Polycrisis and reasons for hope at the Humanitarian Leadership Conference: a practitioners’ perspective

In this blog, Carla Vitantonio (and host of the ‘Living Decoloniality’ podcast), takes stock of the views of humanitarian practitioners and researchers at the recent Humanitarian Leadership Conference, held in Doha, Qatar. Throughout the conference, Carla interviewed various humanitarian practitioners and researchers for a special podcast series. She posed two questions, about challenges for humanitarians in a time of polycrisis, and about hope for the future. To listen to the podcast, check out the CHL website.

On April 6^th, roughly 70 days after the cancellation of USAID and the earthquake that shook the humanitarian and development sector, about 200 people from 85 different countries met in Doha for the Humanitarian Leadership Conference. Roughly 200 more joined online.
The organization of the event had been uncertain until the very end, as organizers themselves have been deeply affected by the cuts and so had most of the participants. But at the end, thanks to the firm willingness and hard work of the organizers, all pieces fell together and people arrived from all over the world, with some of them crossing through zones affected by conflict and disasters, to attend the two days of conference and one extra day organized by the Pledge for Change, a movement that seeks to decolonize the sector. The title of the conference, “transformative leadership in times of polycrisis”, which only few months before had seemed to many a simple exercise of anticipation, proved to capture perfectly the feelings of many participants, who arrived in Doha looking for answers and solutions to an unprecedently complex web of problems.

The challenges faced by the humanitarian sector are both personal and professional

I am a humanitarian living and working in Cuba, one of the most unseen crisis in the world (some participants to the conference openly admitted that they did not know that since 2022 Cuba has been affected by 3 devastating hurricanes, a strong earthquake and a growing socioeconomic crisis that keeps every day the country in the darkness for several hours, and has brought more than one million people – one tenth of the total population – to flee). I had to travel almost 3 days to reach Qatar, and I found myself overwhelmed by the intensity, variety, depth of the content shared through the conference.

As I often do, I decided to use storytelling to create threads and a sort of order among this huge volume of information, and I invited 6 of the people who had impressed me the most to share their own story, guided by two questions:

1. In times of polycrisis, what is one challenge and one opportunity for you and your organization?
2. What is one thing from this conference that makes you hopeful for the future?

I had to arrange interviews in very different times of each day. Some speakers could make it very early in the morning, had to skip breakfast and so their voice was still a bit rusty. Others gave me their time after a long day of conference. Their voices sound tired. Some had to speak the day after. Their voices betray anxiety. Some were happy with the outcome of their session. Their voices sound hopeful.

They were all honest, generous, gentle to me, and their perspective helped me in finding my way through the conference.

The result is a short podcast series, which includes a bonus track recorded with Lars Peter Nissen, author of Trumanitarian.

One month after the conference, I feel I can draw some reflections:

• Local leadership is now. As a coach told me once, a “beautiful, unique party is happening now”. Organizations need to decide if they are ready to join, or if they prefer to just keep discussing The transformation we have been talking about for long is already taking place. In the Emergency Response Rooms (ERR) in Sudan, through the courageous appeals of the Myanmar civil society, the actions of the White Helmets and of the many others that decided to take action and not to wait for those in power to give them permission.
• Finally, the discourse on the coloniality entrenched in the system is gaining voice and space. The abstract need to “decolonize the sector” is slowly being transformed into a series of creative, profound attempts to analyse all our practices, to identify the coloniality that shapes them, and to transform them into something else. We need to work for change to happen at all levels. Advocacy and alliance at global level is paramount. Bringing philanthropy onboard and contributing to its own change is also very important, but we also need to look critically at the principles that move humanitarian assistance, and at our processes. Coloniality needs to be disentangled one piece after the other.
• INGOs are struggling to follow the rhythm of this change. Some that signed the Pledge for Change in 2022 today face difficulties inchanging a system built on inequalities. But besides those initial 12 signatories of the Pledge for Change, and a few notable others the debate on the decolonization of practices and processes is virtually absent from the agenda of many, while others engage in aesthetic debates on the use of correct vocabulary.

In summary, the humanitarian leadership conference 2025 left many questions on how to leverage transformative leadership to bring about a new humanitarian sector.
However, something emerged clearly: the change we have been talking of happening before our eyes. Are we being this change, or are we rather standing aside? Each one will make their own choice. Meanwhile, enjoy the listening.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the Author 

Carla Vitantonio is a humanitarian practitioner and researcher who has worked across a number of contexts and organisations, including CARE (as country Director for Cuba), and Handicap International (including as country Director for North Korea). She contributes to academic research initiatives at institutes including the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, the European University Institute, and ODI. Carla hosts the podcast ‘Living Decoloniality’, and also serves on the Board of the International Humanitarian Studies Association, as well as regularly contributing blogs, think pieces and papers – in English, Spanish, and Italian.

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