Posted on 05 June 2025
By Sam London - Standards & Humanitarian Manager
Gaza Aid: Theatre of the Absurd
In case you missed it, humanitarian aid in Gaza has now entered its Black Mirror phase. The new US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has elbowed the UN and NGOs out of the way, replacing coordinated aid with what can only be described as militarised stagecraft. Picture it: aid drops surrounded by armed guards, distribution points doubling as death traps. Over 80 Palestinians were killed in Rafah alone last week, many while trying to collect food (Aljazeera, WSJ).
The UN called the new setup “unacceptable,” with top officials warning that the GHF model prioritises control over care (The New Humanitarian). OCHA’s Martin Griffiths (DEVEX) didn’t mince words, saying these so-called innovations are "neither safe, nor scalable." Meanwhile, humanitarian access remains blocked and famine looms. But sure, let’s try aid by paramilitary proxy.
New Zealand has at least joined 24 countries and the EU in calling for a full resumption of UN-led humanitarian access in Gaza (RNZ). A welcome move, but now we wait to see if it’s backed by action.
UN@80: Existential Dread with Balloons
The UN turned 80 last week, and instead of cake we got a crisis of confidence. Secretary-General António Guterres offered up a sobering assessment: the multilateral system is outdated, underfunded, and out of touch (UN News)
While civil society calls for bolder reform, more localisation, fewer bureaucratic hoops, the big players seem content fiddling with tech and governance frameworks while Rome burns. Guterres floated AI-powered humanitarianism as part of the solution (UNSDG). Because yes, what we need in Gaza is definitely more machine learning.
Haiti: Fragile Progress, Fraying Fast
After months of spiralling gang violence, a transitional presidential council has finally been sworn in and the Kenyan-led multinational security support mission is poised to deploy - pending final logistics (NY Times).
But the situation remains volatile. Aid groups on the ground are warning that unless this security force is paired with restored basic services and real local engagement, it may be yet another international intervention that burns bright, then burns out (TNH).
Drones: The Good, the Bad, and the Unregulated
In Ukraine, cheap commercial drones are being retrofitted to drop grenades with staggering accuracy and devastating effect. A recent assault (Operation Spider’s Web) has been heralded by some as a potential turning point in the war (BBC). The message is clear: drones are now central to modern warfare. Fast, cheap, and deniable.
But while drones are reshaping the battlefield, they’re also quietly transforming humanitarian response. In Malawi and the DRC, VillageReach uses UAVs to deliver vaccines and medical samples to remote clinics, bypassing washed-out roads and logistical bottlenecks. In Ghana and Rwanda, Zipline runs full-scale drone delivery networks for blood and essential medicines, with national health system integration and astonishing efficiency.
It’s humanitarian logistics reimagined faster, safer, and often cheaper. But there’s a catch.
In conflict zones, the line between aid drones and military ones gets dangerously blurry. Without consistent regulation, shared registries, or community oversight, humanitarian drones risk being mistaken for hostile surveillance, or worse, hijacked for combat use. That kind of confusion doesn’t just delay aid. It endangers lives and erodes trust.
The technology is promising. But unless it’s backed by transparency, local consent, and global rules of the sky, drones could just as easily undermine humanitarian principles as support them.
NZ & the Pacific: Fiscal Fictions Meet Climate Realities
Closer to home, Budget 2025 slashed New Zealand’s climate finance by more than half, from $250 million to $100 million. MFAT insists the Pacific remains a priority, pointing to the 60% of development aid still flowing there (Beehive). But that’s cold comfort when climate adaptation budgets are being trimmed, and INGO sector leaders are already calling Aotearoa a “fair-weather friend.” (RNZ)
Namibia’s Genocide Remembrance: Recognition Without Reparations
Namibia held its first official Genocide Remembrance Day last week, honouring the Herero and Nama people killed by German colonial forces between 1904 and 1908. Historians widely consider it the first genocide of the 20th century (The Guardian).
Germany formally acknowledged the genocide in actually happened at all in 2021 (after more than a century) and offered €1.1 billion in development aid. But crucially, it stopped short of calling it reparations. That word, it seems, is reserved for European victims. Germany has paid over €80 billion in direct Holocaust reparations. For Namibia? Infrastructure projects as a “gesture of reconciliation”. One genocide gets pensions; the other gets PR.
Namibia’s new president, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, has renewed calls for real reparations (Aljazeera). Because if justice is selective, is it really justice at all?
The Takeaway
This week’s stories all point to the same, tired truth: humanitarian ideals don’t mean much without political will, sustained funding, and local ownership. What we’re witnessing, whether in Gaza, Port-au-Prince, Port Moresby, or Windhoek, isn’t just a crisis of resources. It’s a crisis of legitimacy.
Humanitarianism can’t be neutralised into irrelevance or quietly subcontracted to the highest bidder. It must be principled, people-centred, and fiercely independent. And yes, sometimes that means calling things what they are: aid used as leverage, peacekeeping without peace, reform that shrinks ambition rather than expands it, and yes, those exquisitely worded gestures that apologise for history without ever quite accepting responsibility for it.
Because when acknowledgements arrive only after legal liability has been surgically removed, and development funds stand in for justice, we’re not healing historical wounds, we’re bandaiding over them.
So here’s your invitation: don’t just read the news, interrogate it. Ask the hard questions. And when your government trims climate budgets or hedges on humanitarian access, take note. Speak up.
Because the world isn’t waiting. And neither should we.