14 October 2025
Over the past month, ICVA’s Secretariat and members have engaged across working groups and policy fora to navigate the humanitarian reset — a process both urgent and deeply consequential for NGOs worldwide. At its core, the reset is not about structures or systems alone, but about impact: ensuring humanitarian action remains principled, people-centred, and possible amid growing global constraints.
Our working groups on coordination, financing, forced displacement, and cross-cutting issues such as climate and localisation have been examining how the reset will shape daily realities. Across these groups, one message is clear: NGOs are indispensable in ensuring reform draws us closer to communities, not further away. The reset must not become an exercise in UN efficiency alone; it must deliver a renewed humanitarian compact rooted in trust, diversity, and complementarity.
Across our discussions, there is shared recognition that the humanitarian ecosystem is under immense strain from funding shortfalls to shrinking access, from political polarisation to the erosion of international norms. Yet there is also conviction that NGOs, working collectively, can revitalise the system through collaboration and principled advocacy.
This conviction was evident during last week’s Grand Bargain meeting, which underscored both the fragility of humanitarian financing and the urgent need for systemic change. ICVA has consistently argued that commitments to localisation, quality funding, and participation must move beyond rhetoric and be implemented across all levels — local, regional, and global. Our members, from large international NGOs to small community-based organisations, are living the consequences of inaction: funding pipelines are drying up, staff are overstretched, and L/NNGOs are being asked to do more with less. The Grand Bargain remains one of the few global spaces where NGOs can push collectively for accountability and reform, and ICVA’s role is to ensure their voices are not only heard but translated into practice.
The humanitarian reset cannot be viewed in isolation from the conflicts driving global suffering. The agreement reached this week in Gaza, while fragile, offers a glimmer of hope after two years of unrelenting violence. Tens of thousands of lives have been lost, communities uprooted, and the social fabric torn apart. ICVA and its members have consistently called for sustained peace, humanitarian access, and respect for international humanitarian law. A ceasefire, however welcome, is only the beginning.
Rebuilding lives, supporting local civil society, and ensuring humanitarian principles guide recovery must now take precedence. Sustained peace will require more than diplomacy; it demands genuine commitment to addressing the root causes of displacement and ensuring Gazans can live with dignity and hope. Beyond Gaza, conflict and displacement continue to define this era. In Sudan, millions remain displaced and dependent on aid, even as access grows more perilous. In Ukraine, the protracted war has blurred the line between emergency response and long-term resilience. And in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, cycles of violence continue with limited global visibility.
These crises reverberate across continents. They shape migration flows, drive food insecurity, strain humanitarian budgets, and test global solidarity. They remind us that humanitarian action is not a series of disconnected responses but a collective moral undertaking anchored in shared humanity.
ICVA’s Secretariat engages deeply with these realities through our working groups, where members exchange analysis, align advocacy, and coordinate responses. Whether refining NGO engagement in the IASC system, pushing for predictable and flexible funding, or contributing to UNHCR reform processes, each stream of work strengthens the collective voice and impact of NGOs.
The power of collective engagement remains ICVA’s greatest strength. No single organisation can reverse underfunding or safeguard humanitarian space alone. But together, we can and we have. Since our founding in 1962, ICVA has championed NGO collaboration not as a slogan but as a working reality where members share expertise, challenge institutions when needed, and stand shoulder to shoulder in defence of humanitarian principles.
Still, we must be realistic about the tenuous humanitarian future we face. The aid system is contracting even as needs escalate. Donor fatigue is deepening, multilateralism is under strain, and political will to protect civilians is weakening. Yet the humanitarian community, led and animated by NGOs, continues to adapt and persevere. We see it in women’s organisations negotiating access, in national NGOs bridging divides, and in INGOs mobilising attention for forgotten crises.
The coming months will be pivotal. As ICVA’s working groups unpack the implications of the humanitarian reset, and as the world watches how the Gaza peace holds, our collective challenge is clear: to reassert the value of principled humanitarian action, to demonstrate the effectiveness of cooperation, and to ensure that reforms are driven by needs, not bureaucracy.
ICVA remains committed to fostering spaces where NGOs lead this transformation collaboratively, courageously, and with integrity. The path ahead will not be easy, but neither is it hopeless. When NGOs unite with purpose and clarity, they not only influence systems, they change lives.
That is the power, and the promise, of our collective engagement.
