What happens when communities are forced to govern themselves?

Across conflict-affected contexts, communities are often doing far more than surviving the breakdown or failure of formal institutions.

They are organising, delivering services, making decisions, representing their communities and creating new forms of governance - sometimes long before peace agreements are signed or states are rebuilt.

In this episode of Think Change, we explore what makes these systems legitimate, how movements navigate power and internal tensions, and what allows them to endure. We also ask what governments, humanitarian organisations, donors and diaspora communities can do differently to support locally led efforts without undermining the independence, legitimacy and accountability that make them work.

Drawing on conversations from a seminar series hosted by the Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development (ARDD) and ODI Global, our host Sara Pantuliano is joined by Charles Petrie, Ibrahim Basha and Mark Daou to explore what these movements can teach us about governance, justice and dignity and whether we need to rethink what we mean by a functioning state.

Guests:

• Sara Pantuliano (host), Chief Executive, ODI Global
• Charles Petrie, former UN Assistant Secretary-General and Visiting Senior Fellow at ODI Global;
• Ibrahim Basha, Deputy Team Lead of the Yemen Flexible Fund Mechanism and Senior Technical Advisor to the Yemen Support Facility; and
• Mark Daou, Lebanese activist, public affairs expert and Member of the Lebanese Parliament since 2022.

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• Think Change episode 93: how do wars end?
• Agency in Action: accelerating the shift towards locally-led crisis response

Humanitarian crises are often understood through the lens of immediate need: more aid, more access and more funding.

But ODI Global’s new report Oppression, Liberation and Humanitarianism in Palestine, Myanmar and Sudan argues that we must also understand the systems of power that produce and sustain suffering.

In this episode of Think Change, guests Dustin Barter, Hala Al Karib and Athena Rayburn explore what humanitarian action can learn from movements of solidarity and resistance and what it would mean to build a system that supports not only survival, but dignity, justice and liberation.

Guests

• Sara Pantuliano (host), Chief Executive, ODI Global
• Dustin Barter, Senior Research Fellow ODI Global
• Hala Al Karib, Regional Director of the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA).
• Athena Rayburn, Executive Director, Association of International Development Agencies (AIDA)

Related resources

• Oppression, liberation and humanitarianism in Palestine, Myanmar and Sudan
• A humanitarian trap? Navigating neutrality, relief and rights in Ethiopia, Myanmar, Syria and Guatemala
• Oppression, liberation and humanitarianism in Palestine, Myanmar and Sudan

This episode of Think Change explores the growing environmental footprint of artificial intelligence – from rising energy demand and emissions to the vast quantities of water needed to power and cool the data centres behind today’s AI revolution.

As Europe experiences another summer of record-breaking heat, devastating wildfires and growing water stress, the race to develop and deploy AI raises urgent questions about how we balance technological progress with climate goals. Can the environmental costs of AI be managed? And who bears the burden when new technologies increase pressure on already stretched resources?

The conversation looks beyond technology alone to the governance challenges shaping AI’s future: who sets the rules, whose interests are prioritised, and how we can ensure that AI development supports rather than deepens existing inequalities.

Recorded during London Climate Action Week, the episode brings together perspectives on energy systems, climate policy and international cooperation to ask what it will take to build an AI future that is innovative, sustainable and fair.

Guests:

• Sara Pantuliano (host), Chief Executive, ODI Global
• Divij Joshi, Research Fellow, ODI Global
• Joaquim Levy, former Finance Minister of Brazil and a Commissioner of the Future of Development Cooperation Coalition
• Fiona Macklin, Head of Climate, Apolitical

Related resources

• AI’s climate consequences: why AI governance needs to confront climate injustice
• The Paris AI Summit: is geopolitical rivalry derailing AI governance?
• The environmental risks of generative AI: why better global governance is urgently needed
• Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2025