I spent nine years watching NGOs spend millions on “awareness campaigns” and glossy brochures that explain, in excruciatingly polite detail, how refugee status is determined. …
How Refugee Status Gets Decided
What Access Costs in Independence
I remember sitting in a humid warehouse outside Goma in 2012, staring at a stack of pristine, glossy brochures sent from a HQ in Geneva. …
What a Peacekeeping Mandate Allows
I spent most of my decade in East Africa watching diplomats in Geneva trade high-minded rhetoric while I was staring at a broken axle in …
Tracing a Separated Family
People love to talk about the “humanitarian spirit” and the emotional weight of bringing loved ones together, but if you ask me, that’s just noise. …
The Five Phases of Food Insecurity
I remember sitting in a humid warehouse outside Goma, staring at a stack of reports that claimed everything was “under control” while the dust from …
The Learning Crisis Behind Full Classrooms
I remember sitting in a dusty office in Goma, staring at a spreadsheet that claimed we had achieved a 90% primary school attendance rate. On …
Banks That Will Not Move the Money
I remember sitting in a humid office in Juba, staring at a spreadsheet that claimed we had “successfully mitigated risk” for a new regional program. …
Covering an Operation That Is Hosting You
I once spent three days sitting in a dusty Land Cruiser outside a checkpoint in South Sudan, watching a shipment of temperature-sensitive vaccines sit under …
Why Exemptions Fail at the Bank
I remember sitting in a humid, windowless office in Goma, staring at a stack of UN resolutions that promised everything and delivered nothing. On paper, …
Enrolment Is Not Learning
I spent nine years in the back of Land Cruisers across the DRC, watching NGOs pour millions into “capacity building” while the actual infrastructure crumbled. …