I decided to write this piece to offer a perspective — and perhaps introduce a different narrative — about what we are witnessing across the humanitarian sector, especially since the beginning of 2025. This isn’t just about a single event or organization. It’s about a pattern many of us are sensing but struggling to name.
Over the past few months, I’ve received countless messages, questions, and reflections — from colleagues, collaborators, and people I’ve never met. Whether through webinars, working groups, DMs, or late-night voice notes, the underlying question has been the same:
“What’s really going on with the system right now?”
I decided to bring the reflections together here — in one piece. My hope is that it reaches not just those already in dialogue, but those who are sensing the shift and searching for language to describe it.
If I had to summarize this paper in one sentence, it would be this:
Don’t waste a serious crisis.
Now, let me explain what I mean.
The humanitarian system, as we know it, is not experiencing a sudden collapse. But it is undergoing systemic destabilization — a slow unraveling of old assumptions, rigid structures, and deeply held narratives. There’s a growing misalignment between our stated purpose and the ways we operate. And while these tensions have been building for years, 2025 has exposed them more clearly than ever.
In complexity science, this kind of moment is known as the edge of chaos — a threshold where familiar patterns dissolve, control gives way to adaptation, and entirely new forms of action and organization become possible.
After working in this sector for years — across countries, crises, and coordination levels — I’ve come to see that:
“Humanitarian systems on the edge of chaos are not failing. They’re searching — often painfully — for a new shape that fits the complexity of their time.”
Operating on the Edge of Chaos
When we zoom in on humanitarian work — whether in an area office responding to daily disruptions, a country operation balancing volatile politics and donor shifts, a regional hub coordinating multiple crises, or an HQ unit navigating competing global agendas — one thing becomes clear: we are almost always operating on the edge of chaos. We often use terms like “firefighting mode” or “constant crisis management,” and we try to build systems to escape it. But the operational truth is this: humanitarian response rarely exists in stable, linear environments. Instead, we function within what complexity theory calls organized complexity — dynamic systems with interdependent actors, unpredictable variables, and feedback loops that don’t follow straight lines. The sector is structurally predisposed to instability: fragile contexts, layered emergencies, political interference, fragmented funding, and human pain that resists neat categorization. So when I say we operate on the edge of chaos, I don’t mean dysfunction — I mean a highly sensitive state where systems can tip, adapt, or break, depending on how we respond. This edge is not new. What we are naming now has been there all along — only more visible, more global, and more consequential in 2025. And we will likely remain here, not because the sector is failing, but because the nature of humanitarian work is inherently complex. The question is not how to escape the edge — but how to build systems that can think, adapt, and evolve within it.
What follows are ten of those signals — not predictions, but indicators that the humanitarian system is entering a phase of deep, structural redefinition. They don’t suggest collapse. They suggest a point of choice — where what we protect, reimagine, or let go of will determine what the future becomes.
1. Institutional Certainty Is Breaking
We’re witnessing international NGOs quietly restructure, downsize, or rebrand — not because they’re evolving strategically, but because many are struggling to stay afloat. Formerly stable partnerships have become transactional. Regional offices are disappearing. Some INGOs are renaming themselves or merging departments in an attempt to stay relevant in a landscape that’s shifting faster than their models can adapt. Strategic plans are now filled with vague language about “adaptability,” “solidarity,” and “resilience,” yet these terms are rarely backed by bold decisions or operational redesign. These shifts aren’t cosmetic. They are symptoms of deep institutional uncertainty — and they reflect how legacy systems are struggling to reorient in an environment defined by volatility, speed, and complexity.
This is not just turbulence — it’s a clear signal of a system operating on the edge of chaos. And to not waste this crisis means refusing to treat institutional fragility as something to hide or manage behind closed doors. Instead, we must recognize it as an opportunity — a moment to interrogate outdated roles, release legacy assumptions, and reimagine what INGOs could become if they were built for trust, proximity, and adaptability, rather than for scale, control, and brand preservation.
In practical terms, this could — and perhaps should — include shifting away from default country office models toward equitable partnerships with national organizations; transforming regional hubs into decentralized, responsive support ecosystems rather than hierarchical mini-HQs; and radically redesigning governance structures to center community leadership in decision-making. The question is no longer how to protect the institution — it’s how to evolve it into something worthy of the future we say we’re working toward.
2. The Values–Practice Gap Is Growing Wider
Few things have spread faster in the humanitarian sector than the language of transformation. Words like “localization,” “decolonization,” “accountability,” and “risk sharing” now echo across strategy documents, conference stages, and organizational frameworks. But beneath the surface, the systems that govern funding, leadership, and authority remain largely unchanged. Resources continue to flow overwhelmingly through international intermediaries. Decision-making power remains concentrated in global capitals. Local partners are consulted — but rarely trusted to lead without conditions.
The sector is now fluent in progressive language while still structurally constrained by legacy incentives. And while many efforts are made to change this — through new manuals, branding shifts, and toolkits — too often they result in cosmetic adjustments rather than true transformation. What we’re seeing is not just slow reform, but institutional incoherence — a disconnect between values and behavior that quietly erodes trust, both internally and externally.
To not waste this crisis means confronting this gap head-on — not with better messaging, but with systemic realignment. This is the time to move beyond slogans and begin embedding our values into the DNA of how we operate.
In practical terms, this could mean rethinking partnership models so that local and national actors co-design programs and hold actual budget authority. It could mean overhauling recruitment, performance, and promotion systems to reward proximity, ethical leadership, and structural courage — not just technical compliance. It could mean publicly tracking progress on localization and making that data open source so others can learn, replicate, or challenge it. It could also involve holding leadership accountable for translating values into organizational architecture — including who makes decisions, how risks are distributed, and whose voice matters in moments of uncertainty.
3. New Actors Are Emerging Faster Than the System Can Absorb
Diaspora-led initiatives, mutual aid groups, volunteer collectives, and social enterprises are stepping up with speed, trust, and clarity. They are often closer to affected communities, more agile in response, and deeply embedded in local contexts — offering a kind of presence that traditional actors struggle to replicate. But while their contributions are tangible, the formal humanitarian system still struggles to acknowledge their legitimacy or center their leadership.
Coordination mechanisms, funding platforms, and policy spaces often treat these actors as “interesting,” but not integral. Their presence is tolerated — but not structurally enabled. As a result, a parallel ecosystem is quietly emerging: one that is innovative, trusted, and fast-moving, but chronically underfunded, isolated, and disconnected from global influence.
This fragmentation isn’t just a missed opportunity — it’s a warning sign. It reflects a system that continues to prioritize governance, branding, and compliance over proximity, innovation, and community legitimacy.
To not waste this crisis means recognizing that legitimacy has already shifted — and if the system wants to stay relevant, it must shift too. This is the moment to move from gatekeeping to scaffolding: to intentionally support, amplify, and resource diverse actors instead of excluding them through outdated compliance frameworks.
In practical terms, this means creating clear pathways for engagement, proactively reaching out to emerging local actors, channeling flexible funding to community-based organizations, redesigning consortia to center local leadership, and reforming due diligence so it enables access without compromising accountability. It also means reimagining coordination spaces — making them less about hierarchy and legacy actors, and more about shared intelligence, adaptive capacity, and real-world impact.
These new actors are not temporary players. Many of them are already contributing to think tanks, policy advocacy, and multi-stakeholder platforms. They are the architects of tomorrow’s aid ecosystem — and engaging them is not charity, it’s strategy.
4. Public Critique Is No Longer Fringe — It’s Structural
The humanitarian system is not just being critiqued — it is being reckoned with. And the reckoning is no longer limited to fringe voices. It’s coming from within and beyond, with growing clarity and urgency.
Frontline staff are openly naming burnout, extraction, and the emotional cost of navigating systems that contradict their stated values. Former practitioners are sharing their stories — not with bitterness, but with insight, hoping others won’t be broken by the same structures. Community leaders are pushing back against token partnerships and demanding transparency, trust, and real accountability. And public discourse is catching up — with think pieces, op-eds, and campaigns questioning whether international aid is delivering on its promise, or simply protecting its machinery.
This isn’t noise. It’s a vital form of diagnosis. And ignoring it doesn’t protect the system — it accelerates its irrelevance.
To not waste this crisis means listening to critique not as a threat, but as a map. These calls for change are not coming from cynicism — they are coming from those who still care. People who want the sector to live up to its own ideals. People who are fighting for something better even as the system exhausts them.
In practical terms, this could mean embedding safe feedback channels for staff and communities — not performative surveys, but systems where dissent leads to reflection and response. It could mean platforming critique at leadership forums — not sidelining it. It could also mean linking organizational learning to external accountability, publishing progress (and failure) openly. If the sector wants trust, it must show that it can absorb truth.
5. Institutional Donors Are Pulling Back — And the Political Context Can’t Be Ignored
Across the humanitarian sector, funding is shrinking — and not by accident. Institutional donors are quietly pulling back, reducing commitments, reprogramming budgets, and deprioritizing crises that don’t align with domestic political agendas. These aren’t just technical shifts in aid portfolios. They’re political decisions. And they’re reshaping the future of humanitarian action in real time.
The truth is: the humanitarian sector doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It lives within a larger ecosystem of foreign policy, diplomacy, media attention, and public sentiment. And as nationalism rises, global cooperation frays, and domestic pressures intensify, funding humanitarian needs has become a harder sell in many capitals. Aid budgets are increasingly treated as flexible reserves — first in, first cut.
This is not just about “less money.” It’s about a deeper shift in how the legitimacy of humanitarian work is being questioned, constrained, and recalibrated through geopolitical lenses. And those most affected — protracted crises, frontline responders, local organizations — are often those furthest from the tables where those decisions are made.
To not waste this crisis means naming what’s happening clearly. This is not a temporary dip. It’s a structural recalibration — and the sector must prepare for a future where traditional funding models are neither stable nor neutral. That means moving beyond passive diversification strategies and toward political literacy, strategic advocacy, and a bolder rethinking of financial resilience.
In practical terms, this could mean developing hybrid funding models that mix institutional grants with flexible capital, community financing, or social enterprise. It could mean reorienting donor engagement around shared responsibility, not charity — and building coalitions that advocate together for aid as a pillar of global stability and justice, not just a discretionary spend. And it could mean investing in the narrative infrastructure — the research, media, and public storytelling — needed to anchor humanitarian funding in long-term public trust.
Aid is shaped by the same winds that move diplomacy, media, and public opinion. If we fail to understand that, we won’t just lose funding — we’ll lose relevance.
6. Coordination Systems Are Too Slow for a Fast-Moving World
Formal coordination was meant to create order — to reduce duplication, promote collaboration, and enable strategic response. But in today’s world, the systems we rely on to organize aid are increasingly too slow, rigid, and hierarchical to keep up with reality.
Clusters take weeks to form, while communities respond in hours. Inter-agency platforms require consensus even as crises shift daily. Coordination meetings are full — yet many frontline actors remain absent from the table. The very systems designed to help us move together are now, too often, what hold us back.
To not waste this crisis means acknowledging that top-down coordination is no longer fit for purpose — and redesigning it into something more agile, inclusive, and adaptive. We must shift from central command to collaborative scaffolding — enabling decentralized actors to plug in, act quickly, and learn in real time.
In practical terms, this could mean rethinking clusters as open knowledge networks rather than static structures; equipping local responders with the tools and authority to lead coordination in their areas; and building digital platforms that foster horizontal collaboration instead of vertical gatekeeping. It also requires a fundamental mindset shift — from control to trust, from centralization to enablement.
Coordination is not a bureaucracy to manage — it’s a living system to nurture. And right now, that system needs reinvention, not repetition.
7. Experimentation Is No Longer a Luxury — It’s a New Operational Principle
In a world defined by complexity, speed, and disruption, experimentation is no longer optional. It’s an operational necessity. Yet in much of the humanitarian sector, experimentation remains siloed — tucked away in innovation labs, pilot projects, or short-term grants. It’s something we test, but not something we live.
“We can’t pilot our way to transformation. We have to make experimentation part of how we operate — every day, everywhere.”
The reality is, most organizations are still built for compliance, not curiosity. Pilots are tolerated as long as they don’t interfere with business as usual. New models are celebrated but rarely embedded. What we’re seeing is not a lack of ideas — but a sector that lacks the structural confidence to evolve.
To not waste this crisis means recognizing experimentation as a core operational principle — not a sidebar. It requires moving beyond the myth of best practice and embracing the logic of adaptive learning.
In practical terms, this could mean allocating core funding for prototyping across departments, not just for external consultants. It could mean embedding “safe-to-fail” pilots into crisis response plans. It might also involve training leadership in complexity thinking, so experimentation is seen not as a threat — but as a sign of maturity.
We are operating on the edge of chaos. In that space, rigid plans collapse — but adaptive systems thrive. Experimentation is how we stop reacting and start redesigning. Not everything we try will work. But staying the same is a far greater risk.
8. Burnout Isn’t Just Personal — It’s Structural
Across the humanitarian sector, people are tired. Not just from the demands of crisis response — but from working in systems that contradict their values. Staff are leaving not because they lack resilience, but because they’re exhausted from trying to do meaningful work in environments that are not designed to sustain it.
“When people burn out for doing the right thing too long in the wrong system — that’s not weakness. That’s a warning.”
We hear the same refrain from national staff, women leaders, racialized professionals, and emerging voices: they are expected to lead with compassion, speak of solidarity, and deliver results — all while navigating rigid hierarchies, limited authority, and institutional resistance to change. Emotional labor is demanded, but rarely supported. Mental health is named, but rarely funded.
To not waste this crisis means recognizing that burnout is not just about wellness programs or self-care days. It’s about reimagining the system so that care is not an afterthought, but a foundation.
In practical terms, this could mean embedding collective care practices into daily operations, making psychosocial support a standard part of HR, and holding managers accountable not just for output, but for how they lead. It could also mean investing in organizational psychology as a core competency — not just during emergencies but as a continuous practice. Frequent diagnosis of organizational culture, stress points, and emotional climate should become routine, with structured mechanisms to address what is found.
9. Access Is Cracking — and So Is the Model That Assumes We’ll Always Have It
Let’s be honest: access has always been fragile. But in recent years, that fragility has become systemic. Humanitarian access is not just difficult — it’s increasingly politicized, fragmented, and contingent on shifting negotiations and interests. Add to that the growing criminalization of aid in certain contexts, and a pattern emerges: the traditional model of parachuting in, negotiating presence, and deploying short-term surge teams is no longer fit for purpose.
“What happens if the next big crisis arrives — and no one can get in?”
COVID-19 offered a glimpse of this future. International staff were grounded. National actors stepped up. And for a moment, the sector acknowledged that proximity is not a fallback — it’s a necessity. But have we changed the systems to reflect that lesson?
Let’s go further. Think of what we often call “hard-to-reach” areas — regions where presence is always uncertain, where permits are politicized, and where INGOs often rotate teams in and out with little continuity. In truth, these areas are not inaccessible. They are inaccessible to us, because the models we’ve built assume our own presence as the default — not the presence of those already there.
To not waste this crisis means acknowledging that we are in the middle of a global access crisis — not just in high-risk settings, but in the very operating model of humanitarianism itself. And the solution is not to double down on security protocols or roving surge teams. It’s to redesign for permanence, proximity, and trust.
In practical terms, this means rethinking the center of gravity for response: investing in locally rooted actors, developing long-term operational infrastructure with them, and building models of support that don’t require access to be granted — because presence already exists. It also means recognizing access as a political, ethical, and structural issue — not just a logistical one.
10. Isolation Is Not Neutral — It’s Strategic Blindness
The humanitarian sector is increasingly isolated — not by accident, but by inertia. As the world moves toward cross-sectoral collaboration, blended financing, AI governance debates, and global systems thinking, much of the aid system still talks primarily to itself.
While private sector actors experiment with social impact models, and foundations fund paradigm-shifting initiatives, humanitarian institutions often remain confined to legacy platforms, familiar donors, and internal echo chambers. We rarely show up in the spaces where tech, finance, climate, or governance conversations are shaping the future. And when we do, we often arrive late, reactive, or overly cautious.
This isn’t just a missed opportunity. It’s a structural vulnerability. Because when systems change — and they are changing — those who remain siloed get left behind.
To not waste this crisis means refusing to treat our boundaries as fixed. It means showing up where our voice is needed — not just where it’s comfortable. It requires us to build relationships outside our usual orbit: with movements, with reformist institutions, with ethical businesses, with artists, with technologists.
In practical terms, this could mean forming coalitions with civic tech organizations, co-designing financing models with social enterprises, embedding humanitarian insights into climate negotiations or AI ethics boards, and forging joint learning agendas with academic institutions or even local governments. It means building a muscle the sector has underused for too long: strategic curiosity.
Closing: Standing With Courage at the Edge
This moment isn’t about decline — it’s about direction. We are not witnessing the end of humanitarianism, but the exhaustion of a particular model of it. The edge of chaos is not collapse. It is a space of possibility — where the old no longer holds, and the new is still fragile.
To stand here is uncomfortable. It requires humility, courage, and imagination. But more than anything, it requires us to act — not in fear of what might break, but in service of what could be built.
What comes next will not be restored. It will be reimagined. And the question before us is simple: Will we hold on to what is familiar — or will we help shape what is possible?
Let’s not waste this crisis. Let’s treat it as what it truly is: a rare invitation to rewire the system before it resets without us.
Ali Al Mokdad
