Jointly led with Fernando Espada, this project is a critical engagement with the practices, limits, history and prospects of change in the humanitarian system. It looks at moments of humanitarian reform since the 1970s, in the context of the gradual encounter of humanitarian actors with the crisis generated by climate change.

Efforts to shape the formal humanitarian system – understood as the norms, structures and actors mainly associated with the United Nations, donor states, the Red Cross/Red Crescent, and non-governmental organisations – have been extensive and taken many forms (see some recent examples listed here, proposed here, or questioned here). What we are interested in is not to become part of this reform industry, but to critically analyse it and bring new angles on how and why it functions the way it does.

The project is funded by the Alameda Institute and more information is available here.