The New Humanitarian

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.

The US aid freeze has exposed not only the fragility of humanitarian funding but also longstanding dependencies, vulnerabilities, and power dynamics that demand a broader reckoning. This event will explore the urgent need for structural change, seeking clarity and ideas amid the chaos.

In what we hope will be one conversation of many, we reimagine the future of humanitarian aid in an era of mounting challenges and transformative opportunities.

SPEAKERS

The event was moderated by TNH CEO Tammam Aloudat, who was joined by:

• Deborah Doane – Author of The INGO Problem: Power, privilege and renewal.
• Dustin Barter – Acting Director of the Humanitarian Policy Group at ODI.
• Dr. Lata Narayanaswamy – Associate Professor in the Politics of Global Development, University of Leeds.
• Nidhi Bouri – Former Deputy Assistant Administrator for Global Health, USAID.
• Stella Naw – Kachin human rights activist.

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Got a question or feedback? Email [email protected] or have your say on our socials using the hashtag #RethinkingHumanitarianism.

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“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.

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 [email protected] 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 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

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