Displaced

In October 2015, US airstrikes destroyed a trauma hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, operated by Médecins Sans Frontières. 42 people were killed. Following the attack, MSF International President Dr. Joanne Liu testified before the UN Security Council and captured the attention of an international audience.

In the final episode of our series examining the future of war, Grant and Ravi welcome Dr. Joanne Liu to Displaced to discuss the attack, how the conduct of war is changing, and why civilians and humanitarians are increasingly the targets of conflict.

Displaced is a production by the International Rescue Committee and Vox Media. You can read more about this episode in our show notes.

Catch up on our Future of War series: hear about the top conflicts to watch in 2019, how technology is changing war, and the challenge of documenting human rights violations in Yemen.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Radhya Almutawakel started human rights work in 2004; as she criticized the unfolding war in Yemen in a local newspaper, families of those who had been detained reached out to her for help. Now, Radhya is the co-founder and chairperson of the Mwatana Organization for Human Rights, which documents human rights violations by all parties of the conflict in Yemen.

This week, Ravi and Grant talk to Radhya about the challenge of documenting famine as a tool of war, the future of the conflict in Yemen, and how to train a new generation of human rights advocates.

Displaced is a production by the International Rescue Committee and Vox Media. You can read more about this episode in our show notes.

Tell us what you think! Make sure you use #DisplacedPodcast on Twitter to discuss the season. You can also get in touch with Grant @grantmgordon and Ravi @rgurumurthy. 

Catch up on our series about the future of war: hear from Robert Malley, president and CEO of the International Crisis Group, about the top conflicts to watch in 2019, and Loren DeJonge Schulman and Erin Simpson, two defense industry experts, about how technology is changing war. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Ravi and Grant turn to Loren DeJonge Schulman and Erin Simpson to discuss how technology is changing war and what that means for humanitarians. Both Loren and Erin have years of experience working in the defense industry - so not only are they experts on this issue, they also provide a unique view on how militaries around the world are actually thinking about and implementing technologies like autonomous weapons, AI, and cyberwarfare.

Loren and Erin are two of the three co-hosts of their own podcast called Bombshell, where they unpack more national security and defense issues. Check it out.

If you haven’t listened to Ravi and Grant’s conversation with Robert Malley, president and CEO of the International Crisis Group, about the top conflicts to watch in 2019, catch up here.

Displaced is a partnership between Vox Media and the International Rescue Committee. Find our show notes here.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yemen. Afghanistan. U.S.-Chinese tensions. The International Crisis Group (ICG) ranks these conflicts as the top three to watch in 2019. To kickoff season two of Displaced, Robert Malley, president and CEO of the ICG, explains why these conflicts top the list, and what they say about the changing geopolitical order and the future of war.

Displaced is produced by the Vox Media Podcast Network in partnership with the International Rescue Committee. Find our show notes here. Get in touch with us at [email protected]. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At Displaced we examine the causes and consequences of the global refugee crisis. And this season, we're going even deeper. Each of our episodes will focus on one of the three top issues humanitarians face today: the future of war, refugee resettlement, and climate change and displacement.

Season two launches January 22nd. Don't miss an episode - subscribe to Displaced now.

If you're new to Displaced, start listening with our conversations with Pulitzer Prize winner Viet Thanh Nguyen and Homeland actor Mandy Patinkin.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pulitzer prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen is the guest on this episode of Displaced, and talks to Grant and Ravi about his background, and the traumatic experience of being separated from his parents when he was 4 years old. He goes on to talk about the role of trauma in shaping the lives of refugees, and how that has informed his own work. They discuss the label 'refugee', and the place of refugees in America in this current moment.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ann Mei Chang talks to Ravi and Grant about her new book, ‘Lean Impact: How to Innovate for Radically Greater Social Good.’ Her career spans both the private and public sector: she led USAID’s first-ever innovation hub, the Global Development Lab, and she spent almost a decade as senior engineering director at Google, before she left Silicon Valley for the State Department, where she was a senior advisor for women and technology. Ann Mei Chang shares her lessons learned through this journey, and discusses how to use a Silicon Valley style of iterative innovation in the global development sector. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ravi talks to David Miliband, president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee - and a long-time friend and colleague - during a special event recorded with a live audience at the New School’s Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility in New York City. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In order to solve any given problem, an understanding of its root cause is the first step. But when those roots are tangled up with other factors - a whole set of interrelated causes and contexts, they all have to be taken into account to design an effective solution. And if ‘everything is everything’, where should we begin in trying to solve complex problems in areas like health and education? Patrick Fine is CEO of FHI 360, and explains what ‘integrated development’ looks like in his work. He discusses with Grant and Ravi how to approach this level of complexity, and design programs that are cost effective.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration operates with a 3 million dollar budget, and combines aid with diplomacy. Anne Richard served as the former Assistant Secretary of State for PRM from 2012 to 2017, and in this episode she talks about her experiences during those years, including how she worked with countries to accept more refugees, and implemented changes to refugee policy here in the U.S. under President Obama. She also discusses how those changes are being reversed or rolled back under the Trump administration, and puts anti-refugee sentiment into historical context. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices