36. Dull Disasters

Hugo Slim is one of the best known and most interesting thinkers in the humanitarian space. He works at Univeristy of Oxford on the ethics and practice of humanitarian action and currently focus on answering the question “What is Climate Humanitarianism?” In this conversation with Lars Peter Nissen, Hugo discusses how we should define and prioritise humanitarian needs. The two papers that form the basis of the conversation can be found here:How should we define and prioritise humanitarian need?Painful Choices: How Humanitarians Can Prioritize in a World of Rising Need - A Conversation Starter for the Climate Emergency

Tech to the rescue (TTTR) is based on the simple idea, that the tech sector, just like most law firms, should do pro-bono work. So they have built a platform where non-profits and tech companies can be matched - a Tinder platform for social impact, where non-profits and tech companies can swipe right.In this frank conversations TTTR CEO Jacek Siadkowski and Trumanitarian host Lars Peter Nissen explore:How to connect tech companies with nonprofits to innovate together and bridge the technological gap for good, emphasizing the potential for technology to scale up the impact of nonprofit organizations.The frustrations and limitations within the humanitarian sector, particularly around funding, engagement, and the scalability of interventions. The potential impact of SMEs in the tech and nonprofit sectors and how large organizations often receive the majority of resources and attention, while SME and mid-sized NGOs has an undervalued role to play in responding to crises and implementing innovative solutions.The importance of digital preparedness for crisis response and the transformative power of technology in addressing urgent humanitarian needs.

Sarah Boukhary works with the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue on the peace process in Yemen. Yemen is not only one of the most severe humanitarian crises in the world, it is also at the very bottom of statistics on gender equality. So what is it like to be a woman, speaking up for peace, in the midst of a very male dominated world? How do we decolonize the aid sector, what's the problem with traffic culture in Sanaa, and why is chewing qat important? These are the some of the questions Sarah covers in this powerful conversation with Lars Peter Nissen.

This episode is a recording of the closing panel of the Humanitarian Xchange (Hx) conference which took place in London on 20 February 2024. The panel participants are: Harpinder Athwal Collacott, CEO of Mercy Corps Europe, Francis Iwa, Co-founder and Executive Director of CAFOMI, Jacek Siadkowski, CEO of Tech to the Rescue (TTTR) and Andrew Jackson, professor of Global and Imperial History, University of Oxford. The panel was moderated by Lars Peter Nissen, Director of ACAPS and host of Trumanitarian . 

This is the second episode of two on the issue of Housing, Land and Property (HLP) in a humanitarian context. The Episodes are co-hosted by: Alexandre Corriveau-Bourque, Co-Founder of Verent Solutions. and Trumanitarian's usual host Lars Peter Nissen.This weeks guests are:For Puerto Rico: Dr. Ana Christina Gomez Perez, a professor at the School of Law at the University of Puerto Rico and an advisor to Habitat for Humanity in Puerto Rico.Community Land Trusts featured by: Habitat for Humanity Puerto Rico, the Land Trust Alliance, and World Habitat.For Ukraine: Yuliya Panfil – Director of the Future of Land and Housing Program at the New America Foundation. Their report : Can Ukraine Transform Post-Crisis Property Compensation and Reconstruction? Other relevant articles in Foreign Policy, and Slate.Global Progress on the recognition of Indigenous and Local Community Land RightsConference on Housing Land and Property in Crises: A Dialogue on Community and Collective Land – April 02-04, 2024, University of San Juan, Puerto Rico 

This is the first of two episodes on the issue of Housing, Land and Property (HLP) in a humanitarian context. The Episodes are co-hosted by: Alexandre Corriveau-Bourque, Co-Founder of Verent Solutions. and Trumanitarians usual host Lars Peter Nissen.The guests in Part 1 are: Irantzu Serra Lasa, the Senior Director for Disaster Risk Reduction and Response from Habitat for Humanity International, Ibere Lopes the Housing land and Property Advisor for the Global Shelter Cluster and Shezane Kirubi, a Housing land and Property specialist with IOM Somalia.For more information on the Conference Series on HLP in Crisis Contexts which is discussed in the episode see Outcomes from Inaugural Global Conference in 2023.  The next conference will be the Dialogue on Community Land Trusts for Disaster Resilience and Humanitarian Responses - April 2-4 2024, in Puerto Rico. Second Global Conference on HLP in Crisis Contexts - May 15-17, 2024, in Washington DC. For information about any of these conferences contact Juli King – [email protected] learn more about the work in Somalia see The Danwadaag Initiative.

Jeremy Konyndyk is the President of Refugees International. In this conversation with Lars Peter Nissen he discusses how we can reform the humanitarian sector and how far we have come.

Brendan Lawson is a Lecturer in Media and Communication at Loughborough University. In this conversation with Lars Peter Nissen he discusses his recent book: The Life of a Number - Measurement, Meaning and the Media. The conversation also covers the article by Ten Things We Know about Humanitarian Numbers which was published in Journal of Humanitarian Affairs and that Brendan has written with with Joel Glassman (our guest on episode 8: Needology).If you are have any comments or questions Brendan would love to hear from you. He can be reached on email [email protected].

Humanitarian Xchange is a new conference organised by the Humanitarian Leadership Academy (HLA). In this conversation Dominic Courage from HLA and Francis Iwa from the Ugandan NGO Care and Assistance For Forced Migrants (CAFOMI) discuss Hx with Lars Peter Nissen.

Raphael Gorgeu, Senior Research Associate at the Geneva based think tank HERE-Geneva, has spent the past couple of years looking at how change unfolds in the humanitarian sector.In this episode Raphael presents his approach and discuss his findings with Lars Peter Nissen.You can find Raphael’s report here.