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Former head of the United States Agency for International Development, Gayle Smith, said that she has never been more worried about the scale of crisis in the world and called on aid workers to launch an “activist humanitarian movement” to convince politicians the humanitarian sector needs their support more so than ever.
With an estimated 145 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, funding levels on the decline, and increasing instances of attacks against aid workers — including the most recent reports that at least 15 United Nations peacekeepers were killed in eastern Congo — Smith, who is now president and chief executive officer of the ONE Campaign, said the sector needs to come together and fight for its survival.
“I have never seen a time that worries me more, a scale and scope of crisis that has sharper edges or a greater urgency,” Smith said, adding that it is made worse as “countries in the north are turning inward,” and “multilateralism is on the wane [and] populism on the rise,” she said ...
Speaking at the annual Humanitarian Policy Group lecture at the Overseas Development Institute in London last week, Smith, who was head of USAID for just over a year under the Obama administration, said the humanitarian sector was “breathtakingly impressive” in its agility and effectiveness and called on aid bosses to “brag” more about their achievements.
However, she also called on humanitarian actors to take a more active stance when it comes to defending their sector. Otherwise, she warned, constraints and violations against humanitarian norms and activities will continue amidst a “deafening silence” from the international community.
Read the full article about Gayle Smith's blueprint for activist humanitarianism by Sophie Edwards at Devex International Development.