Puji Pujiono is a prominent advocate of humanitarian practice and reform in the Asia-Pacific region. He has reinvented himself after a two decade professional and managerial experience in humanitarian response with the United Nations and intergovernmental disaster management regional cooperation in ASEAN. Recognised as a key driver behind Indonesia’s disaster management law and the ASEAN regional agreement on emergency response, he has made a significant contribution to regional disaster governance. He served as a Sherpa in the Grand Bargain, representing the Network of Empowered Aid Response (NEAR), and led the Asia-Pacific Local Leaders Initiative, as well as chairing the Global Localisation Lab. Locally, he is a Senior Advisor to the Pujiono Centre and a convenor of the Indonesian Development-Humanitarian Alliance. A social worker by profession, Puji is the president of the Indonesian Independent Association of Professional Social Workers and a steering committee member of the Global Social Service Workforce Alliance.
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