No one wants to depend on aid, including refugees | Power Shift

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. ___ What happens when a stateless activist sits down with one of the UN refugee agency’s highest-ranking officials? What if they had the chance to tell him what it’s like to lose everything, to have to depend on aid, and what it would take for refugees to have more agency? Can the decisions he makes in Geneva affect the lives of refugees on the other side of the world? And could their conversation change how those decisions are made? Listen in as Rohingya refugee rights activist Hafsar Tameesuddin and UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for Operations Raouf Mazou candidly discuss what needs to change in refugee response, and who has the power to change it.  ___ Subscribe on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube, or search “The New Humanitarian” in your favourite podcast app. You can find transcripts of all podcasts on our website. Are you or anyone you know interested in participating in future Power Shift conversations? Email us with the subject line ‘POWER SHIFT”.

Daylight abductions of permanent residents. Mass deportations with no due process. Homelessness at a record high. Outbreaks of previously eliminated childhood diseases. Sounds like a humanitarian crisis could be unfolding in the US. “When is the UN going to come in?” asks Carlos Menchaca, a legislator, activist, organiser, and former New York City council member.  What’s Unsaid is a podcast by The New Humanitarian, where we explore open secrets and uncomfortable conversations around the world’s conflicts and disasters.   

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. ___ Subscribe on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube, or search “The New Humanitarian” in your favourite podcast app. You can find transcripts of all podcasts on our website. Are you or anyone you know interested in participating in future Power Shift conversations? Email us with the subject line ‘POWER SHIFT”.

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. ___ Michael Köhler and Nadine Saba are just two of the many people tasked with advancing the goals of the Grand Bargain – one of the most ambitious attempts at delivering humanitarian aid more effectively and efficiently.  As such, they often log into the same meetings by videoconference. And yet, Köhler, one of three ambassadors tasked with overseeing the process, and Saba, a Grand Bargain sherpa representing Global South NGOs, have never spoken one-on-one. Until now.  Over the course of seven weeks in mid-2024, Köhler and Saba met over Zoom as part of the Power Shift experiment – one leading high-level meetings from Brussels, and the other contending with real-life humanitarian crises on the ground as both a local organisation leader, and citizen.  Much has changed in the aid sector since these initial meetings, but the spirited, yet convivial, debates between Köhler and Saba have taken on a new urgency as the world reacts to the loss of major Western humanitarian funding. “Are we relinquishing power? Are we keeping it in the hands of the donors?” Saba challenged Köhler, “And if we're keeping it in the hands of the donor, how much are they attuned to what is happening on the fields? Not much.” Listen in to the no-holds-barred conversations between Köhler and Saba as they take on a range of topics, from the yawning gap between headquarters-level decisions and realities in the field, to the dilemma of donor countries’ competing obligations to constituents and affected people, to the need to treat the Grand Bargain – and other attempts at change – with a lot more urgency.  ___ Subscribe on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube, or search “The New Humanitarian” in your favourite podcast app. You can find transcripts of all podcasts on our website. Are you or anyone you know interested in participating in future Power Shift conversations? Email us with the subject line ‘POWER SHIFT”.

The Trump administration’s aid freeze is a pivotal moment for the humanitarian sector. Veteran aid worker and TNH CEO Tammam Aloudat doesn’t believe that simply restoring funding will fix a broken system. While imagining what remaking humanitarianism might look like, he makes a plea: “Let’s start shifting the conversation.” 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. Listen to 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. ____ Got a question or feedback? Email [email protected] or have your say on our socials using the hashtag #RethinkingHumanitarianism.  ____

The fallout from the US aid funding freeze continues. In Haiti, one of USAID’s largest recipients, could this actually be a moment for optimism?  “My instinctive reaction was, maybe now we can take better care of ourselves,” Haitian anthropologist and aid reform advocate, Isabelle Clérié tells What’s Unsaid host, Obi Anyadike.  What’s Unsaid is a podcast by The New Humanitarian, where we explore open secrets and uncomfortable conversations around the world’s conflicts and disasters.     

People affected by crises, and the people who respond to them, have been calling for change and equity for years, but for every reform pledge in Geneva or New York, there’s little movement in Yangon or Juba.   Changing an entire sector is a tall order. But how can an entire system change? In reality, it has to begin with conversations between people.  For months, The New Humanitarian and the Center for Transformational Change sent out invites to people across the power spectrum in the aid world: heads of international humanitarian agencies, environmental, and refugee right activists, you name it. The goal? To set up one-on-one dialogues between people with the power to make decisions and mobilise resources and people who are affected by such decisions. “People need to be listened to, and when they come in with their own stories, that is a form of power,” argues Lina Srivastava, Power Shift’s moderator and founder of The Center for Transformational Change. In this first episode of Power Shift, host Melissa Fundira, Adeso executive director Degan Ali, and Srivastava set the stage for conversations to come by highlighting how power inequalities prevent us from addressing humanitarian crises adequately and fairly, and by discussing whether dialogue can ever truly shift power. ___ Subscribe on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube, or search “The New Humanitarian” in your favourite podcast app. You can find transcripts of all podcasts on our website. Are you or anyone you know interested in participating in future Power Shift conversations? Email us with the subject line ‘POWER SHIFT”.  

The term 'decolonising aid' is everywhere. And yet, many decisions about aid are made behind closed doors in the West, and those most affected by aid policies have little power in shaping them. But what if people who are rarely in the same room together sit down and talk? No talking points. No self-censorship. Just open, honest, and moderated one-on-one conversations. Introducing Power Shift: A new podcast from The New Humanitarian and the Center for Transformational Change that presents moderated conversations between decision-makers in aid and philanthropy and those affected by their decisions. Can they use honest and sustained dialogue to create shared visions for fairer humanitarian responses? Find out on Power Shift. ___ Participants & Interviewees Nadine Saba: Grand Bargain Sherpa; Co-founder and Director of Akkar Network for Development Michael Köhler: Grand Bargain Ambassador Hafsar Tameesuddin: Co-Secretary General of the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network (APRRN); Rohingya activist and refugee Raouf Mazou: Assistant High Commissioner for Operations at UNHCR Degan Ali: Executive Director of Adeso Lina Srivastava: Founder of the Center for Transformational Change Production Team Host: Melissa Fundira Moderator: Lina Srivastava Producers: Lina Srivastava, Frederica Boswell, Melissa Fundira Editor: Irwin Loy Theme song: “Chill 2.0” by Barno Sound engineer: Tevin Sudi ___ Subscribe on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube, or search “The New Humanitarian” in your favourite podcast app. You can find transcripts of all podcasts on our website. Are you or anyone you know interested in participating in future Power Shift conversations? Email us with the subject line ‘POWER SHIFT”.

Since the early days of the American west, World War Two, the Cold War, or the war on terror, conflict has been presented in the movies as having two sides: good guys and bad guys. Host Ali Latifi and Idrees Ahmad, a journalism, film, and culture professor, dig into why we brand groups and people in such binary terms – and ask what role Hollywood and the media play in ignoring the complexity of conflict and crisis. What’s Unsaid is a podcast by The New Humanitarian, where we explore open secrets and uncomfortable conversations around the world’s conflicts and disasters.