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Good morning, this is Kasmira. Humanitarian archives are in danger, a group of historians, aid experts and archive specialists have warned, though not the immediate catastrophic threat you might imagine. Instead, it's the slow deterioration that comes when records become digitally obsolete, are neglected or relegated to the bottom of a cash-strapped humanitarian organisation's to-do list.

Historian Bertrand Taithe, behind a coalition to save humanitarian archives, says that without that memory, organisations risk repeating past failures.

In other news, non-profit neglected disease drug developers are also being squeezed by funding cuts. And a seasoned French diplomat returns to lead pandemic annex talks.

photo journaliste

Kasmira Jefford

04.11.2026


On our radar


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Inside the archives of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum in Geneva, Switzerland, on 15 November, 2007. (Keystone/Laurent Gillieron)

The humanitarian sector is losing its memory: a coalition of archivists wants to preserve it. As funding cuts, conflict and digital decay threaten decades of humanitarian knowledge, a coalition wants to make sure the archives of international organisations and NGOs do not disappear.

Geneva Solutions (EN)

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What they think


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❝The UN’s external watchdog is key in making reform count. As financial pressures push the United Nations to reform, independent oversight must accompany those efforts to deliver a stronger, more accountable United Nations, writes Conrod Hunte, who chairs the Joint Inspection Unit in 2026, as it marks 60 years of scrutinising the system’s strengths and flaws.


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