Rising sea levels, soaring temperatures, dwindling resources, and extreme weather events have inundated our headlines this decade. As the climate crisis intensifies, its impact on human displacement is also becoming increasingly evident. While the awareness of climate-related adversities is gaining traction globally, international law is yet to provide a legal framework for those displaced by severe climatic events. The term ‘climate refugees’ remains largely unrecognized under international humanitarian law since most climate-induced migration is localized within national borders. This gap in legal recognition becomes increasingly concerning as projections indicate that around 1.2 billion people may be displaced by 2050 due to climate-related disasters.
Osama Hafiz
The article titled "Navigating the Triple Nexus: Leveraging Diplomatic Synergies for Health Systems Strengthening" addresses the vital interplay between diplomacy and health system support in conflict-ridden areas. Through the lens of Humanitarian Diplomacy (HD) and Global Health Diplomacy (GHD), the piece advocates for a nuanced, integrated approach embodied by the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus. This approach seeks to unify immediate relief with long-term development and peace efforts, using diplomacy as a tool to navigate the complex challenges faced by health systems in such settings, thereby ensuring sustainable health improvements and the safeguarding of human rights.
Miguel Castillo
In this article, Miguel Castillo, a healthcare professional with over 10 years of experience at field level and hospital-based facilities in conflict-affected, developing and western countries, discusses his experience during the Rohingya crisis, highlighting the critical role of digital solutions in enhancing healthcare in humanitarian settings. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of such technologies, improving healthcare coverage globally, including in crisis-affected areas. The focus is on the digital transformation of health services, emphasizing the importance of technological infrastructure and the challenges in transitioning to digital systems. Key aspects include the expansion of 5G technology and increased smartphone accessibility, especially in low-and-middle-income countries. The article projects a significant rise in smartphone adoption by 2030, driven by affordability, and explores how these advancements improve health coverage in humanitarian situations.
Gianluca Ranzato
Save the Children Italia is undergoing a strategic transformation guided by IARAN to navigate contemporary multidimensional shifts. Engaging around 100 staff, the organization employs a foresight-based approach to explore potential future contexts until 2030. Through a collaborative process, key drivers have been identified and detailed in "Driver Files." This article narrates the example of "Geopolitical Shifts" and highlights the evolving global political landscape's impact on democracy, civil liberties, populism, and international relations. This exercise encourages systemic thinking, breaks silos, and challenges hierarchical dynamics, emphasizing collective intelligence to inform strategic choices and adapt to a changing world.
Marta Persiani
Save the Children Italia is undergoing a strategic transformation guided by IARAN to navigate contemporary multidimensional shifts. Engaging around 100 staff, the organization employs a foresight-based approach to explore potential future contexts until 2030. Through a collaborative process, key drivers have been identified and detailed in "Driver Files." This article narrates the example of "Geopolitical Shifts" and highlights the evolving global political landscape's impact on democracy, civil liberties, populism, and international relations. This exercise encourages systemic thinking, breaks silos, and challenges hierarchical dynamics, emphasizing collective intelligence to inform strategic choices and adapt to a changing world.
Max Santana
While anti-corruption efforts are on the rise, challenges persist, including declining global peace, weakening democracies, a shift to a multipolar world, cybersecurity threats, declining ethical standards, and evolving technology. Despite these obstacles, there's a growing global focus on anti-corruption measures, with organizations and governments working together. However, the future remains uncertain, with potential developments like AI-driven corruption and innovative technologies offering both risks and opportunities.
Mexico's demographic shift from a youthful population to an aging society by 2050 brings both challenges and opportunities. The median age is projected to rise from 27.9 to 42 years. Scenarios include a "Growth Scenario" with economic strength but pension system concerns, a "Collapse Scenario" depicting institutional breakdown and grassroots responses, a "Limits & Discipline Scenario" with elderly power leading to youth drain, and a "Transformation Scenario" driven by comprehensive reforms and a care economy. Proactive measures like nurturing a "silver economy," migrant integration, and financial education are recommended to shape a favorable future amid demographic changes.
Julia Broska
Juan Posada-Burbano
Universities and research centers are important, non-traditional, humanitarian actors that actively participate in knowledge production and cadre formation for the sector, with a preponderance of global North institutions over the ones from the South.
There are, at least, three areas of opportunity for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the global North to engage productively with the principles and objectives of the Grand Bargain proposed during the World Humanitarian Summit of 2016, so that humanitarian knowledge production can also jump into the “localization” wagon:
Sali Hafez
Luana Moussallem
Leonie Le Borgne
Together, Vicky Watt-Smith (IARAN Communications Officer) and Leonie Le Borgne (IARAN Fellow) discuss the advantages and disadvantages to remote/flexible working. What was the final result? The answer might surprise you...
In this piece Leonie reflects on a workshop which she attended in mid-June where she spent 3 days with the IARAN fellows: a group of humanitarian professionals with expertise that spans urban planning and UK asylum law to GIS and social entrepreneurship. They discussed how each of them, in their separate organisations can bring change to the humanitarian sector, for the better.
The last century has been characterised by the advancement and spread of technology. The reach and adoption, particularly of information and communication technology (ICT) saw a sharp rise in the 1990s and has grown exponentially since. Leonie LeBorgne and Matthew Williams ask: are Aid Organisations ready to respond to a growing and dangerous digital divide?
With problems on the rise ‘at home’, criticism of foreign aid is stronger than ever. At the same time, humanitarian needs are growing, and far outpacing the funding requirements and government commitments needed to address the short- and long-term consequences of crises. What lies in store for aid organisations?
Depuis une décennie, les besoins humanitaires ne cessent d’évoluer, s’intensifiant et se complexifiant. En 2015, selon l’UNHCR, 65.3 millions de personnes étaient déplacées. Parmi celles-ci, 21.3 millions sont des réfugiés au titre de la convention de 1951 et la très grande majorité d’entre eux le sont dans un pays voisin. Seule une minorité de 6% sont accueillis en Europe. Malgré cette faible proportion, la crise migratoire à laquelle est confrontée l’Europe depuis 2014 a contribué à mettre en avant les fragilités du système humanitaire traditionnel.
Mariana Merelo Lobo
The following article is a personal story from our fellow Mariana Merelo: In the winter of 2019, after two decades as a humanitarian and development practitioner, Mariana found questioning her role in driving systemic change within the humanitarian ecosystem. Despite being surrounded by passionate change-makers, including foresight experts, partnership advocates, and local champions, she felt stuck in the wrong vehicle for change. Mariana had worked for a prominent INGO, which espoused a commitment to empower local actors and crisis-affected communities in decision-making and emergency responses. However, a glaring gap existed between the organization's rhetoric and tangible actions. It was not until she found collaborative foresight, as a co-created and co-evolving approach to explore alternative futures that she found a response to the previous challenge.
Francois Bourse
Matt Thomas
This article explores the integration of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in foresight practices. Foresight, at its core, involves diverse perspectives envisioning future scenarios. Matthew Thomas, as part of the British Red Cross, discusses the rapid use of AI tools, specifically ChatGPT, Bing AI, and Perplexity, to sketch scenarios with a case study related to the UK's cost of living crisis. Although, initial results were unimpressive, with limitations in scenario generation, the article highlights the potential for AI to augment foresight practice, aiding in analysis and content generation for scenario creation.
Two years of huge emergency after huge emergency - from the Covid-19 pandemic’s various variants to evacuations from Afghanistan and a series of storms battering the UK - our people are tired, yet the need for humanitarian aid continues to grow. And then the Ukraine crisis boiled over.
We have always struggled to plan for the many uncertainties the future may bring, but the massive disruptions of the last couple of years made us realise that grappling with uncertainty is not an option.
The British Red Cross’s Strategic Insight and Foresight team has been developing a way to rapidly construct scenarios about the future, helping our teams get a sense of likely people’s short-term and longer-term humanitarian needs, as well as the potential ripple effects caused by a crisis.
Eilidh Kennedy
The world is facing a severe economic downturn, but the flow of remittances has been relatively stable and continues to provide support for many families in low and middle-income countries. According to the World Bank, global remittance flows reached $626 billion in 2022, an increase of 5% from the previous year. This growth is smaller than in previous years, but it is significant given the economic outlook. Investing in livelihoods support for migrants in high-income countries could be an effective way of supporting communities globally.
The growth in the humanitarian sector to include private companies as partners and implementers challenges the notion that organizations working in the humanitarian sector must be driven by the humanitarian imperative alone. The inclusion of commercial firms whose fundamental purpose is to make a profit necessitates an examination of the consequences when the humanitarian imperative is but one of many motivations.
In an effort to gain a deeper understanding of the practical realities that either foster or inhibit participation and the assumptions that underscore “capacity development” approaches, this paper examines a capacity development approach that was co-designed by the Regional Humanitarian Analyst at Save the Children East Africa Regional Office and the Project Director for the IRC-UoN Partnership for Education in Emergencies.
Afghanistan is one of the countries that received the highest amount of ODI over the past 20 years, yet poverty has lately been on the rise. Aid is heavily politicized and the fight against corruption has shown limited success. Consequently, the aid sector is affected by a fundamental lack of trust: high ranking officials of the Afghan government have repeatedly expressed their distrust of aid actors