The New Humanitarian
The New Humanitarian, previously known as IRIN News, or Integrated Regional Information Networks News, is an independent, non-profit news agency.
This article contains content that is written like an advertisement. (November 2023) |
It specializes in humanitarian stories from often overlooked or under-reported regions.
Wiki English | |
| Company type | News agency |
|---|---|
| Founded | Nairobi (1995) |
| Headquarters | Geneva, Switzerland |
Key people |
|
| Website | www.thenewhumanitarian.org |
Originally a project of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), IRIN News operated under the UN until 1 January 2015. On 21 March 2019, IRIN relaunched independently as The New Humanitarian. Its aim is to "strengthen universal access to timely, strategic, and non-partisan information. so as to enhance the capacity of the humanitarian community to understand, respond to, and avert emergencies." Its content is available via its website and newsletters. The primary language is English, with a smaller number of articles available in French and Arabic.
The New Humanitarian is a non-profit association, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Its board of directors is led by South African journalist Paula Fray.
History
Early years as IRIN
IRIN was launched in 1995 after the Great Lakes refugee crisis resulting from the 1994 Rwandan genocide overwhelmed the existing information management systems set up by the humanitarian aid community. At that time, its headquarters were in Nairobi, Kenya, with regional news desks in Nairobi, Johannesburg, Dakar, Dubai, and Bangkok, with liaison offices in New York and Geneva. The agency was managed by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Its global expansion began in 1997, when it opened an office in West Africa, to be followed by offices in Southern Africa, Central Asia, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.
PlusNews
In 2001, IRIN created PlusNews, a news service dedicated exclusively to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The service gradually expanded to include French, Portuguese, and Arabic. It became one of the largest providers of original HIV and AIDS reporting. One of its documentary series, "Heroes of HIV", earned an honorable mention at the 14th annual Webby Awards.
That same year, it launched a radio service, producing soap operas, programming, news packages, and training for radio stations in Angola, Afghanistan, Somalia, and West Africa.
In 2002, IRIN introduced a French translation service, opening its work to readers in West and East Africa and elsewhere worldwide. In 2008, it would do the same in Arabic.
In 2004, IRIN created a video team, and one of its first documentaries, "Our bodies... their battleground" – on sexual violence against women in Congo and Liberia – went on to win "Best Feature" at the UN Documentary Film Festival. Other films have covered the impact of the Lord's Resistance Army in northern Uganda, female genital mutilation, the 2004 West Africa locust swarm, opium cultivation in Afghanistan, and the humanitarian impact of climate change.
The New Humanitarian
On 1 January 2015, IRIN became an independent non-profit news organization. On 21 March 2019, it rebranded to The New Humanitarian.
In 2020, in partnership with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, The New Humanitarian investigated and broke news about the widespread abuse of women who worked for humanitarian agencies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo while responding to the Kivu Ebola outbreak.
Impact
The New Humanitarian seeks to inform the prevention and response to humanitarian crises by contributing to better decision-making, accountability and transparency, and greater awareness.
Recent examples of impact include:
- Two Congolese lawyers used information from a special report on Congo-Brazzaville's hidden war, using satellite imagery to document the humanitarian toll of a little-known two-year-old conflict, as part of a claim to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.
- Reporting on the Yazidi healthcare crisis in 2018 prompted action from as far and wide as the International Organization for Migration, Doctors Without Borders, the International Medical Corps, and British charity Swinfen Telemedicine.
- Following a report on a damning audit that found the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) guilty of critically mismanaging donor funds in Uganda, the issue escalated to communications between donor ministers and the UNHCR leadership, two donors stopped funding until UNHCR did more to address the issues identified, and the European Union called for an investigation and accountability.
Audience
A 2018 survey of their readers found that they are composed of: Not-for-profit and NGO (35.9%), Academia (8.6%), United Nations (8.5%), Government (8.1%), Media (7.6%), Business (5.4%), Donor (1.2%), Other (24.7%).
More than 40 percent of its audience originates from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.
The New Humanitarian regularly hosts in-person and live-streamed discussions on key issues in the humanitarian sector.
Newsletters
When The New Humanitarian was established as IRIN in 1995, it used fax and email to distribute weekly roundups on the Great Lakes region from its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. Its first website was launched In the late 1990s.
Today, in addition to its website, The New Humanitarian continues to provide daily and weekly newsletters to more than 40,000 subscribers.
Donors
The New Humanitarian's funding comes from a mix of governments, foundations, and a small number of private donors.
Key supporters in 2019 include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Canton of Geneva, the Open Society Foundations, the Swiss Lottery, and the international aid agencies of Australia, Belgium, Canada, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland.
References
External links
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