Credit: The New Humanitarian

💰Humanitarian funding reform due for rethink. Making emergency relief more efficient, fairer and responsive to people’s needs is harder than it sounds but as urgent as ever. Five years after a package of reforms dubbed the Grand Bargain were agreed, the aid establishment meets this week to chalk up its progress and decide what to do next.

💉Emergency Covid vaccination scheme in legal jeopardy. Plans to allocate up to 100 million Covid-19 vaccine doses to humanitarian trouble spots by the end of 2021 could be derailed because neither drug manufacturers nor the UN agencies and NGOs tasked with delivering and administering jabs want to shoulder the risk of potential lawsuits if things go wrong.

A policeman arrives in front of one of the entrances to the Parc La Grange in the Eaux-Vives neighbourhood, Geneva. (Keystone / Martial Trezzini)

Geneva prepares for historic Biden-Putin summit. The eyes of the world will be on Villa La Grange in Eaux-Vives, Geneva on Wednesday, where President Joe Biden is scheduled to meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in the pair's first face-to-face meeting since Biden took office. With tensions high between Washington and Moscow, there are hopes the summit could be a first step in rebuilding diplomatic ties.

Image credit: EPA / Maxim Shemetov / Pool

A missed opportunity to put women at the top of the UN. The UN Security Council officially endorsed António Guterres for a second term as Secretary-General last week. Once the General Assembly casts its vote in the coming days, it’s highly likely Guterres will be confirmed as leader for another five years, scuppering hopes that the institution might appoint its first female leader in its 76-year history. The news has been seen as a wasted opportunity.

📍17 June | Ethiopia and Tigray: Why the conflict matters for the Horn of Africa. The violence has resulted in both humanitarian and political crises and, with Ethiopia serving as a long-standing provider of security in the region, threatens to leave a security vacuum.

📍17 June | Launch of the GAR Special Report on Drought 2021. This year’s report explores the systemic nature of drought and its impacts on the achievement of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the SDGs and human and ecosystems health and wellbeing.