Value proposition

Journalism from the heart of crises

The New Humanitarian was founded by the United Nations in 1995, in the wake of the Rwandan genocide, out of the conviction that objective on-the-ground reporting of humanitarian crises could help mitigate or even prevent future disasters of that magnitude.

Almost twenty years later, we became an independent non-profit news organisation, allowing us to cast a more critical eye over the multi-billion-dollar emergency aid industry and draw attention to its failures at a time of unprecedented humanitarian need. As digital disinformation went global, and mainstream media retreated from many international crisis zones, our field-based, high-quality journalism filled even more of a gap. Today, we are one of only a handful of newsrooms world-wide specialized in covering crises and disasters – and in holding the aid industry accountable.

In 2019, we changed our name to The New Humanitarian to signal our move from UN project to independent newsroom and our role chronicling the changing nature of – and response to – humanitarian crises.

Throughout our journey, we have remained true to our mission to inform crisis prevention and response by amplifying the voices of those most affected; shining a light on forgotten crises; and resisting superficial, sensational narratives about the crises of our time.