Remaking Humanitarianism: Dispatches from the Future

Across the world, communities on the frontlines of displacement, conflict, and inequality are already reshaping how crises are met. They are building collective responses rooted in solidarity and care—even as the international aid system spins in circles around cuts, resets, and reforms, risking collapse.

How can we reimagine the international humanitarian system so that it builds on—rather than undermines—the response communities are already creating? What would it take to align funding and infrastructure? And what is standing in the way?

The New Humanitarian and Refugees International have taken these questions around the globe, producing a series of dispatches from the future that highlight the strategies, values, and visions guiding community-driven responses to crisis—and show what’s possible.

We brought these dispatches to the heart of UNGA to grapple with what it will take to remake humanitarianism and what must change for the system to have any future at all.

Introduction

Tammam Aloudat, CEO, The New Humanitarian

Moderator

Dr. Hourie Tafech, Director for Refugee Leadership and Partnership, Refugees International

Panelists

Loreine Dela Cruz, Executive Director, Centre for Disaster Preparedness (CDP) Foundation in the Philippines & member of the NEAR Leadership Council
Hanin Ahmed, External Relations Officer, Sudan Emergency Response Rooms (ERRs), and Fellow, Refugees International
Elizabeth Campbell, Executive Director, ODI Global Washington
Marcia Wong, former Deputy Assistant Administrator for USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA)

Closing Remarks

Alice Armanni Sequi, Director, Humanitarian Pooled Funds, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)

Dispatches from the Future, featuring:

Defending education amid Venezuela’s collapse
Sudanese collective resistance and care in Cairo
Solidarity through hosting in eastern DRC
Building livelihoods through refugee-led networks in East Africa
Struggling for education in Cox’s Bazar
Community action against gender-based violence in Uganda
From lived crisis to climate leadership in East Africa
Collective survival and healing in Somalia