By Hibak Kalfan
On 17 June, the heads of the world’s biggest humanitarian agencies will gather in Geneva to discuss the future of the humanitarian system. On the agenda: what comes next in the “humanitarian reset”, a proposed overhaul of the global aid system launched by United Nations Humanitarian Chief Tom Fletcher in March 2025. Most of the 300 million people affected by crisis, and many local and national organisations’ leaders won’t know it’s happening but what they decide could shape the future of humanitarian response, and their lives for decades. These global aid leaders are meeting at a time when the system they lead is under historic pressure. Funding is disappearing. Needs are rising. And perhaps most dangerously, trust is collapsing – not just in whether the system can deliver, but in who it listens to and who it serves.
We’ve been here before. Every few years, aid leaders acknowledge that something isn’t working. They commit to fund more local organisations, to share power, to make the system more accountable to the people it's meant to help. But the results are always the same: good words, weak follow-through, and very little change at the centre.
This time has to be different.
Because in many places, the system is no longer bending, it’s breaking. And those who’ve been excluded from decision-making for decades – frontline responders, local leaders, communities – are not waiting for the leaders of this system to finally move. They are innovating and building their own solutions quietly, courageously, and out of necessity.
We’ve seen it in Türkiye, where local organisations led coordination efforts in the first days after the earthquake – well before international systems arrived. In Kenya, communities are designing their own alert systems, triggering funding on their terms. In Colombia, local leaders are aligning crisis response with long-term peace strategies. These are not one-off stories. They are signals. Change is already happening – just not where the spotlight is.
And that’s what the conference on 17 June must confront.
Because it’s not enough to regroup. And it’s not enough to reform. If the humanitarian system is serious about change, it must be willing to shift money, trust, and decision-making to the people who are already doing the work. It’s time to break free from conventional thinking and reimagine where true value lies.
A true reset means fundamentally rethinking how aid is coordinated, funded and held accountable. It requires coordination rooted in local realities – not just consulting local actors but co-creating response systems with them, from design to decision-making. Funding must empower, not undermine: by financing local organisations directly, not through endless layers of intermediaries. And accountability must flow both ways – not just to donors in global capitals, but to the communities bearing the brunt of crises, and those supporting them. This means transparency in how resources are used, feedback mechanisms that drive real change, and leadership roles for local actors that come with actual authority, not just symbolic inclusion. The goal is a system where power is not centralised in Geneva, New York, or any other Global North city but built where it belongs: in the hands of frontline responders.
NEAR is one of many voices saying this. Global South coalitions have said it. Feminist networks have said it. Diaspora networks have said it. International non-governmental organisations and their networks have said it. Even donors and United Nations (UN) agencies have endorsed these ideas. But policy papers aren’t power shifts. The real question is: will this leadership group listen and act accordingly?
Because not all resets are created equal. A reset that rearranges chairs without changing fundamentally who sits in them and how they act – will fail. And it will send a clear message: that the internationally-led system’s survival matters more than the people it claims to serve.
But a reset that recognises what is already happening outside its walls, and chooses to catch up, could be the start of something better. A system that listens, adapts, and shares power. One that doesn’t just survive but earns its place.
There’s still time to choose that path. But not much.
The future of humanitarian action is already being shaped. The real test now is whether the system will follow or be left behind.