations, which has long reverberated in former colonies, is now gaining momentum in the aid and philanthropy sectors, too.

It's a call that rejects the idea of aid as charitable giving, and instead reframes it as justice for the ravages of colonialism and imperialism.

But like similar conversations in the United States around slavery, the idea of international reparations for colonialism is a political hot potato. This, despite the many precedents for reparations programmes, including German reparations paid to Holocaust survivors.

Can international reparations be a way forward towards a more equitable world order, or are they too politically charged to succeed, perhaps even counter-productive?

To discuss these thorny questions, Rethinking Humanitarianism host Heba Aly is joined by Uzo Iweala, CEO of the Africa Center; Thomas Craemer, associate professor of public policy at University of Connecticut; and Kizito Byenkya, director of campaigns for the Open Society Foundations. 

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If you've got thoughts on this episode, write to us or send us a voice note at podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org. 

SHOW NOTES

• Loss and damage: Views from the ground at COP27
• Will countries hit by climate change finally get payouts at COP27?
• Why climate justice requires reparations
• Reparations as Philanthropy: Radically Rethinking 'Giving' in Africa | Le Monde
• Imperial Reckoning, The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya
• The New Reparations Math | UConn Magazine

A visit to Inzargai refugee registration centre in Afghanistan's Kandahar province prompts host Ali Latifi to explore how governments around the world are weaponising anti-refugee and anti-immigrant rhetoric. Economic and security "frustrations are absolutely real", Professor Muhammad Zaman, director of the Center on Forced Displacement at Boston University, tells him. "The outsider is an easy and convenient way to let some of that steam out, without really solving the problems."

What's Unsaid is a bi-weekly podcast by The New Humanitarian, where we explore open secrets and uncomfortable conversations around the world's conflicts and disasters. 

Today's First Person story comes from Moussa Kondo, executive director of the Sahel Institute. Moussa recounts how drastically life has changed for everyday people in Mali, where years of conflict, climate change, and political isolation have left more than 7 million people in need of humanitarian assistance.

The worsening political instability in the Sahel is featured in The New Humanitarian's annual list of ten crises that demand your attention now, which highlights places in the world where needs are rising, aid budgets have been cut or are insufficient, and where people feel forgotten by the international community. Over the coming months, our First Person series will feature aid workers and people affected by the crises on this year's list.

Young girls and women are leading the way in driving systemic change, and supporting their communities, but a new report, titled "We need to know the humanitarian sector stands with us", shows the extent to which they're being overlooked and underfunded – and makes a plea directly to the sector to change this. The report's co-author Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah tells host Obi Anyadike that "a real revolution" is required.

What's Unsaid is a bi-weekly podcast by The New Humanitarian, where we explore open secrets and uncomfortable conversations around the world's conflicts and disasters. 

Our First Person narratives dig into the humanity of humanitarian challenges.

In this episode, Ali Latifi, The New Humanitarian's Asia Editor and co-host of the What's Unsaid podcast, marks the anniversary of the creation of the Taliban's Islamic Emirate in his home country, Afghanistan. 

Three years on, the country is still in the throes of a humanitarian crisis, with 23.7 million people in need of assistance. Latifi says: "We're in a situation full of paradoxes". He paints a picture of how traders, TikTokers, and the Taliban co-exist, while noting: "In the Islamic Emirate, everything seems fine – until it's not".

The New Humanitarian aims to amplify the voices of refugees, asylum seekers, and people affected by conflict and disaster – placing them at the centre of the conversations about the policies and events that shape their lives. Find more first-person stories at TheNewHumanitarian.org.

*This episode originally aired in October 2023, and includes new interviews recorded days before the first anniversary of the war in Sudan. Hajooj Kuka, external communications officer for the Khartoum State Emergency Response Rooms, updates host Melissa Fundira on how mutual aid groups are scrambling to avert a famine, how badly needed funding continues to be bogged down by bureaucracy, and why he believes Sudan's emergency response rooms should inspire a change in how humanitarian aid is delivered worldwide. We also get an update from Francesco Bonanome, humanitarian affairs officer with OCHA Sudan, on the international community's latest efforts to support mutual aid groups in Sudan.

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It has been six months since a military conflict in Sudan began claiming thousands of lives and triggered, according to the UN, the world's fastest growing displacement crisis.

As international NGOs and the UN struggle to access certain areas, decentralised mutual aid networks – known as emergency response rooms (ERRs) – have stepped in to fill the vacuum. 

In acknowledgement of this reality,  donors, international NGOs and UN agencies are trying to shift their programmes to support these local volunteer-led networks, but deep-seated bureaucracy – standing in stark contrast to mutual aid groups' nimbleness and agility – has meant that only a fraction of the millions of dollars promised to them have been received by ERR volunteers.

Co-hosts Heba Aly and Melissa Fundira speak to two guests about unprecedented levels of collaboration between ERRs and the international humanitarian system, how they are trying to overcome the challenges, and how mutual aid groups are spurring a broader shift of power within Sudanese society.  

Guests: Hajooj Kuka, external communications officer for the Khartoum State Emergency Response Rooms;  Francesco Bonanome, humanitarian affairs officer with the UN's emergency aid coordination body, OCHA, in Sudan, focal person for the ERRs

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Got a question or feedback? Email podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org or have your say on Twitter using the hashtag #RethinkingHumanitarianism.

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SHOW NOTES

• How mutual aid networks are powering Sudan's humanitarian response
• Khartoum State ERR
• Mutual aid in Sudan: the future of aid? | Humanitarian Practice Network
• From an assistance model to a community-based aid
• EXCLUSIVE: Sudanese aid workers face hundreds of job losses
• Sudan Humanitarian Fund Dashboard 2023

Israel has continued to choose violence, despite a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, an independent journalist of Palestinian descent, tells host Ali Latifi that "this is not just a humanitarian crisis. It's a global moral crisis."

What's Unsaid is a bi-weekly podcast by The New Humanitarian, where we explore open secrets and uncomfortable conversations around the world's conflicts and disasters. 

Today's First Person story comes from Fatma Jaffar, a Yemeni humanitarian worker and the policy and advocacy lead for Oxfam Yemen. Fatma describes the dire humanitarian situation in her country and how Yemenis have kept each other alive throughout nine years of war.

The ongoing conflict in Yemen is featured in The New Humanitarian's annual list of ten crises that demand your attention now, which highlights places in the world where needs are rising, aid budgets are cut or insufficient, and where people feel forgotten by the international community. Over the coming months, our First Person series will feature aid workers and people affected by the crises on this year's list.

On the nine-year anniversary of the war in Yemen, The New Humanitarian also launched The Yemen Listening Project, which highlights stories from more than 100 Yemenis answering one question: "How has the war impacted your life?

The New Humanitarian aims to amplify the voices of refugees, asylum seekers, and people affected by conflict and disaster - placing them at the centre of the conversations about the policies and events that shape their lives. Find more first-person stories at TheNewHumanitarian.org

As Yemen's war continues, a new project by The New Humanitarian shares personal testimonies that show how the devastating conflict has changed life for millions, while the rest of the world wasn't paying attention. And how important it is that we keep listening. 

Nuha al-Junaid, project coordinator for the The Yemen Listening Project, tells her own story of war and migration with guest host and Middle East Editor, Annie Slemrod. 

What's Unsaid is a bi-weekly podcast by The New Humanitarian where we explore open secrets and uncomfortable conversations around the world's conflicts and disasters. 

For nearly 40 episodes, Rethinking Humanitarianism has been hosted by Heba Aly. But this time around, Aly joins the podcast as a guest.

Since 2007, Aly has worked with The New Humanitarian, and IRIN News before, in many different roles. It's a journey she started as an intern, and recently finished as the CEO.

In this season finale, Aly joins host Melissa Fundira to reflect on her career and the evolution of humanitarian journalism, how the humanitarian sector has (or hasn't) changed, and which episode is inspiring her next move. She also fields questions from colleagues and podcast guests. 

Guest: Heba Aly, former CEO of The New Humanitarian
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Got a question or feedback? Email podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org or have your say on Twitter using the hashtag #RethinkingHumanitarianism.
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SHOW NOTES

• CEO Heba Aly to step down from The New Humanitarian
• The New Humanitarian welcomes new CEO Ebele Okobi

SOME OF HEBA'S FAVOURITE RETHINKING HUMANITARIANISM EPISODES

• COVID-19 and BLM: A new era for aid?
• An interview with the UN's humanitarian chief
• 'Give us the money': Aid as reparations
• What science fiction teaches us about imagining a better world
• Is 'decolonised aid' an oxymoron?
• What could an alternative to the UN look like?

A project to turn Kenya's refugee camps - some of the largest in the world - into self-reliant communities where refugees can live, work, and set up businesses among their local hosts was recently launched.

Host Obi Anyadike asks Victor Nyamori, a researcher and adviser for Refugee and Migrants' Rights at Amnesty International, what he thinks of this idea, dubbed the Shirika Plan. Given his work on legal protection for Kenya's refugees in Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps, is he optimistic that it will improve their lives?  

What's Unsaid is a bi-weekly podcast by The New Humanitarian where we explore open secrets and uncomfortable conversations around the world's conflicts and disasters. 

A Mercy Corps staff member describes life in the sliver of southern Gaza where 1.2 million people are sheltering in desperate conditions.

The author's name is being withheld for safety given the security situation in Gaza. Their First Person essay is read out by The New Humanitarian's Freddie Boswell.

This essay was written before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the Israeli military to prepare plans for a ground invasion of Rafah and for the 'evacuation' of the population from the area. With nowhere left for people to flee in Gaza, there is growing international alarm about the humanitarian impact of an assault.

The New Humanitarian aims to amplify the voices of refugees, asylum seekers, and people affected by conflict and disaster - placing them at the centre of the conversations about the policies and events that shape their lives. Find more first-person stories at TheNewHumanitarian.org

Medical missions are a lifeline to stressed health systems, usually in developing and post colonial states, but they can also be caught up in, and manipulated by, the politics of the powerful. Host Ali Latifi asks Dr. Zaher Sahloul, president and co-founder of MedGlobal, a medical NGO, whether dismissal over medical neutrality is getting worse.

What's Unsaid is a bi-weekly podcast by The New Humanitarian, where we explore open secrets and uncomfortable conversations around the world's conflicts and disasters.

They say two things in life are certain: death and taxes. But taxes – and how they're collected – are anything but certain, and certainly not fair.

Every year, nearly $500 billion in tax is lost to corporate and individual tax abuse, enough to vaccinate the world against COVID-19 three times over, or provide basic sanitation to 34 million people. Another $5 trillion is projected to be lost in the next 10 years as multinational corporations and the ultra-wealthy use tax havens to underpay taxes.

But the international tax justice movement is picking up steam, buoyed by a recent vote at the UN General Assembly to start negotiations on an international tax treaty. The move, spearheaded by The Africa Group and largely opposed by the OECD, which groups some of the world's wealthiest countries, has been described as "the biggest shake-up in history to the global tax system".

What are the implications for humanitarians? And what could it mean for aid-dependent countries to recoup trillions of dollars in lost tax revenue?

Co-hosts Heba Aly and Melissa Fundira also share listener reflections from the podcast's last episode on Westerners stepping aside from top positions in favour of historically marginalised leaders. They also share a long-awaited statement from the International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA), the NGO network whose executive director spoke openly about wanting to be replaced by a non-male, non-Western candidate, only to be succeeded by another white man.

Guests: Hassan Damluji, co-founder of Global Nation; Alvin Mosioma, associate director of climate, finance, and equity at Open Society Foundations

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Got a question or feedback? Email podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org or have your say on Twitter using the hashtag #RethinkingHumanitarianism.
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SHOW NOTES

• UN Moves Toward a Global Treaty on Tax
• Developing countries and Europe in dispute over global tax role for UN
• What does the OECD global minimum tax mean for global cooperation?
• OECD tax reforms risk violating human rights law, UN experts warn in special intervention
• Lost government revenues due to tax abuse – the impact on the determinants of health and mortality rates
• Global Solidarity Report 2023

When danger comes, foreign aid workers are often flown out, leaving behind local staff to risk their lives. Othman Moqbel is the CEO for Action for Humanity, an international aid agency trying to provide protection equally to all staff. 

What's Unsaid is a bi-weekly podcast by The New Humanitarian where we explore open secrets and uncomfortable conversations around the world's conflicts and disasters.

Our First Person narratives dig into the humanity of humanitarian challenges.

In this episode, Mahmoud Shalabi describes the difficult reality of life in his home, Beit Lahia. When the Israeli military issued orders last October for 1.1 million Palestinians to evacuate their homes in the north of Gaza, Shalabi refused to leave. "I believed that remaining in my home would be a form of resistance," he says. Now, nearly 11 months later, the Deputy Director for programs for the UK-based NGO, Medical Aid for Palestinians, explains why he is 'exhausted'. 

The New Humanitarian aims to amplify the voices of refugees, asylum seekers, and people affected by conflict and disaster – placing them at the centre of the conversations about the policies and events that shape their lives. Find more first-person stories at TheNewHumanitarian.org.

Crises are mounting, and their impacts are overlapping and rippling across the globe. Emergency response has grown more complicated, and more costly. What's the way forward?

Each year, The New Humanitarian publishes our list of trends driving humanitarian needs and shaping crisis response. From military sieges and water scarcity to 'deterrence' migration policies and governments' refusal to deal with 'pariah' states, we unpack some of the key factors that will see an estimated 300 million people need emergency aid this year.

On 31 January, we brought together a range of voices from across the humanitarian sector to discuss what's driving crises, and the next steps in addressing them. This is a recording of that discussion. 

Migration policies are making borders tougher to cross and pushing people to risk their lives along ever more dangerous routes. Is there a way to stem the rising number of migrant deaths? Eric Reidy, The New Humanitarian's migration editor, and host Ali Latifi discuss why we're likely to continue to see a high number of deaths in 2024 and explore better policies to keep people safe. 

What's Unsaid is a bi-weekly podcast by The New Humanitarian, where we explore open secrets and uncomfortable conversations around the world's conflicts and disasters.

For as long as the international humanitarian sector has existed, its top jobs have been overwhelmingly occupied by white Western men.

And yet, most of the people affected by their decisions come from the global majority.

One, rarely exercised, tactic to address this power differential is for Western leaders to step aside or be willing to turn down coveted top positions in favour of historically marginalised leaders – especially those whose lived experience gives them a better understanding of the very issues international organisations aim to address.

Co-hosts Heba Aly and Melissa Fundira are joined by two guests who voluntarily relinquished their roles in efforts to make way for more representative leadership. They reflect on the defining moments that led to their decisions, how they prepared their exits, the triumphs and disappointments that followed, and how the sector as a whole can operationalise "stepping aside" as a tactic to shift power. 

Guests: Ignacio Packer, Executive Director of the Initiatives of Change Switzerland Foundation and former  Executive Director of the International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA); Diana Essex-Lettieri, consultant and former Senior Vice President of Asylum Access.
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Got a question or feedback? Email podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org or have your say on Twitter using the hashtag #RethinkingHumanitarianism.
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SHOW NOTES

• Ignacio Packer on changing aid leadership: Privilege, power, and leaving ICVA
• Ten efforts to decolonise aid
• From refugee inclusion to shifting power
• UN aid chief seeks more focused and inclusive humanitarian efforts
• The next UN humanitarian chief should be picked on merit
• Offboarding: The Diplomatic Way To Achieve Critical Board Turnover

*This episode was originally published on November 23, 2023.

Human rights lawyer and war crimes investigator Yasmin Sooka joins host Ali Latifi in a conversation about using the word "genocide", and why language matters – in the middle of a crisis, and in the aftermath of mass violence.

What's Unsaid is a bi-weekly podcast by The New Humanitarian, where we explore open secrets and uncomfortable conversations around the world's conflicts and disasters.

*This episode was originally published on January 11, 2023. 

Time and again, guests on this season of Rethinking Humanitarianism have called for systemic changes to the humanitarian system and global governance – from alternatives to the UN to revolutionised global climate financing.

But how can you imagine something you've never seen before, while being grounded in the realities of today?

In many ways, this is the domain of science fiction. The writer and activist Walidah Imarisha once said: "Any time we try to envision a different world – without poverty, prisons, capitalism, war – we are engaging in science fiction." With science fiction, she added, we can start with the question "What do we want?" rather than the question "What is realistic?"

In this first episode of the New Year, host Heba Aly looks to the future to explore how science fiction can bring about paradigmatic change by helping us believe a better world is possible.

She is joined by sci-fi authors whose work speaks directly to the future of global governance and how to better address crises. Kim Stanley Robinson is the acclaimed science fiction writer behind the Mars trilogy, and, more recently, The Ministry for the Future. Malka Older is the author of Infomocracy and The New Humanitarian short story Earthquake Relief. Mexico City. 2051.

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If you've got thoughts on this episode, write to us or send us a voice note at podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org. 

SHOW NOTES

• Disaster response 2.0: What aid might look like in 30 years time (by Malka Older, for The New Humanitarian)
• Decolonising Aid: A reading and resource list
• Why Science Fiction Is a Fabulous Tool in the Fight for Social Justice | The Nation
• Kim Stanley Robinson: Remembering climate change ... a message from the year 2071 | TED Countdown

BOOKS AND AUTHORS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future (2020)
• Malka Older, Infomocracy (2016)
• Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower (1993)
• Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward: 2000–1887 (1888)
• H. G. Wells, A Modern Utopia (1905) 
• Ursula K. Le Guin (see The Dispossessed, 1974)
• Walidah Imarisha (see Octavia's Brood, 2015)
• Joanna Russ (see The Female Man, 1975)
• Cory Doctorow, Walkaway (2017)
• Neon Yang, The Tensorate series (2017-19)
• Martha Wells, The Murderbot Diaries series (2017-21)

Refugees International, The New Humanitarian, and Asylum Access hosted an event on the sidelines of the Global Refugee Forum in Geneva for a candid conversation about how to truly include refugees in the policy decisions that shape their lives.

SPEAKERS

• Sana Mustafa, Asylum Access CEO (moderator)
• Ana Maria Diez, President of Coalición por Venezuela and Fellow at Refugees International
• Matai Muon, South Sudanese refugee and graduate student
• Mohammed Naeem, Deputy Director of Strategy and Partnerships at American Immigration Council, and Advisor on the U.S. Refugee Advisory Board
• Farhad Shamo Roto, Founder of Voice of Ezidis and Fellow at Refugees International
• Hafsar Tameesuddin, Co-Secretary General, Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network (APRRN)

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Got a question or feedback? Email podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org or have your say on Twitter using the hashtag #RethinkingHumanitarianism.

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 SHOW NOTES

• Flipping the Narrative
• The roots of the refugee protection system are colonial and racist by Sana Mustafa
• Let refugees be economic contributors by Matai Muon

From new conflicts in Gaza and Sudan, to flood disasters in Libya and East Africa, to earthquakes in Morocco, Syria, and Türkiye, humanitarian crises around the world drove more than 350 million people to need help in 2023. While funding to address those needs reached record levels, so too did the funding gap. Only a third of the $57 billion that humanitarians appealed for this year was actually received – the largest shortfall in years.

For the last episode of 2023, we reflect on the year that's been, Rethinking Humanitarianism-style. Which events have forced a rethink in aid? Have any lines been drawn in the sand? And how has 2023 been a turning point in the way aid is delivered?

Co-hosts Heba Aly and Melissa Fundira convene a roundtable for a wide-ranging discussion on everything from humanitarianism's more prominent role in the climate agenda, to shifting ideologies on neutrality and mutual aid networks, and of course funding.

Guests: Nazanine Moshiri, senior analyst (Climate, Environment & Conflict, Africa) at the International Crisis Group; Irwin Loy, senior policy editor at The New Humanitarian; Dustin Barter, senior research fellow at ODI's Humanitarian Policy Group

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Got a question or feedback? Email podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org or have your say on Twitter using the hashtag #RethinkingHumanitarianism.

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SHOW NOTES

• Inklings | The Gaza effect, 2024 budgets, obscure acronyms
• What happened on COP28's big humanitarian day?
• Myanmar, Gaza, and why it's time for humanitarian resistance
• For some aid workers, internal Gaza tensions unearth long-overdue debates
• How mutual aid in Sudan is getting international support
• Why the Africa Climate Summit can't afford to overlook conflict
• Global Humanitarian Overview 2024: UN launches $46 billion appeal for 2024 as global humanitarian outlook remains bleak

Could talking about aid diversion actually help people who need aid?  Ashley Jackson is the co-director of the Center on Armed Groups and a former aid worker. She has researched aid diversion in Afghanistan, Somalia, and elsewhere, and joins host Irwin Loy for a candid conversation. 

What's Unsaid is a bi-weekly podcast by The New Humanitarian, where we explore open secrets and uncomfortable conversations around the world's conflicts and disasters.

Ala Majid Khayrullhah, a medical student and climate activist, shares what he witnessed in Libya a month after the devastating floods. 

The New Humanitarian aims to amplify the voices of refugees, asylum seekers, and people affected by conflict and disaster - placing them at the centre of the conversations about the policies and events that shape their lives. Find more first-person stories on TheNewHumanitarian.org

Human rights lawyer and war crimes investigator Yasmin Sooka joins host Ali Latifi in a conversation about using the word "genocide", and why language matters – in the middle of a crisis, and in the aftermath of mass violence.

What's Unsaid is a bi-weekly podcast by The New Humanitarian, where we explore open secrets and uncomfortable conversations around the world's conflicts and disasters.

Our First Person narratives aim to dig into the humanity of humanitarian challenges.

In this episode, Yusuf Sa'adu, a shopkeeper in Warawa in Nigeria's Kano state, points out that "whoever has abundant water has wealth". He shares how water scarcity made him lose out on education and still impacts personal relationships.

"If you are experiencing water stress, you will not be able to do a lot of things", Yusuf explains. 

The New Humanitarian aims to amplify the voices of refugees, asylum seekers, and people affected by conflict and disaster – placing them at the centre of the conversations about the policies and events that shape their lives. Find more first-person stories at TheNewHumanitarian.org.

Even before Israel's current siege, 80% of Gazans relied on international humanitarian aid for survival, according to the UN. But under international law, it's the occupying power's responsibility to provide food, shelter, medicine, and other essential needs.

Have aid agencies historically let Israel off the hook by failing to challenge the very thing that creates the need for aid in the first place: Israel's occupation? And if decades of humanitarian response in the region have failed Palestinians thus far, as some argue, but halting it would be catastrophic, as others say, then how should aid agencies pivot?

Guests: Yara Asi, assistant professor in the School of Global Health Management and Informatics at the University of Central Florida, co-director of the Palestine Program for Health and Human Rights, US Fulbright scholar to the West Bank; Chris Gunness, former UNRWA spokesperson

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Got a question or feedback? Email podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org or have your say on Twitter using the hashtag #RethinkingHumanitarianism.

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SHOW NOTES

• Aid to Palestinians has failed. Here's how to fix it.
• In freezing aid to Palestinians, donors trample a well-worn path
• What's Unsaid | The media's silencing of Palestinians
• Prior to current crisis, decades-long blockade hollowed Gaza's economy, leaving 80% of population dependent on international aid | UNCTAD
• Responding to the Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza: Damned if you do... Damned if you don't!

Palestinian peace activist Nivine Sandouka discusses the difficult way forward for building trust between Israelis and Palestinians. Hosted by Irwin Loy.

What's Unsaid is a bi-weekly podcast by The New Humanitarian, where we explore open secrets and uncomfortable conversations around the world's conflicts and disasters.

An anonymous aid worker reflects on their time in Palestine as they watch Israel's bombardment and siege of Gaza and the escalating violence in the West Bank.

Today's First Person essay is read out by The New Humanitarian's Elise Campbell-Bates.

The New Humanitarian aims to amplify the voices of refugees, asylum seekers, and people affected by conflict and disaster - placing them at the centre of the conversations about the policies and events that shape their lives. Find more first-person stories at TheNewHumanitarian.org

*This episode was originally published on November 9, 2023.

Palestinian peace activist Nivine Sandouka discusses the difficult way forward for building trust between Israelis and Palestinians. Hosted by Irwin Loy.

What's Unsaid is a bi-weekly podcast by The New Humanitarian, where we explore open secrets and uncomfortable conversations around the world's conflicts and disasters. 

Iyad Agha, a Syrian now living in Germany, has been working on his country's humanitarian crisis for nearly a decade. The United Nations itself recently said that "Syria is in danger of being forgotten", while noting that the country is facing the highest levels of humanitarian need since the start of its 13-year war. Some 7.2 million people have been forcibly displaced inside the country, and another 5.1 million are refugees in neighbouring countries. Türkiye is host to 3.3 million refugees who are increasingly subjected to harassment, not to mention arbitrary arrest, detention, and deportation by authorities. In this First Person account, he narrates his experiences as an aid worker in Türkiye, and laments how many times Syrians have had to rebuild their lives.

The continuing conflict in Syria is featured in The New Humanitarian's annual list of ten crises that demand your attention now, which highlights places in the world where needs are rising, aid budgets have been cut or are insufficient, and where people feel forgotten by the international community. Over the coming months, our First Person series will feature aid workers and people affected by the crises on this year's list.

*This episode was originally published on September 27, 2023. 

Aid worker and psychologist Imogen Wall tells host Ali Latifi that the way humanitarian organisations are run, can do as much damage to aid workers' mental health as being confronted with war, hunger, and rights abuses. 

What's Unsaid is a bi-weekly podcast by The New Humanitarian, where we explore open secrets and uncomfortable truths around the world's conflicts and disasters. 

When crises hit, a host of questions arise, among them: Who needs humanitarian aid? How much? Who delivers it? And who has the power to make all of those decisions?

How aid agencies and the media choose to frame this information doesn't always help.

For the last year, researchers at ODI's Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG) have been trying to understand narratives and the role they play in humanitarian response and policy. What they're finding so far is that human stories are more powerful than data when it comes to influencing change in the sector, and yet humanitarians don't take their role as storytellers seriously enough.

In this bonus episode, we get a snapshot of HPG's ongoing exploration of humanitarian narratives from one of its main researchers, and we bring together a local organisation founder, a researcher, and a journalist to discuss the power humanitarians have to shape the stories that affect crisis response.

Guests: John Bryant, research fellow at ODI's Humanitarian Policy Group; Leen Fouad, research officer at ODI's Humanitarian Policy Group; Mohamed Ali Diini, founder of Iftiin Foundation and chair of the Shaqo Platform; Patrick Gathara, senior editor for inclusive storytelling at The New Humanitarian.

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SHOW NOTES

• Understanding the role of narratives in humanitarian policy change | ODI
• Change without transformation: how narratives influenced the humanitarian cash agenda | ODI
• What is a humanitarian crisis, really? | Rethinking Humanitarianism
• Gaza: a litmus test for the humanitarian sector's commitment to decolonisation? | ODI
• How do you break the mould around international aid? Try genuine trust 

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Got a question or feedback? Email podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org or have your say on Twitter using the hashtag #RethinkingHumanitarianism.

Exiled from a country plagued by decades of civil war, allegations of genocide and ethnic cleansing, and limits on basic democratic rights, Maung Zarni, an academic, human rights activist, and Nobel Peace prize nominee, explains why the Rohingya cannot rely on protection from within the country. "I'm Burmese myself," he tells host Ali Latifi. "We have proven incapable of maintaining peace and stability in our own country for the last 75 years". 

What's Unsaid is a bi-weekly podcast by The New Humanitarian, where we explore open secrets and uncomfortable conversations around the world's conflicts and disasters. 

Global funding cuts are worsening emergency aid's weaknesses when it comes to the LGBTQI+ community. The Trump administration is explicitly targeting trans people. And gender-related programming is among the first to be cut as humanitarian groups scale back. But there are steps humanitarians can take today – even amid widespread budget cuts – to better respond to the needs of LGBTQI+ people in emergencies.

Guests: 

Emily Dwyer, co-founder of the humanitarian and development organisation, Edge Effect.

Jasmin Lilian Diab, director of the Institute for Migration Studies at the Lebanese American University.
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Got a question or feedback? Email podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org or post on social media using the hashtag #RethinkingHumanitarianism.
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SHOW NOTES

Edge Effect

The moral imperative to protect Lebanon's LGBTIQ+ displaced

Institute for Migration Studies

Remaking humanitarianism: Dispatches from the future

How can we reimagine the international humanitarian system so that it builds on – rather than undermines – the response communities are already creating? What would it take to align funding and infrastructure? And what is standing in the way?

The New Humanitarian and Refugees International have taken these questions around the globe, producing a series of dispatches from the future that highlight the strategies, values, and visions guiding community-driven responses to crisis – and show what's possible.

We brought these dispatches to the heart of UNGA to grapple with what it will take to remake humanitarianism – and what must change for the system to have any future at all.

Power Shift is an experiment in dialogue that puts decision-makers in aid and philanthropy and those affected by their decisions in honest, one-on-one conversations about the aid sector's inequalities.
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What happens when a stateless activist sits down with one of the UN refugee agency's highest-ranking officials? What if they had the chance to tell him what it's like to lose everything, to have to depend on aid, and what it would take for refugees to have more agency? Can the decisions he makes in Geneva affect the lives of refugees on the other side of the world? And could their conversation change how those decisions are made?

Listen in as Rohingya refugee rights activist Hafsar Tameesuddin and UNHCR's Assistant High Commissioner for Operations Raouf Mazou candidly discuss what needs to change in refugee response, and who has the power to change it. 

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Subscribe on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube, or search "The New Humanitarian" in your favourite podcast app.

You can find transcripts of all podcasts on our website.

Are you or anyone you know interested in participating in future Power Shift conversations? Email us with the subject line 'POWER SHIFT".

Daylight abductions of permanent residents. Mass deportations with no due process. Homelessness at a record high. Outbreaks of previously eliminated childhood diseases. Sounds like a humanitarian crisis could be unfolding in the US. "When is the UN going to come in?" asks Carlos Menchaca, a legislator, activist, organiser, and former New York City council member. 

What's Unsaid is a podcast by The New Humanitarian, where we explore open secrets and uncomfortable conversations around the world's conflicts and disasters. 

Power Shift is an experiment in dialogue that puts decision-makers in aid and philanthropy and those affected by their decisions in honest, one-on-one conversations about the aid sector's inequalities.
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In the second episode of Power Shift, we continue our candid conversation between Grand Bargain ambassador Michael Köhler, formerly a senior leader of the EU's humanitarian aid arm, and Nadine Saba, founder of a Lebanese grassroots NGO. As the global humanitarian system faces unprecedented challenges – from donor cuts to accusations of colonial structures – they explore whether the system can truly be reformed, and if reform is enough.

Saba speaks passionately from the front lines, sharing how communities are losing faith in a system that often delivers only "Band-Aid" solutions while failing to address – and often instigating – root causes. Köhler acknowledges the system's shortcomings while defending its foundational merits.

"Would anything be better without the Grand Bargain? I think no. Would it be worse without the Grand Bargain? I believe, yes," Köhler says of the major humanitarian reform process, "because we wouldn't have this kind of platform that reminds us [of] the need to get better, to reform, to open up, to share power."

Saba, who represents Global South NGOs, expressed doubt that there was sufficient will for the Grand Bargain to live up to its potential.

"When things get difficult, people go back to old habits," she argued Saba. "I do see that change is incremental. But I fear that it's getting so much incremental that it's not happening."

Their conversation reveals a fundamental tension between Köhler's technical approach to humanitarian response, and Saba's close-range exposure to the politics of crises.

As this experiment in dialogue came to a close, Israel's campaign of airstrikes in Lebanon loomed, lending greater urgency to Saba and Köhler's attempts to come to a common understanding of what it would take to shift power in humanitarian response.
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Subscribe on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube, or search "The New Humanitarian" in your favourite podcast app.

You can find transcripts of all podcasts on our website.

Are you or anyone you know interested in participating in future Power Shift conversations? Email us with the subject line 'POWER SHIFT".

Power Shift is an experiment in dialogue that puts decision-makers in aid and philanthropy and those affected by their decisions in honest, one-on-one conversations about the aid sector's inequalities.

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Michael Köhler and Nadine Saba are just two of the many people tasked with advancing the goals of the Grand Bargain – one of the most ambitious attempts at delivering humanitarian aid more effectively and efficiently. 

As such, they often log into the same meetings by videoconference. And yet, Köhler, one of three ambassadors tasked with overseeing the process, and Saba, a Grand Bargain sherpa representing Global South NGOs, have never spoken one-on-one. Until now. 

Over the course of seven weeks in mid-2024, Köhler and Saba met over Zoom as part of the Power Shift experiment – one leading high-level meetings from Brussels, and the other contending with real-life humanitarian crises on the ground as both a local organisation leader, and citizen. 

Much has changed in the aid sector since these initial meetings, but the spirited, yet convivial, debates between Köhler and Saba have taken on a new urgency as the world reacts to the loss of major Western humanitarian funding.

"Are we relinquishing power? Are we keeping it in the hands of the donors?" Saba challenged Köhler, "And if we're keeping it in the hands of the donor, how much are they attuned to what is happening on the fields? Not much."

Listen in to the no-holds-barred conversations between Köhler and Saba as they take on a range of topics, from the yawning gap between headquarters-level decisions and realities in the field, to the dilemma of donor countries' competing obligations to constituents and affected people, to the need to treat the Grand Bargain – and other attempts at change – with a lot more urgency. 

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Subscribe on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube, or search "The New Humanitarian" in your favourite podcast app.

You can find transcripts of all podcasts on our website.

Are you or anyone you know interested in participating in future Power Shift conversations? Email us with the subject line 'POWER SHIFT".

The Trump administration's aid freeze is a pivotal moment for the humanitarian sector. Veteran aid worker and TNH CEO Tammam Aloudat doesn't believe that simply restoring funding will fix a broken system. While imagining what remaking humanitarianism might look like, he makes a plea: "Let's start shifting the conversation."

The New Humanitarian aims to amplify the voices of refugees, asylum seekers, and people affected by conflict and disaster – placing them at the centre of the conversations about the policies and events that shape their lives. Listen to more First Person stories at TheNewHumanitarian.org.