The Good Humanitarian

What happens when a humanitarian organisation does not simply respond to a crisis, but becomes embedded in everyday life? And what does it mean when that organisation is politically targeted, defunded and presented as replaceable? This episode looks at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the consequences of attempts to actively dismantle it in Palestine. Guest Roland Friedrich,...

You’ve probably heard of the Geneva Conventions: laws meant to govern war, protect civilians and shield doctors, journalists and aid workers. These and other laws are also meant to make sure that when the worst crimes happen, someone is held responsible. But what happens when those laws are ignored, delayed or applied selectively? In this episode, we are asking why accountability matters, how inte...

When a disaster hits, the priorities are immediate: save lives - deliver aid - respond as quickly as possible. But what happens after that first phase begins to fade? When the emergency response slows down and the much longer process of rebuilding begins? Rebuilding is not just about repairing what was destroyed; it’s about deciding what comes next. What gets rebuilt first, what gets left behind a...

When disaster strikes, it can feel sudden - An earthquake. A flood. A toxic spill. A famine. But while hazards may arrive quickly, disasters are rarely as sudden as they seem. The scale and intensity of a disaster are shaped long before the event itself, often by political decisions as much as anything else. So what does it actually mean to be vulnerable? And can disasters actually be prevented, o...

When we talk about humanitarian work, we often focus on the outcomes, the aid delivered, the crises responded to, the lives saved or the targets reached. But much less attention is paid to the people doing that work and what it actually costs them to show up every day in some of the most difficult environments in the world. Behind every programme or intervention, there are people making decisions...

We’re starting with a big one: Money. Across the world, governments are cutting development and humanitarian budgets. At the same time, aid is increasingly criticised, politicised and in some places even criminalised. Have you ever wondered what it really costs to do good in a world where crises are cascading and growing faster than the resources to respond to them? Join guests Loreine dela Cruz f...

Join us for season 2 where we dive into 'The Cost of Doing Good'.

Returning guests Professor Thea Hilhorst and Dr Rodrigo Mena join us for this fifth and final episode of this season where together we will look at everything from the meaning of neutrality, how it works in practice, its challenges as well as some examples. As one of the key principles underpinning the humanitarian field and with an increasingly polarised world, what does it mean to be neutral and...

Why is it that similar disasters affect some places in a much more severe way than others? And what happens when a country living through a conflict all of a sudden is faced with a disaster? We are joined by Dr Rodrigo Mena, deputy director of the HSC, for this fourth episode to unpack the complexities that is the intersection between conflicts and disasters within the humanitarian arena. In the p...

Dr Sonja Fransen, senior researcher at The Hague Humanitarian Studies Centre, joins us for this third episode of 'The Good Humanitarian' where we unravel the complexities of climate change and its affect on the movement of people, but also on what it means for people in refugee and displacement settings such as camps. In the podcast we also question: What makes a "good" humanitar...

In this second episode of 'The Good Humanitarian', we are joined by Dr Kaira Zoe Cañete, senior researcher at The Hague Humanitarian Studies Centre with a focus on disaster recovery, humanitarian ethics and feminist alternatives in humanitarian action. Together with the co-hosts, Kaira unpacks the principles that underpin humanitarian work, allowing us to go deeper into understanding how s...

In this opening episode of 'The Good Humanitarian', presenters Sarah Njoroge and Tom Ansell are joined by Professor Dorothea Hilhorst, Director of The Hague Humanitarian Studies Centre. They'll discuss why each crisis should have its own bespoke response (and why it often doesn't), the problems of reducing humanitarian work to just "donor and recipients", when a humanitar...