The Nuffield Humanitarian Forum

Our research programme

Arising out of the ‘International NGOs and the Long Humanitarian Century’ project (2018 to 2023), the Humanitarian Forum will build on the previous project to create an ongoing space for intellectual exchange between leaders of the international system for relief and development. 

Key issues in discussion are:

• How donor governments can work together with the UN and with international NGOs to increase genuine empowerment and ownership of development programmes by local actors
• Narratives that will improve domestic support for relief and development
• Understanding the comparative advantages of different actors within the system to allow them to work to their strengths
• Developing new types of partnerships between aid agencies and less-traditional humanitarian actors such as private industry
• What makes development work ‘legitimate’ when working in ‘authoritarian’ states
• Where to take the momentum of global development in the face of existential challenges such as critiques of Western universalism and growing geopolitical contests, and what role other powers such as India, Turkey, and China might play

The Forum will commission short papers from both researchers and practitioners to enrich Forum discussions, host global expert speakers from outside humanitarianism to talk about challenges facing the sector, and hold an annual high-profile plenary session, co-chaired by Baroness Valerie Amos and the Rt Hon Andrew Mitchell MP.