Shaping the Next Humanitarian Era

The Estonian Refugee Council’s International Humanitarian Conference returns for its third edition, taking place on November 6, 2025 at Fotografiska. This year’s programme focuses on three urgent themes shaping humanitarian action today: institutional reform and funding crisis, digital transformation, and access to crisis-affected communities.

Amidst shifting geopolitical realities, shrinking humanitarian budgets, and rising global needs, organisations are being pressed to adapt faster than ever. Questions of efficiency, accountability, and innovation are now central to the debate about how humanitarian work is organised and delivered. This conference will provide a space for dialogue, critique, and collective learning on how the sector can reset itself while staying true to humanitarian principles.

This year’s featured topics are:

• Ctrl+Alt+Del. Rebooting Humanitarian Action
  The humanitarian sector stands at a pivotal juncture, going through a "humanitarian reset" amidst significant funding cuts and evolving geopolitical tensions. This panel will examine what these changes mean for humanitarian actors, including the drive toward localisation, the future of pooled funding, and how accountability can be upheld in a leaner system.
• Hack to the Future. Navigating Digital Humanitarianism
  Digital innovation is reshaping humanitarian response, offering new tools to improve efficiency and reach. This panel will explore the challenges of integrating these technologies, including bridging gaps between IT and humanitarian teams, protecting data, and implementing solutions that are effective and ethically sound.
• Access Denied? Navigating Aid Delivery in Hard-to-Access Areas
  Conflict settings such as Gaza and Ukraine are marked by growing obstacles to humanitarian access, from insecurity and political barriers to devastated infrastructure. This discussion will focus on strategies such as localisation, remote delivery, digital technologies, and humanitarian diplomacy to sustain aid in the hardest-to-reach environments.

The conference will feature speakers from a wide range of international humanitarian organisations, bringing perspectives from frontline response, research, advocacy, and policy-making.

This year’s speakers include Tammam Aloudat (The New Humanitarian), Reshma Adatia (ICVA), Maciej Popowski (ECHO, to be confirmed), Patrick Vinck (Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, KoBo), Tristan Ferraro (ICRC), Christopher Ghaiath Almajdoub (ERC), and Hani Almadhoun (UNRWA, Gaza Soup Kitchen).

This year all conference participants are invited to take part in the open mic section, Failing Forward, at the close of the conference. Each attendee can share a 7–10 minute story of a failure and the lessons learned. Designed to normalise honest reflection, this session highlights learning from setbacks rather than only celebrating successes. Please note that this part of the conference will not be recorded.

Registration is open until November 2, 2025, or until all available spaces are filled. Register below to confirm your place.

The conference will be held in English. 

Join the Facebook event to stay tuned to all news related to the conference. 

The conference is supported by ESTDEV – Estonian Centre for International Development Cooperation.