Trumanitarian

The weirdest humanitarian twitter conversation has just taken place between WFPs Executive Director David Beasley and the world's richest man Elon Musk. WFP is trying to get some money, Musk is not sure that humanitarian know how to solve problems, and David Beasley has offered to meet up in space. Hunter Thompson used to say "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" so that is exactly what Meg Sattler, Paula Gil Baizan and Lars Peter Nissen did in this episode.

Unsolicited in-kind donations is a major issues in many sudden onset crisis. Whether due to a genuine outpouring of solidarity or to get a tax write-off the volume and nature of stuff that are donated defies any logic. Ice-skates for a flooding in Bangladesh, sextoys donated after a storm in Vanuatu. A container full of old croissants for Kosovo or a 40ft container full of only left boots.The donations are not just ridiculous they are also an environmental problem and Travis Opocensky has found a solution. He has founded RightBoot, a humanitarian startup that applies the principles of circular economy to humanitarian action. RightBoot recycles unwanted donations and other waste to minimise the environmental footprint of humanitarian action.You can read more about RightBoot on their website www.rightboot.org and as you can hear in the episode Travis would love to hear your worst, funniest and weirdest experiences with in-kind donations. You can send your stories to solutions@rightboot.org.The report mentioned in the episode on packaging waste from humanitarian operations can be found here: https://eecentre.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Final-Version_Publication.pdf

Field Ready is based on the simple idea that supplies needed in a crisis area should be made as locally as possible. The organisation works with empowering local production capacity across the world, and in this episode Field Ready's co-founder Eric James explains the approach the organisation applies and the impact it has.You can find the books Eric has written on his website www.ericbooks.com and read more about Field Ready on the organisations website www.fieldready.org.

Tina Tinde has worked in international organisations since she was in her mid twenties. Throughout her career she has fought for gender equality, inclusion and safeguarding against sexual exploitation and abuse and Sexual Harassment her entire career. In this conversation with Lars Peter Nissen she provides her perspective on how we can address these issues and the progress we have made over the past decades.

Dominic Naish has worked for various humanitarian agencies as a contextual analysts. The contexts were different, the organisations were different, but he always had the feeling of being more of an irritant than a help to the people he worked for. In the end he decided to leave the humanitarian sector. He has described his experience in a blogpost “Not a priority” for the Humanitarian Practice Network. You can find the blogpost here: https://odihpn.org/blog/not-a-priority-the-lack-of-contextual-understanding-in-humanitarian-missions/You can read more aobut Dominic on his linkedin profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominic-naish-a1524387/

This weeks episode is a thought experiment. What would we do if we had to begin building the humanitarian sector from scratch? One of my ongoing frustrations have been that many of the reform attempt we have had in the sector are defined more by what is already there than by the problems we are trying to solve – so I thought it would be interesting to build from scratch.Arbie Bagois is the founder of Aid Re-imagined and is currently doing his PhD at London School of Economics. Arbie is a fresh and radical thinking and exactly the sort of companion you want to have when blowing up the box and thinking new thoughts.You should check out Aid re-imagined on their website https://medium.com/aidreimagined And you can learn more about Arbie here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arbiebaguios/ 

Hearts on Venezuela is a civil society organisation trying to bring more attention to the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. This episode features Daniel Cooper Bermudez, the Director of Hearts of Venezuela talks about the crisis facing his country, how civil society learned to become humanitarian and how to use TikTok. Host: Lars Peter Nissen.You can read more about Hearts on Venezuela on their website: http://www.heartsonvenezuela.comand about their Director here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-cooper-bermúdez/

Meg Sattler sits down with Beth Eagleston and Kate Sutton the co-founders of the Humanitarian Advisory Group (HAG), a Melbourne based social enterprise that seeks to use research to challenge the status quo of humanitarian aid.You can read more about HAGs work on their website: https://humanitarianadvisorygroup.org/

Paul Knox Clarke and Lars Peter Nissen discuss the implications of climate change for humanitarian action and the new initiative PREPARE, that Paul has launched on this issue.You can read more about Paul on his LinkedIn profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-knox-clarke-0489905/You will find information on PREPARE here: http://www.chcinitiative.orgThe work Paul did for ALNAP on change is available here: https://www.alnap.org/help-library/transforming-changeDuncan Greens book on Change is available here: https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/how-change-happens-consultation-draft-581366/

Distribution of cash instead of commodities is transforming humanitarian action. Cash distribution has grown quickly in past years and today represents roughly 20% of assistance is given.Cash gives crisis affected populations choices and agency but it also places the sector based humanitarian architecture under stress. There is clearly a need to review the current coordination arrangements for cash assistance, but this has profound implications for the most powerful agencies in the sector.To get things moving 95 organisations have sent a letter to the outgoing and the incoming Emergency Relief Coordinator to move the issue of cash coordination forward. You can find the letter here: https://www.calpnetwork.org/news/95-organisations-sign-letter-calling-for-strengthened-cash-coordination/On this episode Lars Peter Nissen invites four guests to discuss why cash coordination is so difficult and what to do about it. The guests are:Sophie Tholstrup, Head of Technology for Development Policy Unit at Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophie-tholstrup-93222311)Patrick Saez, Center for Global Development. https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-saez-143b3b9/Edward (Ed) Fraser, Global Economic Recovery Adviser - Cash & Voucher Assistance Lead at Danish Refugee Council / Dansk Flygtningehjælp. https://www.linkedin.com/in/edward-fraser-6055aa1/Isabelle Pelly, Global Thematic Expert - Cash and Basic Needs at DG European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office - ECHO. https://www.linkedin.com/in/isabelle-pelly-29a82244/You can find the State of the World Cash report here: https://www.calpnetwork.org/state-of-the-worlds-cash-2020/Patrick Saez research paper "Inclusive Coordination: Building an Area-Based Humanitarian Coordination Model" is available at this address: https://www.cgdev.org/publication/inclusive-coordination-building-area-based-humanitarian-coordination-model