Rethinking Social Policy and Aid in Times of Human-led Institutional Collapse

While the global aid system faces mounting crises—its rules, categories, and institutions increasingly out of step with reality—this webinar focuses on a more specific and urgent challenge: the collapse of entire welfare systems due to human-made actions, as seen in places like Gaza and Sudan.

In these contexts, it is not nature but warfare, occupation, and political dismantling that have imploded institutions—from healthcare and schools to neighborhoods and families. These human-led collapses raise stark questions: How can social policy, humanitarian relief, and welfare function in the total absence of functioning institutions?

This crisis unfolds within a broader landscape where the traditional “chessboard” of aid—its assumptions, structures, and flows—has broken down. But rather than focus on the aid system itself, this webinar brings together three leading voices to explore what can be rebuilt amid human-engineered ruin, and how solidarity and care can be reimagined from the ground up.

Participants

Tamer Qarmout

Dr. Tamer is an Associate Professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, with a Ph.D. in Public Policy from the Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of Saskatchewan. His research focuses on public administration in conflict-affected and fragile contexts, particularly in places like Palestine and Sudan. One of his most notable contributions is his 2017 book, Delivering Aid Without Government: International Aid and Civil Society Engagement in the Recovery and Reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.

Sofía Sprechmann Sineiro

Sofía is a Uruguayan sociologist and coordinator of the Latin American Forum on Decolonizing Aid for Acapacá. Secretary General of CARE International until October 2024, she has extensive global experience in humanitarian work across the Global South. A leader in aid reform. As part of her efforts to steer the international aid sector towards decolonizing its practices, she co-founded the Pledge for Change, and has served on the Inter-Agency Standing Committee. In 2023, she was named Humanitarian Hero of the Year Award. 

Oliver Walton is a Reader in International Development at the University of Bath specializing in the political economy of war-to-peace transitions, NGO politics, aid policy, conflict, and peacebuilding.  His research focuses on the political economy of war to peace transitions, civil society, NGOs and NGO legitimacy. Recent work examines the relationship between social policy, welfare and conflict in the MENA region.

Moderator

Juliana Martínez Franzoni is a Full Professor at the University of Costa Rica and a Georg Forster Research Awardee of the Humboldt Foundation, which honors outstanding research careers in the Global South. Her scholarship offers a comprehensive perspective on welfare regimes in Latin America and the global South. She is co-editor of the feminist journal Social Politics and chairs the Research Committee on Poverty, Social Welfare and Social Policy of the International Sociological Association.