Faced with the worst of times, humanitarian community gathers to discuss its future
By Shahnaz Radjy
As 2025 got off to a difficult start for the humanitarian sector – with the worsening crisis in Gaza, a devastating earthquake in Myanmar and severe funding challenges – some questioned whether the Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Weeks (HNPW), the sector’s largest annual gathering, would still take place.
Gathering humanitarians is vital, now more than ever
Co-hosted by OCHA and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, HNPW gives the humanitarian community a much-needed space to connect, collaborate and reimagine the humanitarian sector. It’s an opportunity to listen, learn and co-create solutions working across various issues and themes. In the face of global challenges, this year’s event had more participants, sessions and bilateral meetings than ever – all filled with a sense of urgency.
“Every disaster is a data disaster, but it doesn’t have to be,” said Florian Rhiza Nery, Deputy Programme Coordinator for the OCHA-UN Development Programme Connecting Business initiative. “Innovation means local solutions powered by technology – designed for dignity, driven by impact and built to scale."
HNPW’s added value
Held from 17 to 28 March, this year’s HNPW followed a hybrid format: the first week was fully remote, the second was held in-person in Geneva. Many sessions were hybrid for greater participation. Sixty networks participated, more than 8,600 people registered online and nearly 2,000 attended in person. The programme covered 344 sessions with themes ranging from innovation in humanitarian action to civil-military cooperation, access, humanitarian diplomacy, sustainable practices in emergency response, and public-private partnerships for more effective disaster management. As with any large conference, value also came from behind-the-scenes activity: hundreds of bilateral meetings, countless moments of shared knowledge, and partnerships developed in real time.
“What we need to do here together is co-create, reimagining what the humanitarian and development sector could be, how we can do things. And we [the private sector] cannot do that alone," said Veronica Gabaldon, Executive Director of the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation.
Honest and open conversations
This year’s HNPW held the first-ever keynote – a stand-alone session featuring a ‘fireside chat’, where difficult questions were raised about private sector partnerships. Moderated by UNICEF Spokesperson James Elder, the conversation included Lynn Hastings, former Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory; Anna Maria Socorro Abalahin, Deputy Executive Director of the Caucus of Development NGO Networks; Dr. Onyango Ochieng, Director of the National Disaster Management Unit in Kenya; and Abby Daniell, Director of International Organizations at Amazon Web Services.
The audience voted on the questions to address. The two most popular questions referred to the main obstacles to localization and how to overcome them, and the emerging opportunities to build a stronger humanitarian system despite the current challenges.
During the keynote’s Q&A, a participant queried what specific parts of the humanitarian architecture are no longer fit for purpose and must be reimagined rather than reformed. Others questioned big tech’s presence on the panel.
The session was intended to create space for an honest, open conversation, and the questions focused on issues that the humanitarian community must tackle. The only way forward is to bypass prejudice and bias, build trust and address the elephants in the room to pave the way for a more collaborative approach to humanitarian efforts. Jobs and lives are now at stake.
With another successful HNPW behind us, we look forward to creating more opportunities to connect so we can collectively try to take on the seismic shifts rocking the very foundations of the humanitarian sector.