Inside Geneva is a podcast about global politics, humanitarian issues, and international aid, hosted by Imogen Foulkes.

Our colleague engages her guests in straight talk with people tackling the world’s challenges in Geneva, humanity’s global hub.

The Inside Geneva podcast is published biweekly and produced in partnership with The Graduate Institute.

Turbulent weeks

With Israel banning UNRWA and the US planning to withdraw from the WHO, Inside Geneva reports on a turbulent couple of weeks for United Nations agencies.

In Gaza, Israel’s ban on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has come into effect.

“UNRWA is what we call the backbone of the humanitarian operation, meaning that they not only bring in aid themselves but also provide the infrastructure on which all other humanitarian actors depend,” says Jørgen Jensehaugen from the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).

The US leave the WHO

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has announced that the US will leave the World Health Organization (WHO).

“This is going to mean that all of the WHO’s vital work—polio eradication, AIDS, TB, and malaria—will be even more underfunded,” says Lawrence Gostin, professor of Global Health Law at Georgetown University in the United States.

Trump has also ordered a freeze on US foreign aid.

“The 90-day suspension is a death sentence for many small NGOs that simply don’t have the finances to weather this period,” says Colum Lynch, a senior global reporter for Devex, a media platform for the development community.

Where does this leave the UN’s humanitarian work?

“I think there is an increasing disrespect for what the UN stands for,” says Jensehaugen.

“This is really the end of foreign aid as we know it,” concludes Lynch.

Host: Imogen Foulkes

Production Assistant: Claire-Marie Germain

Distribution: Sara Pasino

Marketing: Xin Zhang

Photo : President Donald J. Trump, joined by Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor for Digital Strategy Dan Scavino and Assistant to the President and Advisor Ivanka Trump, meet with World Economic Forum Founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab, following the President’s remarks at the 50th Annual World Economic Forum meeting Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2020, at the Davos Congress Centre in Davos, Switzerland. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)