By Will Worley and Irwin Loy
When Tom Fletcher begins his new job in the coming weeks, the UN’s freshly announced relief chief will face sky-high expectations to get a grip on spiralling crises, re-energise support for emergency aid, and transform a sprawling system that’s stretched to its limits.
No pressure at all, in other words.
After months of delay, the UN announced this week that Fletcher would fill the top humanitarian job in the global aid system – officially, his full job title is under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator.
Fletcher, a former UK ambassador to Lebanon and foreign policy aide to prime ministers from both sides of Britain’s political aisle, inherits a post that has been branded the “toughest job in international civil service” – and that has seen its two previous incumbents step down early.
Already, he has faced pointed questions over his relative lack of humanitarian experience, and frustration that the UN system has chosen a sixth straight Briton to take the role – many had hoped the appointment would break from the long-criticised convention of global powers dominating choice UN positions.
“It again shows the kind of world order we have,” said Mohamed Yarrow, who heads the Centre for Peace and Democracy, a Somalia-based NGO. “The UN and the international system, it is not listening to the voices and the communities who are affected by these crises.”
Others, including former colleagues, point to Fletcher’s energy and trust-building skills as a diplomat.
“He’ll be a great advocate for humanitarian aid,” said Nic Hailey, a former UK government official who now leads International Alert, a peacebuilding charity. “And we need to see him (and the UN overall) focus far more on tackling the root causes of why so many people need that aid in the first place.”
The world’s crises are mushrooming and growing more complex as Fletcher prepares for his new job – there’s still no official start date.
More than a year of Israeli bombardment has levelled Gaza in a conflict that is spilling across the region, especially in Lebanon. Wars in Sudan, Myanmar, and elsewhere are flying under the radar, despite populations facing famine in the case of Sudan, and allegations of ethnic cleansing. Across the globe, the UN says at least 300 million people need some form of aid, but they can only afford to target 60% of them – and there’s likely only enough money in the system to fund half of what’s planned.
The New Humanitarian spoke with aid leaders, analysts, and former colleagues, to get a sense of what Fletcher faces – and what his priorities should be – as he steps into his pressure-cooker job.
What humanitarians wanted
Fletcher, currently principal of Hertford College, Oxford University, brings media savvy, a TEDx sheen, and an apparently well cultivated public image to the job.
He has written and spoken extensively on the future of international affairs. His recent writing includes columns on the dynamics between Hezbollah and Israel, and a paperback thriller that loops in kidnapping, murder, and a climate change summit – the latter a work of fiction.
Fletcher has never before run an organisation the size of the UN’s humanitarian aid coordination arm, OCHA – which he’ll oversee as relief chief, steering coordination of a sector that’s collectively asking for at least $46 billion in funding this year.
“The ones who actually worked in the field, who experienced coordination, who experienced a full-blown humanitarian response – the conversation you have [with them] is more nuanced from the get-go.”
As UK ambassador to Lebanon for four years, Fletcher oversaw an increase in aid funding as the country dealt with the knock-on effects of the Syrian civil war. Some humanitarians expressed optimism for his potential as relief chief today, but concerns about his lack of experience in their complex field.
“His diplomatic experience will be very useful and important because a lot of these humanitarian crises are very politicised,” said Dustin Barter, acting director of the Humanitarian Policy Group at the ODI think tank. “But it would be useful to have somebody with a lot of humanitarian experience as well because it is a complex sector, and also needing to understand what are the on-the-ground implications beyond just the political dimensions.”
Some worry that the new relief chief could be starting from scratch on key policy issues, as well as on long-stalled reforms to shift power and make aid more locally driven.
“While he has the diplomatic background, humanitarian diplomacy is a little bit different,” said Hibak Kalfan, executive director of NEAR, a network of civil society groups in Global South countries. “The ones who actually worked in the field, who experienced coordination, who experienced a full-blown humanitarian response – the conversation you have [with them] is more nuanced from the get-go.”
Fletcher did reach out to some humanitarian leaders before his appointment, which was seen as “a good sign”, said one aid worker, who declined being named in order to speak more openly. “He seems very willing to listen.”
“It’s hard not to see this as another missed opportunity to embrace leadership that truly reflects the changing dynamics of the system.”
Not everyone sees Fletcher’s relative humanitarian inexperience as a limiting factor, in a job that requires creativity, energy, and an ability to build relationships. Fletcher’s supporters – including former UK prime minister Gordon Brown, who released a statement backing Fletcher – say he has that in spades.
Several sources consulted by The New Humanitarian cited a distinctive style of thinking about global problems.
Roli Asthana, a former UN and government official who worked with Fletcher on an April paper calling for reforms to the UK’s foreign office, described him as “a bit of a polymath” who has “thought deeply and written about long-term global challenges like climate, conflict, and technology, as well as how to modernise institutions to be more diverse, agile, and capable.”
Asthana also praised him as a “consummate diplomat” who “values subject expertise and putting the right people in the right places – so important for effective humanitarian response”.
Fletcher’s recent paper, penned with Asthana and others, received a backlash from some parts of the UK’s media for suggesting the Foreign Office should “modernise” and “perhaps [have] fewer colonial era pictures on the walls”.
Those ideas may not placate critics who think the job of emergency relief coordinator should not have gone to a British national at all – seen as more of the same for a sector that may talk about shifting power and decolonising aid, while leaning in to the status quo in practice.
“Representation does matter. It signals whose experiences are prioritised and whose perspectives shape global humanitarian policy,” said Anita Kattakuzhy, NEAR’s director of policy. “It’s hard not to see this as another missed opportunity to embrace leadership that truly reflects the changing dynamics of the system.”
Top priorities
Supporters and sceptics alike have a long list of priorities for the incoming relief chief, from finding new funding, to addressing long-simmering crises and the climate emergency, to transforming the system itself.
Fletcher should “use his platform and raise his voice to call out the impunity and loss of rights in the Middle East, Sudan, Afghanistan, and demand more from the international community to end these conflicts”, said Christina Bennett, who heads the Start Network, an international network focused on new forms of funding.
“Addressing the funding gap. It’s a time-old request but it really is at an even deeper breaking point.”
“The priorities need to be about the complete disregard for international humanitarian law and protection of civilians, that is becoming increasingly normalised – whether that’s in Gaza, Sudan, Myanmar, and elsewhere,” Barter said.
The gaps between what aid costs and the money available are at record levels, and appear likely to widen as the world’s traditional donor governments tighten 2025 budgets.“Addressing the funding gap,” Barter added. “It’s a time-old request but it really is at an even deeper breaking point.”
This also underscores the need to tackle what’s causing crises to deepen. The vast majority of humanitarian funding now goes to crisis responses that have lasted for years, analysts say. This means other crises are forgotten, especially those caused by disasters and linked to the climate emergency.
“There must be only one priority, and that is seeking solutions,” said Sudhanshu Shekhar Singh, CEO of Delhi-based Humanitarian Aid International. “The [emergency relief coordinator] should be making the system much more accountable, whether to the localisation commitments or seeking durable solutions – shrinking the needs, and shrink the greed for funding.”
More also needs to be done to link humanitarian action with addressing the climate crisis, and helping communities to prepare. “This is something that humanitarians get caught on this hamster wheel of dealing with the impacts of crises,” Barter said, “yet how do we more coherently address the drivers?”
Many are calling on Fletcher to be a reformer – mirroring what was demanded of his predecessor, Martin Griffiths – or to at least take seriously calls to transform the system, including its highest levels.
“I would ask that there is one fundamental priority: to make the system locally owned, locally led, [and] be in line with the realities on the ground,” Yarrow said. “Complement what the communities are doing, not how it is today: a very big system, sophisticated, bureaucratic.”
Previous relief chiefs have faced criticism over how OCHA itself is managed. Others are urging Fletcher to not forget his duties as head of a global agency.
OCHA staff “deserve clear vision, bold leadership, solid management, and a culture that promotes transparent decision-making and accountability up and down the organisation,” Bennett said.
From diplomat to reformer?
It’s a long task list. As relief chief, Fletcher is expected to be the global humanitarian sector’s head fundraiser, a behind-the-scenes negotiator, a diplomat, a taskmaster manager, a policy wonk, a problem-solver, and its public face.
At the same time, many humanitarians say, Fletcher must have an eye towards reforming a system in need of reimagination – all amid immense global suffering and deepening humanitarian needs.
“The machine is broken, and the overall system that houses the machine is flawed.”
Expectations are high and, some say, perhaps a bit unrealistic.
“The machine is broken, and the overall system that houses the machine is flawed,” Adelina Kamal, an analyst and former executive director of AHA Centre, the regional disaster management body for Southeast Asian countries. “How would you ensure that there is a good output coming out?”
Fletcher declined an immediate interview with The New Humanitarian after his appointment was made official. In a statement, he vowed to defend a humanitarian community he described as “underfunded, overstretched, and under attack”.
“We must reset the relationship between the world and those in direst need,” he wrote. “We can be better neighbours and ancestors.”
A day after Fletcher’s appointment was announced, Yarrow was working, he said, “in a remote field” in central Somalia.
For him, Fletcher and other international aid leaders based oceans away in global aid hubs and influential countries – including the five Brits who came before him as emergency relief chief – already know what’s needed. The problem, he believes, is acting on it.
“The appointment of this new guy is a manifestation of the system – of political considerations, rather than the cries of the developing world and the context and the crises here,” he said. “But we wish him all the best.”
Edited by Andrew Gully.
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The New Humanitarian puts quality, independent journalism at the service of the millions of people affected by humanitarian crises around the world. Find out more at www.thenewhumanitarian.org.
