Rethinking Humanitarianism | What we’ve learned about how change happens

[04:40] – Why keep diagnosing the system if nothing changes? 

[16:01] – “Aid is not a cause” – survival and dignity are

[17:26] – From a humanitarian system to an ecosystem

[22:43] – Diversify who humanitarians feel accountable to

[32:11] – Who’s filling the void? Local groups, private actors, and competing narratives

[41:01] – What should be supported as the formal system recedes? 

[55:44] – Listening and finding common ground in a polarised sector 

[1:08:11] – “Change is an action,” not just a commitment

Irwin Loy

What I've been thinking about a lot throughout this series is accountability [...] Accountability goes up to your funders. We all know that. [...] Whoever comes up with the next idea for how reform should happen or what sort of reform movement should take shape, at the top of designing that has to be this mix of accountability and acknowledging that presently the humanitarian system serves a political purpose, it serves an economic purpose, and that's not going to change for now.

 

 

Tammam Aloudat  

Welcome to this special edition of Rethinking Humanitarianism podcast in collaboration with Start Network. In this series, we explore what really drives change in the humanitarian system.

 

Christina Bennett  

And what it tells us about future efforts to transform it for the better. And for the last seven episodes, we've looked at how humanitarian action is shaped by politics from above, and how grassroots efforts are reshaping humanitarian action from below. We've also looked at future scenarios, from corporations taking on distinctively humanitarian roles, to re-embracing activism as core to our work.

 

Tammam Aloudat  

So, in this episode, we look back at those conversations and reflect on what we've learned from them. From The New Humanitarian, I'm Tamana Aloudat.

 

Christina Bennett  

And from Start Network, I'm Christina Bennett.

 

Tammam Aloudat  

So, Christina, episode eight. We're coming to the end of the journey.

 

Christina Bennett  

And what a journey it's been! It's been many, many months of this Tammam, but I've thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

Tammam Aloudat  

It has been interesting, and I have to say, you know, at this stage, I didn't think I'd be surprised by many new things talking about the humanitarian system and its reform, but I was, and that is a good thing.

 

Christina Bennett  

We first started talking about this series, I think we're all very aware of the fact that talking about the problems of the humanitarian sector is something that we all do all the time, and you know there are many organisations that that live off of doing report after report after report on all the ills of what makes us ineffective, and we didn't want to repeat that because everyone's heard it all before. And I think, you know, the fresh ideas, or the new ideas, or the the things that we hadn't heard before came from our guests. They're not the people that we normally hear from, and I thought there were some really, really fantastic solutions in there, or fresh ideas, or reasons for for hope that you know our mission as humanitarian organisations or people working in solidarity to help other people is still alive and well, just perhaps not where we think it is.

 

Tammam Aloudat  

Yeah. But I have to acknowledge, even the ones that [are] sort of traditional or from inside the system spoke differently. I mean, from the very first episode when we talked to Ben and Nadine, to talking to Colum as someone who comes from a donor organisation and context, to talking about Abdi – all of them spoke differently from what you'd expect, and I think that spirit of, like, being fair and critical, but also being open to exploring ideas was really interesting in in this series. And if, if the first part of the series was about people who are embedded in the system, the second part was certainly not. It was about more of different ways of coming from, you know, adjacent or outside the system entirely, and that ranged from talking about grassroots with Fanta and Hajooj and Bashair, to talking about the private sector takeover in talking to Brooke from Fogbow, to the really interesting, quite a great, you know, strong challenge to the system and what stands for in talking to Philip and Chloe. It was quite a tour, and I think today is going to be interesting trying to sort of tie some of the things together.

 

Christina Bennett 

So, I think throughout the series, people have heard a lot from you and me, Tammam, and so I think for this final episode it’s great that we’ve been able to bring in two other voices that have really helped shape this series with us, but have been sitting in the background in all of our podcast episodes, and who can share their thoughts and experiences, or how they experienced these episodes with us. We’ve got Kia Howson joining us; she’s a researcher at Start Network and he joins us from London. And we also have Irwin Loy, who is the senior policy editor at The New Humanitarian, and he joins us today from Geneva.

 

Christina Bennett 

Kia, I'm going to start with you. You originally had this idea for the series. You came to me with this idea back last winter. Why? Start there. 

 

Kia Howson 

Thanks, Christina. I joined Start Network two years ago, and obviously we are a systems change organisation. And I suppose, by virtue of that, I spend a lot of time thinking about what we actually mean when we talk about the humanitarian system and systems change. Like, what is this nebulous system that we keep referring to? And when we say that we want to change it, you know, what exactly are we trying to change? And I guess one thing that I found quite striking in the work that I've been doing with Start Network is that I often read, kind of, diagnoses of the humanitarian system from 10 years ago or even before that could almost have kind of been written today, and there's this sort of recurring kind of critique of a system that's overly centralised and bureaucratic, and, like, built around these asymmetrical power relationships that are too transactional and competitive and kind of sideline those closest to crises and are not, sort of, reciprocal and collective. And then almost invariably we reach the same conclusion that we reached 10 years ago, which is that we've become quite good at diagnosing what's wrong, but not much seems to really change. And I suppose that's what motivated me to to do this series is to kind of go beyond asking what's wrong with the humanitarian system, because I think we know what's wrong with this humanitarian system, and instead ask people from within, but also outside of the sector, how this change actually happens, and who's driven it? Where is there, kind of, resistance, and what could this possibly tell us about where change might happen in the future? And of course, this is particularly important now, given the fact that the humanitarian system is contracting and being contorted in all sorts of directions. Some of them with hope, but some of them are also quite pernicious. So, that's sort of what kind of motivated the initial idea to do this series.

 

Christina Bennett

Thanks, Kia, and I totally agree with you. We've rehearsed these problems, the problems of the sector, for so long, for so many decades at this point. It's really hard to have a fresh take. But I thought what was so interesting about this series and the way that we framed all of it is that we talked about the balance between power and legitimacy. We talked to people who have, or have had positional power, but are lacking or losing some of that legitimacy. And then we talk to people who have loads of legitimacy in their communities with regards to the people that they are working with and working for, but who have little power and little voice. And I thought that that was such a fresh take on the conversations we've been having for so long. Irwin, maybe over to you. You also were sort of an early framer of this podcast series, and you were part of very early conversations between me and Tammam about what issues we should be covering. What did you think was important about this podcast?

 

Irwin Loy

From my point of view, I've been, as a journalist, covering humanitarian affairs and humanitarian reform specifically for about a decade, focused on humanitarian issues, which is roughly around the time of the the Grand Bargain, obviously, in 2016. And as Kia said: the same language, the same sort of analyses, the same reports emerge, report after report, year after year. So I think the idea to analyze “Well what actually, how does change happen?” I think is really valuable. It can help us point to what to look towards. Maybe help us point to what's missing, or who's missing from the conversation sometimes. And I guess for me as a journalist, it was more: How do I think about covering reform when reform feels like we're talking about the same thing over and over again? So to me, it felt like an opportunity to try and ask different questions and hopefully have different answers.

 

Christina Bennett 

Thanks, Irwin. I think how change happens is a critical question that we asked all of our guests and our speakers throughout the podcast, and we'll get to that in a second. But before we do, I wanted to ask Tammam about the humanitarian system. I get asked this a lot. I'm sure you get asked this a lot. What is the humanitarian system, and why did we want to focus on it?

 

Tammam Aloudat

It's not a straightforward question. I mean, it would have been maybe in 1980. The humanitarian system was, like, four or five large organisations at least. It's not anymore, and I think this is part of the issue we're tackling is we're trying to frame the system as we're talking about its change. Because I agree with Kia and Irwin; a lot of the discourse we're having now feels like it could have been had 10 years ago, or 15, or 20. But, at the same time, there are things that have changed. 2015, I remember the preparations for the World Humanitarian Summit, and the whole idea of having local organisations be part of the summit was still contested quite aggressively. It's not as contested. Doesn't mean that they have much more power yet. I mean, the State of the Humanitarian System report came a few days ago, and it shows that, still, a very marginal amount of funding and authority goes to national and local-based organisations. So the discourse has changed to an extent, the action and the resources and the authority hasn't caught up with it. So, [to] go back to your question. The humanitarian system is many things. One of them is, you know, you could think about it as the Interagency Standing Sommittee and its accoutrements observer organisations. You could think about it as a much wider set of international NGOs, or a wider one – as we've seen in the episodes about grassroots organisations and about the activism and about the privatisation – that it could be thought about in different ways. And I think talking about change necessitates defining the terms, and this is also part of what we've tried really hard in this podcast to do: is to expand it from talking to people in like MSF, ICRC, and Save the Children and ask them about themselves, into widening the field of discussion and the definition itself.

 

Christina Bennett  

Yeah, no, I agree. I think, you know, we all talk about the system, however we define the contours of it. But the system, and Colum Wilson said this, you know. The system sucks up a lot of resources: taxpayers' resources, public resources. However you define it, it sucks up a lot of money. It also takes up a lot of policy space and and airtime. You know, interrogating the system, getting others from the outside to interrogate it with us is really important. almost as a point of accountability. Some of us work for the system. Some of us are subject to the terms of the system, and as many of us as taxpayers, we pay for the system. 

 

[music break]

 

Let's let's get back to this question of how change happens because I think that was like the fundamental starting point for this whole conversation we were having over these last seven episodes. And Irwin, you were talking about that earlier, you know. You were really curious to hear from change experts about what they thought about how change happens. So, given what, you know, you heard in those episodes, should we be focusing so much on the system at all?

 

Irwin Loy  

I think it's inevitable because that's where the money is, right? If we talk about justice as a counterpoint to aid and a reason for solidarity rather than, which actors are capable of delivering money at scale that addresses, you know, these issues… doesn't come from nowhere. At the same time, I think of, you know, the activism episode. That one spoke to me a lot – actually more than I thought going in – about: if we all know that reform needs to happen, who are the people that will help drive this? And I feel like since the start of 2025, with the U.S., U.S.-led aid cuts, but also all the donor retrenchment, I hear humanitarians talking about, you know, just wondering where the community was, where the support was for people who would march out into the streets and support aid. Tamamm, you and I spoke with Tom Fletcher around this time last year, and he was talking about well, you know, we need to find where these people are, where we lost them along the way. And, you know, what Philip Proudfoot was saying was, well, they're still here, but maybe they don't look like they don't look like you think they do, and maybe they don't necessarily see themselves as humanitarian in that way. 

 

Philip Proudfoot: “There is a huge population that cares. They just don't look like they used to look for those populations. It's not, you know, middle-class women in the home counties sending 50 pence into a donation appeal in the Daily Mail anymore. It's people who are, have watched all of the promises of the current political system be denied to them, and then watched a livestreamed genocide and taken action, and that that public would support…”

 

I thought that episode really helped me think about trying to find what that new audience, what that support base is. It feels like the sector is moving in the wrong direction in the last two years on that. In the early days of the USAID cuts, we saw that there was very little response from the international community. There was a lot of fear. There was a lot of silence. And that was understandable because they were unsure what was happening with the budgets, and it was it was it was disappearing. There was a big risk to speak out. We heard leaders at the ISC level ask for quiet reflection and quiet diplomacy, and there was essentially silence for a month through late January and February until the first strands of, you know, this humanitarian reset language came out towards the end of that month. In the meantime, you have the Trump administration essentially targeting migrants, targeting the queer community, targeting trans people, and you have the humanitarian sector silent. What would you think if you're watching this? If you come from a migrant background, what would you think watching this if you were queer or trans? I think you would think: no, that's not for me, this sector is not for me.” So I think when we have humanitarians talking about finding a new support base or widening that support base and really speaking to social movements, I think it's not really speaking in that language yet. So anyway, to make a long interjection slightly shorter, I thought that episode on activism really helped me to think about, like, well what do you actually need to do to reach that, this social movement, and that's not really what the sector is doing right now.

 

Tammam Aloudat  

When we talked to Tom, I didn't really know if he was joking when he asked, "Where are the people protesting the aid cuts?” But thinking about it, and to go back to the idea of the system, what is different to me is: people protest for a cause. Aid is not a cause. The survival and dignity of people who are receiving aid is the cause. I mean, no one protests to support a tool. And this might be one of the differences in how humanitarians perceive ourselves as, you know, humanitarianism [as] an end in itself, and probably what normal people would perceive it as a, you know, a way to achieve justice, and I think the word justice gets mentioned way too little in the humanitarian sector. I think we are also in a disillusioned period whereby “we've heard this before. It didn't go anywhere.” And I remember somewhat vividly when I was young enough to be frustrated with older people saying “we've tried this, it didn't work, so you shouldn't try it anymore.” And this is where I mean, I want to go to Kia because you're the one who came with the idea, and you're the one who's still hopefully less disillusioned about how the system works. Do you think there is a system that is worth saving here?

 

Kia Howson  

That's a very existential question. I mean, one of the key themes that's come out of this series is that if we think about the humanitarian system as a cohesive, homogenous entity, then the kind of organisations that are hoarding power within that cannot relinquish control. There is no incentive to do so, and I, I believe it was Colum that talked about the kind of principal agent problem. 

 

Colum Wilson: “It's essentially a principal-agent problem, where the agencies themselves have become too large, really, to be controlled tightly by their principal supporters. They have their entities unto themselves, they're massive entities unto themselves. They are basically making the weather in the humanitarian system by what they do…”

 

I think Nadine also sort of said that you know we can't dismantle the master's house with the master's tools. So I think if we focus on that as the humanitarian system, then… then no, I don't think– for me what I've learned from this series, I don't think that the the positive change that we've seen has happened intentionally by those kinds of those kind of power holders, but I think one of the things that,  I sort of agree with you about there being a need for kind of talking about the the humanitarian system, but I also think that one of the negatives of of having done that for so long is that we've almost reinforced the centrality of the system by treating its, kind of, institutional boundaries that have been created as the boundaries of of what humanitarian action actually is in and of itself. And so I would probably think about the humanitarian system more as a humanitarian ecosystem, and I think if we start to do that, then I think yeah, there are definitely these sort of seedlings of hope and change that I don't see as being on the margins, but as part of this ecosystem of different actors and organisations that interact sort of interdependently, not necessarily with a kind of cohesive objective in mind, but you know, operating on the kind of premise that we want to help people. And you know, you've talked about dignity and justice. And I think that isn't conducive to just focusing on a humanitarian system within those kind of institutional boundaries that have been drawn by the Global North. 

 

Christina Bennett  

We talk a lot and we've spoken a lot in the series, and we talk a lot  as systems change actors about this ecosystem. But you know we heard from our our guests and and we talk a lot about, you know, the master's house cannot be dismantled by the master's tools, as you've said. Our speakers told us that across history there is no system that's relinquished power, whether it's financial resources it controls or or power that it holds. It's not what systems do. It's not what humans do. It's sort of antithetical to the way humans operate and behave to give up power. So in trying to shift our gaze, or to try to shift our conversation away from the system as it is to an ecosystem that it should be, how can we affect that change happen in order to be able to invest in an ecosystem versus a system.

 

Kia Howson  

I think it's less about converging into one replacement architecture that's like we sort of redefine, but more about thinking about what's possible when the incumbent model that we have can no longer kind of reproduce itself in in in the same way. And I think if we look at what our guests have told us in the series for you know talking about joy and hope…

 

Fanta Toure: “This is not the romantic ‘Oh look at people, they're suffering, and they're still clapping’ —this is not what we're talking about. This is really like people getting married in Gaza, people going on with their life.”

 

I think, you know, Hajooj sort of talked about the ERRs as sort of just getting on with things, communities just getting on with things. 

 

Hajooj Kuka: “What the ERRs did is showing that if the system collapses, we'll be okay. The system is not what's holding us together; it's our humanity, yeah. What's needed is solidarity, and the best form of solidarity is to trust each other, to trust the people. And the best way to do it: you get the money, you give to them. You get the resources, you give it to them. They'll figure it out…”

 

I think it's about not co-opting that and bringing that into our system, but kind of having an institutional humility about what it is, what is our role in the ecosystem? Is it about funding? Is our, you know, as kind of individual organisations or individual sort of networks within that ecosystem, are we kind of focusing on funding? Are we a social movement? A climate movement? Do we focus on justice? Life-saving support? And I think kind of having an understanding of what our role to play is in that ecosystem, rather than trying to co-opt it, is probably what I would suggest or think about as a first step.

 

[music break]

 

Tammam Aloudat

I want to poke Irwin, because he mentioned the issue of social movements and the interaction with others who have different purposes than humanitarian operations. I'm curious to hear you expand on that, Irwin.

 

Irwin Loy 

You know, the humanitarian sector right now is very defensive. It's shrunk. People are concerned, obviously, about the state of the world. I think that has also the effect of limiting what humanitarianism can be. People want to protect their mandates, organisations want to protect their mandates, and there's no momentum for reform. I don't know what I can say about reaching you know social movements, but what I've been thinking about a lot throughout this series is accountability, and I think everyone knows – and generally speaking, in what we think of as the international humanitarian sector – accountability goes up to your funders. We all know that. When we talk about the economic incentives of change, there are very few incentives to do that change. You know, donors want the system as it exists today, and I think we have to acknowledge that. So when we think of, like, how the system can change, I think the people that will have the answer is, are people who have a, who view their accountability differently. 

 

Bashair Ahmed: "What we can learn from the grassroots is: be humble, seeking equitable partnerships, and [...] also that the social contract is our accountability. Hajooj already kind of mentioned: the accountability is to the communities themselves [...] I think what the system can do is to move from leading by default to actually supporting by design…”

 

If there is this wider ecosystem of humanitarianism, I think what we as just people interested in humanitarianism would want to push for is to change that mix of accountability. So if you forefront people at your table who are not accountable to the same people you're accountable to, then I think that's a start of change. And so some of that can be through social movements, some of that can be through organisations that clearly feel more accountable to the people who they're helping. And I think there's all sorts of different actors that we haven't thought about. But if we, if we think about the next step in whoever comes up with the next idea for how reform should happen or what sort of reform movement should take shape, I think it has to, at the top of designing that has to be this mix of accountability and acknowledging that presently the humanitarian system serves a political purpose, it serves an economic purpose, and that's not going to change for now. So, if we still want to be a part of that, that's fine. It's up to you. But if there's going to be a better sort of humanitarian ecosystem, then it has to include a much broader mix of people who feel accountable to different levels.

 

Christina Bennett  

Let's go there. You know, you've sort of prompted us that the formal humanitarian system is fading. It's losing its footing. We've seen over the last 18 months, two years, just, you know, what these devastating aid cuts and and all that's come after has done to a sector that was already losing its legitimacy even before that. But throughout the series, we've talked to people about reform. So, what did our guests tell us, and what did you take away about what is emerging? What is stepping into this somewhat vacuum as the formal humanitarian system loses its breaks its stride. 

 

Tammam Aloudat  

You mentioned the episode on activism, Irwin, and it was quite profound for me to talk to them because that was as far from the formal system as we got in this discussion. One of the things is we're talking about helping people. In the episode about grassroots, they didn't start grassroots organisations to be part of the system and attend conferences and, you know, coordination meetings. The same goes for the flotilla, the [Global] Sumud flotilla: [it] doesn't even want to be called part of the system. And the system doesn't want to be along with them, and there was no solidarity from that humanitarian system with the flotilla at all. I look at Iran, and there are multiple groups of people who have acted on aid under the bombardment of the current war by Israel and the U.S. What jumps to me is there used to be a distinct value in new organisations – national, or regional, or even international – be accepted as part of the system. I remember when the CERF, the UN mechanism of funding, was robust. International organisations wanted to be part of that, so they'd get money. National organisations used to fight to be part of the, acknowledged the coordination system like the cluster system, for example, because that meant resources, meant acknowledgement of them as… I wonder whether it's still interesting or actually necessary for people who do different kinds to be arrested and held by a system that doesn't really provide resources anymore, and doesn't carry the same legitimacy that it can apply to its members. Whether we, you know, we would care or they would care about being part of a humanitarian system that is ailing by all accounts now, and whether that might be, you know, liberating themselves, different actors, from the need to be recognised as formally humanitarian, which I don't think they will ever be as national organisations, not on equal footing with the international big actors, for many reasons. Whether liberating themselves from that need would be a step for change, that would actually reform the center without its consent even. And that might be a sort of difficult and arduous, because as Irwin mentioned, it's not where the money is, not at least where donor money is. But it might be a step, and I wonder if it's going to be more appealing to smaller organisations, to national and local organisations, to just go on with life and cooperate with whoever they want instead of wasting their time in cluster meetings and. you know. coordination Zoom calls and whatever things.

 

Christina Bennett  

Yeah, I think one of the more powerful points for me from this whole series was one made by Hajooj, who was with the Sudan emergency response rooms. He described them as a form of resistance, like the black. He compared them to the Black Panthers because he said basically, you know, they are prepared to fall on their swords because survivability or sustainability is not the point. 

 

Hajooj Kuka: "One thing about mutual aid, it is a form of resistance. So I feel like if we end up dying, but the system changes because they have to cover what we're doing, then that would be great. Because you cannot kill the ERRS without actually providing these services [...]  I think one of our power is: we're okay with going away. We're just going to keep doing it, and we are going to save lives until we're destroyed.”

 

I think that is the power of the ERRs: is that they don't really care if they survive, great; if they flourish, amazing. But if they die resisting this aid system, they've done their job, and I think that's a really powerful stance to take. And it kind of goes back to what Ben Ramalingam was saying about the need for activism at the top of our organisations that we have lost it. 

 

Ben Ramalingam: "I do think that, as a sector, we've lost some of that campaigning zeal and energy. MSF, I think, still has it and is able to articulate eloquent anger. [...] I don't think it's an either or, but I do think if we are going to especially speak to and counter the alternative narratives that are surrounding us right now, we do need to have a way of bringing, bringing the anger back about injustices…"

 

That there are many sort of Martin Luther Kings running around the aid sector now who are using, sort of, peaceful diplomatic means, using the system to affect policy change, but there aren't enough Malcolm X's, you know, real subversives who take a much more separatist view, who say we're not going to change anything through the institutions that have that have built this system. We've got to stand apart and subvert it.

 

Kia Howson  

I also link to that, Christina. I really liked what Philip said about prefigurative politics. 

 

Philip Proudfoot: “... which means acting in the world now as you would like the world to be. So this is the kind of activism that I've written about in the context of the squats in Exarchia, where Greek anarchists were responding to refugees, not because they have international obligations according to the, you know, the international humanitarian system, but because they believe in the equal value of all human beings. [...] You know, most people in a crisis are not waiting for the UN convoy to turn up. [...] A different humanitarian system would find out what that is, what is going on on that level, and say, “How can we help?...”

 

And I think we've probably lost along the way the kind of simplicity of what people actually want. And I think that was another theme that that came out of the series was we're very disconnected from what people, you know, experiencing crisis actually want and actually need.

 

Irwin Loy  

From listening to these episodes, who is stepping or what is stepping into the void of the humanitarian system today? And you know, there's the obvious ones-the great episode with with the Fogbow CEO and your new best friend, Tamam. And I think he offered you a job, though, so maybe we should be concerned about that.

 

Tammam Aloudat  

I mean, there, there was a comment that didn't get into the recording about, it's safe to say I'm not getting a job there.

 

Irwin Loy  

Okay, bonus, bonus material. Maybe in a more general sense, what I'd put forward in terms of what's stepping into the void is whoever can tell the clearest narrative. I think we've seen success from people who are able to communicate, and I think the best communicator the formal system has is Tom Fletcher. He sold the humanitarian reset as this narrative of change when it's really not a reform movement. It's the idea of reform, but it's not actual, it's not an agreed-on way to reform from across the system. We see strong narratives from the emergency response rooms. They've really, I think, quite strategically, co-opted the language of the formal international humanitarian system. Hajooj is an external relations communicator, or you know whatever his job title is. I forget. Sorry, Hajooj. But, you know, they are very they understand what a cluster meeting is, even if they don't want to be in it. They they they speak that language, and they allow the system to to sort of co-opt them to some extent if they know that it will get funding. So I think I guess that's an opportunity, but also a danger if you the humanitarian system, the formal humanitarian system, most actors in it are just not great communicators, and they don't understand the power of a of a narrative in the way that in the way that Elon Musk does, in the way that I don't know if I can attribute you know masterful narratives to Donald Trump, but it's certainly, it cuts through the noise, right? I think the opponents of aid have strong narratives, and they have mouthpieces, and the humanitarian sector, the formal humanitarian sector, does not. So I think that what’s stepping into the void is an opportunity and a bigger risk. And I think the formal system has to figure out a way to, to communicate better. But also those who want to make a change in a positive way, I think, can have a better start or a head start by really articulating what it is they do better.

 

Christina Bennett  

You know we haven't really talked a lot about that Fogbow episode, and I felt like Brook Jerue had a very strong narrative for why they were doing what they were doing. He justified the intervention, or the work of Fogbow sort of existing in this middle mile gap, you know, for delivering aid to starving people quickly, efficiently, and at no cost to the taxpayer. And, you know, in his mind, the ends justified the means. 

 

Brook Jerue: “If I can help these people today, and maybe you know, you might upset a few people or bend a few rules to make it happen, but it's worth it, right, in the long run." 

 

But I know that that episode sat very uncomfortably with all of us, and certainly we had then Beatrice Lindstrom actually teased that out for us. 

 

Beatrice Lindstrom: "Past experience and studies show that when there is a militarised ethos in aid delivery, that it creates a different kind of relationship with beneficiaries, and a securitisation of aid that can actually lead to harm for the beneficiaries themselves."

 

But I don't know, what did you think? I mean, a narrative can be good, but if it's the wrong narrative, it will capture the wrong hearts and minds, and will send us in a different direction. So, you know, how do we avoid legitimising narratives that are going to actually become harmful to our ultimate ends.

 

Irwin Loy  

Well, I mean, for me, it's not about legitimising or delegitimising them. Those narratives exist, right? I think we can interrogate them. You know, I don't think Fogbow is… I think they are upfront about what they do. I think that– upfront is maybe not the right word. I don't think calling yourself a logistics company is quite exactly what Fogbow is. But I think they engage with the public, and I think that's reasonable. There are many other actors, privatised actors who do not. So I don't think it's about legitimising or delegitimising those voices, because they exist and they are, again like the point of the series, changes happening regardless of whatever reform proposal the humanitarian system is currently on. 

 

Tammam Aloudat 

I mean, I have a massive admiration for the emergency rooms in Sudan and the way they've managed to actually do exactly what you said, Irwin, which is use the language of the system, understand it well, and be able to navigate it. But I also fear that we have a survivor bias towards them, because there are many other things that emerged in emergencies that got neither the legitimacy or the legitimisation from outside that they got, nor survived as far. And the ERRs managed to fundraise massively, particularly because no one else had access to Sudan, and they were very good at communicating and very good at showing real impact. There are other examples. The White Helmets in Syria never got legitimacy because they were accused of all kinds of not being humanitarian. I mentioned Iran. There are other places where, like, local aid, mutual aid groups didn't survive. So, I just want to say that because we're talking about the single example of probably many, many that has actually achieved that. It's not an easy task. It's not just having a good communicator that guarantees that they will get recognition and survival. And I have no doubt that if, if the humanitarian sector had access to most of Sudan, they wouldn't have given them the light of day in the same way, or acknowledged them, or celebrate them. And that is not against them. That is to their credit. They've managed to fill a real gap and do it very well. The other thing is: when we talk about the narrative, there we're still talking within the boundaries of what humanitarianism formally is known for.  Even ERRs and many others are talking about humanitarian principles as they are interpreted in 1965 by the ICRC, or 1991 by the General Assembly. What bothers me is there is no radical idea of humanitarianism as a system. There isn't a radical idea about what next humanitarianism could or should be. It's just variations that are slightly further or slightly closer to what we have now. Shockingly, the most radical idea is the one of Fogbow. We don't, I'm not saying, you know, storm the castle, but I'm saying we do not yet have an equivalent action to going out of the peaceful, nice, smile at people and hope they figure how to do things right. We don't have people who are coming with options that are against the system or alternatives to it, and that is what makes me less optimistic. It's the lack of imagination, as I see it.

 

[music break]

 

Christina Bennett  

So I'm going to put this question to all of you again, because we've talked about a lot of different things about narratives, about communication, about principles, about where the new vision for a new humanitarianism is or isn't. But where do you see bright ideas stepping into this void? What should we be investing in in our support, in our thought partnership. Where do we see what is stepping into the void? Tamam, then Kia, then Irwin.

 

Tammam Aloudat  

There were a few times where I was pleasantly surprised by positions of formal humanitarian actors. When I worked at MSF and MSF UK decided to go to the protests on Gaza, when barely anyone in the humanitarian sector decides. And it's not only about Gaza; it's about seeing themselves as a political actor with an opinion that needs to be expressed in solidarity with people they need to help and cannot have access to. I still struggle, and I've always struggled, with humanitarianism seeing itself as apolitical, and I think that is more and more an unsustainable position, even for the stalwarts of you know apolitical action like the ICRC. I was reading a quote from a video of interview with the president of the ICRC, and she was saying: we can't watch the breaking of rules, and so on, and stay silent about it. I was thinking, like in my head before I figured what she's talking about: oh, finally, they're speaking about Gaza. It turns out that she's speaking about drones, about autonomous weapons in advance of the UN General Assembly. The same sentence would have been nice about other contexts, whether Sudan or Gaza or so on. I don't think the apolitical “we’re outside the system, we are being given a space to do this life saving because you know the system accepts us with space and resources” – we're not given space or resources anymore. Being apolitical to appease the system isn't a good deal even anymore. So there has to be an engagement. I think the engagement with social movements is one, where the activism that is happening about climate, about justice, about immigration, about issues that concern people. We have spent so much time assuming that everybody should be in service of humanitarianism, as it's interpreted by the large international organisations. I think it's about time humanitarianism gets in service of causes of justice, in the way they want us to be in their service, not only in the way that we find sanitised and acceptable.

 

Kia Howson  

I would agree with Tamamm, and I remember my earlier point now about the prefigurative politics. So Philip said that being in the world or acting in accordance with the world that we want to see, and I think that requires a kind of radical honesty about where the system is going and what our role is within that system, and how we can change it. I don't think that we can be kind of passive bystanders in this, like, reform movement. I think we have to physically reimagine an alternative system and an alternative future, and maybe that's based on social justice, and maybe we tap into our activist roots and, like Tammam was saying, kind of focus on what we can take and learn from social movements and climate movements, but I don't think we can continue as we are, kind of, focusing on these technocratic reform movements that we have. I think it requires a much more radical and honest approach to systems change if we actually want to see any kind of meaningful difference in the near future.

 

Irwin Loy  

I don't have bright ideas on the the bright ideas that are stepping in. I guess what comes to mind for me are two two elements: accountability and supporting those who partner well. You know, Colum Wilson, who's formerly a humanitarian official at FCDO, in his episode he talked about the agencies being too large to control, and that's certainly something we've seen from an accountability perspective from big agencies like World Food Program and some of our recent reporting on, for example, a cyber attack on them, and their reaction to it. Donors that we've spoken with at The New Humanitarian have talked about, you know, the difficulty in getting answers from them. If the agency that is the biggest recipient of humanitarian funding currently in the formal system, if their own donors feel that it's not really that accountable to them, then where are we at? So I think donors need to recognise they can't reward unaccountability. And they're not about to stop funding WFP, but they should be funding organisations or elements of the system or the wider ecosystem that they feel have more accountability to them. In terms of those who partner well, I think of reading a couple years. This was a few years ago when I was starting out as, at The New Humanitarian, I was at a conference on localisation, and these, the panelists – they were local actors, local organisations – they were on stage at a panel held by, I think it was a donor. And then off stage, they were just talking to two different colleagues, other national organisations, local and national organisations. And one was saying, “well, we need funding for this.” It was a women-led organisation. “We need funding for this. I can't find a donor. Do you know anyone who might be interested in that?” And he said, "yeah, here, let me put you in touch”. And then that afternoon, I saw them chatting. Fast forward to last year, I was chatting with one of, the person who was asking for contacts for funding, and she had gotten that funding, and it was one of the organisations that did not back out [when] other donor funding collapsed, that funding relationship continued, and it helped them survive to this day. And that's just you know one story. But I just think to myself, can you imagine IOM and UNHCR sitting in a room saying, “oh no, you have this funding. No, I've got enough. Like, you, you have it.” I don't really see that happening. So I think when you see organisations who are willing to partner, and we all know that the many big organisations have difficulty partnering well, those have to be supported in whatever way that support can materialise. I think in general, we have to recognise that the formal system as it exists today isn't going anywhere. It's a political tool by the donors who fund it. So whether or not you want to be a part of that, it serves a purpose. It is saving lives. But if we want to see something different, I think those who want a different form of humanitarianism need to support something that will be good enough and big enough to co-opt, that the humanitarian system will want to own and be a part of. So I think the challenge will be to figure out how to draw that line and to protect whatever emerges from being co-opted. I think as we've seen with ERRs, the humanitarian system is just eager to co-opt whatever works. And if a local organisation and a local network figures out that, you know, small networks of pooled funding will work, the system will eventually try to co-opt it. So I think it's about supporting these initiatives, but being aware that as they grow up, they will be co-opted, and finding out how to protect against that. 

 

Christina Bennett  

So I've heard a few things. I've heard that there is hope in middle tier donors, as you've described, Irwin. I heard there's hope in new forms of accountability that are not about upward accountability; they're about community accountability and what communities really do want and need versus what we have to offer. I've heard that there's hope in repolitisation of aid of humanitarian aid, and using the tools that we have from, you know, other movements – from the human rights tradition, from, you know, other social movements, from the climate movement, et cetera – that we could be employing to become more effective at what we do. And I've heard about, you know, Philip Proudfoot's idea of prefigurative politics, that you just need to start acting on behalf of the system that you want to see. So there are lots of different ideas floating around about how we could get from where we are today to where we want to be. What will it take to get there? 

 

Kia Howson  

We need to ask the right people what it is that they want to see. In order for us to reimagine a new system, we really need to be focusing on who it is that the system aims to serve, and obviously that is communities and those closest to and affected by crises. And I don't think that the kind of system that we want to see is going to be designed by us on this call or designed in the Global North. I think we obviously have to kind of go back to the simplicity of what communities want and need. So that's probably where I would start, which maybe isn't so much of a, kind of, radical recommendation or way forward, but I think it's something that we constantly speak about, but perhaps we aren't doing very effectively. 

 

Tammam Aloudat  

There are options. Some of them would require some of the bigger organisations to cede power because, what Irwin was saying: no one would say you've got this, we have our hands full. But there could be a decision to say, the big ones – the ICRC, the IFRC, the you know HCR, MSF – we will serve a consortium of local organisations, and they will tell us what to do. I know all the arguments against that: oh, but you know, this is people's lives are not an experiment to play with, and you know. But it's not hardly that humanitarians are like saving lives at maximum capacity in every given context. So there is a place of saying, you know, we are talking about agency, let's put our money where our mouth is. We will put our capacity and resources. Tell us what to do. There are plenty of places where there is a tradition… I mean, I think of my country, of Syria today. There was a research paper that estimated the White Helmets saved – well, it served. I can't say saved – 114,000 people who were extracted from under the rubble. I can almost certainly say that this is more than the whole humanitarian system can claim to have saved in that sense in Syria over the war. There is nothing wrong in saying, okay, you know what, we're going to be at your service, there, or in Yemen, or in Sudan, or in Myanmar, or in, you know there are plenty of places where people can put their mouth where their money is. The second thing is actively find allies. the The story that jumps to me is Ken Loach's movie, The Old Oak, which is about Syrian refugees who have ended up in a village in the north of England in an old, decrepit industrial mining town that has… and how people found allies in the most unlikely place. The same goes in the 80s when the miners' strike was there. You know, the rough miners found real allies in the LGBTQ – themselves prosecuted – community. We need to go beyond just trying to ally with the powerful and find other allies that, you know, not only that they would serve us, but we would serve them as well.

 

Christina Bennett  

What is an allyship you'd like to see?

 

Tammam Aloudat  

I’d like the humanitarian system to display real solidarity, where we are in solidarity with people because we should be, not because they fit our model of being cute and cuddly and peaceful and, you know, speak English and know how to write reports. And I want allies that can fill the gaps that we might not be able [to[. Speak out better when we are implementing better. Be able to reach, you know, protests. Reach parliamentarians, talk to– not everything needs to be done by a single party. And we don't have a – I keep saying we, and I haven't been in a humanitarian organisation in a while now – but the humanitarian system doesn't have an entitlement to the saving of lives of people; those people have entitlement of their lives. So the primary allies are the people who are affected, and them being able to have agency and final decision over their lives. We need to demonstrate that in actual terms. [It] goes back to the accountability. We're still in a time where an organisation the size of WFP can get hacked for the data of effectively the whole population of Gaza and decline to answer questions, and it's fine. And it's shocking, the lack of accountability and transparency is shocking. We have long ways to go, but I don't see another way. This is not going to stand for long.

 

Christina Bennett  

You know what I hear, Kia and Tamam, you describe is a real subversion, is a real flipping of how humanitarian accountability works and looks like. But in order to do that, there has to be a great deal of unlearning. We heard a lot about how there are local organisations out there that are cute and cuddly and speak our language and know how to write the right reports, and I actually see that a lot in Start Network that there are local organisations who we look toward because they they work so well with us. Whereas that might be the wrong gaze if we want to, It's the wrong way of thinking, it's the wrong perspective if we are going to subvert what we already have.

 

[music break]

 

Christina Bennett  

What is the role of the international system for how we get from where we are today to where we're saying we want to be in the future, in a world where coalitions of local organisations or movements are telling us how they want us to be accountable to them, who are telling, who are setting the terms of our engagement, rather than the other way around. What's the role of the international community in doing that?

 

Irwin Loy  

I think the role is actually listening. In terms of getting there, I think, you know, I'm a believer in small steps. Just, you know, having these big goals can feel so enormous and impassable. What I jotted down was finding common ground. I think there is an opportunity in our current moment, and it is a small step, a very small one. But I think we all see this polarisation in the sector right now; the formal humanitarian system is divided into camps of almost ideological back-to-basics or tear it all down, and there it's it's harder and harder for these two camps to speak to each other, I think, But I think there is common ground In protracted crises. If so much of your funding, more than 90% of your funding, is going to protracted crises, and the average length of response plans or of the duration of responses is 15 years or more, what does that say about how the system's working? I think there's broad agreement across this polarised divide of how costly that is. So, what are the answers to that? I think it can speak to social protection, parallel systems, or not creating parallel systems, proper exit planning, transitions, localisation, nexus, and all, you know, maybe some of the perverse economic incentives that drive short-term priorities. You know, for example, why are organisations scaling up in refugee emergencies where there's no active conflict? It doesn't really make sense, and I think even those organisations can realise that. So I think there is an opportunity for self-policing there. So I guess finding that common ground feels like, in the polarised humanitarian system right now, one step to talk about solutions. It doesn't take us from here to there, but it takes us one step into acknowledging what the problem is and figuring out if there's a way that involves not scaling up, the formal humanitarian sector not scaling up as a next step.

 

Christina Bennett  

And is there a discrete role for the international humanitarian system?

 

Irwin Loy  

The system sees itself as the main character in the story all the time, right? You can tell it from the communications, from the way we're talking about it right now, you know. Whereas they are playing a supportive role. So I think the way to support is to recognise that. Right now, I think a lot of the recognition of that is a little bit superficial, because at the end of the day, you're asking for money. You want to put yourself in the front seat, organisations are competing against each other. They have a mandate to try and survive. And it takes organisations to realise it and to to step back and to say: if when push comes to shove and then when when the money is on the table, do you reach for it, or do you really decide who could use this more than I can? And I think some organisations have that conversation. Some organisations reach for it and push others out of the way. We've clearly seen that, especially in the last couple of years. So if you want to support this other system, it does take a bit of honesty and organisational self-sacrifice, because it is organisational. Let's be clear: when we're talking about the humanitarian system, you're not sacrificing yourself. Generally speaking, your organisation is sacrificing something.

 

Tammam Aloudat  

We haven't talked about much in this series, but Irwin brings it to mind: people aren't sacrificing themselves, they're sacrificing their organisations. But people, individuals – and we're talking, like, system-wide – but we can't forget that individuals have massive incentives to keep their jobs. I mean, the humanitarian sector pays handsomely in many positions, particularly in higher leadership, particularly when you are an Under-Secretary-General of the UN, or an Assistant Secretary-General who gets salary without taxes. Not only in the UN system, but in other organisations as well. I mean, all assuming best intentions in everybody, it's very hard to overcome how we effectively have created an oligarchy. Most of them are in the system for way too long, recycled from one position to the other. So, there is a personal incentive. We never talk about the conflict of interest that is implicit, of tasking the same people who are incentivised to keep the system by reforming the system to their own peril. No one would do that normally, but we do it and pretend it makes sense. 

 

Christina Bennett  

But if you also remember, one of our guests, Chloe Fiona Ludden, talked about the need to redistribute sacrifice. 

 

Chloé Fíona Ludden: "It's important to understand that solidarity requires sacrifice, and we live in a world of sacrifice. Some entire zones, countries, so-called developing countries are sacrificed for the benefit of so-called developed countries. Future generations are sacrificed for the benefit of the current ones. So I think my entire software would be, how do we redistribute sacrifice…"

 

You know, she tells the story about working at the UN and seeing all the reforms, the UN80 reforms, in particular, as being all about keeping the lights on at the UN and not at all about re-legitimising such an important institution. And I think she made a very powerful point about how we are just unprepared to redistribute sacrifice, and I think that's what you're talking about, Tammam.

 

Tammam Aloudat  

And there's a running joke that was in Geneva, at least, about like the only time UN staff protested in the street was when their positions were cut. I mean, you could argue that if you've been 10 years in the UN getting a salary without taxes and with all the perks of the UN, you might think: well, that was an achievement, I'm going to get a real job now and pay taxes. But no, people get to the level of entitlement that if I lose my job, that's a huge injustice, when most of UN agencies cut programmes before they cut staff. And I understand their frustrations because they cut the short contracts and the lower level staff before they cut the senior staff, if they cut senior staff at all. But still, in context, when WFP cuts food rations before it cuts senior positions, that's not a logical humanitarian position. At least not as we describe humanitarianism.

 

Kia Howson 

But I'd like to believe that there are lots of Chloe's in the humanitarian sector, right. She left the UN, and I'd like to believe that there are lots of people that do this job because it's, they care about doing the right thing, and and it being about you know the moral obligation to help people. And I feel particularly moved, at least in this series, by the points around hope, and social justice, and joy, and wanting to help each other, and just getting on with things. So, I don't know, I'd like to believe that there are lots of those people in the sector. And if we're talking about, kind of, allyships, maybe it's about finding those people as well. And I think Chloe's one of them.

 

Irwin Loy  

I'm also a believer in the Chloe's. [Laughs]. I’m team Chloe on that

 

Kia Howson.

Shout out to Chloe. 

 

Irwin Loy 

I guess I'm conflicted in this, like, you know, I agree with what you say, Tamam. But obviously, as we know, there's a big range in pay packages and remuneration across the sector. Lots of pretty abusive short-term contracts year-on-year forever in the United Nations, and of course, NGOs have completely different salary scale. And I know people who have sacrificed, who have turned down jobs, who have voluntarily left over the last year or two, who have taken personal sacrifices to reduce salaries – all that exists. I think there is also this divide with, you know, senior leadership who are seen as very much in the self-preservation careerist mode, and many staff who, yes have, some staff have very impressive entitlements, but they are also not the reason why the UN is in the system, or they individually. So they have difficulty… you know, they feel it is to blame, right? And I guess for me it comes back to how do you find that common ground. And it's, it feels, it feels difficult because even this conversation right now we're having, you know, this part of it, I think people would listen to it and think, "well, why are you accusing me?” right? And so how do you find that common ground when we use words like complicity? That's a difficult word to hear. It's a difficult word to be accused of, right? At the same time, we talk about it because it's, I think people feel it's a just word to use. So, if people want to convince the staff who have jobs in today's humanitarian sector of the need for change, how do you go about doing that? If you want to convince leadership, how do you go about doing that? And you know the common ground thing I think is is harder than it than it sounds, especially right now. And I worry that we are prepared to– the different parts of the system are just not really prepared to talk to each other in an honest way to figure out what they can realistically do, or what they can, what they can actually do.

 

Tammam Aloudat  

I agree with both of you, and I feel guilty for generalising. I think it's important to say:when you say that there is racism in society, doesn't mean that everybody is racist. When you say that misogyny continues, or you know, doesn't mean that everybody is a misogynist. It means that all of us are conditioned to normalise it, to accept it, to not stand against it. This is why I'm saying. I'm not at all blaming anyone. And Chloe, for example, was very clear. Her choice to leave the UN was afforded to her by her privilege and her choice. And people have sacrificed and they have been promised stuff that have never materialised. I guess what I'm saying is, we all have the tendency to want to defend our choices, and where we are, and so on. What we might need is a little bit of a collective figuring out what can we do to make things better. In the UN, there is a group that has been quite active on Gaz – with its own problems, but there is people known by name and face, and that's a risk to them. When the Extinction Rebellion published their book, and they were talking about the closing of bridges in London, and they said not everybody stood there. Kids who came from middle-class families stood in the beginning in the front and and got arrested intentionally because daddy is going to release them in a couple of hours. People of colour, immigrants, single-headed households stood in the back. They were allowed to participate without necessarily taking the risk. What I'm saying is: each of us needs to figure what's the edge of my privilege and how far can I push? It's not a matter of all of us need to do the same thing, but I, individually, what can I sacrifice? That's the distribution of sacrifice. We shouldn’t accept the system. We shouldn't sacrifice each other. But also we should find the edges of our privilege and push towards that potentially.

 

Christina Bennett  

We heard from so many people in this whole series about their definition of the system, and what it all came down to for so many of them – for Chloe, for Nadine, for Hajooj – was the system is us. 

 

Nadine Saba: "The system is not working. We need to amend the system. And then my question is: who is the system? The system is not, you know, a stranger creature that came ex nihilo. We created the system. We are the ones who created the systems. We are the ones who created the rules. We are the ones who set the policies. And we should be the ones who would be able to change it."

 

The system is not what's holding us together; ur common ground, our shared humanity is. We're all functioning within it, and we all have the power to change it,

 

Tammam Aloudat  

Hear, hear. 

 

Christina Bennett  

Which takes me to some final thoughts that I wanted to get from all of you. One of the things I've taken away from this series, and what I've taken away from this conversation is that change is not a sentiment. Change is not a set of commitments. It's not people, you know, writing great advocacy papers or you know signing up to letters. Change is an action. Based on this conversation and what we've all heard about how change happens, what actions or set of actions would you start with that could lead to change? Irwin, let me start with you.

 

Irwin Loy  

My takeaway was probably the starting point of the series concept, which is that the change is happening in spite of the system, not because of it. And you know, I keep coming back to this: the conventionally funded humanitarian response system is doing what it's built to do. Other actors are finding their own solutions. So I think change happens with supporting those solutions if you have the power in you to support them, whether that's monetary or whatnot. And I think the goal doesn't have to be this massive global scale, but more local legitimacy and relevance. And again, I think we see how this works in theory with other projects, with you know, kind of seed funding, backchannel influence and allies, and then more mainstream funding, and then maybe co-option. But I think there are opportunities there. But yeah, I mean, my overall takeaway is that the change is coming. So it depends how you want to position yourself. If you're satisfied with being part of the formal system as it exists today, that's very commendable. People are saving lives. The system is saving lives. But I think there are roles that people can play, and that does mean not actively getting in the way of change as it's happening because it is happening.

 

Kia Howson 

I would kind of echo in a similar vein what Irwin has said in terms of the purpose of the series, which was, you know, not only to accept and understand how and why the system changes, but also what those levers of change might be. And I think we've had lots of ideas in this particular episode, but throughout the series, about what those levers of change might be and how we either, how we can kind of support them to kind of realise this change that we want to see. But I think in saying that, I think we also need a clearer idea of what it is we're actually working towards. I feel like we've spoken about– like localisation is one of them. What does that actually mean beyond the kind of technocratic indicators, and goals, and success metrics that were set by the Grand Bargain? Like I don't know, I think we need to go to our local actors or communities and ask them what that change actually looks like. And presumably that's not going to be one thing. The system is not homogenous, and the change that we want to see is not going to be cohesive in every single context and for every single community. So, I would probably start there,I think, in trying to understand what it is we're working towards and how we can kind of maneuver ourselves within this ecosystem that we've kind of described today to affect that change.

 

Tammam Aloudat  

I think what this series has shown us is that we are not poor in ideas, and real reflection, and thought, and different ways of looking at the problems. We might think that it's an insurmountable, this change is insurmountable. We have to remember that humanitarianism is – even the formal system – is 100 folds people working in projects with people who are affected on the ground directly, and every action of them matters in changing that system. And then there's the humanitarians that are emerging and changing. And I, I want to just say that what Irwin said: all choices are valid that don't do harm, but whatever we choose, we shouldn't try to stand in the way of that change that is happening. And I want to follow on what Kia said, which is what Philip [said]: prefigurative behavior. It's a bit more joyful and optimistic than I'm used to, but you know what the hell, we can do that for once.

 

Kia Howson  

There's always hope.

    

Christina Bennett  

I agree. I think, you know, I've landed there too. It's this idea that if we can dare to dream, identify the future that we want, and then have the conviction to act. And not just defensively, but really proactively act on behalf of the future that we want to see. We just take those small steps, as you said, Irwin, it doesn't have to be big gestures all the time. But it has to start with us. I just, I get very annoyed about this whole, like, “the system, the system, the system”. We are all – you know, whether it's the emergency response rooms, or those of us in this room, or the donors, or the UN, or whoever, Start Network – we are all part of this system, and we have the power to change it. So, like, let's not leave it up to others. Let's act. Leave it there. What do you think?

 

–

 

Christina Bennett  

Thank you for joining us on this special edition of Rethinking Humanitarianism in collaboration with Start Network. This series was hosted by Tamam Aloudat and Christina Bennett, and produced and edited by Melissa Fundira. Concept and editorial support from Irwin Loy and Kia Howson. Mixing by Tevin Sudi.

 

Tammam Aloudat  

If you have any questions or comments, you can email us at podcast at The New humanitarian.org. Please rate and subscribe to our show wherever you get your podcasts. Also, consider becoming a member of The New Humanitarian to help us continue reporting from the hearts of crises. Go to www.newhumanitarian.org to find out more.