The humanitarian system isn't short on identity crises, soul-searching, and reform promises. So why does a system so good at diagnosing its problems struggle to change?

This final episode of Rethinking Humanitarianism and Start Network's collaborative series examines the financial and political roadblocks preventing change, why diversifying who humanitarians feel accountable to could lead to progress, the reality that change is already happening in myriad ways outside the sector's reform attempts, and what humanitarians might learn from activist movements.

Guests
Kia Howson, researcher at Start Network
Irwin Loy, senior policy editor at The New Humanitarian

Key moments
[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

Got a question or feedback? Email podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org or post on social media using the hashtag #RethinkingHumanitarianism.

This episode was made in collaboration with Start Network as part of a series that explores what really drives change in the humanitarian system, and what it tells us about future efforts to transform the system for the better.

Three years into Israel's genocide in Gaza, the US-led Board of Peace is already trying to determine the strip's future reconstruction plans. But what about the more than two million Palestinians who call the Gaza Strip home? And the many more Palestinians living in the West Bank or exiled in the diaspora?

Our editor Eric Reidy sets the scene for what's been happening since last year's so-called ceasefire, and then we hear a collage of Palestinian voices. They discuss the reconstruction conversations happening without them, what they want for the future of Gaza, and what the humanitarian system should do to support that vision.

Guests:
Rasha Abou Jalal, author and journalist
Amir Abu Qasim, student
Nour ElAssy, poet and writer
Shahed ElAssy, law student
Shahd Hammouri, lecturer at the University of Kent
Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam's Global Humanitarian Policy Lead
Eric Reidy, The New Humanitarian's Migration & Special Coverage Editor
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Got a question or feedback? Email podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org or post on social media using the hashtag #RethinkingHumanitarianism.

Can embracing activism inspire public support for aid, and rejuvenate humanitarianism itself? Today's guests explain why – and how – humanitarians should go from advocacy to activism.

Chloé Fiona Ludden resigned from a United Nations job and joined activists aboard The Handala, one of the dozens of vessels that tried to break Israel's blockade on the Gaza Strip. "When we think about activism, it's usually something that is depicted at the fringes, when for me, the flotilla is… actually enacting international humanitarian law," she says.

Ludden and research fellow Philip Proudfoot join hosts Tammam Aloudat and Christina Bennett to examine the humanitarian system's activist roots and whether it should return to them.

Guests
Chloé Fiona Ludden, scientist and former United Nations staff; international coordinator for the Global Sumud flotilla
Philip Proudfoot, Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies and the co-founder of the Accountability Archive

Key moments
[10:12] – Activism vs. advocacy
[15:15] – Leaving the UN to join the Gaza flotilla
[28:43] – Why the system won't change
[35:40] – Is it humanitarianism or a protest?
[51:30] – Solidarity and the need to redistribute sacrifice
[1:01:30] – Is this the end of humanitarianism, or the beginning of a new one?

Got a question or feedback? Email podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org or post on social media using the hashtag #RethinkingHumanitarianism.

This episode was made in collaboration with Start Network as part of a series that explores what really drives change in the humanitarian system, and what it tells us about future efforts to transform the system for the better.

In the previous episode, Fogbow CEO Brook Jerue questioned why the aid sector was so "infatuated" and critical of his company – a small private American firm delivering aid in high‑conflict contexts like South Sudan and Gaza.

In this follow‑up discussion, Beatrice Lindstrom – co‑author of a recent policy brief on the rise of privatised, militarised, and politicised aid actors – puts Fogbow in the larger context of these emerging actors, and examines why their growing "subsumption" of humanitarian roles is worth paying attention to.

Guests
Beatrice Lindstrom, senior clinical instructor at Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic; co-author of "The New Humanitarian Actors: Politicization, Corporatization, and Militarization in the Aid Sector"

Key moments
[04:54] – Private companies taking over core humanitarian roles
[07:08] – Profit motive, militarisation, and neutrality concerns
[10:41] – "Grey zone of accountability"
[13:05] – Access vs. impact
[18:31] – Efficiency is not enough
[23:58] – Legal guardrails and accountability gaps
[32:57] – At the cusp of an "aid for profit" trend

Got a question or feedback? Email podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org or post on social media using the hashtag #RethinkingHumanitarianism.

This episode was made in collaboration with Start Network as part of a series that explores what really drives change in the humanitarian system, and what it tells us about future efforts to transform the system for the better.

When private companies employ former military personnel and work with controversial political actors in the name of humanitarian aid, should they still follow humanitarian principles? And who holds them accountable? This episode tackles the rise of privatised, militarised, and politicised players in the humanitarian landscape.

Guests
Brook Jerue, CEO of Fogbow

Key moments
[06:31] – What makes Fogbow different from traditional humanitarian actors?
[15:09] – The Gaza maritime corridor and US backing.
[18:47] – "I don't think you can operate in a vacuum without political or economic pressure on any aid"
[38:41] – "We're a private company . We're not an NGO."
[45:57] – Fogbow's finances
[51:06] – Did people refuse aid airdropped by Fogbow in South Sudan?
[56:50] – "Why is everybody so infatuated with Fogbow?"

Got a question or feedback? Email podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org or post on social media using the hashtag #RethinkingHumanitarianism.

This episode was made in collaboration with Start Network as part of a series that explores what really drives change in the humanitarian system, and what it tells us about future efforts to transform the system for the better.

For Fanta Toure, community-led crisis response efforts like mutual aid are not an emergent movement as some in the international aid system see it, but rather a return "to the way things are supposed to be".

Toure, along with Hajooj Kuka of Sudan's emergency response rooms (ERRs) and Bashair Ahmed of Shabaka, joined co-host Christina Bennett to discuss the diversity of grassroots aid efforts, and to challenge the formal humanitarian system to adopt a more humble and supportive position towards locally-led action

"What the system can do is to move from leading by default to actually supporting by design," says Ahmed, who points out that diaspora remittances dwarf foreign investment and international aid combined.

Kuka, meanwhile, offers a picture of a lifesaving network of volunteers who lean on flexibility, solidarity, and even joy to keep each other alive.

"What the ERRs did is showing that if the system collapses, we'll be okay," says Kuka. "The system is not what's holding us together; it's our humanity."

Guests
Fanta Toure, CEO of Resilio Fund
Hajooj Kuka, External communications officer for Sudan's Emergency Response Rooms
Bashair Ahmed, Founder of Shabaka

Key moments
[06:35] – Inside Sudan's 800 decentralised mutual aid groups
[11:45] – Diaspora remittances are bigger than foreign aid
[16:57] – Community-led aid means going back to way things are supposed to be
[20:25] – The 'permafrost' of the aid system
[32:21] – Flexibility, joy, and dreaming: Lessons from feminist movements
[45:44] – When localisation gets co‑opted
[58:59] – 'Mutual aid is here to disturb the system'
[01:14:50] – What if 20% of foreign aid was given directly to communities?
[01:19:00] – 'Move from leading by default to supporting by design'

Got a question or feedback? Email podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org or post on social media using the hashtag #RethinkingHumanitarianism.

This episode was made in collaboration with Start Network as part of a series that explores what really drives change in the humanitarian system, and what it tells us about future efforts to transform the system for the better.

For Abdihakim Ainte, a senior Somali government official, the international humanitarian system's sudden contraction has been both a "cataclysmic" shock – with devastating immediate consequences – and a reckoning that could ultimately accelerate Somalia's path towards greater self-reliance.

Last week's episode explored how shifting power, money, and politics in traditional donor countries is reshaping the humanitarian landscape from the top down.

In this follow-up episode, Ainte shares his perspective from the point of view of a country that traditionally receives aid.

Guest
Abdihakim Ainte, senior adviser for food security and climate change in the office of Somalia's prime minister

Key moments
[05:28] – Who really controls aid in Somalia?
[10:47] – How UN agencies sideline the state in crises
[18:24] – "It's very grim": What happened on the ground when donors walked away?
[20:28] – Plan B: Private sector, diaspora, and domestic revenues
[29:45] – Aid diversion and mutual accountability
[37:58] – "The aid cut could be a blessing in disguise"
[45:00] – The Türkiye model of donor relations

Got a question or feedback? Email podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org or post on social media using the hashtag #RethinkingHumanitarianism.

This episode was made in collaboration with Start Network as part of a series that explores what really drives change in the humanitarian system, and what it tells us about future efforts to transform the system for the better.

Less than a year ago, Colum Wilson left his position at the helm of the humanitarian department in one of the world's largest donor governments.

After more than two decades with the UK government, Wilson concludes that "the world's become a colder and crueller place where realpolitik tends to trump humanitarianism".

In this second collaborative episode between Rethinking Humanitarianism and Start Network, Wilson joins hosts Tammam Aloudat and Christina Bennett to unpack how humanitarianism is being reshaped from the top down. They discuss the rise of populism and transactional humanitarian policy, the quiet "insurgency" of local responders getting on with change outside the formal system, the potentially disruptive power of middle-tier donors, alternative financing models, and new centres of humanitarian power.

Guest
Colum Wilson, former Head of the Humanitarian Department for the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO); senior humanitarian policy advisor

Key moments
[11:35] – National interest versus humanitarianism
[14:29] – "The world's become a colder and crueller place"
[17:13] – An insurgency from below
[20:24] – Interest in maintaining the status quo
[24:24] – "The moral argument isn't cutting through"
[33:36] – A battle for the heart of humanitarianism
[38:44] – "If I controlled UK humanitarian policy…"

Got a question or feedback? Email podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org or post on social media using the hashtag #RethinkingHumanitarianism.

This episode was made in collaboration with Start Network as part of a series that explores what really drives change in the humanitarian system, and what it tells us about future efforts to transform the system for the better.

*At timestamp 02:03, the date "2025" has been corrected to "2005" in the transcript after speaker corrected the date intended.