Classroom filled almost completely by water and mud during recent floods in Aceh, Indonesia.
2025 has seen immense shocks to humanitarian systems across the globe, affecting humanitarian crises, their legal settings, and organisational configurations. The shifting global order makes states approach aid more explicitly for geo-strategic purposes. This raises questions about the very foundation of principled humanitarian action. KUNO will host the Dutch humanitarian field and its in-country partners in this conference that aims to facilitate meaningful knowledge exchange around the tough dilemmas that emerge because of the shifting global order and offer perspectives for joint action.
The conference will foreground topics that unpack the politics around humanitarian action, how it affects it, and what this means. First, it will explore the links between peace, security, instability and humanitarian action in a context of a rising number of conflicts and expanding defence investments. It will, for example, ask how humanitarian actors can position themselves vis-à-vis civil-military action. Secondly, it asks what the shifting polar order, the unpredictability of the USA government and (alternative) approaches of other donors mean for the practice of humanitarian action. INGOs see themselves confronted with other conditionalities, for example, the Mexico City policy. The tough dilemmas this brings along are better confronted together.
The new political dynamics have consequences for the very principles underlying humanitarian action, for example, neutrality and impartiality. Also, the shift towards more localisation is not moving fast enough, though most actors agree on its importance. This calls for reflection and for asking some difficult questions in a closed and safe setting.
KUNO, Save the Children, and Van Hall Larenstein University of Applied Sciences invite you to this conference, to meet and reflect with colleagues in the Dutch humanitarian field to gain insights into, and perspective for action on, the changing role and mandate of humanitarian actors in today’s world.
Soon, more details about this conference will be announced.
Send an email to kuno@kuno-platform.nl for more information
– Picture: Save the Children, Sacha Myers –
