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With all 12 of Gaza’s higher education institutions destroyed by Israeli bombs, what next for students, faculty, and the future of Palestinian learning?

In this episode of The Impact Room, host Maysa Jalbout, explores the impact of  the war on higher education in Gaza, on both students and teaching staff, as well as the institutions themselves.

We feature interviews with academics trying to keep university teaching going, against all the odds, hear personal stories about life under bombardment, and offer practical ways everyone can help counter the educide.

This episode was recorded on Thursday June 27 – day 265 of the conflict.  If you haven’t already, make sure you listen to our earlier interviews with Palestinian medic Dr Ghassen Abu Sittah, and PCRF founder, Steve Sosebee.

Education is central to Palestinian identity and has been an active form of resilience for a people who have for generations had their homes, rights, and livelihoods stolen. It is well known that despite all the challenges of living under occupation, literacy rates in Gaza are among the highest in the world.

In a bid to keep people learning, An Najah National University in the West Bank, in partnership with UNIMED, the Mediterranean Universities Union, and the Palestinian Student Scholarship Fund (PSSF), is spearheading an initiative to share technology and resources to create an e-learning scheme for students in Gaza.

The main aim, explains Dr Saida Affouneh, An Najah's dean of the Faculty of Education, is to keep students and lectures in Gaza to protect the long-term health of institutions and stem the brain drain out of Palestine.

Dr Ihab Nasr, the Dean of Applied Medical Sciences at Al Alzhar University, is one of many academics who has chosen to leave Gaza. He spoke to The Impact Room from Edmonton, Canada, where he has moved to begin a new life with his wife and five children. Dr Nasr is currently teaching nutrition modules via Birzeit University in the West Bank as part of the Rebuilding Hope initiative. 

Also working to support students in Gaza is Professor Mahmoud Loubani, a UK-based cardiothoracic surgeon and chair of PalMed Academy, a branch of PalMed Europe, which promotes better healthcare for Palestinians at home and overseas. 

In March this year, PalMed Academy launched the Gaza Educate Medics (GEM) initiative to establish a virtual medical college, leveraging the expertise of volunteering academics and consultants worldwide to educate Gaza’s medical students. 

Brian Cox was reading “If I must die”, the last poem written by Palestinan academic Refaat Alareer.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

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Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah is no stranger to conflict zones, having  spent decades volunteering for medical charities in Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. But the plastic and reconstructive surgeon says his latest experience in Gaza has no parallel. 

The scale of the current suffering in Gaza, “the intensity, the ferocity, the viciousness, and the deliberate targeting of the hospitals”, he says, was like "a tsunami”.

Dr Abu-Sittah travelled to Gaza days after Israel began its bombardment in response to the October 7 attack by Hamas. He remained in the besieged enclave for 43 days, working mainly in northern Gaza as a volunteer for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

He was at Al-Ahli Hospital during the massacre on October 17, 2023, and was among the physicians who spoke to news media, surrounded by blood-stained bodies, in the attack’s immediate aftermath. He later gave evidence to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague about what he saw.

In this moving interview with Maysa Jalbout, Dr Abu-Sittah shares his experiences of working in Gaza and what it was like knowing his wife and children were watching him caught up in the attacks in real time on social media.

Since returning home to the UK, he has announced plans to set up The Ghassan Abu Sittah Children’s Fund to pay for injured Palestinians to receive medical and rehabilitation treatment in Lebanon.

Children have borne the brunt of this latest chapter of conflict in Palestine. Before October 7, there were nearly 200 war-related amputations among young people in Gaza as well as some 2,000 adults living with amputations from earlier conflicts. Dr Abu Sittah says there could now be as many as 5,000 child amputees, with many losing limbs due to an inability to treat what would ordinarily be very salvageable injuries.

Children with amputations need new prosthetics every six to eight months as they grow and could require as many as 12 surgeries before they reach adulthood, he explained. In addition to the physical impact of their injuries, their mental health needs are also “life altering”. 

Dr Abu-Sittah was born in Kuwait after his parents were forced from their homes in Palestine in 1948 and became refugees in Gaza. He studied medicine at the University of Glasgow and after completing his Specialist Registrar training in London, he went on to do fellowships  in Paediatric Craniofacial Surgery and  Cleft Surgery at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Kids and then a fellowship in Trauma Reconstruction at the Royal London Hospital. In 2010 he was awarded Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons (Plastic Surgery).  

Dr Abu-Sittah has served as an associate professor and head of the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Aesthetic Surgery at the American University of Beirut (AUB) Medical Center,  in 2015, became a founding director of the Conflict Medicine Program at AUB’s Global Health Institute, and in March was named Rector of the University of Glasgow.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

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Water scarcity is a growing problem around the world, especially in the Middle East, but climate change is only half the story.

In this episode of The Impact Room, we look at the social, economic, and geopolitical importance of water.  We explore how its co-option, commodification, and unequal  distribution is creating shortages affecting health and livelihoods and fuelling local and regional conflicts.

Join host Maysa Jalbout in conversation with:

• Professor Mark Zeitoun, the director general of the Geneva Water Hub and Professor of Water Diplomacy at the Graduate Institute of Geneva;
• Dr Danilo Turk, the former president of Slovenia, a candidate for UN secretary general in 2016, and a former chair of the Global High-Level Panel on Water; 
• Dr Muna Dajani, a fellow at the Geography and Environment Department at LSE, and an expert on community struggles around rights to water and land resources in settler colonial contexts including Palestine and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.

They discuss the gaps in global and regional water management, unpack what it means for water to be weaponised (as is the case  in the besieged Gaza Strip) and make the case for more philanthropic support for frontline community organisations.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

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The Rockefeller Foundation is one of the world’s oldest and largest philanthropies. It was launched in 1910 with funds from oil, but in 2020, unveiled a plan to divest its US$5bn endowment from existing fossil fuel interests and refrain from future investments in the sector. 

The foundation has also committed to invest US$1bn of programme resources into collaborations and partnerships in the areas of energy, food, health and financial systems.

This is with the aim of creating the changes possible to keep 1.5 degrees alive as a global temperature target, and protect three billion people on Earth, who live in countries vulnerable to future climate transitions.

To talk about The Rockefeller Foundation’s climate strategy, and so-called Big Bets philanthropy, , its president Dr Rajiv Shah,  joined Maysa in the The Impact Room shortly before the UAE hosted COP28.

Optimistic that we have the science and know-how to curb climate change, Dr Raj admits a lot still comes down to financing. “I hope to see absolute serious financing solutions being provided to emerging and developing economies to allow them to access the renewable energy technology frontier that is so defining the global transition in terms of climate and wealthy economies,” he says.

And he adds: “In an age of abundance, we don't need to have nearly a billion people living in energy poverty, 800 million people hungry every night, and girls still experiencing deep vulnerability and discrimination around the planet.”

Collaboration is a recurring theme in the interview and Dr Raj says Global North investors needed to “drive more capital into emerging economies and developing economies to ensure everyone benefits from an accelerated climate transition.”

Dr Raj joined the Rockefeller Foundation in 2015 after six years at the helm of the US foreign aid agency, USAID, leading it during the response to the Haiti earthquake and the West African Ebola pandemic.

The founder of Latitude Capital, a private equity firm focused on power and infrastructure projects in Africa and Asia, he has also worked at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he created the International Financing Facility for Immunisation, and he has served as a Distinguished Fellow in Residence at Georgetown University in Washington DC.

Dr Raj's book, Big Bets: How Large-Scale Change Really Happens, is designed to inspire nonprofit leaders re-imagine how they approach social impact.

About the host

Maysa Jalbout is a leader in international development and philanthropy. Her previous roles include founding CEO of the Abdulla Al Ghurair Foundation for Education, a $1bn philanthropic initiative based in Dubai, and founding CEO of the Queen Rania Foundation. Maysa is a visiting scholar at MIT and ASU, and a non-resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Find her on Twitter @MaysaJalbout.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

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Close to 800 million people were classed as food insecure in 2022 due to a mix of conflict, rises to cost of living, Covid-19, and climate change, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

As needs rise and budgets shrink, aid agencies are unable to keep up with demand and shrinking budgets are leading to ration cuts resulting in yet more hunger, malnutrition, poverty, and insecurity.

In this episode of The Impact Room, recorded ahead of the UAE hosting COP28, we shine a spotlight on the global food crisis, looking at the ways climate change has exacerbated hunger, and examine the role for philanthropy to support systemic-level solutions.

Catherine Bertini, who served as executive director of the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) for 10 years, shares shocking statistics about the grim scale of the global hunger problem and what it means for individuals and communities.

“The combination of increased numbers of many people who continue to live in long term war or civil strife situations and the lack of assistance make this a very dire year indeed,” she tells our host, Maysa Jalbout.

But Bertini, who was named the 2003 World Food Prize Laureate, and is now working with the Rockefeller Foundation on a food-focused initiative, is hopeful that COP28 will lead to new action around the links between agriculture and climate. 

“Last year was the first time that a COP acknowledged that agriculture should be discussed and considered in the context of climate change, and this year the UAE is putting that front and centre… so I am hopeful there will be permanent acknowledgement that agriculture and the environment and climate are intricately and forever connected.”

Dr Alok Ranjan, director of programmes and investments at the Power of Nutrition, a philanthropy and government-backed funding collaborative targeting malnutrition, meanwhile, outlined how well – or otherwise - children eat in their first 1,000 days can determine their future life trajectory.

“Almost 80 to 90 percent of brain development happens during the first thousand days of life, that’s the golden window of opportunity that we have,” he explains. “Good nutrition has a major impact on not just health but also education outcomes… one of my favourite quotes is ‘two is equal to 17’ because making impact on this SDG2 would have an impact on all the 17 SDGs,” he tells Maysa.

Finally, Dr. Guyo Roba, the director of the Jameel Observatory for Food Security Early Action in Kenya, (JOFESA), a philanthropy-backed initiative using data to mitigate climate talks and agricultural systems, meanwhile, called for ‘better action for the future of food”.

“We need to invest in early warning preparedness and response much better,” he says. “We need to also align our financing because the biggest missing thing is that early warning is there, prediction is very clear, timely, but then there's no financing to support people at the first shock.”

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

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Wanjira Mathai is the managing director of the World Resources Institute (WRI), the chief Africa adviser to the Bezos Earth Fund and the former chair of the Green Belt Movement in her native Kenya. 

Speaking to Maysa Jalbout on The Impact Room ahead of COP28, Mathai, describes the moment we’re in as “the decisive decade” and warns that “the science is getting shaper”, “the challenge is deep”, and “we have a lot of work to do”.

Mathai, who was named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2023, says she hopes that COP28 in the UAE will be “dominated by a spirit of action and implementation”. And she calls for “a consensus” on operationalising the loss and damage fund as well as further commitments to double finance for climate adaptation.

Nairobi-based Wajira Mathai is an leading voice in AFR 100, the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative, which aims to restore 100 million hectares on the continent by 2030. 

WRI, through its Restore Local Initiative, recently received US$100m from the Audacious Project to accelerate locally led land restoration in Lake Kivu and the Congo River Basin in the DRC, in the Cocoa Belt of Ghana, and in Kenya’s Rift Valley. This was in addition to US$50m already committed by the Bezos Earth Fund.

The fact that this funding is committed over multiple years and comes from a group of donors is as important as its value, Mathai says, as it creates an important proof of concept for pooled funding for climate adaptation and restoration projects in the Global South.

“Restoration in Africa remains one of the greatest opportunities for building climate resilience,” she explains. “We know that if landscapes are restored, a lot happens. You have increased food productivity because soils are improved… Landscapes regenerate and restore pretty quickly. All things considered. So in two to three decades, you can have a complete transformation of landscapes and livelihoods.”

In September 2023, Africa hosted its first climate summit in Kenya. Mathai sees this as a significant milestone in the continent’s role when it comes to fighting climate change. “We are part of the climate solution,” she says. 

“We're not part of the problem… We have a lot going for us. We have the fastest growing workforce in the world, an abundance of critical minerals and an abundance of renewable energy, which could come together and catalyse not only economic transformation for Africa, but also become part of the renewable energy revolution.”

For all the challenges facing the climate, Mathai says she remains optimistic about the future. “I am optimistic, mainly because the alternative is unacceptable,” she tells Maysa, noting that she’s inspired by revolutions in electric vehicles and solar, and in the growing youth and local leadership movements. 

“I'm inspired by so many signals around that remind you that exponential change is possible,” she says. “We have so much more democratic space. We have so many more tools. We have so many more of us. We have to be optimistic.”

Read the World Resources Institute's 2023 State of Climate Action report here.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

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We were due to kick off Season Four with a series of interviews about climate philanthropy, ahead of the UAE hosting COP28, but we felt we could not ignore the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza. 

In solidarity with the people of Palestine, we have recorded some special episodes about the impact this latest war is having on innocent people. 

We want to both highlight the current emergency, and also explore what role philanthropy can - and should - be playing to help those in need.

At the time of recording this interview with PCRF founder, Steve Sosebee, on November 14th, more than 11,000 Palestinians had been killed by the Israeli bombardment, which began on October 7th, in retaliation to Hamas’s attack on Israel.  Of those, more than 4,500 were children.

Since the partial opening of the Rafah border crossing from Egypt on October 21st, some emergency relief has trickled into Gaza. But it is in no way near enough to support a population that has long been dependent on aid after two decades of an Israeli blockade.

Days after this recording was made, Gaza’s health system collapsed and officials stopped counting deaths and casualties.

In this moving interview Steve Sosebee, the founder and president of the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF), is unequivocal in his assessment of the impact the Israeli bombardment is having on Gaza’s children.

“The trauma and the violence that's been imposed on the children of Gaza is going to leave a lasting psychological scar,” he tells host  Maysa Jalbout. “This is not post-traumatic stress; this is ongoing and continuous.”

Sosebee set up the PCRF in 1991, after meeting a young Palestinian who’d lost both his legs and a hand in an Israeli bomb blast in Hebron.  Moved by the boy’s plight, Steve, who at the time was working in Palestine as a freelance journalist,  fundraised for Mansour to be flown to the United States for treatment.

Three decades later, the PCRF is a multinational NGO with chapters in 25 countries. It has raised more than 100 million dollars to pay for 2,000 children to travel overseas for medical treatment, and organised some 800 medical missions to operate on tens of thousands of youngsters in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, and Jordan.

Until October 7th, the PCRF was running Gaza’s only paediatric cancer unit, which it had opened in 2019 after a four-year fundraising campaign. Like nearly all healthcare facilities in Gaza, this is no longer operational, and several of the young people that PCRF had previously flown overseas for treatment have been killed by airstrikes.

Asked about the role for philanthropy in responding to the needs of Gaza’s children, Sosebee says: “It’s the responsibility of foundations not to turn a blind eye because of the politics or because it is a controversial issue, with air quotes.” And he adds that all donors, foundations, development organisations, and aid agencies had a “moral and ethical responsibility” to support those affected by the violence.

“Everything to do with Palestine and Gaza is political: water's political, food's political, education is political, health care is political… And as a result, it's easy for donors to turn away and say, this is too risky for us. But I think that's the easy way out."

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

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Climate change, food security, funding collaboratives, and design for development. These are just some of the topics we’ll be discussing in Season Four of The Impact Room.

Join Maysa Jalbout in conversation with a diverse line-up of global philanthropists, development leaders, industry experts, and frontline organisations as they share insights and inspiration.

With the UAE due to host COP28 at the end of the year, we’ll be applying a climate lens to several of our episodes, looking at the role for philanthropy in helping to improve water and food security, and delivering equitable energy transitions and climate justice.

We’ll also be digging into funding collaboratives: what they are, and the pros and cons associated with group giving.  And finally, we’ll be looking at how design can influence development and why how we build things changes the way we interact with our surroundings. 

Subscribe now, so you don’t miss an episode. 

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

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This is a special episode dedicated to President Carter, who aged 98 has recently entered a hospice, and the extraordinary impact he has had around the world in the decades since leaving the White House.

From resolving conflicts and building homes for the poor, to eradicating disease and championing human rights, President Carter’s impact has been felt far and wide and in 2002, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

We hear from people he worked with, as well as those whose lives he has touched, his grandson Jason Carter, who is now board chair of The Carter Center -  a nonprofit he set up to focus on conflict resolution, democracy, and health - and Curtis Kohlhaas, the organisation’s director of international philanthropy.

Born in 1924 in Plains Georgia, James Earl Carter Jr. served in the US Navy before his opposition to racial segregation took him into politics. He was governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975 and in 1976 became the 39th president of the United States.

One of the last remaining members of his generation of leaders, President Carter displayed a unique ability to relate to ordinary people – something credited to his own humble upbringing as the son of a peanut farmer. Yet, he was also able to leverage his high-level connections to work on issues neglected by the majority and bring them into the mainstream.

In addition to their work with The Carter Center, President Carter and his wife Rosalyn have also been long-time supporters of housing charity, Habitat for Humanity. And, until very recently, despite both being quite frail, spent several days a year volunteering and over the years personally helped to build and renovate thousands of homes.

One of President Carter’s least well-known areas of work, yet possibly his most impactful, relates to Guinea worm, a waterborne parasite, which causes untold suffering its hosts.

In the 1980s, when the Carter Center began its programme to tackle the disease, there were believed to be more than 3.5million cases worldwide.

As of last year, the global caseload stood at just 13 - in five countries (Angola, Chad, Ethiopia, Mali and South Sudan) – which is equivalent to a 99.99 percent decrease and Guinea worm is now on course to become only the second human disease - after smallpox - to be eradicated.

The Just 13 poem about Guinea worm featured in the podcast was written and performed by Waleed Gubara. 

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

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Mosun Layode, Bheki Moyo, and Degan Ali discuss development funding and philanthropy in Africa.

Just 14 percent of large gifts by international donors get to local NGOs in Africa, and only 9 percent of large gifts by African funders are channelled to proximate organisations, according to Bridgespan research. The rest of the money goes to governments and international NGOs.

Why this happens – and what it means for on-the-ground organisations, programming, and final impact – is at the heart of this episode of The Impact Room, where we take a deep dive into African development funding and the thorny topic of decolonising aid.

Host Maysa Jalbout  explores the barriers to funding grassroots entities in Africa and why the status quo is so hard to shift – but also hear about some new solutions designed to “shift the power” from donor to implementer and create more equitable partnerships.

Mosun Layode, the executive director of the African Philanthropy Forum (APF), which was formed in 2014 to shift the needle on development funding on the continent, kicks off the episode with a detailed landscape analysis of leading funders and innovative initiatives.  Layode, who is also a board member of Candid and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, calls for greater collaboration among donors to amplify impact and tackle systemic issues. 

Professor Bheki Moyo, chair and director of the Centre on African Philanthropy and Social Investment (CAPSI), at Wits University Business School in Johannesburg, South Africa appeals to philanthropists to do more to fund African civil society working on “abstract” causes, such as human rights and policy issues, rather than just supporting “materialistic” initiatives such as building schools or donating computers.

Maysa's third guest, Degan Ali, is the executive director of Adeso, a development and humanitarian NGO working in the Horn of Africa.  She shares her views on why the current funding system for aid and development isn’t working, the opportunities for philanthropy to seed new approaches, and how donors can operate more equitably.

A long-time activist and leading voice in the aid localization debate, Ali has recently spearheaded the launch of the Pledge for Change, calling on iNGOs to commit more equitable partnerships and authentic storytelling to create a stronger aid ecosystem based on the principles of solidarity, humility, self-determination and equality.

The books, articles, and organisations mentioned in this episode include:

• Higherlife Foundation
• The Tony Elumelu Foundation
• Aspire Coronation Trust (ACT) Foundation
• KujaLink
• Dr. Arikana Chihombori
• Howard Nichols
• The art of gathering: how we meet and why it matters -  by Priya Parker 
• Shifting sands, shifting power - Social Investor Magazine

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge