Robert Piper

Rethinking Humanitarianism | The UN’s 20th-century diplomacy for 21st-century problems Historian Thant Myint-U on how the UN got sidetracked from multilateralism, where it must focus, and why the next secretary-general pick is crucial.

Rethinking Humanitarianism | The UN’s 20th-century diplomacy for 21st-century problems: www.thenewhumanitarian.org/podcasts/202... (@newhumanitarian.bsky.social)

Great to join @weforum.org Global Councils meeting in Dubai this week, to join the Council on "reimagining aid"

Women and children sit in a shelter in March 2024 at a site in Soucoura, Mali, hosting refugees from Burkina Faso who fled violence.

Do not forget about the Sahel.

About 4 million people are now displaced across Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and neighbouring countries.

That’s 2/3 more than five years ago.

Think Change episode 80: UNGA 80 – what kind of UN does the world need today? With the 80th UN General Assembly under way, guests dissect the credibility crisis facing the UN and the reforms it must make to respond to today's fractured global order.

odi.org/en/insights/... Global updates

Heart-breaking images from Gaza. There seems to be no limit to the suffering and destruction. I mourn the innocent civilians caught in someone else's fight. And I mourn our hard-fought, if imperfect, rules-based global order, which is being shredded before our eyes.

When Is It Genocide? - Listen on NYT Audio 1 hour 43 min listen - Philippe Sands discusses how to think about the tragedies in Gaza through the lens of international law.

1'41" incredibly well-spent. If you only listen to one podcast this month, make it this one. www.nytimes.com/audio/app/20...

‘They slaughtered us like animals’: the inside story of how one of the biggest atrocities of the Sudan war unfolded in Zamzam As the UK prepared to host a global summit on bringing peace to Sudan, the RSF paramilitary began a ‘genocidal’ massacre in Zamzam refugee camp. But when reports emerged of the killings, London held i...

Deeply troubling reporting from The Guardian, on Darfur. While the world, largely, looks away. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

The Twilight of International Peacemaking Institutions? | International Crisis Group In this expanded and edited version of a lecture given to the Geneva Centre for Security Policy on 6 May 2025, Crisis Group expert Richard Gowan explores the dilemmas facing UN conflict management and...

Very thoughtful piece from @richardgowan1.bsky.social at @crisisgroup.org www.crisisgroup.org/global/twili...

Building solutions for the world’s 83 million internally displaced persons: Recent lessons on how | IOM Publications Platform

Very happy to catch-up with DG Zahra Abdi who leads displacement solutions in Somalia, and President Luisa Celma Caetano Meque who does the same in Mozambique, at the Global
Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction this week! #GPDRR

Stanley Fischer, Who Helped Defuse Financial Crises, Dies at 81

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/01/b...

Diplomat makes history as first refugee to become a UK high commissioner Kanbar Hossein-Bor, who says his mother once feared he ‘might not be British enough’, lands Fiji post

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

Happy to be spending the next few weeks at the UN's institue for training and research @UNITAR. Learning lots about the training offered by the organisation- more than 500,000 people trained last year!

Blocking aid starves civilians. It leaves them without basic medical support. It strips them of dignity and hope. It inflicts a cruel collective punishment. Blocking aid kills.

It’s already happening.

Funding cuts have closed nutrition services in 4 out of 7 refugee sites in Ethiopia

80,000 children under 5 are at risk of severe malnutrition.
This is preventable. Funding saves lives.

Only in Australia?

Terrible scenes from Myanmar (and Bangkok) these last 24 hours. My thoughts are with the victims and their families. And the front line responders risking their lives to save others.

I remember reaching my first 100 'followers' on Twitter. Seems like a very LONG time ago!! I was in Nepal at the time I think. Focused on peace building, disaster risk reduction and social inclusion...

Israeli Police Raid Two Palestinian Bookshops in East Jerusalem The police said the stores were selling books that supported terrorism and that two members of the family who owned the business had been arrested. A lawyer said their detention was “political” rather...

And now this www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/w...

I completed my work as the SG's Special Adviser for Solutions to Internal Displacement this week. Working on our 'lessons-learnt' & reflecting on a 2.5 year journey. So much more to do but I think/hope we are all better equipped now - Gov's & UN alike - to support solutions for the displaced.

A final meeting with the Secretary-General, as I wind-up my role on internal displacement. It has been such a privilege to serve in this role the last 2.5 years.

Delighted to join a group of amazing IDP representatives at Mcgill Univ today, to talk about how to improve IDP representation in displacement solutions efforts!

Briefing the UN's Peacebuilding Commission in NY this morning. Conflict drives most protracted displacement. We need better conflict prevention & peacebuilding investments in solutions

ICVA network & InterActionOrg convened our final quarterly meeting w/ @unpiper.bsky.social
on Solutions to Internal Displacement before his mandate officially concludes.
Good to hear some excellent NGO reflections on the Action Agenda & from Robert on potential next steps for IDP solutions.

En route to Lagos to join this important conversation with private sector actors on how to partner on long term solutions for internally displaced persona in Africa. Fantastic initiative by @unhcr.org

A few days at #COP29 in Baku to try to keep the world's 76 million+ IDPs visible. Millions of them are on the front lines of the climate crisis.

This week, in Geneva, Somali Minister for Planning, Mohamud Abdirahman Sh. Farah presented the Government's solutions plan to UN Member States and UN agencies. Their goal? To settle 1 million Somali IDPs in the next 5 years. Clear. Ambitious. And do-able with Gov commitment & follow-through.