Early days

The New Humanitarian, originally known as IRIN News (Integrated Regional Information Networks), was established by the United Nations in 1995 in Nairobi, Kenya. It was created in response to the Rwandan genocide, driven by the belief that objective, on-the-ground reporting of humanitarian crises could help mitigate or even prevent future disasters of similar magnitude.

As part of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), but editorially independent, IRIN provided humanitarian news and analysis about sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia for a wide audience including humanitarian decision-makers, governments, advocacy and rights groups, academic institutions, and media.

One of its programmes was IRIN Radio, launched in 2001, which provided individuals and communities with unbiased information on issues and events that affect their daily lives. The radio initiative began in Somalia and then added coverage, in local languages, of Afghanistan, Angola, Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, Lesotho, Liberia, and Sudan.

IRIN Radio’s broadcasts sought to provide listeners with important information that would strengthen their abilities to counter threats, advocate for their own rights, mitigate risks and thus enhance their own security. IRIN Radio also provided the opportunity for the listening audience to voice their opinions on current events – an option that remains, to this day, not always immediately available in countries affected by crises.

A new identity and brand

Almost 20 years later, we became an independent non-profit news organisation, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, allowing us to cast a more critical eye over the multibillion-dollar emergency aid industry and draw attention to its failures at a time of unprecedented humanitarian need. As digital disinformation went global, and mainstream media retreated from many international crisis zones, our field-based, high-quality journalism increasingly fills the gap left behind.

It’s in this context that in 2019, we changed our name from IRIN News to The New Humanitarian to signal our move from UN project to independent newsroom and our role chronicling the changing nature of – and response to – humanitarian crises.

Today, we are one of only a handful of newsrooms worldwide specialised in covering crises and disasters – and in holding the aid industry accountable.