For more than six decades, USAID sat at the centre of the global humanitarian and development system. A little over a year ago, USAID became one of the first targets of the Trump administration’s DOGE campaign. Today, the hum and development sector is grappling with profound uncertainty at precisely the moment humanitarian needs are growing,…
Nicholas Enrich is a former civil servant who worked at USAID under four administrations. He served as the Bureau of Global Health’s director of policy, programs, and planning until January 2025, when he was designated as USAID’s acting assistant administrator for global health. On March 2, 2025, he was placed on administrative leave for exposing the Trump…
Across Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and now the Gulf, water systems are no longer just collateral damage. They are becoming targets and tools of coercion. Dams, desalination plants, pumping stations, rivers, reservoirs, and electricity grids are being pulled into the battlespace, with civilians paying the highest price. This matters far beyond the battlefield….
Marcus D. King is Professor of the Practice in Environment and International Affairs in the Science and Technology in International Affairs Program (STIA) at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. He holds a joint appointment at Earth Commons, Georgetown’s Institute for Environment & Sustainability. Prior to Georgetown, King was the John O. Rankin…
Jon-Paul Gabriele is a crisis management practitioner and founder of Crisis City, where he helps organisations prepare for the moments every business hopes will never happen but many eventually face. With more than 15 years of experience managing real incidents across government and global enterprises, he understands the difference between a crisis plan that looks…
Business leaders are operating in a harsher, more expensive, and more politically volatile environment, where geopolitics is now showing up directly in fuel costs, inflation, supply chains, capital markets, alliance structures, and executive decision-making. I’m Dominic Bowen, host of The International Risk Podcast, where we unpack the issues shaping business, leadership, and global risk. Today,…
Today on The International Risk Podcast, we turn to Lebanon, where Israel’s invasion, the subsequent displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians, and political fracture are colliding in ways that could reshape Lebanon for years. As the conflict on the Lebanese front deepens, the questions are no longer just about ceasefires or border tensions, but…
Paul Hefel-James is a freelance journalist based in Beirut, Lebanon. He covers migration and refugee issues, the humanitarian sector and conflict in the Middle East region. His previous publications include explorations of labor migration in Lebanon, Syrian archives, Israel’s targeting of civilians, including journalists, and the displacement crisis during the Israel-Hezbollah war. He is the…
Humphrey Hawksley is a former BBC foreign correspondent who works over the last 40 years or so has taken him to crises all over the world. He is also an award-winning author, commentator and guest lecturer at universities and think tanks such as the RAND Corporation, the Center for Strategic and International Studies and MENSA…
The global landscape feels increasingly unsettled. Conflict in the Middle East, Sudan and Ukraine to wider geoplitical, technological and climatic shifts, the world is going though a period of rapid change. At the same time, the nature of conflict and the way it’s reported has changed dramatically over the past few decades. So today we’re…
