How are mass surveillance, biometric data, and other high-tech border measures affecting refugees and migrants?

In this episode of Fixing Aid, host Alae Ismail speaks to a Latinx community organiser and migration researchers on the use of border and surveillance technology aimed at stopping refugees and migrants from crossing European and American borders. She also hears from people on the move who share what it feels like to be watched and tracked at all times.  

Guests: Cinthya Rodriguez, national organiser at Mijente; Niamh Ni Bhriain, War and Pacification coordinator at the Transnational Institute; Petra Molnar, lawyer associated with the Migration and Technology Monitor and associate director of the Refugee Law Lab at York University.

Is it possible to accurately predict how many people will be forcibly displaced in the future? If so, how might this help aid responses?

In this episode of Fixing Aid, host Alae Ismail speaks to the Danish Refugee Council about the prediction tool they’ve developed with tech company IBM. Exploring both its potential and its limitations, she also hears from a Sahelian pastoralist organisation and a Syrian campaigner about the implications more precise forecasting has for providing better aid to people in need.

Guests: Alexander Kjærum, global adviser and senior analyst at the Danish Refugee Council; Jade Kahhaleh, coordinator at WeExist; Leila Adamou Arouna of Réseau Billital Maroobè.

Guests: Michal Czekalski, CEO of Dialo; Zuzanna Gutkowska, NGO relations manager at Tech to the Rescue; Joanna Kucharczyk of Polish Humanitarian Action.

Is there an efficient and secure way for refugees and others who have had to leave their homes and documents behind to establish and access digital I.D.s?  In this episode of Fixing Aid, host Alae Ismail hears from a student who had to flee Sudan without I.D. papers and how that complicated his journey towards claiming asylum. She also speaks to two blockchain technology startups that are working in humanitarian environments to try to create secure methods to access identification.  

Guests: Khalid Maliki, co-founder of Tykn; Sharanya Thakur, project manager at Gravity.

When you’re a member of the diaspora community, it can feel helpless watching a crisis unfold in your home country. In this episode of our podcast series, Fixing Aid, host Alae Ismail explores how a diaspora-led business turned global concern into emergency aid – delivered straight to families in the middle of Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis.

Guest: Nasrat Khalid, founder of Aseel; Ihsan Hasaand, lead distributor Aseel

Hosted by award-winning innovations expert Alae Ismail, each episode will focus on people, projects, organisations, or start-ups working in new and creative ways to improve the lives of those affected by conflict and disaster. We will, of course, also be speaking to people on the receiving end of aid, to hear directly about the innovations they think could make things better. 

In the final episode of Season 2 of the Rethinking Humanitarianism podcast, host Heba Aly sits down with UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths to discuss his priorities in the role, how he intends to address unequal power dynamics in the aid sector, the increasing influence of donors, and why humanitarians should push back against an ever-expanding scope of activity.

An economic crisis, compounded by COVID-19 and the 2020 Beirut port explosion, has left middle-class families in Lebanon without food, medicine, and fuel. They are now depending on NGOs to get by. 

In this episode, host Heba Aly looks at how humanitarians are being confronted with a new category of needs, and how it’s changing the way they have to respond.  

Guests: Maya Terro of FoodBlessed, Nana Ndeda of Save the Children

The major part of the humanitarian response at the Poland-Belarus border is provided by volunteers. 

In this episode, host Heba Aly speaks to a Polish activist leading the voluntary humanitarians, and the UN Refugee Agency on their role when it comes to providing humanitarian assistance in Europe.   

Guests: Anna Alboth, Polish activist with Grupa Granica and the Minority Rights Group; Christine Goyer, Poland representative of UNHCR.