How to step aside to promote change | Rethinking Humanitarianism
Release Date: 01/18/2024
The New Humanitarian
Humanitarian organisations often push an image of refugees as passive victims in need of help. But refugees themselves say they have voices and need to be listened to. Refugee advocate Jean Marie Ishimwe tells host Obi Anyadike why it’s time for the refugee-led organisation, or RLO, ‘revolution’. What’s Unsaid is a bi-weekly podcast by The New Humanitarian, where we explore open secrets and uncomfortable conversations around the world’s conflicts and disasters.
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*This episode originally aired in October 2023, and includes new interviews recorded days before the first anniversary of the war in Sudan. Hajooj Kuka, external communications officer for the Khartoum State Emergency Response Rooms, updates host Melissa Fundira on how mutual aid groups are scrambling to avert a famine, how badly needed funding continues to be bogged down by bureaucracy, and why he believes Sudan’s emergency response rooms should inspire a change in how humanitarian aid is delivered worldwide. We also get an update from Francesco Bonanome, humanitarian affairs officer with...
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For nearly 40 episodes, Rethinking Humanitarianism has been hosted by Heba Aly. But this time around, Aly joins the podcast as a guest. Since 2007, Aly has worked with The New Humanitarian, and IRIN News before, in many different roles. It’s a journey she started as an intern, and . In this season finale, Aly joins host Melissa Fundira to reflect on her career and the evolution of humanitarian journalism, how the humanitarian sector has (or hasn’t) changed, and which episode is inspiring her next move. She also fields questions from colleagues and podcast guests. Guest: Heba Aly,...
info_outlineFor as long as the international humanitarian sector has existed, its top jobs have been overwhelmingly occupied by white Western men.
And yet, most of the people affected by their decisions come from the global majority.
One, rarely exercised, tactic to address this power differential is for Western leaders to step aside or be willing to turn down coveted top positions in favour of historically marginalised leaders – especially those whose lived experience gives them a better understanding of the very issues international organisations aim to address.
Co-hosts Heba Aly and Melissa Fundira are joined by two guests who voluntarily relinquished their roles in efforts to make way for more representative leadership. They reflect on the defining moments that led to their decisions, how they prepared their exits, the triumphs and disappointments that followed, and how the sector as a whole can operationalise “stepping aside” as a tactic to shift power.
Guests: Ignacio Packer, Executive Director of the Initiatives of Change Switzerland Foundation and former Executive Director of the International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA); Diana Essex-Lettieri, consultant and former Senior Vice President of Asylum Access.
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SHOW NOTES
- Ignacio Packer on changing aid leadership: Privilege, power, and leaving ICVA
- Ten efforts to decolonise aid
- From refugee inclusion to shifting power
- UN aid chief seeks more focused and inclusive humanitarian efforts
- The next UN humanitarian chief should be picked on merit
- Offboarding: The Diplomatic Way To Achieve Critical Board Turnover