In this episode of Trumanitarian, host Lars Peter Nissen speaks with Sophie Tolstrup, Head of Policy and Climate at Ground Truth Solutions (GTS), about their 2025 report, Whose Priorities Count?. The conversation explores the disconnect between the formal humanitarian system and the communities it serves, the rise of mutual aid, and the urgent need to reimagine aid in a "messier" world.
Key Takeaways
Doing "Less of the Same":As funding is slashed and conflicts intensify, the humanitarian system is often doing "less of the same" rather than adapting. This has increased the gap between what the system provides and what communities actually value, such as long-term self-reliance.
The Danger of Prioritization Without Listening:Decisions made in "faraway rooms" often lead to egregious misalignments. In one instance in the Central African Republic, a community chased away an NGO that built unwanted latrines instead of refurbishing requested school rooms.
A Shift Toward Mutual Aid:As formal aid contracts, community-led initiatives—such as neighbor-to-neighbor sharing, faith networks, and diaspora support—are stepping up. These networks are often seen as more relevant and emotionally resonant than international aid.
Redefining Risk:There is a growing movement toward hyper-local funding. To move past the current "stalemate" on risk, GTS advocates for evidencing how local funding can be significantly more effective and sustainable than traditional top-down models.
Breaking the Humanitarian "Bubble":In a world facing linked crises like climate change and out-of-control conflict, humanitarians can no longer afford to stay "in their lane". They must engage with the political realities and rights-based concerns that communities prioritize.
Case Studies & Examples
Sudan:Despite negative perceptions of formal aid fairness (75% negative), the country features a powerful network of Emergency Response Rooms (ERRs) that use hyper-local cash transfers to adapt quickly to community needs.
Chad:A positive outlier where communities feel respected and able to provide feedback, though they remain concerned that aid is not sufficiently supporting their long-term self-reliance.
Somalia:Communities are using sophisticated internal safety nets to navigate the drought, though acute, long-term crises are putting even these local strategies under immense strain.
Northeast Nigeria:Examples of community-led security patrols that allow farmers to work their fields safely.
Guest Bio
Sophie Tolstrup is the Head of Policy and Climate at Ground Truth Solutions. With a background in climate and 15 years of experience in the sector, she leads efforts to ensure the views of crisis-affected people shape the decisions of the humanitarian system.
Resources Mentioned
Ground Truth Solutions Report (2025):Whose Priorities Count?
Community Representative: We told this NGO that we needed education. We told this NGO we needed school rooms refurbished and we needed a place to educate our kids. They brought the latrines anyway, and we were so angry about that that we chased them out of the village.
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Lars Peter Nissen: Sophie Tolstrup, welcome to Trumanitarian.
The second key message for me is that human beings all over the world, everywhere we are, care deeply about our futures and we want to build stable lives which aren't dependent on support. No one wants to receive humanitarian aid over the long term. And as humanitarian aid retreats from resilience, livelihoods, education—all the stuff it's saying it can no longer do—just as development aid shrinks, just as climate finance is moving out of more fragile contexts, this gap around supporting people's self-reliance and their resilience and their livelihoods is growing, and that's really, really concerning for us. Just a couple of country examples there, I think. You know, we heard loud and clear from communities across Somalia how fragile they feel their livelihoods are and how they worry that in the next five years their livelihoods, and particularly around fishing and farming, are just no longer going to be viable without government support. And that's a huge, huge problem for people. In Chad, we heard people say, "You know what? Food, water, there are problems, but they're problems we can take care of. What we really, really want from you is investments in infrastructure, investments in climate adaptation, investments in farming." So, people are thinking about their futures, they're thinking about self-reliance, and the more we shrink back to a kind of narrow livelihoods package of support, the bigger that gap becomes.
The third piece, and one that we've talked about a little already, is how the formal humanitarian system has always just been a tiny piece of the puzzle for what's going on for communities in crisis. Community-led action, neighbor-to-neighbor sharing, mutual aid, faith networks, diaspora networks, the private sector has always, always far outweighed what humanitarian response can do. And as the formal humanitarian sector shrinks back, we have to get more humble and we have to get more serious about engaging better with the broader ecosystem. We have to take our lead from communities in terms of what they are already doing and what we can therefore support, and we have to recognize what is beyond the system.
And then the fourth point we've also touched on a little bit, but as the world gets nastier, as the world gets messier, and as crises get more complicated, we can no longer stay in a safe little humanitarian bubble. You know, people talk to us all the time about how the first thing they want from the international community is to end conflict, to stand up for their rights, to help them adapt to the climate crisis which is ripping through their communities, destroying their livelihoods. And we absolutely don't have the luxury of planning, of thinking, of proceeding ethically as if none of that is our problem and we don't have any influence over it. So, I think those are the four big messages that I take away.
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But what feels distinctive about this year of data and insights from communities is the extent to which mutual aid and community-led aid is shifting and stretching as the formal aid system contracts. And I certainly wasn't expecting that to jump out so clearly so soon after the aid cuts. But again and again, when we talk to civil society actors across countries, they talk about how mutual aid networks, community-led initiatives are really stepping up, really organizing, really connecting together, how communities are looking to different sources of support. So, you know, the humanitarian system failed them once during COVID, it failed them again during cuts, and now people are getting serious about looking to other sources of support, be that diaspora networks, faith networks, the private sector, and are just working in different ways. And then I guess a kind of layer of organization up from that we hear in Sudan, in DRC, in Somalia, how those community-led initiatives are sort of connecting and coordinating in more sophisticated ways.
So, just back to this narrow window. I think I see a narrow window for two reasons. So, one is positive: we have this kind of once-in-a-lifetime window of opportunity because the UN-led humanitarian system is having to change. It's in this rare period of flux and reimagination. I don't think the UN-led system has been super open to new ideas so far in the process, but I think as the dust settles it will be in the market for thinking about creative ways of working differently. So, this is the moment. This more than any other moment I've lived through, this is the moment when that system can change. And then on the slightly darker side, I think we've got a narrowing window because things are getting worse. So, I think as conflicts continue to spiral out of control without any end, as the climate crisis gains pace, we have this narrow window to be creative before we're in constant, constant crisis response mode and before that creative window closes. So, the time for that creativity is now or never.
