The Double/Triple Curriculum Trap: Why India’s 12th Standard Results Have Been Sidelined by NEET, JEE, IPMAT, CLAT etc. and the Coaching Industry

As a parent who has watched two daughters navigate the final stretch of school—the elder daughter who completed her 12th two years ago and the younger one currently in 12th—I have lived the questions that millions of Indian families ask every year. Why do entrance tests like NEET, JEE, CLAT,  IPMAT, etc. operate on a curriculum and assessment style that diverges so sharply from the board syllabus? Why has a parallel ecosystem of private coaching become almost mandatory? And does the 12th standard marksheet still carry real value, or has it been reduced to a mere eligibility checkbox?

These are not abstract policy debates. They are lived realities of stress, time poverty, financial strain, and the quiet erosion of genuine learning—and, most painfully, of young people’s mental health.

The Parallel Universe of Coaching

In theory, Class 11 and 12 are meant to build foundational knowledge in Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics or Biology, along with language and elective subjects. In practice, for any student aiming at medicine, engineering, or certain management programmes, the real game is elsewhere. Coaching institutes teach a different depth, speed, question pattern, and exam temperament. Negative marking, high-volume MCQ practice, and “exam-specific” tricks dominate.

Students effectively study two (or three) curricula at once: the board syllabus for school and the entrance syllabus for rank. Many end up in “dummy schools” that provide formal enrolment, which I am strongly not in favour of, and attendance certificates, while the actual hours are spent in coaching centres. The school classroom becomes secondary. Consistent year-long performance in school is devalued in favour of performance on one or two high-stakes days.

This is not an accident of the market. A recent government committee examining coaching dependence has flagged a substantial gap between school curriculum competencies and what NEET, CLAT, IPMAT,  JEE, etc. actually test. Physics in NEET has repeatedly been described as “too hard” relative to what the average candidate has been taught in school. When the entrance paper sits well above the school level, specialised coaching becomes the rational response for families who can afford it—and a crushing barrier for those who cannot.

Does the 12th Marksheet Hold Value?

Under the current system for most medical and many engineering seats, the answer is largely “only for eligibility.” For NEET UG, the final rank is determined solely by the entrance score; board marks mainly need to meet a minimum qualifying threshold. For JEE Main (leading to NITs, IIITs and many other institutions), a 75% board aggregate (or top 20 percentile) is required for eligibility in certain categories of institutions, but the rank itself is based on the entrance percentile. Board performance does not feed into the merit list in a meaningful way for the most sought-after seats. A similar story goes with other entrance exams.

This creates a perverse incentive. Why invest deeply in school teaching and learning when the decisive filter lies elsewhere? The result is the coaching economy—estimated in the tens of thousands of crores—and the phenomenon of students treating boards as a side show.

Recent policy discussions have begun to challenge this. A high-level committee under the Ministry of Education has examined proposals to give Class 12 board marks up to 50% weightage (after suitable normalisation) in the final merit for NEET- and JEE-linked admissions, alongside closer alignment of entrance syllabi with school curricula, multiple attempts, and a shift toward reducing one-shot pressure. The stated aims include lowering coaching dependence and restoring value to consistent school performance. Critics correctly point out the practical difficulties: different boards have different marking standards and difficulty levels, so normalisation is non-trivial, and the entire admission calendar could be delayed by the slowest board. Still, the fact that the conversation is happening signals recognition that the status quo is broken.

The Unwanted Necessity: Coaching’s Toll on Mental Health

What makes this system especially damaging is that coaching is widely experienced as both unwanted and unavoidable. Coaching fees for some subjects are higher than school fees. Families do not choose it lightly. They choose it because the gap between school teaching and entrance demands leaves them little alternative if their child is to compete for limited seats. The result is a culture of chronic overload that exacts a heavy psychological price.

Studies of aspirants in coaching hubs such as Kota consistently show high levels of academic stress (often above 80%), anxiety, sleep disturbance, physical symptoms such as headaches and fatigue, loss of motivation, and, in a smaller but alarming share, suicidal ideation. Students face relentless test rankings, batch segregation by performance, isolation from family (especially when living in hostels far from home), and intense parental and social expectations. Many describe the experience as all-or-nothing: success validates the sacrifice; anything less feels like personal failure.

The human cost is visible in the numbers. Student suicides in India have risen sharply over the past decade, outpacing the overall suicide rate. In coaching centres, particularly in Kota, the pattern has been especially stark—dozens of young lives lost in peak years, often linked to exam pressure, result days, or the fear of disappointing families who have invested heavily. Even when formal counselling services exist, stigma, fear of judgment, and the sheer intensity of the schedule mean many students suffer in silence. Negative coping mechanisms, withdrawal from social life, and a narrowing of identity around marks become common.

As a parent, I have seen milder versions of this pressure in my own home: the compressed schedules, the anxiety before mock tests, the sense that every hour not spent studying is an hour lost. Multiply that by the intensity of full-time coaching away from family support, and the outcome is predictable—and preventable. Coaching has become a necessity created by a misaligned system, yet the system continues to treat the resulting mental-health crisis as a side-effect rather than a core design failure.

What Parents Actually Experience

Raising an elder and a younger daughter through this phase has made the human cost concrete. The pressure is not merely academic; it is temporal and emotional. A child in 12th is expected to master board material for school exams, simultaneously drill entrance-level problems, manage practicals, projects, and internal assessments, and somehow retain some semblance of adolescence. Sleep, hobbies, family time, and mental health often become the residual categories.

Coaching is expensive. Even when families stretch to afford it, success rates remain low relative to the number of aspirants. The system produces a small number of high ranks and a much larger number of exhausted, anxious young people who feel they have failed if they do not clear a particular threshold on a particular day.

Towards a More Coherent System

A healthier system would reduce the double burden rather than institutionalise it. Closer alignment of entrance exams with the school syllabus (as the recent committee has recommended) would help. Giving meaningful weight to board performance—provided boards themselves maintain integrity and comparable standards—would restore incentive for schools to teach rigorously. Multiple attempts and a clearer gap between boards and entrances could lower the single-day catastrophe risk. Expanding quality seats and improving the overall quality of undergraduate education would reduce the zero-sum intensity of the current filters. Equally important is treating mental health as a structural concern: accessible counselling without stigma, realistic expectations from parents and institutes, and a cultural shift away from equating a young person’s worth with a rank.

None of this is simple in a country of India’s scale and diversity. Board standardisation, evaluation integrity, and capacity in higher education are hard problems. But the current arrangement—where 12th results are largely ceremonial for the most competitive pathways, children must master an extra parallel curriculum, and the psychological cost is borne largely by the students themselves—has clear costs in well-being, equity, and the authenticity of school learning.

As a parent who has walked this path twice, I am left with a simple conviction: a marksheet earned through two years of consistent school work should mean more than a ticket to sit another exam. Until the system treats it that way, families will continue to pay—financially, emotionally, and in the lost breadth and mental health of a young person’s education—for a parallel system that should never have become necessary.

The debate is not new. The lived experience of students and parents, and the quiet statistics of stress and loss, make the urgency unmistakable.

Lessons from International Humanitarian WASH that India Can Apply at Scale

India’s Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) and Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) represent one of the most ambitious WASH transformations in history. As of mid-2026, JJM has taken rural household tap coverage from roughly 17% in 2019 to over 81–82%, with more than 15.8 crore households connected and the mission extended to December 2028 under JJM 2.0. The renewed focus is rightly shifting from infrastructure coverage to reliable service delivery, source sustainability, and community ownership. SBM Phase II continues the hard work of sustaining open-defecation-free status while tackling solid and liquid waste management at scale.

Having spent more than 25 years designing, managing, and evaluating WASH programs in humanitarian and fragile settings across multiple continents, I see clear parallels — and transferable lessons — between the high-pressure environments of conflict zones, refugee camps, and post-disaster responses, and the last-mile realities of rural and peri-urban India. Fragile contexts force rapid learning because failure is immediately visible: people get sick, women walk further for water, systems collapse after the first heavy rain or the first unpaid electricity bill. Those hard-won practices can strengthen India’s national missions.

1. Community Ownership Is Not a Workshop — It Is Daily Governance

In humanitarian WASH, the most durable systems are those where communities feel genuine ownership from day one. Village Water and Sanitation Committees (or equivalent user groups) are not formed after infrastructure is built; they co-design the scheme, decide tariffs, select operators, and hold implementers accountable during construction.

India’s JJM guidelines already emphasize Village Water & Sanitation Committees (VWSCs) and Village Action Plans. Yet audits and field reports continue to show uneven functionality — committees that exist on paper, limited women’s leadership, weak tariff collection, and unclear roles for Gram Panchayats. In conflict-affected or post-disaster settings we learned that ownership sticks when three conditions are met:

• Early and continuous involvement (not a one-time “sensitization”)
• Real decision-making power over design choices, operator selection, and fund use
• Simple, transparent tools for communities to monitor service levels themselves

JJM 2.0’s emphasis on Jan Bhagidari and tools such as Jal Seva Aankalan are steps in the right direction. Scaling the humanitarian practice of “community scorecards” and regular public interface meetings can turn these into living institutions rather than compliance checkboxes.

2. Last-Mile Delivery Succeeds When “Software” Precedes or Travels with Hardware

In emergency and recovery programs, we never treat infrastructure as the end product. Pipe networks, tanks, and treatment units are only as good as the operations & maintenance (O&M) systems, supply chains for spare parts, and trained local technicians that keep them running. Many schemes fail not because the engineering was wrong, but because no one budgeted for the first two years of support after commissioning.

India’s remaining JJM challenge is concentrated in the hardest geographies — scattered habitations, water-quality hotspots (arsenic, fluoride), and areas with weak local institutions. Humanitarian practice suggests sequencing capacity building and O&M arrangements *before* or tightly parallel to construction, not as an afterthought. This includes:

• Pre-identifying and training barefoot technicians and women’s self-help groups for routine maintenance
• Establishing clear cost-recovery or hybrid financing models that communities understand and accept
• Building local supply chains for chlorine, pumps, and fittings so systems do not sit idle waiting for distant contractors

The shift under JJM 2.0 toward functionality and service assurance creates space for these approaches at national scale.

3. Post-Disaster and Climate-Resilient Design Must Be Standard, Not Special

Floods, cyclones, and prolonged droughts regularly disrupt water and sanitation systems across India. In humanitarian response we design for the next crisis from the outset: elevated platforms, flood-resistant materials, multiple water sources, rapid-repair protocols, and pre-positioned community response teams.

Applying this mindset nationally means:

• Integrating climate and disaster risk into every Village Action Plan and Detailed Project Report
• Prioritizing source sustainability (recharge, multiple sources, conjunctive use) rather than single-source dependency
• Pre-agreeing emergency protocols with Panchayats so that when a cyclone or flood hits, local teams can restore basic services within days rather than waiting for external teams

SBM’s continued focus on greywater and solid waste management also benefits from this resilience lens — drainage systems that fail in the first monsoon undermine years of sanitation gains.

4. Adaptive Management and Real-Time Feedback Loops

Humanitarian programs operate under extreme uncertainty. We therefore build strong monitoring systems that feed decision-making weekly or monthly, not annually. Simple indicators — water quantity and quality at the tap, hours of supply, user satisfaction, tariff collection rates — are tracked and acted upon quickly.

India already has impressive digital platforms under JJM. The next leap is ensuring that data triggers local action rather than remaining at state or central dashboards. Community-led functionality assessments, paired with rapid technical support, mirror the adaptive management cycles that keep services alive in unstable environments.

Closing Reflection

India’s scale is unmatched. No humanitarian program I have managed comes close to the number of households JJM and SBM touch. Yet the core principles that keep water flowing and toilets used in the most difficult settings — genuine community control, software running alongside hardware, climate-aware design, and rapid feedback — remain universal.

As JJM 2.0 prioritizes sustainability and service delivery through 2028, there is a timely opportunity to systematically absorb these lessons. Doing so will help convert the remarkable coverage gains of the past seven years into lasting, reliable services for every rural household — and strengthen India’s ability to weather the climate and disaster shocks that lie ahead.

I have spent my career helping governments, UN agencies, and NGOs turn ambitious WASH goals into functioning systems on the ground. The experience of working in fragile contexts has taught me that the difference between a scheme that looks good on paper and one that delivers water every day is almost always institutional and social, not purely technical. India’s missions already have the political commitment and financial scale. The remaining work is to embed the practices that make services endure.

The Reality of Localisation: Hard Truths from the Field

Localisation has become one of the most repeated commitments in the humanitarian sector. Donors demand it. UN agencies report against it. Clusters put it in every workplan and strategy. After more than 25 years coordinating and delivering large-scale WASH responses — including as Cluster Coordinator and Manager in Ethiopia, Palestine, South Sudan and other complex settings — I have watched the gap between the language and the reality grow wider, not smaller.

This is not a diplomatic reflection. It is an attempt to say clearly what many of us discuss privately after the meetings end.

The Structural Reality

Humanitarian partnership remains unequal. One side largely controls the money, the standards, the reporting systems and access to international platforms. The other side largely delivers. Calling this a partnership does not change the underlying power relationship. It only makes the inequality harder to name.

When only a few cents on the dollar reach those closest to a crisis, we should stop calling it a failure. It is a system succeeding at what it was built to do.

I have seen this pattern repeatedly. Recent large allocations of US funding through UN pooled funds made it especially visible. The vast majority went to UN agencies and international NGOs. In some countries, almost nothing reached national organisations directly. The explanations given — short delivery timelines and the “risk” of working with local partners — revealed the real logic. When significant money appears, the system returns to its default: international intermediaries first.

What Localisation Often Produces on the Ground

In the responses I coordinated, the push for localisation produced mixed and sometimes damaging results. Capable national organisations that understood the context and had real community presence were often sidelined. At the same time, new or expanded local entities appeared whose main skill was navigating donor and UN requirements rather than delivering quality services or strengthening national systems.

This does not build sustainable civil society. It distorts it. Professional standards get diluted in the name of inclusion. Organisations skilled at the funding game rise; those focused on actual work struggle. The local partner landscape becomes shaped more by the aid market than by community needs or national priorities.

Staff poaching makes it worse. International organisations regularly hire the strongest people out of national NGOs. What is presented as capacity building frequently becomes capacity extraction. I have watched this happen across multiple responses.

Governments Are Not Optional

One of the more serious problems I have seen is the tendency to treat local NGOs as the default solution while avoiding the harder work of government accountability. National and local authorities remain the primary duty-bearers for basic services. Creating parallel structures through NGOs — local or international — without simultaneously pushing governments to perform is neither sustainable nor legitimate.

In too many places, the international system has preferred the convenience of working through NGOs over the more difficult task of engaging, challenging and supporting government institutions. Short-term outputs may look good. Lasting systems rarely result.

Donor and UN Accountability

The United Nations continues to face justified criticism for failing to channel promised funds directly to local organisations. Despite the Grand Bargain and years of commitments, only a tiny fraction of global humanitarian funding reaches national actors directly. The barriers are not accidental.

Pooled funds and UN mechanisms still route money through multiple layers — donors to UN agencies, then to international NGOs, and only then (if at all) to local organisations. Each layer takes its cut. Stringent compliance requirements, long checklists and heavy reporting standards systematically exclude smaller organisations that lack large administrative teams. The same rules applied to a major international agency are applied to a small community organisation. Those who somehow clear the hurdles then compete against organisations that have spent years inside the system and already know how the game is scored.

Risk aversion remains deep. Local actors are still treated too often as high-risk subcontractors rather than equal decision-makers. When local representatives sit on advisory boards while depending financially on the same UN agencies and INGOs at the table, their participation frequently becomes agreement rather than real influence. Language barriers reinforce the imbalance.

Single-issue donor agendas compound the problem. When funding is driven primarily by one institutional priority — gender, child protection, climate or any other theme — the result is fragmented programming that does not always match the actual strategic needs on the ground. Funding should contribute to coherent plans and real priorities, not primarily advance a donor’s organisational agenda.

Cases where UN pooled funds have channelled a high percentage of resources to local organisations are sometimes presented as success stories. Closer examination often shows this happened because international agencies could not operate in those areas, or because of the size of the funding envelope. Local actors were selected because they were the only option left, or to increase the number of small grants, or to promote consortia (not necessarily built on genuine strategy) in order to reduce the number of proposals for review — not because the system had fundamentally changed.

Better approaches do exist. Models in which a capable national organisation absorbs the compliance burden, provides support in local languages, and does not compete with smaller groups for implementation have shown clear advantages: lower operational costs, faster delivery, and no loss of accountability. Local organisations are not inherently weak. When properly supported, they understand the context, are embedded in communities, and can deliver even under tight timelines.

Within the UN system, the partnership culture itself remains part of the problem. Localisation is too often treated as a tool to deliver pre-defined international agendas rather than a real shift in power. Cluster Lead Agencies are meant to enable independent coordination and act as one partner among others. In practice, they frequently behave as owners of the platform, shaping decisions around institutional interests and limiting the influence of smaller partners. Hierarchy and internal competition for resources and visibility remain deeply embedded. The higher one goes in the system, the more these institutional interests tend to dominate.

What Needs to Change

If localisation is to mean anything beyond statistics and statements, several things must shift:

• Donors need to redesign funding so that direct, flexible, multi-year support to capable local and national organisations becomes normal rather than exceptional.
• Funding decisions must prioritise contribution to collective strategic plans and assessed needs, not the advancement of any single institutional agenda.
• UN pooled funds must simplify registration and compliance so requirements scale with grant size and reflect local realities.
• Allocation targets for direct funding to national actors need real consequences.
• UN agencies must accept that enabling genuine partner leadership sometimes requires giving up control and visibility.
• Professional standards and mutual accountability must apply equally to all actors.
• Government accountability must be treated as central, not optional.

The next large funding rounds through UN pooled funds will show whether the system is prepared to change or will simply reinforce the existing order. International organisations will eventually leave when the money is no longer there. The question is what kind of local response capacity will remain.

The giver–receiver dynamic will not disappear through better language. It will only change when those who currently hold the resources and the decision-making power are prepared to give some of it up — and when they are held accountable if they do not.

I am not against stronger local and national leadership. I am against a version of localisation that prioritises appearance over quality, accountability and lasting impact. The people affected by crisis deserve better than another cycle of rhetoric that leaves the underlying power structures largely untouched.

These are hard truths. They need to be discussed more openly.

Managing Partnerships in WASH Cluster Coordination: Lessons from the Field

Over more than 25 years in humanitarian WASH — including roles as National WASH Cluster Coordinator and WASH Manager with UNICEF in Ethiopia, Palestine, South Sudan and Amhara, and earlier coordination work in Cox’s Bazar and beyond — one constant has remained central to effective response: the quality of partnerships.

Cluster coordination is, at its heart, the art of bringing diverse organisations together around a common purpose. The IASC Reference Module for Cluster Coordination at Country Level makes this explicit: clusters exist to strengthen partnerships, improve predictability and accountability, and ensure that humanitarian action is collective rather than fragmented. The Global WASH Cluster reinforces this through its Partner Engagement guidance and Minimum Requirements for National Coordination Platforms, emphasising collaboration, local capacity strengthening, and inclusive participation.

The operating environment has grown more constrained. Funding is tighter, expectations on local and national actors are higher, and coordination teams themselves are often operating with reduced capacity. In this context, how we manage partnerships matters more than ever. Here are the personal lessons I have learned and how my own practice has improved over the years.

Lesson 1: Partnerships live or die between the meetings

Early in my coordination career I focused heavily on well-run meetings and information sharing. Over time I realised that the real work of partnership happened outside those meetings. In Tigray, Amhara, Gaza and Cox’s Bazar, trust was built through consistent presence, listening to less vocal local partners, and following through on small commitments. When coordination capacity is stretched, it is easy to default to information-sharing meetings. That is rarely enough.

What I learned and changed: I began treating relationship management as a core coordination function rather than an add-on. I protected time for bilateral engagement with national NGOs and government counterparts, briefed new partners more systematically, and kept contact systems simple and accessible. The quality of partnerships improved noticeably once I stopped measuring success mainly by attendance lists.

Lesson 2: Inclusive meetings are not the same as shared power

We successfully expanded the number of local and national organisations in coordination forums and increased their visibility in response plans. Yet decision-making power, priority-setting and control over resources too often remained upstream. Under tighter funding and sharper prioritisation of the most severe needs, the pressure on local partners intensifies — they are expected to deliver more, often with less flexibility and higher compliance burdens.

What I learned and changed: I moved more deliberately from consultation toward shared decision-making. I worked to strengthen Strategic Advisory Groups so they genuinely represented local voices, supported co-leadership arrangements at sub-national level where feasible, and advocated for more flexible funding that allowed local organisations to set their own institutional priorities. Over the years I became more conscious that expanding participation without shifting power risks turning localisation into cost and risk transfer.

Lesson 3: The Cluster Lead Agency is a partner, not the owner

One of the most sensitive and recurring challenges I encountered was the relationship between the Cluster Lead Agency and the coordination function itself. According to IASC guidance, the CLA is responsible for ensuring that cluster coordination functions effectively and independently. The agency is one partner among others; it is not meant to own the coordination platform or dominate decision-making.

In practice, I saw how easily this line can blur. When the CLA behaves as the owner of the cluster — intervening in day-to-day decisions, steering priorities toward its own programmatic interests, or limiting the voice of smaller partners — trust erodes quickly. Smaller and national organisations often experience this as neither fair nor transparent. Accountability of the CLA is essential (including as Provider of Last Resort), but accountability never means total interference or control. The coordination team must be able to act as a neutral facilitator.

What I learned and changed: I became more deliberate about protecting the independence of the coordination function. I clarified roles early, ensured Strategic Advisory Groups and technical discussions remained partner-driven, and pushed back — politely but firmly — when agency interests risked overriding collective priorities. Over time I learned that a CLA that supports rather than controls the cluster strengthens both the response and its own credibility as a partner.

Lesson 4: Capacity strengthening must be two-way and realistic

Capacity strengthening appears in every guidance document. In reality, high staff turnover, double-hatting and short-term funding cycles undermined continuity. The most useful support I saw combined technical training with practical help on donor requirements, reporting and institutional systems. Local partners often brought contextual knowledge and community trust that international actors lacked; recognising and valuing that contribution was as important as formal training.

What I learned and changed: I shifted from one-off workshops toward mutual learning and institutional strengthening. Where coordination staffing was reduced, I placed greater emphasis on knowledge transfer and documentation so institutional memory did not walk out the door with every rotation. I also learned to recognise and publicly value the non-monetary contributions of local partners — networks, access and contextual insight.

Lesson 5: Standards and accountability still matter under pressure

Clear Terms of Reference, joint workplans aligned with the Humanitarian Response Plan, and regular performance monitoring helped maintain quality without becoming overly bureaucratic. When resources shrink and prioritisation intensifies, the temptation to lower standards or overlook gaps grows. Partnerships that lack mutual accountability quickly fray.

What I learned and changed: I kept accountability mechanisms light but consistent, using Cluster Coordination Performance Monitoring and the Global WASH Cluster Minimum Requirements as practical tools rather than compliance exercises. Over time I focused monitoring more on outcomes for affected people and on whether partnerships were becoming more equitable, rather than simply tracking activity completion.

Lesson 6: Inter-cluster and longer-term partnerships cannot be optional

Joint work with Health, Nutrition and Food Security clusters consistently delivered better results in cholera, flooding and displacement settings. As responses stretch longer and funding forces sharper choices, the need to connect humanitarian action with recovery and systems strengthening becomes more urgent. This requires a different partnership posture — more patient, more government-oriented, and focused on collective outcomes.

What I learned and changed: I invested earlier in inter-cluster collaboration tools and shared analysis. I began building relationships with development and government actors before transition discussions started, treating localisation and systems strengthening as continuous responsibilities rather than exit strategies. This longer-term orientation improved continuity and reduced the abruptness of later handovers.

Looking ahead

The frameworks we need already exist in the IASC Reference Module, the Principles of Partnership, and Global WASH Cluster guidance. The harder task is applying them honestly when resources are scarce, and pressure to prioritise is high. For me, the measure of successful partnership management remains straightforward: do local and national actors have greater voice, greater resources and greater autonomy at the end of a response than at the beginning? And does the collective effort deliver better, more accountable outcomes for the people we serve?

The Real Story Behind a Major Flash Appeal

Developing WASH Components as Part of Humanitarian Response Plans

Flash appeals and humanitarian response plans often appear as polished documents — clear figures, clear logic, priority activities, funding requirements, and neat tables of needs and gaps. What is less visible is the intense, imperfect, and highly political process that produces them.

Having coordinated WASH clusters and responses, and led the development of WASH components for major appeals and response plans in Ethiopia, Bangladesh, South Sudan, Nigeria and Palestine, I have seen how much of the real work happens off the page: in hurried bilateral meetings, tense inter-sector negotiations, late-night drafting sessions, and careful navigation of government, donor and partner interests.

This is not a technical account of how to write a good appeal. It is a reflection on what the process actually feels like, what shapes the final product, and what I have learned about advocacy, negotiation, managing expectations and partnership under pressure.

The pressure of the blank page

When a new crisis escalates, an existing one deepens, or a new planning year begins, the cluster system is expected to produce a credible WASH chapter or flash appeal component within days or weeks. The expectations are high: accurate needs analysis, realistic targets, prioritised interventions, clear costing, and a narrative that can persuade donors while remaining acceptable to national authorities. The UN agency serving as Cluster Lead Agency also brings its own agenda and expectations into the process.

In Ethiopia, whether during the 2016–17 drought and cholera responses or later in the Northern Ethiopia / Tigray and Amhara contexts, the process was shaped by the scale of need, the number of partners (often 40–60), and the need to align with government systems and evolving access realities. In Palestine, particularly during the intense period from late 2023 into 2024, the challenges included severely constrained access, rapidly changing operational conditions, the involvement of actors such as COGAT and municipalities, strong donor expectations, and the need to maintain principled engagement while still producing documents that could unlock resources.

In South Sudan, developing the Humanitarian Response Plan in a protracted crisis — where limited progress has been made over a decade in a highly challenging context — required producing a document that could still appeal to donors and secure partner agreement. In all these settings, the WASH component had to serve multiple audiences at once: OCHA and the Humanitarian Country Team, national and local authorities, donors (ECHO, FCDO, USAID, World Bank and others), the UN Cluster Lead Agency (which often also implements projects and has its own funding expectations), and the partners who would eventually deliver the response.

Advocacy is continuous, not a final step

One of the biggest misconceptions is that advocacy happens after the technical document is ready. In reality, advocacy begins the moment the decision is made to launch or revise an appeal.

It involves explaining why certain interventions must be prioritised even when they are less “visible” than water trucking or emergency latrines. It means defending the inclusion of hygiene promotion, solid waste management, or institutional WASH (schools and health facilities) when the pressure is to focus only on the most immediate life-saving activities. It requires translating field realities into language that resonates with donor strategies and funding cycles.

In Palestine, bi-weekly donor briefings and advocacy notes were essential to keep WASH visible amid competing sectoral demands and a highly politicised environment. In Ethiopia, South Sudan and Bangladesh, sustained engagement with donors helped convert needs analysis into actual commitments and contributed to significant resource mobilisation in earlier responses.

Advocacy also means managing expectations — both upward (with donors, the UN Cluster Lead Agency, government counterparts and senior leadership) and downward (with partners who may feel their priorities are being diluted).

Negotiation is the hidden core of the process

Every flash appeal or response plan is a negotiated product. Targets are adjusted, often with little time. Budgets are scrutinised and frequently reduced. Geographic priorities are debated. The balance between emergency response and early recovery or resilience elements is contested.

In cluster coordination roles, much of the work consists of facilitating these negotiations rather than simply compiling inputs. Partners push for inclusion of their operational areas or preferred modalities. Government counterparts may insist on certain standards, locations or implementing arrangements. In some countries, governments engage toughly and strategically; in others, there is limited strategic or technical engagement from authorities. Donors signal what they are likely to fund — and what they are unlikely to support.

The quality of the final WASH component often depends less on the sophistication of the needs assessment and more on the ability to broker workable compromises without losing technical integrity or leaving the most vulnerable behind.

Partnerships determine what is possible

No cluster coordinator produces an appeal alone. The document is only as strong as the relationships that underpin it.

Effective WASH components rely on trust with key partners who provide reliable data and realistic planning figures. They depend on constructive working relationships with government institutions (such as water authorities or municipalities) so that the appeal does not become disconnected from national systems. They require open channels with OCHA and inter-sector coordination structures so that WASH priorities are not sidelined. The Strategic Advisory Group (SAG) of the WASH Cluster also plays a critical role in supporting the Cluster Coordinator throughout this process.

In Ethiopia, Bangladesh and Palestine, partnerships with national and local actors, as well as with donors willing to engage beyond simple funding decisions, made a material difference to the credibility and usefulness of the plans.

Broader lessons from current trends

Looking across these experiences and at wider sector trends, several points stand out:

• Speed and quality remain in tension. The system demands rapid products, yet rushed appeals can lock in weak prioritisation or unrealistic targets that later undermine implementation and accountability.
• Localisation is still unevenly practised in planning processes. While there is strong rhetoric about local leadership, the actual drafting and decision-making around major appeals often remains dominated by international actors. Meaningful inclusion of local NGOs and national institutions in the design phase is still more the exception than the norm.
• The Nexus is easier to write than to operationalise. Many response plans now include language on resilience, early recovery and links to development. Turning that language into concrete, funded priorities during an acute crisis remains difficult.
• Transparency about uncertainty is still rare. Appeals often present figures with a confidence that the underlying data does not fully support. Being honest about information gaps and access constraints can strengthen, rather than weaken, credibility with experienced donors.
• The Real Story Behind a Major Flash Appeal. The trust built (or damaged) during the appeal process influences coordination, resource mobilisation and joint problem-solving long after the document is published.
• The role of the Cluster Lead Agency is decisive. A UN agency that genuinely believes in the cluster coordination system can significantly strengthen the response plan, support fundraising, and help produce plans that work for the wider partnership. Conversely, a weak, disinterested or under-capacitated Cluster Lead Agency can undermine the importance and principles of coordination. I have seen both realities. Bringing the CLA into active support of the cluster system is essential, particularly because the CLA has a voice at the Humanitarian Country Team level.

Final reflection

Developing the WASH component of a major flash appeal or response plan is technical work, political work and relationship work at the same time. The published document is only the visible tip of a much larger process of analysis, advocacy, negotiation and compromise.

What I have come to value most is not the elegance of the final narrative or the precision of the costing tables, but whether the process produced a plan that partners could actually use, that donors could defend, that authorities could accept, and that retained a clear focus on the people most in need.

The real measure of a good appeal is not how much money it raises in the first weeks, but whether it helps the response stay coherent, prioritised and accountable as the crisis evolves.

How I’m Using AI in Humanitarian WASH Response – Lessons from 25 Years in the Field (and Why Data Privacy Must Come First)

Over 25 years of leading WASH responses across South Asia, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East and beyond, I’ve seen technology both accelerate life-saving work and create new risks when used carelessly. Artificial intelligence is now entering our sector at real speed. From coordinating large multi-partner WASH responses in Tigray, Amhara, Gaza and the West Bank, Cox’s Bazar, South Sudan, and during the El Niño drought and cholera outbreaks in Ethiopia, I’ve started to explore practical ways field and coordination colleagues can put AI to work — without losing the human judgement that remains at the heart of what we do.

But as we adopt these tools, one issue has become impossible to ignore: **data privacy**.

What I’m Already Seeing AI Deliver

In the responses I’ve led, AI is beginning to help with the tasks that have always consumed time and scarce analytical capacity:

• Rapid damage and needs assessment using satellite and drone imagery (tools such as SKAI and DEEP can flag damaged water infrastructure or flooded areas in hours rather than weeks).
• Predictive analytics for early warning — platforms like HungerMap Live combine climate, market, conflict and nutrition data to highlight emerging food and WASH crises before they peak.
• Language and information management support: summarising long situation reports, translating technical guidance, and pulling key points from partner updates.
• Operational efficiency: drafting donor briefings, flash appeal text, risk analyses and meeting notes.
• Community-facing tools such as chatbots that help deliver verified hygiene messages or referral information in multiple languages.

In WASH Cluster and sector coordination roles, the most immediate value has been processing the volume of partner reports, gap analyses and donor materials that arrive every week.

Practical Ways I (and Field Colleagues) Can Use AI Day-to-Day

Drawing from the reality of coordinating 40–100+ partners under pressure, here is how I see AI fitting into daily work:

1. Situation analysis and reporting: When preparing the WASH component of a response plan or flash appeal (as I did in Northern Ethiopia and Palestine), secure generative AI tools can summarise partner reports, extract recurring gaps, and produce a first draft of needs and priorities. The output is never final — it is a starting point that the team then verifies against field data and partner knowledge.
2. Donor engagement and resource mobilisation: In Ethiopia I mobilised over $200 million across two years through intensive donor briefings. AI can help draft concise talking points, tailor messaging to different donor priorities, and organise the evidence base more quickly. The relationship-building and strategic judgement remain firmly human.
3. Capacity building and localisation: A recurring priority in my recent UNICEF roles has been strengthening local partners. AI can help generate simple training materials, checklists on WASH standards or anticipatory action, and translated guidance that local organisations can adapt. In low-connectivity settings, we still need offline or lightweight options.
4. Risk-informed and climate-resilient programming: For flooding, cholera and conflict-related displacement responses, predictive models and scenario analysis can support the risk analysis we already do. They complement, rather than replace, community knowledge and partner assessments.
5. Everyday coordination tasks: Meeting notes, action trackers, draft emails to government counterparts or municipalities, and initial analysis of qualitative feedback from hygiene promotion activities can all be accelerated. This frees capacity for the face-to-face coordination and advocacy that matter most.

Data Privacy: The Non-Negotiable Foundation

Every one of the uses above involves data — sometimes highly sensitive data about people who are already extremely vulnerable. In my experience coordinating responses in conflict and displacement settings, I have seen how personal information (names, locations, family details, health status, displacement history) can become a protection risk if it falls into the wrong hands.

Recent high-profile breaches, including the 2026 cyberattack on the World Food Programme that exposed data of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian households in Gaza, are a stark reminder. When people are forced to choose between hunger and handing over personal details, “consent” is rarely free or informed. Once data leaves our control — whether through commercial AI tools, third-party vendors, or poorly secured systems — we can no longer guarantee it will not be misused.

From years of work in fragile contexts, I apply a few hard rules:

• Never put beneficiary data, protection-sensitive information, or unvetted partner reports into commercial AI tools such as public ChatGPT or Claude.
• Prefer organisation-approved, secure platforms with clear data-protection safeguards.
• Practise strict data minimisation: collect and process only what is truly necessary.
• Keep a human in the loop for any decision that affects people’s access to services or safety.
• Conduct proper risk assessments before introducing new digital tools, especially those involving biometrics, cash systems, or predictive analytics.
• Remember that local knowledge and community voice cannot be automated. The best AI use still starts from what communities and local partners tell us on the ground.

The ICRC Handbook on Data Protection in Humanitarian Action remains my key reference. It reminds us that data protection is not an obstacle to effective response — it is part of protecting people’s life, integrity and dignity.

Looking Ahead

In my work advancing HDP Nexus approaches, climate-resilient services and localisation, AI is becoming another tool in the kit — useful when it helps us reach more people with better-quality, more accountable WASH services, and risky when it creates a false sense of precision or distances us from the communities we serve.

I am still learning. Like many of my colleagues, I experiment carefully, share what works, and keep asking the same question I have asked throughout my career: does this help us deliver more effectively, more accountably, and with greater respect for the people at the centre of the response?

That question now includes a second, equally important one: are we protecting their data with the same care we protect their physical safety?

That remains the only test that matters.

Navigating India’s Water Crossroads: My Reflections on the Sector in 2026

India’s water story has always felt deeply personal to me. We are a country of 1.4 billion people living with just 4% of the world’s freshwater. Every summer shortage in a city, every farmer waiting for the monsoon, every drying well in Punjab or Rajasthan is not just a statistic — it is a reminder of how closely our daily lives, food security and economic ambitions are tied to water.

As I look at the sector in mid-2026, a few themes stand out strongly to me. These are not abstract policy points; they are the issues that will decide whether India manages its water future with foresight or continues to lurch from crisis to crisis.

The Monsoon Is No Longer Reliable — and That Changes Everything

This year’s weak and uneven monsoon has once again exposed our vulnerability. Forecasts of below-normal rainfall, a particularly dry June, and growing talk of El Niño effects are not surprises anymore. Rain is arriving in intense bursts separated by long dry spells. Reservoirs drop quickly, cities scramble for tankers, and rain-fed farmers suffer.

What concerns me most is that we still plan as if a “normal” monsoon is the default. It no longer is. Climate variability is the new normal. We need water systems that can handle extremes — better storage, smarter groundwater recharge, and urban infrastructure that does not collapse under a few days of heavy rain or prolonged dry weather. Treating every deficient monsoon as an emergency rather than a structural reality is no longer sustainable.

Groundwater: The Crisis We Prefer Not to See

Groundwater is India’s quiet backbone and its biggest hidden risk. National numbers look manageable (extraction around 60–61%), but the regional picture is alarming. Punjab, Rajasthan and Haryana continue to extract far more than nature replenishes. Farmers are forced to dig deeper every year. Water-intensive crops in water-scarce regions, powered by cheap or free electricity, have created a slow-motion disaster.

I have long believed that without serious reform in agricultural water use — crop diversification, realistic power pricing, and large-scale micro-irrigation — the rest of our efforts will only buy us time. The fact that agriculture still consumes the overwhelming majority of our freshwater cannot be ignored any longer.

Jal Jeevan Mission: A Genuine Success That Now Needs to Mature

One development that genuinely gives me hope is the progress of the Jal Jeevan Mission. Moving rural tap-water coverage from roughly 17% in 2019 to over 82% today is a remarkable achievement by any global standard. Millions of women and girls have been freed from the daily burden of fetching water. That alone is transformative.

JJM 2.0, now extended to 2028 with a sharper focus on functionality, source sustainability and operations, is the right next step. Connections without reliable supply, quality and maintenance will eventually lose public trust. The shift from “providing taps” to “providing lasting service” is critical, and I hope states treat this phase with the same urgency as the first.

Wastewater Must Stop Being Treated as Waste

India still generates far more sewage than it treats properly. A large portion of untreated or poorly treated water continues to pollute rivers and aquifers. At the same time, we face growing freshwater shortages.

This contradiction frustrates me. Treated wastewater is a resource we are only beginning to use seriously. States that have introduced clear reuse targets and city-level plans are moving in the right direction. Industry, construction, power plants and urban landscaping can absorb significant volumes of recycled water. Making reuse the default rather than the exception should be a national priority.

Namami Gange has shown that sustained effort produces results — improved treatment capacity, reduced industrial pollution load in key stretches, and better water quality indicators. The work is far from finished, but it proves that focused, long-term programmes can turn the tide.

New Pressures and New Opportunities

Urban growth, industrial expansion and the rise of data centres (with their heavy cooling needs) are adding fresh demand. Coastal desalination is gaining attention. Corporate India is beginning to treat water stewardship as a business necessity rather than a CSR checkbox. These are positive shifts.

The scale of required investment — estimated in the range of several lakh crore rupees over the coming years — also creates real opportunity for technology, engineering and service providers. But capital alone will not solve the problem. Fragmented governance across states, heavily subsidised pricing that hides true costs, and slow reallocation of water between sectors remain structural weaknesses. Until these are addressed more honestly, shortages will keep returning.

What I Believe Matters Most Going Forward

In my view, three things will determine success:

1. Treat water as one connected system — surface water, groundwater and wastewater must be managed together, not in silos.  
2. Align incentives with reality — especially in agriculture and urban pricing.  
3. Build for variability, not averages — climate resilience has to be designed into every project.

India has the technical capacity, the policy instruments and, increasingly, the public awareness. What we need is consistency, political courage on difficult reforms, and a willingness to measure success by reliable service rather than just infrastructure numbers.

Water security is not a side issue. It underpins food production, urban liveability, industrial competitiveness and social equity. Getting it right will be one of the defining tests of India’s development journey in the coming decade.

I remain cautiously optimistic. The progress of the last few years shows what is possible when focus and resources align. The question now is whether we can sustain that momentum and go deeper — from access to reliability, from extraction to stewardship, and from crisis response to long-term resilience.

The Quiet Water Waste in India’s High-Rises

One aspect of India’s urban water crisis that I find particularly striking — and often under-discussed — is the behaviour inside high-rise apartments.

In many Indian cities, a growing share of the middle and upper-middle class now lives in multi-storey buildings. On paper, this looks efficient: shared infrastructure, denser living. In practice, it frequently drives higher per-person freshwater consumption. People flush toilets more freely, clean floors and vehicles with running water, take longer showers without any sense of limit, and leave minor leaks unattended for weeks because the cost is buried in a common maintenance bill or a flat monthly charge. When water does not feel expensive or scarce at the individual level, restraint disappears.

This is not a small issue. Urban domestic demand is rising faster than many city utilities can supply. In high-rises, the problem is amplified by:

• Lack of individual metering or volumetric billing in many societies  
• Zero marginal cost for the resident once the maintenance fee is paid  
• Design that prioritises convenience (powerful showers, multiple bathrooms, frequent cleaning) over efficiency  
• A cultural shift where continuous high-pressure supply is treated as a basic entitlement rather than a scarce resource  

The result is a silent but steady increase in the burden on already stressed municipal sources, groundwater and tanker supplies. Cities end up chasing more supply — new pipelines, distant reservoirs, or deeper borewells — while a significant portion of the water that reaches these buildings is used more liberally than necessary.

I see this as both a behavioural and a governance failure. We have spent years focusing on expanding supply and improving treatment. Those efforts remain essential. But without parallel attention to demand management inside homes, especially in the fastest-growing housing typology, we will keep running harder just to stay in the same place.

Practical steps that can make a difference are not complicated:

• Mandatory individual metering and volumetric billing in all new high-rises, and gradual introduction in existing ones  
• Stronger building codes that require low-flow fixtures, dual-flush toilets and leak-detection systems  
• Society-level incentives or penalties linked to overall consumption  
• Simple awareness that treats water the way we now treat electricity or fuel — as something whose waste has a visible personal cost  

Until the person living on the 12th floor feels the consequence of an extra-long shower or a dripping tap, the pressure on freshwater sources will continue to grow. Supply-side solutions alone cannot keep pace with this kind of demand.

This urban behavioural reality sits alongside the larger challenges I wrote about earlier — monsoon variability, groundwater depletion, wastewater under-utilisation and the need for better pricing signals. Together they underline a simple truth: India’s water future will be decided as much by how carefully we use what we have as by how much new water we manage to bring in.

The high-rise apartment is a good place to start changing that equation.

When War Has No Frontlines

Escalating Conflicts, Civilian Harm, and Changing Warfare - Reflections from 25+ years in the field

After more than twenty-five years designing and delivering WASH programmes in some of the world’s most complex crises — from the Northern Sri Lanka conflict, Rohingya response in Bangladesh and the Tigray conflict in Ethiopia to Gaza, South Sudan, Afghanistan, and Northern Syria — I have watched the nature of conflict change in ways that keep me awake at night.

Today we are living through a level of armed conflict not seen since the Second World War. The number, intensity, and geographic spread of crises have grown relentlessly. Sudan, the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Lebanon, Myanmar, Haiti, Afghanistan, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ukraine, and the growing risks in South Sudan and the Sahel are not isolated emergencies. They form a connected landscape of violence that is systematically destroying civilian life and the systems that sustain it.

Civilians Are No Longer on the Sidelines

In every major response I have coordinated, the pattern is the same: civilians are not collateral damage — they are the primary target or the inevitable victims. Hospitals are hit. Water systems are deliberately damaged. Aid workers are killed or detained. Sexual violence is used as a weapon. Displacement is no longer temporary; entire generations are growing up without the prospect of return.

I saw this clearly in Tigray and Amhara, where conflict and cholera collided. I saw it again in Gaza and the West Bank, where water and sanitation infrastructure became strategic targets. I saw it in South Sudan during successive displacement and cholera waves, and in Afghanistan as the political ground shifted overnight under our feet. Across these contexts, more than 117 million people are now forcibly displaced by conflict and violence. The numbers are not abstract. They are the families I have sat with in camps, the children whose water points I helped restore, and the local partners whose clinics were forced to close.

International humanitarian law, which should protect those who are not fighting, is being disregarded with growing impunity. When health facilities are attacked and medical staff are killed while trying to save lives, the message is clear: the rules that once constrained warfare are eroding.

Drones Have Redrawn the Map of Danger

One of the most profound shifts I have witnessed in recent years is the rapid spread of drones. What was once the preserve of advanced militaries is now available to a wide range of armed actors. The effect has been transformative — and deeply dangerous for both civilians and humanitarians.

Drones extend violence far beyond traditional frontlines. They make attacks more frequent, more precise, and harder to predict. Markets, clinics, displacement sites, and aid distribution points that once felt relatively secure are now within reach. In several of the responses I have led or supported, drone incidents affecting humanitarian operations have multiplied. Danger is no longer confined to the front line. It is constant, diffuse, and increasingly unpredictable.

This changes everything about how we plan, move, and deliver. Remote management, once a pragmatic solution in places like Northern Syria, is becoming a necessity in more and more contexts. Local partners, who often carry the greatest risk, need stronger protection, better equipment, and genuine decision-making power — not just the residual tasks that international organisations find too dangerous.

Aid Workers Are Paying the Price

The humanitarians trying to respond are themselves under extraordinary pressure. Hundreds of aid workers have been killed in recent years. Detention of staff has risen sharply. In my own career, I have managed teams through Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, coordinated under fire in Ethiopia, and supported responses where access was systematically blocked or conditioned.

When security risks rise, and funding falls at the same time, the result is predictable: fewer staff in the field, reduced presence, and greater reliance on already overstretched local organisations. The space for principled humanitarian action is shrinking. Administrative obstacles, political interference, and direct threats compound the danger. Every time a health facility closes or a water system cannot be repaired because it is too dangerous to reach, civilians pay the price.

What This Demands of Us

These trends — more conflicts, greater civilian harm, new technologies of violence, and rising risks for those who try to help — are occurring against a backdrop of historic funding cuts. The combination is forcing the humanitarian system into painful prioritisation. Millions of people who need assistance may receive little or none.

After twenty-five years, I remain convinced of one thing: technical excellence in WASH or any other sector is not enough if the people we serve are killed or displaced the next day. We need stronger political action to protect civilians and uphold international humanitarian law. We need practical adaptation — better analysis of drone threats, genuine localisation that transfers real power and resources, and sustained investment in the local responders who stay when international staff are evacuated.

The current moment is defined by brutality, impunity, and indifference. Yet it is also a moment that demands clarity. The scale of civilian suffering we are witnessing is not inevitable. It is the result of choices — by parties to conflict, by those who arm them, and by an international community that too often looks away.

Those of us who have spent our careers in this work will continue to deliver what we can, under increasingly difficult conditions. But the deeper solution lies in reducing the violence itself, protecting those caught in it, and restoring the principle that even in war, some things must remain forbidden.

The people living through these conflicts deserve nothing less.

The Humanitarian Reset: Can the Aid System Adapt Before It Breaks?

In March 2025, as humanitarian needs soared and funding collapsed, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher issued a stark call: the system needed a fundamental Humanitarian Reset. A year and a half later, that reset remains one of the most closely watched—and contested—reform efforts in the aid sector.

At its core, the Reset is a collective commitment by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) to make humanitarian action faster, fairer, more accountable, and more locally led. Its vision is clear: a system that is “locally led and globally supported, rooted in communities and driven by greatest need.” The framework rests on four pillars—Define, Deliver, Devolve, and Defend—supported by enablers around data, innovation, financing, and partnerships.

What the Reset Actually Aims to Change

Define means ruthless prioritisation. In a world of constrained resources, the 2026 Global Humanitarian Overview focused on roughly 87 million people facing the most extreme, life-threatening needs—down from broader earlier targets. This “hyper-prioritisation” is both a necessary triage and a painful admission that the system can no longer pretend to cover everyone.

Deliver focuses on efficiency: simpler coordination structures, streamlined planning and reporting, greater use of cash and anticipatory action, and reduced bureaucracy.

Devolve is the most politically charged pillar. It calls for shifting decision-making and resources closer to affected communities and local actors, with stronger country-level leadership by Humanitarian Coordinators and greater direct funding to national and local organisations.

Defend prioritises the protection of humanitarian principles and international humanitarian law at a time when both are under sustained attack.

Where UN80 Comes In

The Humanitarian Reset does not exist in isolation. It runs in parallel with, and is reinforced by, the broader UN80 Initiative—the United Nations’ system-wide reform effort launched by Secretary-General António Guterres in March 2025 to mark the organisation’s 80th anniversary.

While the Reset covers the entire humanitarian system (UN agencies, NGOs, the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, and local actors), UN80’s humanitarian component—the New Humanitarian Compact—focuses specifically on UN entities. It pushes for integrated supply chains, common services, simplified planning, better data collaboration, and clearer agency roles. In practice, the two efforts are designed to reinforce each other: the Reset sets the overall direction, while UN80 operationalises efficiency and coherence reforms within the UN pillar.

The Painful Reality of Transition

The transition phase has exposed deep structural and human challenges. As funding contracted sharply, most UN agencies and partner organisations were forced to reduce their footprint significantly. Money became scarce, programs were cut, and offices shrank. This scarcity ignited intense organisational-level politics: which program areas should survive, how to prioritise limited resources, who remains in a job, and who stays relevant in a leaner system.

Leaders responsible for these decisions often struggled. Clear, practical guidance was limited. What direction did exist largely came top-down, leaving country teams and mid-level managers to navigate uncertainty with incomplete information. The result has been hesitation, internal competition, and risk-averse decision-making at precisely the moment when bold choices were needed.

This dynamic risks making the transition more difficult and, ultimately, rendering parts of the humanitarian sector less relevant. When energy is consumed by internal survival rather than external impact, the system drifts further from the people it exists to serve.

Rethinking the UN Mandate

Beyond operational efficiencies and localisation, the United Nations needs to seriously rethink its fundamental mandate. The effectiveness of the UN has significantly declined in recent years, and its relevance is increasingly questioned—by donors, by governments, by local actors, and by the very people living through crises.

The current model, in which multiple UN agencies act as large-scale operational organisations competing for funds and delivering programs directly, is no longer sustainable or necessary. The cost of UN delivery remains high, often without clear comparative advantage over local or national actors. Overlapping mandates across agencies create duplication, bureaucratic layers, and institutional self-preservation rather than collective impact.

What is needed is a deliberate step back. The UN should move away from being primarily an operational delivery machine and reposition itself as a technical powerhouse and global think tank. Its core value should lie in providing high-quality analysis, standards, policy advice, surge technical expertise, and convening power—supporting governments, local organisations, and international NGOs to lead responses on the ground. One coherent UN, rather than a collection of competing agencies, could house specialised technical capacity across sectors without expanding into large operational footprints. Coordination should be streamlined into a single, clear structure rather than fragmented across multiple mechanisms.

This shift would not diminish the UN’s importance. It would restore it—by focusing on what the organisation can uniquely offer in a constrained, multipolar world, while enabling those closest to crises to lead delivery.

What Should Happen Instead

Genuine reform requires more honest discussions about increasing effectiveness while deliberately reducing the size and complexity of organisations. The number of UN agencies and the breadth of sectors they control need a fundamental shake-up. Incremental streamlining under UN80 and the Humanitarian Reset is useful, but insufficient if the underlying architecture of multiple operational agencies remains intact.

A lighter, more technical UN focused on enabling others—rather than competing with them—would reduce overheads, clarify roles, and free resources for frontline impact. Delivery should increasingly rest with governments, local organisations, and capable INGOs, with the UN providing the global knowledge, norms, and specialised support that only a multilateral institution can offer.

Progress, Gaps, and the Road Ahead

There has been measurable movement under the Reset and UN80: simplified coordination guidance, greater authority for country teams, pilots of integrated supply chains, and the launch of data collaboration tools. Yet progress remains uneven. Local actors still report limited influence in upstream decisions. Funding continues to favour international organisations. Hyper-prioritisation, while pragmatic, risks sidelining protection and longer-term solutions. Internal politics during the transition have further slowed meaningful change.

The core critique remains valid: without real redistribution of power, risk, and resources—and without a serious re-examination of the UN’s operational role—the Reset risks becoming an organised way of doing less with less. Internal survival politics and top-down guidance only reinforce that danger.

The people living through today’s crises do not have the luxury of waiting for the next reform cycle. The Humanitarian Reset, reinforced by elements of UN80, has set a direction. Whether it becomes a genuine turning point depends on whether the system is willing to confront its own size, cost, complexity, and mandate—and choose relevance through enablement over institutional self-preservation.

#HumanitarianReset #UN80 #HumanitarianAid #UNReform #Localisation #AidEffectiveness

Private Sector Partnerships in Humanitarian and Development Work: Beyond the Logo on the Banner

In my more than 25 years of professional life, I have often felt that the humanitarian and development sector could benefit from greater corporate efficiency and culture. Procurement systems, logistical reach, technical skills and even marketing approaches used by the private sector can add significant value to the effectiveness of our work.

In the sector we frequently speak about private sector partnerships in polished language — shared value, leverage, innovation, scale. The reality, in my experience, is both more promising and more complicated than the usual narratives suggest.

Over two decades of work in emergency response across South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, I have engaged with companies such as Unilever, Mentor (Unilever’s marketing agency in Africa), Procter & Gamble, and Hindustan Construction Company, among others. These collaborations ranged from the supply of non-food items in crisis settings to more strategic efforts aimed at longer-term outcomes. What stayed with me was not the size of the contribution, but the conditions under which these partnerships either added real value or remained largely symbolic.

What the partnerships looked like in practice

In several responses — including in Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh and Kenya — collaboration with Unilever focused on the provision of essential hygiene and non-food items. In high-pressure settings, reliable supply chains and quality products matter. When private sector partners could move quickly and maintain standards, they filled gaps that traditional humanitarian pipelines sometimes struggled to close. The logistics support these companies offered — in packaging, transportation and distribution — was often far beyond what most humanitarian or development agencies could perform on their own.

In Bangladesh, engagement with P&G and Hindustan Construction Company took place in a complex operating environment marked by large-scale displacement and the need for both immediate relief and more durable solutions. Hindustan Construction Company’s high-end civil engineering team proved particularly valuable during the monsoon season. We requested their support for building toilets and community infrastructure. The quality, efficiency and speed of their work exceeded what most humanitarian or development agencies could deliver under the same conditions.

In Africa, when we sought to promote the use of chlorine and strengthen basic hygiene messaging across programme areas, the support provided by Mentor (the advertising agency) was noticeably effective. We began to see behavioural changes in communities where we had struggled to achieve results for years.

These experiences reinforced a recurring theme: private sector actors often bring logistical strength, technical capacity and a results orientation that can complement the community reach and contextual knowledge of humanitarian organisations.

Yet the most useful partnerships were rarely those framed purely as corporate social responsibility exercises. They worked better when both sides were clear about mutual interests, accountable for delivery, and willing to adapt to the realities of crisis and recovery settings.

Lessons that stand out

• Clarity of purpose matters more than the size of the cheque: Partnerships that began with a vague desire to “do good” or gain visibility often under-delivered. Those that defined a specific problem — last-mile hygiene kit distribution, construction quality, supply reliability or behaviour change — and aligned incentives around solving it produced better outcomes.
• Private sector efficiency and humanitarian principles can coexist, but only with deliberate effort: Speed, cost-consciousness and scale are genuine strengths that companies can offer. At the same time, humanitarian work requires attention to dignity, inclusion, do-no-harm and community ownership. The tension between these logics is real. Partnerships succeed when both sides respect each other’s constraints rather than assuming one model can simply be transferred.
• Local context and community acceptance cannot be outsourced: Even the best products or construction capacity falter when communities are not engaged. I have seen infrastructure and supplies under-used or diverted when the partnership focused on delivery metrics rather than ownership and appropriateness. Technical quality and community relevance must travel together.  
• Longer-term value requires moving beyond transactional relationships: One-off contributions of goods or funds have their place in acute emergencies. More interesting possibilities emerge when companies engage on systems issues — supply chain resilience, local manufacturing, skills transfer, or supporting government and local institutions to maintain services after the external response scales down.
• Trust is built through delivery, not declarations: In high-stakes environments, credibility is earned by showing up consistently, meeting commitments, and being transparent when things go wrong. This applies equally to international NGOs, UN agencies and private sector partners.

A more useful frame

Much of the conversation about private sector engagement still revolves around funding gaps and corporate social responsibility. A more useful frame, in my view, is complementarity under pressure.

Humanitarian and development organisations often have deep community relationships, contextual understanding and a mandate to prioritise the most vulnerable. Private sector actors frequently have strengths in logistics, quality control, innovation and the ability to operate at scale. The most effective collaborations I witnessed treated these as complementary capabilities rather than hierarchical ones — where one side funds and the other implements, or where one side merely “adds value” to the other’s existing model.

When partnerships are designed around shared problem-solving rather than branding or compliance, they stand a better chance of contributing to both immediate response and longer-term resilience.

This does not mean every company is a natural partner, or that every collaboration will succeed. It does mean that dismissing the private sector as merely a source of resources, or romanticising it as a source of automatic innovation, both miss the point. The real work lies in the middle: clear-eyed assessment of what each party can reliably deliver, honest conversation about risks and incentives, and a shared commitment to outcomes that matter to the people we aim to serve.

From emergency response to long-term resilience: HDP Nexus in practice

In humanitarian work, the most visible moment is usually the peak of a crisis — the surge of needs, the rapid scale-up, the urgency of saving lives. Yet after more than two decades of coordinating and leading WASH responses across Ethiopia, Bangladesh, South Sudan, Nigeria and other contexts, I have come to believe that the real test of our work often comes later: when the emergency begins to downgrade.

That transition — from acute response to longer-term resilience — is where the Humanitarian-Development-Peace (HDP) Nexus stops being a framework on paper and becomes a practical discipline. Lessons from Ethiopia Coordinating the national and regional WASH Cluster in Ethiopia during successive droughts, cholera outbreaks and conflict responses made this lesson very concrete. In the acute phase, the priority was clear: deliver life-saving water, sanitation and hygiene services as quickly as possible through a large number of partners. As the intensity of the crisis eased in different regions, the questions changed. How do we hand over responsibilities? How do we strengthen government systems rather than create parallel ones? How do we reduce the likelihood that the next shock will require the same level of external response? One approach that proved particularly valuable in this shift was Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS). Instead of focusing primarily on constructing toilets, CLTS emphasised triggering collective behaviour change and community ownership. This helped address open defecation in a way that emergency hardware alone could not sustain. It also created a stronger foundation for longer-term sanitation outcomes once the emergency phase declined. When communities themselves decided that open defecation was unacceptable, the results were more durable than externally driven construction targets. The transition required deliberate effort: aligning partners with government priorities, supporting national and regional systems, investing in localisation of coordination structures, and linking emergency response planning with contingency and resilience frameworks. Insights from Bangladesh A similar pattern emerged in Bangladesh while leading a large multi-sectoral response that included significant WASH components. In the midst of the Rohingya crisis response, we undertook a structured learning review. The purpose was not only to improve the ongoing emergency operation, but to generate insights that could inform three-year programming. The review helped shift the conversation from pure emergency coverage toward pathways that involved government institutions, local partners and host communities more meaningfully. It reinforced the importance of designing responses that could evolve rather than simply end when funding cycles changed.

Local-led coordination in Nigeria

More recent experience in northeast Nigeria reinforced these lessons in a different context. Leading WASH sector coordination across the BAY states meant working with more than 100 local NGOs and dozens of partners while advancing localisation and the broader Humanitarian Reset agenda.

A one-size-fits-all approach does not work in complex, protracted crises. What proved essential was a framework for local-led coordination that leveraged existing local structures for more tailored and sustainable responses. Key actions included:

• Developing coordination toolkits, online resources and workshops to strengthen capacity and help preserve institutional memory.
• Integrating risk alerts and contingency planning into coordination processes so that teams could move from reaction toward more proactive crisis management.
• Adapting coordination approaches to different types of crisis and deliberately engaging local and traditional leaders to build trust, accountability and community acceptance.

When coordination is rooted in local leadership, trust and adaptability, the outcomes are more likely to be both effective in the short term and sustainable beyond the emergency phase.

What consistently made the difference

Across these and other contexts, a few principles stood out:

• Treat transition as a deliberate process, not an afterthought that begins only when funding declines.
• Align with government systems from the beginning, rather than treating national and local authorities as secondary actors.
• Invest in localisation of coordination so that local organisations, institutions and traditional structures can progressively take the lead.
• Use approaches that build ownership, such as CLTS, instead of creating dependency on external construction and maintenance.
• Link emergency tools with longer-term planning — connecting response plans, contingency planning, risk alerts and resilience frameworks so they reinforce one another.
• Keep communities at the centre. Solutions that ignore local priorities, capacities and leadership rarely survive beyond the project cycle.

The Nexus as daily practice

The HDP Nexus is sometimes discussed in abstract terms. In practice, it means designing programmes that save lives today while simultaneously reducing future humanitarian needs. It means recognising that governments will remain long after international agencies scale down. And it means accepting that quality, ownership and systems strengthening are not luxuries to be added later — they are part of effective emergency response itself.

The programmes that performed best in my experience were those that began planning for the “day after” while still responding to the emergency. They treated the transition not as a separate phase, but as an integral part of the response.

The question I continue to ask myself, and that I offer to colleagues in the sector, is this: How deliberately are we designing today’s emergency response so that it contributes to tomorrow’s resilience?

Working with governments is the real lever for scale in WASH.

 Over the years, I’ve learned that the most sustainable impact doesn’t come from delivering services alone — it comes from enabling government systems to own and expand them.

In Ethiopia, while coordinating the WASH Cluster at national and regional levels during successive drought, cholera, and conflict responses, a core part of the role was aligning partners with government priorities, strengthening national and regional systems, and gradually shifting from pure emergency coordination toward resilience and institutional capacity.

In Bangladesh, while leading a multi-million-dollar response and coordinating 38+ partners in Cox’s Bazar, we worked closely with local authorities and host community institutions. The goal was never just emergency coverage — it was creating pathways for government leadership and longer-term integration.

Similar lessons emerged while engaging with the Palestinian Water Authority, municipalities, and other national structures. Advocacy and technical support had to move hand-in-hand with resource mobilisation if we wanted lasting results.

Even earlier in my career in India (with WASMO and other programmes), I saw how technical support to state and local institutions — including Gram Panchayats — multiplies reach far beyond what any single organisation can deliver alone.

A few reflections that stay with me:

• Government partnership is not a checkbox. It requires consistent presence, technical credibility, and genuine respect for existing systems.
• Localisation of coordination works best when it strengthens — not bypasses — national architecture.
• Real scale happens when public resources and government delivery mechanisms are successfully leveraged.
• Whether international agencies or the UN respond to a crisis or not, the government will respond and will remain. Supporting their systems is therefore not optional — it is essential.

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