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Host: Imogen Foulkes
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Inside Geneva’s Summer Profiles are back! Tammam Aloudat, doctor, aid worker and now journalist.

“I was born in Syria, and I spent most of my life there until my mid-20s. I studied there; I went to medical school there,” says the CEO of The New Humanitarian.

Was being a doctor in Syria his first choice?

“One of the first side effects of autocratic dictatorships is that there isn’t really work outside a few private enterprises, one of which is being an engineer, a lawyer, or a doctor,” he says.

A chance meeting with a British Red Cross official led him into humanitarian work.

“And a couple of years later, when I wanted to go out and work for the Red Cross, it was him who gave me a contract with the British Red Cross and sent me to Iraq. I mean, arguably not the nicest thing to do to someone, but it was exactly what I had asked for.”

But the disastrous consequences of that conflict made him question his work, and the traditional neutrality of humanitarianism.

“Can we afford to only put roofs over people's heads and do nothing about the system? If your house was bombed for the first time, I understand. If it was bombed for the 17th time, and instead of a house you have a tarp, and instead of food, you have animal feed or grass to eat, like the case is today in Gaza,” Aloudat says.

Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva for a fascinating discussion.

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Host: Imogen Foulkes
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2025 has been a year of conflict, upheaval, and huge challenges to the international system.

Gunilla von Hall, Svenskadagbladet: "It all started downhill from 20th of January. Since then, it's just, well, ‘the Ukraine war will be over in 24 hours?’ Nothing happened. It just got worse. Then we had Gaza, then we have Iran, Israel. Then we had the cuts of all the aid. It's very bleak. I think we should just not give up our hope, but it looks really... We have four years."

The humanitarian work Geneva does has been decimated. Nick Cumming-Bruce, contributor, New York Times: "What is disturbing is the very casual destruction of international institutions and agreements that have been pulled together over many years, decades of works since World War II, and which for all their many imperfections are trying, with some cases significant success, to address the critical challenges that the world faces."

Is everything bleak? Or can we find some hope somewhere?

Imogen Foulkes, host of Inside Geneva: "These are hard times and people I think are very anxious at the moment. Maybe we should still pay tribute, hat tip, to the humanitarian work that comes out of Geneva. People who, they don't live peacefully here in this quiet city. They are in Gaza, they are in Sudan, they are in Afghanistan."

Listen to Inside Geneva for a review of the first six months of a momentous year.

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Israel blocked aid into Gaza for 10 weeks. Then the US and Israel came up with a new plan – without the United Nations. Established aid agencies had doubts. Inside Geneva finds out why.

Jan Egeland,secretary general, Norwegian Refugee Council: ‘We would welcome anything that would allow us to resume work for a population that is starving and that has been suffocated by a siege over two months. But this seems to be militarized, politicized, manipulated. People have to walk long distances through the rubble to get aid.’

The new Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has had a disastrous start. Dozens of Palestinians have been shot trying to get aid.

Chris Lockyear, Secretary General, MSF: ‘This is not child's play. It is not a military operation. It is a different thing that requires years and decades of experience to get where we've got to now. So it breaks my heart to say it, but it wasn't a surprise to see those horrendous images from the first day of operation of the GHF in Gaza.’

It’s not clear who is actually running the new Foundation, but international lawyers warn they could be liable for war crimes.

Philip Grant, Trial International: To lend material aid to the Israeli plan can be construed as complicity in the war crime of forcible displacement of the civilian population. And that would entail first of all the possibility for any state, almost any state in the world to use universal jurisdiction.

Meanwhile the UN warns that Gaza’s population is now close to famine.

Jan Egeland: We now hope to see Europe, the United Nations and those who are there to defend international law to stand up for principle when Israel is besieging 2 million Palestinians, where half of them are children and totally innocent.

Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva

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Host: Imogen Foulkes
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The world just agreed a pandemic treaty. But without the United States. Is it really a milestone?

‘‘It is a major step forward. I mean, just imagine if we failed. We would not only go back to the point before the pandemic, before COVID-19 struck us, we'd go back to a point much further back,” said Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein from the International Peace Institute.

But what about the global challenge of climate change?

“We're up against a ticking clock. And even though we've enjoyed successes in the past, even though the renewables rollout is going rather well, it's all too little, too late from the point of view of avoiding genuinely dangerous degrees of warming,” says climate security expert Peter Schwartzstein.

Why can’t world leaders really unite around global challenges?

‘Their children and grandchildren have to deal with abominable and extreme heat levels and forest fires and fierce hurricanes and no trade and collapsed economies and extreme food security and complete anarchy. Is this what they wish for their children. What form of love is that?” continues al Hussein.

Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva for in-depth analysis of where we stand.

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Host: Imogen Foulkes
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It’s been 30 years since the Beijing Declaration on Women, a landmark agreement to empower women and girls.

“The Beijing declaration was such an incredible moment to say that enough is enough. Women are half of humanity and we have to be better,” says Lata Narayanaswamy, associate professor at the School of Politics and International Studies at the University of Leeds.

But now, some governments are rolling back women’s rights. Humanitarian programmes that help women and girls are being cut.

“During his first presidential term, Trump vetoed a new resolution proposed under the UN Women, Peace and Security agenda because it enshrined the right of women to their reproductive rights,” says Leandra Bias from the Institute of Political Science at the University of Bern.

What’s happening? Support for vulnerable women is being cut, and toxic masculinity is growing. The UN is worried.

“I am concerned about the resurgence in some quarters of toxic ideas about masculinity and efforts to glorify gender stereotypes, especially among young men,” said UN human rights commissioner Volker Türk.

This week Inside Geneva asks what toxic masculinity actually means. Is it even new?

“What worries me about the language of toxic masculinity is that it’s like, ‘Oh my God, we didn’t know this was coming.’ But it’s actually just a continuity of how violence and patriarchy combine,” says Narayanaswamy.

Is there a connection between toxic masculinity and the repression of women? Are both now identifiers for authoritarian regimes?

“‘We are the tough guys, we are actually the proper nations, while look at Europe, they have been completely emasculated and therefore they are not a model to aspire to.’ Therefore, democracy is also not a model to aspire to,” says Bias.

Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva to listen to the full episode.

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Host: Imogen Foulkes
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On Inside Geneva this week, aid agencies count the costs of funding cuts.

“I am most sad for all the millions of people living with HIV and affected by HIV whose lives have been upended. They have lost access to life-saving medication. They have showed up at clinics for support, only to find no one there to help them,” says Angeli Achrekar, Deputy Executive Director for the Programme Branch at the Joint United Nations (UN) Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

The cuts are hitting women and girls especially hard.

“Right now, a woman dies from a preventable form of maternal mortality every two minutes. That’s unacceptable. One of the grants that the United States has just cut supports the training and salaries of midwives,” says Sarah Craven, Director of the Washington Office of UNFPA, the UN Population Fund.

What will happen to local NGOs in crisis zones that relied on UN support?

“I have to have hope. I am the leader of the Sudanese Red Crescent Society. I have staff and 12,000 volunteers behind me. So, I always have to be really strong and give hope to everyone to continue serving Sudan,” says Aida Al-Sayed Abdullah, Secretary General of the Sudanese Red Crescent Society.

But could the cuts bring much-needed reform?

“Sure, the humanitarian system isn’t perfect. It can be inefficient and a little bit colonialistic at times. But it was delivering results. We were seeing actual progress. Now, in just a few months, decades of progress will be erased,” says Dorian Burkhalter, SWI swissinfo.ch journalist.

Or will the cuts cost lives and cause more crisis?

“We’re so close to ending AIDS, full stop. Now, we could very well be turning back completely. All those years of work, dedication and progress,” says Achrekar.

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Host: Imogen Foulkes
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On Inside Geneva this week, we ask whether the United Nations (UN) and multilateralism have a future.

“Is the UN anachronistic? I mean, it was formed after the Second World War. Obviously, it’s getting a little bit dusty,” says political analyst Daniel Warner.

Younger generations from the Global South tell us where
they see the UN’s flaws.

“The countries of the Global North have not stood up to the ideals that they have created in an equitable manner. It’s simply like preaching water and drinking wine,” says Pratyush Sharma from the Global South Centre of Excellence in Dehli.

“The United Nations Security Council is absolutely inefficient in dealing with the reality of people, especially from the Global South,” continues Marilia Closs from Plataforma CIPÓ in Brazil.

“The Global South cannot exist on its own. Likewise the Global North also cannot exist on its own,” says Olumide Onitekun from the Africa Policy and Research Institute in Nigeria.

But the UN was created for very good reasons.

“When you think about the end of the Second World War and how the UN was created, the world was so sick and tired of war, they wanted it to end. It’s a different mindset. You know, it just makes me think, is that what we’re going to need?” says Dawn Clancy, UN journalist in New York.

Can the UN survive? Join host Imogen Foulkes on our Inside Geneva podcast to find out.

Get in touch!

• Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch
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Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter.

For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/

Host: Imogen Foulkes
Production assitant: Claire-Marie Germain
Distribution: Sara Pasino
Marketing: Xin Zhang