Navigate this crisis by listening to people, not through agency politics

Credit: Afghan Red Crescent Society

As we reel from the shock of the past week and try to make sense of the humanitarian financing environment, we must work harder than ever to keep community views, priority and agency at the forefront of our work. Prioritization will be brutal, with far-reaching impacts on people suffering the worst impacts of soaring conflicts and a deepening climate crisis. As we move forward and navigate the harm done to our own organisations we must be crystal clear on whose priorities matter most.   

Listening to communities about what they want and need is more critical now than it has ever been. 

 Cutting off aid exists in a context, where the world’s most powerful are saying: some people matter more than others. To ignore the agency of those with the most at stake in the name of efficiency perpetuates those messages.  

Listening to the most vulnerable and doing what they say means a radical change. The deeply inadequate way the humanitarian system has interpreted ‘accountability’ in this sector has reached its expiry date.  If people in crises are going to get what they need to recover from crises, they must be in the driving seat.  

This is a moral argument sure, but if that doesn’t work, it is also an efficiency one. Why? Because we know that if they can help it, people do not want aid. Learning more about the types of support that would actually help them would ease pressure on the status quo aid system and push a more equitable system of response.  We also know that the aid people get is not the aid they need, and that huge money is wasted in resale, duplication and wastage.   

This crisis is an opportunity for reform, not a reason to move backwards 

This is not a moment for international agencies to exercise self-preservation. The call to arms must simply be to ensure people in need of solidarity and support can get it while they need it, and ultimately, that systems be put in place so they don’t need it again. The decision on who delivers this support should be driven by who is best placed to do so – which in most cases should be organisations rooted in the communities they serve. 

This is not the time to stop demanding a more accountable aid system. Aid is not suddenly perfect because it’s under threat. The opposite is true. Decisions will be tougher. They must be made with community priorities at the forefront, even if that challenges the frameworks and checklists developed in Geneva or New York. We need widespread systems change, and the advocacy role of people in crisis and their supporters, big or small, has never been so important. 

This is not an excuse to ease the pressure on the drivers of crisis. Aid must be a last resort.  The world is on a cliff-edge. In this challenging political moment we need to keep the pressure on to step up the climate fight, to challenge the culture of impunity which allows unending conflicts to ravage millions of people. Everyone now needs to be a humanitarian, a systems-changer, an activist, an advocate, a philanthropist, preferably using different, more holistic frameworks than ever before.  

 Now is the time to think and act differently. To not start by polishing logos, but to listen to young people, diverse voices, people who dare to dream of a better future – and do our best to respond.