Searching for the nexus: The meme edition

Making aid better, one meme at a time.

Anonymous

A meme posted on social media about the "nexus" policy in international aid.

GENEVA

Searching for the nexus

Can joining up humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding programmes help uplift millions from chronic poverty and stabilise fragile states? Backers of the so-called triple nexus approach to delivering aid say today’s larger and more protracted crises demand such a strategy, but critics say it could jettison the independence of humanitarian action. This article is part of a series that explores the progress and pitfalls as the triple nexus moves from wishful rhetoric to action on the ground.

The nexus, if nothing else, is the aid worker jargon that spawned 1,000 memes. Well, a dozen good ones, anyway.

Aid workers can have a sceptical, at times cynical, streak, as well as a taste for dark humour. And the nexus has proved to be full of inspiration for meme producers in the aid community. There’s even an Instagram account devoted to them.

Most of the creators we contacted asked to remain anonymous.

Here's our selection.

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