The Impact Room (Philanthropy Age)

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Rukmini Banerji is CEO of India’s Pratham Education Foundation.
Founded 25 years ago to teach out-of-school youngsters in the slums of Mumbai, Pratham  has grown to become one of the country's largest NGOs, delivering high quality but low-cost interventions to millions of Indian children.
It works directly with children and youth as well as through large-scale collaborations with government systems using mapping and data to help inform teaching approaches.
Pratham's Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) has become a key benchmarking tool for the Indian education system, while its Teaching at the Right Level (TARL), programme, “has led to some of the largest learning gains among rigorously evaluated education programmes”, according to the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL).
In 2021, in recognition of her contribution to the sector, Rukmini was awarded the prestigious Yidan Prize for education.
In this episode of The Impact Room, Rukmini talks about balancing inputs with outcomes, parental engagement, and the importance of partnerships in delivering systemic change.
“Big change doesn't happen because you drop training modules onto a context, or you create an app or you create some kind of an assessment,” she says. “It happens when energised and motivated individuals put all these things together.  That's how real change happens.”
For more on Pratham, visit their website or follow them on social media at @Pratham_India. You may also be interested in this guide from the Brookings Institution about family-school engagement.
The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. 

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

We'd love your feedback. Let us know what you thought about this episode.

Every year, tens of thousands of migrants risk their lives attempting to cross the Mediterranean. Fleeing failed or fragile states and packed into overfilled boats, they seek a better life in Europe.

Many don’t make it, either drowning en-route or being turned back by coast guards under strict orders not to assist them. In 2021 alone, more than 3,000 people  drowned or were lost at sea, compared to 1,776 the previous year, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

Malta-based entrepreneurs Christopher and Regina Catrambone were so moved by the scale of the tragedy at sea - and the lack of help provided by the authorities - that they mounted their own response, investing $8 million to buy a ship, the Phoenix, outfit it and transport across the Atlantic to Europe.

The Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) launched in 2013, becoming the first non-governmental search and rescue operation in the central Mediterranean.

It completed its first mission in 2014, rescuing more than three thousand migrants over a period of just 90 days. Over the next three years, MOAS would rescue over 35,000 more, working in partnership with a number of other aid organisations, including Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

MOAS suspended its search and rescue operations in 2017 and shifted its operational focus to Bangladesh to support the influx of Rohingya refugees fleeing violence in Myanmar, while also delivering aid to people caught up in the crises in Yemen and Syria.

In early 2022, the charity launched a new initiative delivering medical relief and first response services to civilians affected by the escalating violence in Ukraine.

As well as these aid mission, in parallel, MOAS has become an active voice in global advocacy for migrants through its Safe and Legal Routes campaign, and in partnership with UNHCR, it has helped to evacuate vulnerable migrants stranded in Libya.

In this episode of The Impact Room, Christopher and Regina take us back to the beginning of MOAS, what triggered them to take such bold action, and what they’ve learned along the way about the both the migrant crisis and the global humanitarian system.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media at @PhilanthropyAge.

About the host

Maysa Jalbout is a leader in international development and philanthropy. Her previous roles include founding CEO of the Abdulla Al Ghurair Foundation for Education, a $1bn philanthropic initiative based in Dubai, and founding CEO of the Queen Rania Foundation. Maysa is a visiting scholar at MIT and ASU, and a non-resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Find her on Twitter @MaysaJalbout.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

We'd love your feedback. Let us know what you thought about this episode.

Sesame Street has been entertaining children around the world for generations. First launched in 1969, the show was an experiment to see if television – then just an emerging technology – could be used to educate young children. 

Today, this unique style of education and social messaging continues to be delivered by a diverse cast of muppets – and humans – to children and caregivers across seven continents in more than a dozen different languages.

In this episode of The Impact Room, we take a detailed look at Ahlan Simsim, a new Arabic language version of the show, which has been designed specifically to target Middle Eastern children affected by war and displacement, and its sister programme supporting Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. 

Ahlan Simim uses music and humour to tackle emotional issues and provide youngsters (and their caregivers) tools for dealing with feelings of fear and anxiety. It mixes media outputs, training sessions, and school materials to also deliver basic literacy and numeracy learning for children who may be locked out of formal education.

Sesame Workshop received more than $100m of grant funding from the MacArthur Foundation for the project it is doing in partnership with International Rescue Committee (IRC). A year later, The Lego Foundation gave Sesame Workshop another $100m to support its work with BRAC and their programming for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. 

Together, these two grants are the largest ever philanthropic intervention into early years education in a humanitarian setting.

To discuss Ahlan Simsim, our host Maysa Jalbout, is joined by Shari Rosenfeld, senior vice president of International Social Impact at Sesame Workshop, and Marianne Stone, Ahlan Simim regional project director for IRC.

She also speaks to Professor Hiro Yoshikawa, a community and development psychologist specialising in early childhood and the co-founder of Global TIES, a research centre at New York University, which is carrying out an Impact evaluation of Ahlan Simsim.

“The vision here is to really to develop a new set of models in this somewhat brand-new field of early childhood development in the humanitarian sector, which has been largely overlooked for a very long time," he explains.

Many of the topics explored as well as materials used in Ahlan Simsim are applicable to other conflict and displacement settings. Indeed, some of the content is already being adapted for other countries.

In Iraq, for example, the US government’s overseas development agency, USAID, has provided additional funding to create some Iraq-specific Ahlan Simsim materials. 

And, just as we were putting this podcast episode together, Sesame workshop confirmed that work was also underway to create a new suite of resources in Dari, Pashto, Spanish, Ukrainian, and English - with additional languages to follow - to support young children and caregivers affected by crisis.

For more about Ahlan Simsim and the work of Sesame Workshop in the Middle East visit their website or the IRC website.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. This episode was produced and edited by Louise Redvers.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

We'd love your feedback. Let us know what you thought about this episode.

Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, joins Maysa Jalbout in The Impact Room to discuss new pathways to respond to the global displacement crisis as he number of forcibly displaced people around the world surpasses 100 million.

Ukraine alone has generated more than six million refugee movements since the Russian invasion in February, and the knock-on effect that this has had on grain exports has triggered global food shortages, which in turn threaten to lead to widespread unrest, and likely more displacement.

The humanitarian system is at breaking point and with global displacement forecast to hit one billion by 2050, there is an urgent need for new and innovative solutions.

Have we reached a tipping point? Do we as a world need to rethink our collective conscience regarding freedom of movement and what it means to be a refugee? Is the current system fit-for-purpose or does it need an overhaul?

In a special edition of The Impact Room recorded in the run-up to World Refugee Day, host Maysa Jalbout puts these questions and more to the UNHCR chief. 

Also interviewed in this episode of The Impact Room is Sasha Chanoff, the founder and CEO of Refuge Point, a non-profit running refugee resettlement programmes and advocating for policy changes for the rights of refugees globally with a focus on long-term solutions.

One organisation that is trying to help find long-term answers to displacement is Talent Beyond Boundaries (TBB), a nonprofit that helps to match skilled refugees to job opportunities in new countries to support labour mobility and plug global talent gaps.

CEO Steph Cousins, explains to Maysa how TBB has found durable work solutions for hundreds of refugees in private and public sector companies in Australia, Canada, and the UK, and that it has plans to expand into Portugal, Ireland, Belgium, the US, and New Zealand.

Also appearing on this episode to give their views on a global system that is supposed to help - but which often makes lives harder - are two young refugees: Amna Abo Zuhair, a Palestinian  living in Jordan, and Jean Marie Ishimwe, a Rwandan in Kenya. 

Amna, 29, is a monitoring and evaluation project manager at Sitti, a social enterprise employing Palestinian refugee women from Jerash camp in Jordan. She is also the in-country director of Hopes for Women in Education, a language exchange, education, and women’s empowerment organisation, as well as a steering committee member of the Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative (RSRI), a global multi-stakeholder collaboration promoting opportunities for refugees to become self-reliant and achieve a better quality of life.

Jean Marie Ishimwe, meanwhile, is the chairperson and lead of a refugee led organisation known as Youth Voices Community (YVC), which focuses on giving a voice to refugee and vulnerable local youths in Nairobi, Kenya. The 25-year-old is also the founder of a refugee-led Social Enterprise called Nawezaa, which uses media, mentorship, and technology to create impact in refugee communities.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

We'd love your feedback. Let us know what you thought about this episode.

In this final episode of the current series of The Impact Room, Asif Saleh, executive director of BRAC, the world’s largest NGO, joins Maysa Jalbout to discuss community-led solution systems, microfinance, and climate accountability.

BRAC began in 1972 as a relief organisation to support displaced people in the newly-independent Bangladesh, but in the five decades since, it has grown to become the largest – and arguably – most enterprising NGO in the world.

Its programmes span poverty reduction, gender equality, community empowerment, health care, and pro-poor urban development. A pioneer in microfinance and the graduation approach, BRAC also runs 10 social enterprises and has its own insurance company. 

The first so-called Global South organisation to launch international operations, BRAC is a major provider of humanitarian support for the millions of Rohingya refugees who have fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar.

Despite BRAC being the world’s largest NGO, Asif is passionate about the need for more action on global commitments to listen to and build the capacity of smaller and local organisations. 

“There’s a lot of talk around that we need to do this, but the how part of how we are going to do this is completely missing,” he tells host, Maysa Jalbout. “What you hear is when you talk to the donors is that it's too risky to support some of the local organisations because they didn't have enough capacity and systems in place. 

“But then how are these local organisations going to build their capacity if they are squeezed for every single penny? It’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation,” he adds.

As we recorded this episode of The Impact Room, Bangladesh was grappling with some of its worst flooding on record. Asif urges the world to “wake up” to the realities of climate change which he says is threatening to reverse decades of development gains.

Asif began his career in the private sector, holding senior positions with global corporates such as Goldman Sachs, Glaxo Wellcome, and IBM. He joined BRAC in 2011, first as director of communication and social innovation, then rising through the ranks to become executive director in 2019.

Listen to this wide-ranging interview with Asif to also hear his thoughts on the Rohingya refugee response, why BRAC’s approach to microfinance is different, and why he left his corporate career behind to join the development sector.

About the host

Maysa Jalbout is a leader in international development and philanthropy. Her previous roles include founding CEO of the Abdulla Al Ghurair Foundation for Education, a $1bn philanthropic initiative based in Dubai, and founding CEO of the Queen Rania Foundation. Maysa is a visiting scholar at MIT and ASU, and a non-resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Find her on Twitter @MaysaJalbout.

The Impact Room is produced by Philanthropy Age. Follow us on social media @PhilanthropyAge. This episode was edited by Louise Redvers.

This is the last in the current series of The Impact Room. We'll be back with more episodes very soon. 

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

We'd love your feedback. Let us know what you thought about this episode.

Season three is on its way. Stand by to hear Maysa Jalbout back in conversation with philanthropists, development leaders, industry experts, and frontline organisations from around the world.
Forthcoming episodes will tackle a range of topics including: social entrepreneurship and impact investing; giving with a gender lens; funding for early years education; African philanthropy; and the decolonisation of aid.
Subscribe now to make sure you don't miss any new episodes.

The Impact Room is produced by Philanthropy Age. For more information or to get in touch, find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

We'd love your feedback. Let us know what you thought about this episode.

Jacqueline Novogratz, founder and CEO of Acumen, and Myrna Atalla, executive director of Alfanar, the Middle East's first venture philanthropy organisation, join host Maysa Jalbout in The Impact Room to discuss what businesses, philanthropists, and impact investors can do to support social enterprises.

A new generation of entrepreneurs are setting up mission-driven businesses to solve social problems in a sustainable way. These so-called social enterprises come in all shapes and sizes and span a variety of sectors and markets. Some focus on the provision of goods, like handicrafts or food, while others offer services such as online translation, access to off-grid energy or microfinance. But for all the success stories, many social businesses are still struggling to either scale effectively and compete in a for-profit marketplace, or wean themselves off a dependency on grant funding. 

In this episode of The Impact Room, we look at how the social enterprise ecosystem has grown over the past two decades, examine the ingredients for success, and hear how impact investment is changing the game.

Novogratz, whose nonprofit Acumen has pioneered the investment of patient capital into social business, shares her thoughts about how innovative partnerships can help scale and sustain impact-driven start-ups.

The author of New York Times best seller The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap between Rich and Poor, Novogratz, speaks passionately about some of Acumen's investees, talks about her hopes for achieving moonshot goals, such as universal electricity access, and gives advice to philanthropists about how they get involved.

Atalla, meanwhile, explains how philanthropy can support mission-driven businesses and reflects on the emergence of a new generation of entrepreneurs focussed on impact and climate-related issues. She also shares details of Alfanar’s two new initiatives, a US$50m regional impact investment fund, and a $5m pooled fund to provide operating grants and zero interest loans to  organisations driving women's economic empowerment in the MENA region.

Organisations referenced in this episode include:

• Future Eve
• FabricAid 
• Easy Solar 
• Promethean Power Systems 
• Uncommon Cacao 
• d.light 
• Kheyti 

The books recommended by our guests were: 

• “The Awakened Brain” by Lisa Miller 
• “Home in the world” by Amartya Sen
• “Poetry unbound: 50 poems to open your world” by Pádraig Ó Tuama 
• Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship by Teresa Chahine

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

We'd love your feedback. Let us know what you thought about this episode.

Globally celebrated conservationist Dr Jane Goodall steps into The Impact Room to discuss her long career and explains why, despite being nearly 90, she still spends a large part of her time travelling the world meeting young people.

Speaking to host Maysa Jalbout during a recent visit to the UAE, Dr Goodall reflects on some of the challenges she has faced during her life, why good news matters, and what gives her hope.

Dr Goodall also discusses the UAE's hosting of COP28, gives her views on extreme environmental activism, and shares a message for philanthropists about how they can support conservation efforts.

The Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) works to protect great apes by encouraging better land management through community awareness initiatives, and campaigns against wildlife trafficking. Dr Goodall's Roots & Shoots initiative, is a youth-led action and learning programme operating in schools and communities across more than 60 countries.

Dr Goodall's book recommendation was Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

We'd love your feedback. Let us know what you thought about this episode.

Elizabeth Tanya Masiyiwa and Neera Nundy join host Maysa Jalbout in The Impact Room to discuss gender equality and what philanthropy can do to advance its progress.

The Sustainable Development Goals were launched in 2015 to eliminate extreme poverty and support sustainable and resilient development. But eight years and a global pandemic later, many of the SDGs are hanging in the balance, none more so than goal number 5, with its target of gender equality.  On this, progress hasn’t just stalled, it has reversed, and according to the UN, it could take another 300 years to achieve gender equality.

In this episode of The Impact Room, Maysa examines what role philanthropy is - and / or should be - playing to accelerate progress towards SDG5. 

According a  Lilly Family School of Philanthropy study, just 1.9% of US charitable donations go to women and girls, this is despite the emergence of a new movement of so-called gender-lens philanthropy spearheaded by donors such as MacKenzie Scott and Melinda French Gates, through initiatives like Pivotal Ventures and Co-Impact.

What does applying a gender lens mean for philanthropy? How are funders changing how they give and what do organisations need to do differently?

A philanthropist and social entrepreneur, Elizabeth Tanya Masiyiwa is the executive director of her family's Higherlife Foundation, the CEO of Delta Philanthropies in the UK, and the founder of ed-tech startup, Akello.

Seasoned nonprofit leader, Neera Nundy quit her Wall Street job to co-found Dasra, which has grown to become India’s leading philanthropy platform.

They discuss with Maysa why gendered philanthropy matters, explain the importance of funding systems change, and share examples of initiatives and funders who are starting to make a real difference on the ground.  

You can read full text of the remarks by Antonio Guturres' at the 2023 Commission on the Status of Women here and for more of Melinda French Gates's interview with The Economist, click here.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

We'd love your feedback. Let us know what you thought about this episode.

Ninety percent of children's brains are developed by the age of five - yet around the world, millions of young people are missing out on adequate nutrition, care, and stimulating play, causing them to fall behind, even more they have started school.

In this episode of The Impact Room, host Maysa Jalbout discusses the global crisis in early years care and asks what philanthropy and governments can - and should be - doing to fix it.

Maysa is joined by Theirworld chair Sarah Brown and preside Justin van Fleet, Hilton Foundation CEO Peter Laugharn, and Sabrina Habib, the founder of nonprofit social enterprise Kidogo. 

Sarah Brown and Justin van Fleet talk about their charity's new global campaign, Act For Early Years, which is calling for more investment into early years and a UN decade for action on early childhood care, education, and development.

Other campaign asks from Theirworld include: investment in a fully-trained, qualified and funded early years workforce; publishing of annual data on government spending on early childhood development; more family-friendly polices such as income support programmes, parental leave and affordable childcare for working parents; and the creation of a more integrated approach to early years interventions across sectors and government.

Act for Early Years is being part-funded by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, whose CEO, Peter Laugharn, outlines to Maysa why the early years matter so much and explains what his foundation is doing in this space.

Also appearing on this episode is Sabrina Habib, the co-founder of Kidogo, a nonprofit social enterprise giving give low-income families in Kenya access to affordable and quality childcare while also giving employment to - and empowering - local women. Explaining how she stumbled into the sector after being shown an informal “baby care” centre in Nairobi, Habib makes a passionate appeal to governments to realign their priorities.

For more about the #ActforEarlyYears campaign follow @theirworld on social media. 

The books mentioned on this episode include:

• "Your Story Matters" by Nikesh Shukla
• "Wavewalker - Breaking Free" by Suzanne Heywood
• "The Go-Between" by Osman Yousefzada
• "Active Hope" by Joanna Macy
• "Loonshots" by Safi Bahcall

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

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Mosun Layode, Bheki Moyo, and Degan Ali discuss development funding and philanthropy in Africa.

Just 14 percent of large gifts by international donors get to local NGOs in Africa, and only 9 percent of large gifts by African funders are channelled to proximate organisations, according to Bridgespan research. The rest of the money goes to governments and international NGOs.

Why this happens – and what it means for on-the-ground organisations, programming, and final impact – is at the heart of this episode of The Impact Room, where we take a deep dive into African development funding and the thorny topic of decolonising aid.

Host Maysa Jalbout  explores the barriers to funding grassroots entities in Africa and why the status quo is so hard to shift – but also hear about some new solutions designed to “shift the power” from donor to implementer and create more equitable partnerships.

Mosun Layode, the executive director of the African Philanthropy Forum (APF), which was formed in 2014 to shift the needle on development funding on the continent, kicks off the episode with a detailed landscape analysis of leading funders and innovative initiatives.  Layode, who is also a board member of Candid and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, calls for greater collaboration among donors to amplify impact and tackle systemic issues. 

Professor Bheki Moyo, chair and director of the Centre on African Philanthropy and Social Investment (CAPSI), at Wits University Business School in Johannesburg, South Africa appeals to philanthropists to do more to fund African civil society working on “abstract” causes, such as human rights and policy issues, rather than just supporting “materialistic” initiatives such as building schools or donating computers.

Maysa's third guest, Degan Ali, is the executive director of Adeso, a development and humanitarian NGO working in the Horn of Africa.  She shares her views on why the current funding system for aid and development isn’t working, the opportunities for philanthropy to seed new approaches, and how donors can operate more equitably.

A long-time activist and leading voice in the aid localization debate, Ali has recently spearheaded the launch of the Pledge for Change, calling on iNGOs to commit more equitable partnerships and authentic storytelling to create a stronger aid ecosystem based on the principles of solidarity, humility, self-determination and equality.

The books, articles, and organisations mentioned in this episode include:

• Higherlife Foundation
• The Tony Elumelu Foundation
• Aspire Coronation Trust (ACT) Foundation
• KujaLink
• Dr. Arikana Chihombori
• Howard Nichols
• The art of gathering: how we meet and why it matters -  by Priya Parker 
• Shifting sands, shifting power - Social Investor Magazine

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

We'd love your feedback. Let us know what you thought about this episode.

This is a special episode dedicated to President Carter, who aged 98 has recently entered a hospice, and the extraordinary impact he has had around the world in the decades since leaving the White House.

From resolving conflicts and building homes for the poor, to eradicating disease and championing human rights, President Carter’s impact has been felt far and wide and in 2002, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

We hear from people he worked with, as well as those whose lives he has touched, his grandson Jason Carter, who is now board chair of The Carter Center -  a nonprofit he set up to focus on conflict resolution, democracy, and health - and Curtis Kohlhaas, the organisation’s director of international philanthropy.

Born in 1924 in Plains Georgia, James Earl Carter Jr. served in the US Navy before his opposition to racial segregation took him into politics. He was governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975 and in 1976 became the 39th president of the United States.

One of the last remaining members of his generation of leaders, President Carter displayed a unique ability to relate to ordinary people – something credited to his own humble upbringing as the son of a peanut farmer. Yet, he was also able to leverage his high-level connections to work on issues neglected by the majority and bring them into the mainstream.

In addition to their work with The Carter Center, President Carter and his wife Rosalyn have also been long-time supporters of housing charity, Habitat for Humanity. And, until very recently, despite both being quite frail, spent several days a year volunteering and over the years personally helped to build and renovate thousands of homes.

One of President Carter’s least well-known areas of work, yet possibly his most impactful, relates to Guinea worm, a waterborne parasite, which causes untold suffering its hosts.

In the 1980s, when the Carter Center began its programme to tackle the disease, there were believed to be more than 3.5million cases worldwide.

As of last year, the global caseload stood at just 13 - in five countries (Angola, Chad, Ethiopia, Mali and South Sudan) – which is equivalent to a 99.99 percent decrease and Guinea worm is now on course to become only the second human disease - after smallpox - to be eradicated.

The Just 13 poem about Guinea worm featured in the podcast was written and performed by Waleed Gubara. 

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

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Climate change, food security, funding collaboratives, and design for development. These are just some of the topics we’ll be discussing in Season Four of The Impact Room.

Join Maysa Jalbout in conversation with a diverse line-up of global philanthropists, development leaders, industry experts, and frontline organisations as they share insights and inspiration.

With the UAE due to host COP28 at the end of the year, we’ll be applying a climate lens to several of our episodes, looking at the role for philanthropy in helping to improve water and food security, and delivering equitable energy transitions and climate justice.

We’ll also be digging into funding collaboratives: what they are, and the pros and cons associated with group giving.  And finally, we’ll be looking at how design can influence development and why how we build things changes the way we interact with our surroundings. 

Subscribe now, so you don’t miss an episode. 

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

We'd love your feedback. Let us know what you thought about this episode.

We were due to kick off Season Four with a series of interviews about climate philanthropy, ahead of the UAE hosting COP28, but we felt we could not ignore the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza. 

In solidarity with the people of Palestine, we have recorded some special episodes about the impact this latest war is having on innocent people. 

We want to both highlight the current emergency, and also explore what role philanthropy can - and should - be playing to help those in need.

At the time of recording this interview with PCRF founder, Steve Sosebee, on November 14th, more than 11,000 Palestinians had been killed by the Israeli bombardment, which began on October 7th, in retaliation to Hamas’s attack on Israel.  Of those, more than 4,500 were children.

Since the partial opening of the Rafah border crossing from Egypt on October 21st, some emergency relief has trickled into Gaza. But it is in no way near enough to support a population that has long been dependent on aid after two decades of an Israeli blockade.

Days after this recording was made, Gaza’s health system collapsed and officials stopped counting deaths and casualties.

In this moving interview Steve Sosebee, the founder and president of the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF), is unequivocal in his assessment of the impact the Israeli bombardment is having on Gaza’s children.

“The trauma and the violence that's been imposed on the children of Gaza is going to leave a lasting psychological scar,” he tells host  Maysa Jalbout. “This is not post-traumatic stress; this is ongoing and continuous.”

Sosebee set up the PCRF in 1991, after meeting a young Palestinian who’d lost both his legs and a hand in an Israeli bomb blast in Hebron.  Moved by the boy’s plight, Steve, who at the time was working in Palestine as a freelance journalist,  fundraised for Mansour to be flown to the United States for treatment.

Three decades later, the PCRF is a multinational NGO with chapters in 25 countries. It has raised more than 100 million dollars to pay for 2,000 children to travel overseas for medical treatment, and organised some 800 medical missions to operate on tens of thousands of youngsters in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, and Jordan.

Until October 7th, the PCRF was running Gaza’s only paediatric cancer unit, which it had opened in 2019 after a four-year fundraising campaign. Like nearly all healthcare facilities in Gaza, this is no longer operational, and several of the young people that PCRF had previously flown overseas for treatment have been killed by airstrikes.

Asked about the role for philanthropy in responding to the needs of Gaza’s children, Sosebee says: “It’s the responsibility of foundations not to turn a blind eye because of the politics or because it is a controversial issue, with air quotes.” And he adds that all donors, foundations, development organisations, and aid agencies had a “moral and ethical responsibility” to support those affected by the violence.

“Everything to do with Palestine and Gaza is political: water's political, food's political, education is political, health care is political… And as a result, it's easy for donors to turn away and say, this is too risky for us. But I think that's the easy way out."

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

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Wanjira Mathai is the managing director of the World Resources Institute (WRI), the chief Africa adviser to the Bezos Earth Fund and the former chair of the Green Belt Movement in her native Kenya. 

Speaking to Maysa Jalbout on The Impact Room ahead of COP28, Mathai, describes the moment we’re in as “the decisive decade” and warns that “the science is getting shaper”, “the challenge is deep”, and “we have a lot of work to do”.

Mathai, who was named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2023, says she hopes that COP28 in the UAE will be “dominated by a spirit of action and implementation”. And she calls for “a consensus” on operationalising the loss and damage fund as well as further commitments to double finance for climate adaptation.

Nairobi-based Wajira Mathai is an leading voice in AFR 100, the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative, which aims to restore 100 million hectares on the continent by 2030. 

WRI, through its Restore Local Initiative, recently received US$100m from the Audacious Project to accelerate locally led land restoration in Lake Kivu and the Congo River Basin in the DRC, in the Cocoa Belt of Ghana, and in Kenya’s Rift Valley. This was in addition to US$50m already committed by the Bezos Earth Fund.

The fact that this funding is committed over multiple years and comes from a group of donors is as important as its value, Mathai says, as it creates an important proof of concept for pooled funding for climate adaptation and restoration projects in the Global South.

“Restoration in Africa remains one of the greatest opportunities for building climate resilience,” she explains. “We know that if landscapes are restored, a lot happens. You have increased food productivity because soils are improved… Landscapes regenerate and restore pretty quickly. All things considered. So in two to three decades, you can have a complete transformation of landscapes and livelihoods.”

In September 2023, Africa hosted its first climate summit in Kenya. Mathai sees this as a significant milestone in the continent’s role when it comes to fighting climate change. “We are part of the climate solution,” she says. 

“We're not part of the problem… We have a lot going for us. We have the fastest growing workforce in the world, an abundance of critical minerals and an abundance of renewable energy, which could come together and catalyse not only economic transformation for Africa, but also become part of the renewable energy revolution.”

For all the challenges facing the climate, Mathai says she remains optimistic about the future. “I am optimistic, mainly because the alternative is unacceptable,” she tells Maysa, noting that she’s inspired by revolutions in electric vehicles and solar, and in the growing youth and local leadership movements. 

“I'm inspired by so many signals around that remind you that exponential change is possible,” she says. “We have so much more democratic space. We have so many more tools. We have so many more of us. We have to be optimistic.”

Read the World Resources Institute's 2023 State of Climate Action report here.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

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Close to 800 million people were classed as food insecure in 2022 due to a mix of conflict, rises to cost of living, Covid-19, and climate change, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

As needs rise and budgets shrink, aid agencies are unable to keep up with demand and shrinking budgets are leading to ration cuts resulting in yet more hunger, malnutrition, poverty, and insecurity.

In this episode of The Impact Room, recorded ahead of the UAE hosting COP28, we shine a spotlight on the global food crisis, looking at the ways climate change has exacerbated hunger, and examine the role for philanthropy to support systemic-level solutions.

Catherine Bertini, who served as executive director of the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) for 10 years, shares shocking statistics about the grim scale of the global hunger problem and what it means for individuals and communities.

“The combination of increased numbers of many people who continue to live in long term war or civil strife situations and the lack of assistance make this a very dire year indeed,” she tells our host, Maysa Jalbout.

But Bertini, who was named the 2003 World Food Prize Laureate, and is now working with the Rockefeller Foundation on a food-focused initiative, is hopeful that COP28 will lead to new action around the links between agriculture and climate. 

“Last year was the first time that a COP acknowledged that agriculture should be discussed and considered in the context of climate change, and this year the UAE is putting that front and centre… so I am hopeful there will be permanent acknowledgement that agriculture and the environment and climate are intricately and forever connected.”

Dr Alok Ranjan, director of programmes and investments at the Power of Nutrition, a philanthropy and government-backed funding collaborative targeting malnutrition, meanwhile, outlined how well – or otherwise - children eat in their first 1,000 days can determine their future life trajectory.

“Almost 80 to 90 percent of brain development happens during the first thousand days of life, that’s the golden window of opportunity that we have,” he explains. “Good nutrition has a major impact on not just health but also education outcomes… one of my favourite quotes is ‘two is equal to 17’ because making impact on this SDG2 would have an impact on all the 17 SDGs,” he tells Maysa.

Finally, Dr. Guyo Roba, the director of the Jameel Observatory for Food Security Early Action in Kenya, (JOFESA), a philanthropy-backed initiative using data to mitigate climate talks and agricultural systems, meanwhile, called for ‘better action for the future of food”.

“We need to invest in early warning preparedness and response much better,” he says. “We need to also align our financing because the biggest missing thing is that early warning is there, prediction is very clear, timely, but then there's no financing to support people at the first shock.”

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

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The Rockefeller Foundation is one of the world’s oldest and largest philanthropies. It was launched in 1910 with funds from oil, but in 2020, unveiled a plan to divest its US$5bn endowment from existing fossil fuel interests and refrain from future investments in the sector. 

The foundation has also committed to invest US$1bn of programme resources into collaborations and partnerships in the areas of energy, food, health and financial systems.

This is with the aim of creating the changes possible to keep 1.5 degrees alive as a global temperature target, and protect three billion people on Earth, who live in countries vulnerable to future climate transitions.

To talk about The Rockefeller Foundation’s climate strategy, and so-called Big Bets philanthropy, , its president Dr Rajiv Shah,  joined Maysa in the The Impact Room shortly before the UAE hosted COP28.

Optimistic that we have the science and know-how to curb climate change, Dr Raj admits a lot still comes down to financing. “I hope to see absolute serious financing solutions being provided to emerging and developing economies to allow them to access the renewable energy technology frontier that is so defining the global transition in terms of climate and wealthy economies,” he says.

And he adds: “In an age of abundance, we don't need to have nearly a billion people living in energy poverty, 800 million people hungry every night, and girls still experiencing deep vulnerability and discrimination around the planet.”

Collaboration is a recurring theme in the interview and Dr Raj says Global North investors needed to “drive more capital into emerging economies and developing economies to ensure everyone benefits from an accelerated climate transition.”

Dr Raj joined the Rockefeller Foundation in 2015 after six years at the helm of the US foreign aid agency, USAID, leading it during the response to the Haiti earthquake and the West African Ebola pandemic.

The founder of Latitude Capital, a private equity firm focused on power and infrastructure projects in Africa and Asia, he has also worked at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he created the International Financing Facility for Immunisation, and he has served as a Distinguished Fellow in Residence at Georgetown University in Washington DC.

Dr Raj's book, Big Bets: How Large-Scale Change Really Happens, is designed to inspire nonprofit leaders re-imagine how they approach social impact.

About the host

Maysa Jalbout is a leader in international development and philanthropy. Her previous roles include founding CEO of the Abdulla Al Ghurair Foundation for Education, a $1bn philanthropic initiative based in Dubai, and founding CEO of the Queen Rania Foundation. Maysa is a visiting scholar at MIT and ASU, and a non-resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Find her on Twitter @MaysaJalbout.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

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Water scarcity is a growing problem around the world, especially in the Middle East, but climate change is only half the story.

In this episode of The Impact Room, we look at the social, economic, and geopolitical importance of water.  We explore how its co-option, commodification, and unequal  distribution is creating shortages affecting health and livelihoods and fuelling local and regional conflicts.

Join host Maysa Jalbout in conversation with:

• Professor Mark Zeitoun, the director general of the Geneva Water Hub and Professor of Water Diplomacy at the Graduate Institute of Geneva;
• Dr Danilo Turk, the former president of Slovenia, a candidate for UN secretary general in 2016, and a former chair of the Global High-Level Panel on Water; 
• Dr Muna Dajani, a fellow at the Geography and Environment Department at LSE, and an expert on community struggles around rights to water and land resources in settler colonial contexts including Palestine and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.

They discuss the gaps in global and regional water management, unpack what it means for water to be weaponised (as is the case  in the besieged Gaza Strip) and make the case for more philanthropic support for frontline community organisations.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

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Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah is no stranger to conflict zones, having  spent decades volunteering for medical charities in Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. But the plastic and reconstructive surgeon says his latest experience in Gaza has no parallel. 

The scale of the current suffering in Gaza, “the intensity, the ferocity, the viciousness, and the deliberate targeting of the hospitals”, he says, was like "a tsunami”.

Dr Abu-Sittah travelled to Gaza days after Israel began its bombardment in response to the October 7 attack by Hamas. He remained in the besieged enclave for 43 days, working mainly in northern Gaza as a volunteer for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

He was at Al-Ahli Hospital during the massacre on October 17, 2023, and was among the physicians who spoke to news media, surrounded by blood-stained bodies, in the attack’s immediate aftermath. He later gave evidence to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague about what he saw.

In this moving interview with Maysa Jalbout, Dr Abu-Sittah shares his experiences of working in Gaza and what it was like knowing his wife and children were watching him caught up in the attacks in real time on social media.

Since returning home to the UK, he has announced plans to set up The Ghassan Abu Sittah Children’s Fund to pay for injured Palestinians to receive medical and rehabilitation treatment in Lebanon.

Children have borne the brunt of this latest chapter of conflict in Palestine. Before October 7, there were nearly 200 war-related amputations among young people in Gaza as well as some 2,000 adults living with amputations from earlier conflicts. Dr Abu Sittah says there could now be as many as 5,000 child amputees, with many losing limbs due to an inability to treat what would ordinarily be very salvageable injuries.

Children with amputations need new prosthetics every six to eight months as they grow and could require as many as 12 surgeries before they reach adulthood, he explained. In addition to the physical impact of their injuries, their mental health needs are also “life altering”. 

Dr Abu-Sittah was born in Kuwait after his parents were forced from their homes in Palestine in 1948 and became refugees in Gaza. He studied medicine at the University of Glasgow and after completing his Specialist Registrar training in London, he went on to do fellowships  in Paediatric Craniofacial Surgery and  Cleft Surgery at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Kids and then a fellowship in Trauma Reconstruction at the Royal London Hospital. In 2010 he was awarded Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons (Plastic Surgery).  

Dr Abu-Sittah has served as an associate professor and head of the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Aesthetic Surgery at the American University of Beirut (AUB) Medical Center,  in 2015, became a founding director of the Conflict Medicine Program at AUB’s Global Health Institute, and in March was named Rector of the University of Glasgow.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

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With all 12 of Gaza’s higher education institutions destroyed by Israeli bombs, what next for students, faculty, and the future of Palestinian learning?

In this episode of The Impact Room, host Maysa Jalbout, explores the impact of  the war on higher education in Gaza, on both students and teaching staff, as well as the institutions themselves.

We feature interviews with academics trying to keep university teaching going, against all the odds, hear personal stories about life under bombardment, and offer practical ways everyone can help counter the educide.

This episode was recorded on Thursday June 27 – day 265 of the conflict.  If you haven’t already, make sure you listen to our earlier interviews with Palestinian medic Dr Ghassen Abu Sittah, and PCRF founder, Steve Sosebee.

Education is central to Palestinian identity and has been an active form of resilience for a people who have for generations had their homes, rights, and livelihoods stolen. It is well known that despite all the challenges of living under occupation, literacy rates in Gaza are among the highest in the world.

In a bid to keep people learning, An Najah National University in the West Bank, in partnership with UNIMED, the Mediterranean Universities Union, and the Palestinian Student Scholarship Fund (PSSF), is spearheading an initiative to share technology and resources to create an e-learning scheme for students in Gaza.

The main aim, explains Dr Saida Affouneh, An Najah's dean of the Faculty of Education, is to keep students and lectures in Gaza to protect the long-term health of institutions and stem the brain drain out of Palestine.

Dr Ihab Nasr, the Dean of Applied Medical Sciences at Al Alzhar University, is one of many academics who has chosen to leave Gaza. He spoke to The Impact Room from Edmonton, Canada, where he has moved to begin a new life with his wife and five children. Dr Nasr is currently teaching nutrition modules via Birzeit University in the West Bank as part of the Rebuilding Hope initiative. 

Also working to support students in Gaza is Professor Mahmoud Loubani, a UK-based cardiothoracic surgeon and chair of PalMed Academy, a branch of PalMed Europe, which promotes better healthcare for Palestinians at home and overseas. 

In March this year, PalMed Academy launched the Gaza Educate Medics (GEM) initiative to establish a virtual medical college, leveraging the expertise of volunteering academics and consultants worldwide to educate Gaza’s medical students. 

Brian Cox was reading “If I must die”, the last poem written by Palestinan academic Refaat Alareer.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

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The Impact Room is a new space to connect people and ideas that make a real difference to our world. Step inside to hear stories of success and failure from a host of global guests, all working to solve some of the world’s most intractable development challenges. 

From youth unemployment and internet freedom, to modern slavery,  neglected tropical diseases and much more, the Impact Room is a new space to connect people and ideas that make a real difference to our world. 

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. For more information or to get in touch, find us at @PhilanthropyAge.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

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Ellen Agler is CEO of the END Fund, a philanthropy-backed initiative working to bring an end to the five most common neglected tropical diseases. She joins the Impact Room to talk progress, pooled giving, and the decolonisation of global health. 

Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) affect more than 1.7 billion of the world’s poorest people, blighting communities from Africa to the Americas. These diseases blind, maim and disfigure their victims, keeping children out of school, adults out of work, and trapping families in poverty. Yet most are preventable or treatable.

Founded in 2012, the END Fund is a philanthropic initiative dedicated to ending five of the most common NTDs. A pooled fund, it invests money in support of treatment and surgeries, as well as to train health workers, educate communities and fast-track progress towards disease elimination goals.

Ellen Agler is the END fund's founding CEO. She's a TED speaker, a published author, and she serves on the World Economic Forum's Global Health Security Advisory Board. In 2019. Ellen was named by Fortune magazine as one of the world's 50 greatest leaders.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Ellen looks back at a decade of the END Fund’s work, and opens up about the challenge of last-mile disease elimination, the value of pooled giving, and activist philanthropy.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media at @PhilanthropyAge. 

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

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Unemployment is a global crisis. From Saudi Arabia to South America, joblessness has been described as a ticking time bomb and, in many regions, has been a trigger for civil unrest. 

In this episode of The Impact Room, we are joined by two women who are at the vanguard of finding new solutions to this complex problem.

Mona Mourshed is the founding CEO of Generation: You Employed, a global organisation dedicated to solving joblessness by creating pathways from education to employment.

Maryana Iskander is the CEO of Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator, a South African-based social enterprise tackling the barriers that lock young Africans out of work, with a goal of region-wide systems change.

In this episode, Mona and Maryana talk unemployment models and why they fail, chasing systems change over scale, and why donors need to listen more and demand less. 

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media at @PhilanthropyAge. 

Disclosure: Maysa is a board member of Generation: You Employed.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

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Hear from Ryan Sturgill, the former director of Gaza Sky Geeks, on the realities of running a tech hub in an occupied territory and the power of learning not to take 'no' for an answer.

Palestine is a country too often associated with conflict. Home to the world’s longest-running occupation, headlines from the region tell a story of poverty, unemployment and violence. But one organisation wants to change the narrative. 

Gaza Sky Geeks is a startup incubator and accelerator that also houses Palestine's first full stack coding academy. Founded in 2011 by Mercy Corps, with seed funding from Google, Gaza Sky Geeks hopes to seed a digital economy that can sidestep trade and border restrictions and unlock new opportunities for Gazan youth.

Ryan Sturgill joined Gaza Sky Geeks as director in 2015, before leaving in May 2021. In this episode, he looks back over six years of running a tech startup in an occupied territory, sharing the lessons he's learned, the power of Palestinian hustle, and the challenges that lie ahead for his successor.

For more on Gaza Sky Geeks visit their website, or follow them at @GazaSkyGeeks.

Note: this interview was recorded in April 2021, before the conflict in June which killed more than 250 people in Gaza and over a dozen in Israel, and destroyed thousands of homes.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media at @PhilanthropyAge. 

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

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Philanthropy-backed competitions involve big money, but do they also deliver results? 

From the Nobels to the Pulitzer, prizes have long been used as a means to recognise extraordinary achievement - and the nonprofit sector is no exception. Today, thanks to a leap in philanthropy-backed competitions, large cheques are being written for the world's best teacher, the boldest refugee response, and ideas to solve the climate crisis, among others.

But as more donors commit dollars towards prizes - and more nonprofits allocate time to competing for them – is it time to ask whether competitions really are an effective way to fund change? 

Is prize philanthropy supporting scale and innovation or simply creating headlines? And – most importantly - is the money really reaching those on the frontline of global challenges, or just reinforcing the status quo?

To discuss these questions and more, we invited representatives from two of the world’s best-known prize philanthropy initiatives to join us in the Impact Room.

Cecilia Conrad is the CEO of Lever for Change, which creates bespoke prize competitions designed to match philanthropic capital to causes. She is also managing director at the MacArthur Foundation, the organisation behind the 100&Change initiative that hands out $100m each year to a single proposal. 

Edward Ma is secretary-general of the Hong Kong-based Yidan Prize Foundation, the world’s largest education prize fund. The Yidan Prize, which awards $4m annually, was launched in 2016 by the co-founder of Chinese tech firm Tencent, Dr Charles Chen Yidan.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media at @PhilanthropyAge.

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The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

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Lisa Seitz Gruwell, chief advancement officer at the Wikimedia Foundation, talks knowledge sharing, fake news, and why Wikipedia has a bias problem.

It’s the world’s go-to site for information. Founded in 2001 with the aim of creating a free online encyclopedia, Wikipedia is today the largest crowdsourced collection of free knowledge in history, with over 55 million articles in hundreds of languages, all written by volunteers. 

But, in an era of fake news and the explosive rise of social media, is Wikipedia’s model at risk? How can it ensure its crowdsourced content is accurate and unbiased? What is Wikipedia doing to ensure its articles reflect all voices and communities, and not just those in the wealthy west?

In this episode of the Impact Room, answering these questions and more, is Lisa Seitz Gruwell. Lisa is chief advancement officer at the Wikimedia Foundation, the US-based nonprofit that is responsible for Wikipedia and its partner sites. She takes us on a deep dive through Wikipedia’s efforts to boost inclusivity and tackle bias, the frontline fight against fake news, and why equitable access to knowledge should be a global concern.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media at @PhilanthropyAge. 

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

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Are global efforts to end exploitation making progress, or are countries and campaigners failing in their fight? Three experts weigh in. 

More than 40 million people around the world today are thought to be enslaved, a shadow economy of coerced labour, sexual exploitation and rights abuses estimated to be generating $150bn in illegal profits a year.

In recent years, there's been a surge in legislative efforts to combat slavery, alongside a rise in philanthropy-funded initiatives lobbying for change.

But are we making progress? Are the new campaigns, funds and stricter laws helping to shrink the scale of global exploitation? And if not, what more needs to be done?

In this episode of the Impact Room, we explore these questions – and more – with three expert guests.

Joel Quirk is a professor of political studies at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, where his research focuses on slavery, human mobility and human rights. Joel also serves as rapporteur to the UNESCO Slave Route Project. 

Nick Grono is CEO of the Freedom Fund, the first private collaborative fund to target the abolition of modern slavery. Founded in 2013 by investment group Legatum, along with partners Walk Free and Humanity United, the Freedom Fund invests in frontline organisations in three continents, helping to eradicate exploitation and advocate for change.

Anannya Bhattacharjee is a leading Indian labour organiser with a long career in advocating for workers’ rights. She is the international coordinator of the Asia Floor Wage Alliance, which campaigns to pay a living wage to garment workers in Asian countries and to secure their right to organise.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media at @PhilanthropyAge.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

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In the politics of migration, refugees are either demonised as intruders or celebrated for their success. But how does this distinction of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ refugees shape public policies and perceptions? And what is the effect on those who are defined by it?
In the media narratives of the west, refugees are most commonly painted as economic interlopers, with calls for ever-harsher immigration policies to keep them out. Yet, more rarely, we also see the glorifying of refugees deemed to have made good.
In this dichotomy, ‘good’ refugees are those that have beaten the odds, excelling in their host nations by becoming surgeons, academics, or even Olympians. Models of integration, they are feted for their success and held up for praise. Pitted against them are the ‘bad’ immigrants, the unworthy and undeserving, who are castigated for taking up jobs and benefits, and for failing to assimilate.
This polarised narrative affects both policies and public opinion towards refugees, impacting directly on the lives and safety of those seeking asylum.
To discuss this, and to share their first-hand experiences, host Maysa Jalbout, herself a former refugee, is joined in The Impact Room by writers and advocates Abdullahi Alim and Zarlasht Halaimzai.
Abdullahi left war-torn Somalia as a child, and after a short spell living undocumented in a neighbouring African country, was granted asylum and later citizenship in Australia. A former young Australian of the Year finalist and recipient of the Queen Elizabeth Young Leaders Award, Abdullahi is today based in Geneva, where he works for the World Economic Forum, overseeing The Davos Lab and the Africa and Middle East Global Shapers community. Zarlasht was born in Soviet-occupied Kabul in 1982, a country she left when she was 11 years old. After four years travelling overland, her family settled in the UK, where she is now a citizen. In 2016, Zarlasht co-founded Refugee Trauma Initiative to provide psychosocial support to asylum seekers and refugees arriving in Greece. In 2018, she was selected as an Obama Foundation fellow.
Sharing their personal experiences of displacement, and the struggle to navigate a new identity, Abdullahi and Zarlasht offer a raw glimpse of a journey taken by millions but understood by few. They discuss the toxicity associated with the ‘good refugee’ label and give practical suggestions for how policymakers and individuals can help influence change.
The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout.  Find us on social media at @PhilanthropyAge.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge