: Strategic developments in New York
World: Reflections by Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher, IASC Principals In-Person Meeting, October 2026 Country: World Source: Inter-Agency Standing Committee Please refer to the attached file. Dear Colleagues, Thank you for a highly productive session in New York last week, including our critical engagement with the main donors to the humanitarian community. As ever, I greatly valued our collective spirit and practical determination. The context remains exceptionally tough. Conflicts are spreading and intensifying, while extreme weather – including driven by El Niño – and other sudden-onset disasters are driving new needs across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. All of this while chokepoints and economic pressures are driving up the cost of living for the people we serve and putting pressure on the countries that so generously donate to humanitarian action. Humanitarian resources are under immense pressure, forcing harder choices about where we respond and who we can reach. Our principled prioritisation of reaching those in greatest need first does not mean we have given up on the growing numbers facing lesser but still severe challenges. Some colleagues also noted cautious positives. 130 countries have now signed the declaration insisting we are protected. The world can predict trends and needs earlier, use technology and data more intelligently, move resources faster, and prevent crises from becoming catastrophes. Thanks to colleagues on the humanitarian frontlines, over 41 million people have received life-saving support in the highest severity areas this year, and over 66 million humanitarian support and protection. We have raised $15 billion for the GHO so far - compared to $10 billion at this point last year. This of course remains woefully short of what is required (and much previous funding was not declared as diligently on the financial tracking systems). Across our own community, after an extraordinarily grim period of cuts and restructuring, I sensed a determination to look forward with renewed energy and confidence. We are well into the implementation phase of the Humanitarian Reset. 55% of people reached are now in areas facing the most severe needs in countries with HNRPs, up from 36% in 2024. Most teams are making strong progress on cluster simplification, and local actors are now represented on 93% of Humanitarian Country Teams and all pooled-fund advisory boards, with women-led organisations represented in 18 of 21. The increase we have long sought to pooled funds is helping us to work more closely together and strengthening teams at country level. We must drive up the proportion of funding gong to local partners – not just talk about it for another two decades. Our work on complementarity shows we are serious about competing less and prioritizing better-placed partners, though as ever we made two things clear: first, that efficiency alone cannot bridge the gap between needs and funding; and second, that when we ask partners to step-up, we support them (especially local partners), including with the resources they need for safety, security and duty of care in the increasingly dangerous places we work. With donors, we made a robust case for a corresponding Donor Reset. This should include more flexible and predictable multiyear funding, simpler and more harmonized reporting requirements, backing for the humanitarian community’s prioritised plans (especially underfunded crises), and support for complementarity and for the common services and enablers on which the whole system depends. We heard strong support for the IASC’s Humanitarian Reset, especially for the push to ensure more power and resource closer to communities, especially women and girls. We agreed practical follow up, including on the next phase of complementarity (ensuring the better placed partner delivers and others step back); a stronger approach on transitions and the interface between humanitarian action and human rights; and a common approach on data. We identified ways to work together more effectively on two areas where coordination remains particularly weak - resource mobilisation and advocacy. We will start to map the contours of where the Humanitarian Reset needs to get, and develop practical ideas on how to bring radical transparency to all corners of the sector, so that the communities we serve are genuinely prioritised, always. We will also continue to work together on the humanitarian diplomacy needed to access those currently beyond reach. I have been pressing for action on ten concrete access asks that could help us reach 11 million people. Our discussions on Ebola in eastern DRC, Ethiopia, and Yemen reinforced the importance of backing country teams with collective action. We also heard urgent concerns from Myanmar. Political leaders have a responsibility to end conflicts, protect civilians, and uphold international law - key themes for our ongoing discussions with member states and UNSG candidates. As ever, I appealed for the innovation and courage needed to adapt to rapid changes around us - defending the best of what we do while bringing moral imagination to future-proofing our work. The measure of all of this is not institutional change for its own sake. It is whether, together, we can save more lives, reduce suffering, and preserve human dignity in a world that urgently needs us to succeed. This work is too important for us not to challenge one another and hold ourselves accountable for results. Thank you again for your leadership. All best, Tom Tom Fletcher Chair of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator
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