The New Humanitarian

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.

*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. ____ 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 ____ Got a question or feedback? Email podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org or have your say on Twitter using the hashtag #RethinkingHumanitarianism. ____ SHOW NOTES How mutual aid networks are powering Sudan's humanitarian responseKhartoum State ERR Mutual aid in Sudan: the future of aid? | Humanitarian Practice NetworkFrom 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 ____ Got a question or feedback? Email podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org or have your say on Twitter using the hashtag #RethinkingHumanitarianism. ____ 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 ____ Got a question or feedback? Email podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org or have your say on Twitter using the hashtag #RethinkingHumanitarianism. ____ SHOW NOTES UN Moves Toward a Global Treaty on Tax Developing countries and Europe in dispute over global tax role for UNWhat 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 ratesGlobal 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.

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. ____ Got a question or feedback? Email podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org or have your say on Twitter using the hashtag #RethinkingHumanitarianism. ____ SHOW NOTES Ignacio Packer on changing aid leadership: Privilege, power, and leaving ICVA Ten efforts to decolonise aidFrom 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. ————— 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 NationKim 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 (seeThe Dispossessed, 1974)Walidah Imarisha (seeOctavia’s Brood,2015)Joanna Russ (seeThe Female Man, 1975)Cory Doctorow,Walkaway(2017)Neon Yang, TheTensorateseries (2017-19)Martha Wells,The Murderbot Diariesseries (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 ____ Got a question or feedback? Email podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org or have your say on Twitter using the hashtag #RethinkingHumanitarianism. ____ SHOW NOTES Flipping the Narrative The roots of the refugee protection system are colonial and racist Let refugees be economic contributors

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