Agenda - 2026

Please note: The agenda may be subject to change as programme details are finalised.

08:00 – 09:00 | Registration Opens

09:00 – 09:05 | Opening Remarks

Simon Meldrum

Executive Director

HFF

Nicholas Rutherford

Managing Director

AidEx

09:05 – 09:30 | Presentation: 2025 Global Humanitarian Assistance Report: Challenges & opportunities for humanitarian financing

The Summit opens with a data-driven presentation of the 2025 Global Humanitarian Assistance Report, which paints a sobering picture of the sector’s financial health. Amid unprecedented funding shortfalls, shrinking donor commitments, and rising needs, the report underscores the urgent need to rethink how we fund and govern humanitarian action. The report also highlights the growing role of non-traditional donors and emerging trends in anticipatory financing.

Mike Pearson

Research Fellow, Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG); Global Humanitarian Assistance Lead, ALNAP

09:30 – 09:50 | In Conversation: Sir Andrew Mitchell, Former UK Minister for International Development, Ministry for International Development

Rt Hon Andrew Mitchell MP

Former UK Minister for International Development

Ministry for International Development

09:50 - 11:10 | Opening Plenary: From liquidity crunch to financial transformation - Donor leadership in unlocking new capital

Today’s liquidity pressures are exposing deeper structural weaknesses in humanitarian finance. The system still relies heavily on fragmented grants, reactive appeals, and a narrow donor base. Yet Public donors hold the mandate and capability to shift this trajectory. Building on the Forum’s note The Role of Governments in Unlocking Private Capital, this plenary considers how public finance can be deployed more strategically to crowd in private capital, improve risk management, and strengthen national responders while setting the policy conditions for more predictable and scalable crisis funding. With innovations already emerging from pooled and country systems, anticipatory action, and blended capital facilities, there is a clear path towards a more resilient and investable humanitarian architecture. This session brings together government, humanitarian, and local leaders to explore practical steps donors can take now to stabilise liquidity and unlock new financial partnerships that drive better outcomes at scale.

This opening plenary brings together leaders from finance, policy, and humanitarian response to explore a central question: How can we address the liquidity crisis of today while building the financing system we need for tomorrow?

Béatrice Butsana-Sita

CEO

British Red Cross

Jakob Wernerman

Assistant Director General, Head of Department for Humanitarian Operations

SIDA

Rurik Marsden

Deputy Director

FCDO

Nadine Saba

Co-Founder and Director

Akkar Network for Development

Sayyeda Salam

Executive Director

Concern Worldwide UK

11:10 - 11:25 | Coffee Break

Churchill Room

11:25 – 12:45 | Panel: Beyond traditional aid – New financing partnerships and leaders for humanitarian action

As traditional aid structures face increasing strain, the humanitarian system must rethink who leads, who funds, and how responsibility for crisis response is shared. This session brings together the emerging donors, philanthropies, and innovative financing actors reshaping the future of humanitarian action. These non-traditional partners are filling a critical gap left by overstretched aid budgets and introducing new forms of capital, stronger regional and local ownership, and fresh perspective drawn from climate finance, blended finance, and private sector engagement.

Gielgud Room

11:25 – 12:45 | Discussion: Developing partnerships with financial institutions – What would it take to mobilise $10 billion in humanitarian impact capital by 2030?

This breakout session brings together industry leaders from across capital markets, the humanitarian, asset management, and impact investment worlds to explore what it would take to mobilise $10 billion in humanitarian innovative finance by 2030. The discussion will address the practical pathways for scaling investments, what it takes to build investor confidence and incentivise private capital, and the reforms needed to build an investable humanitarian finance ecosystem.

Jack Nichols

Senior Legal Counsel and Board Advisor

GAVI & IFFIm

Emma Gremley

Senior Director Education, Economic Recovery & Development

International Rescue Committee (IRC)

Shaheen Verjee

Director of Development and Strategic Partnerships

Women's World Banking

Samuel Williams

Head of Fund

Christian Aid Resilient Futures Fund

Martin Diaz Plata

Head of Private Equity Investments

BlueOrchard

Barri Shorey

Senior Programme Officer, Refugees, Disasters and Aviation

Conrad N. Hilton Foundation

Gloria Soma

Executive Director

Titi Foundation

Vanina Farber

elea Professor for Social Innovation

Institute for Management Development (IMD)

Wanji Ng'ang'a

Associate Director of Investing

Acumen

Lance Bartholomeusz

General Counsel

UNHCR

12:45 – 13:45 | Networking Lunch

Churchill Room

13:45 – 15:05 | Panel: Aligning risk financing and anticipatory action

As anticipatory action has gained significant traction within the humanitarian sector in recent years, demonstrating that acting before crises peak can save more lives, protect livelihoods, and reduce costs. To scale anticipatory action, the sector must move decisively from ex post disaster response to ex ante risk management – embedding early action within integrated disaster risk financing systems. This means linking forecast-based triggers to pre-arranged funding, combining instruments such as contingency funds, insurance, and crisis bonds to ensure resources flow when and where they are most needed. This session explores how humanitarian, development, and finance actors can work together to create systems that align risk financing that are faster, more predictable, and capable of addressing today’s escalating climate and conflict risks.

Amir Sethu

Head of Sustainability and ESG

MS Amlin

Andrea Camargo

Inclusive Risk Financing Lead

World Food Programme

Ben Webster

Associate Director - Advisory, Training & Engagement

Centre for Disaster Protection

Christina Bennett

CEO

START Network

Emma Karhan

Head of Private Public Partnerships

Aon

Gielgud Room

13:45 – 14:20 | Case Study: Acumen: Omia Agribusiness

Uganda is home to roughly 1.9 million forcibly displaced people, many of whom rely on agriculture for survival yet remain locked out of stable markets and economic opportunity. From his family's experience of displacement, Iganachi Razaki Omia, founder of Omia Agribusiness, witnessed these challenges first-hand — and saw the untapped potential of displaced farmers when given the right tools and access. Today, Omia connects refugee and host-community farmers to reliable markets and affordable inputs, creating more sustainable livelihoods for over 8,000 refugees.

This session explores how companies like Omia — and the investors who support them — can help build more durable economic pathways for refugees and displaced people. It will examine why private investment is a crucial component to humanitarian efforts, surface the real challenges of deploying capital in fragile contexts, and offer a concrete example from Acumen's investing team on how capital was structured to support Omia's growth and impact on refugee farmers. Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions to both Omia and Acumen throughout Q&A, and gain practical insight into how private capital can be designed to support sustainable livelihoods and pathways toward greater self-reliance.

Razaki Omia

CEO and Founder

Omia Agribusiness Development Group (OADG) Uganda

14:20 – 14:30 | Break

14:30 – 15:05 | Case Study: Rethinking investment risk in displacement-affected markets

In this interactive case study, Inkomoko invites participants to examine a contradiction at the heart of humanitarian finance. Entrepreneurs in displacement-affected communities face real investment barriers, including legal documentation challenges, limited market access, and high transaction costs, which are often compounded by perceptions of risk embedded in conventional investment criteria. Over the past decade, Inkomoko has supported more than 125,000 MSMEs across five displacement-affected countries in Africa, deploying over USD 50 million in direct financing. By de-risking investments through hands-on advisory and skills-building rather than collateral, Inkomoko has achieved a 97% repayment rate, demonstrating that businesses in these communities are as investable as any other. This case explores why, despite strong performance evidence, financial service providers have been slow to enter these markets and what must change to move from isolated success to system-level participation.

Julienne Oyler

CEO

Inkomoko

15:05 – 15:20 | Coffee Break

Churchill Room

15:20 – 15:55 | Fireside Chat: From cash to financial inclusion in fragile markets - A blended finance approach

Cash now accounts for around a fifth of global humanitarian aid and has transformed the experience of people receiving support. Yet this has not translated into deeper financial inclusion. At the same time, DFIs are under pressure to operate closer to crisis settings and engage earlier in the resilience and livelihoods space.

This session brings these two trends together. Building on PROPARCO’s recent report on “Financial Inclusion of People Benefiting from Humanitarian Cash Transfers” the session will explore how humanitarian cash can be linked to long term financial inclusion and how DFIs can play a catalytic role in making that possible. We will discuss the systemic barriers that keep accounts dormant, the importance of economic participation, and the types of partnerships needed to create viable financial pathways for people in humanitarian settings.

Through the cases from multiple regions, the discussion will demonstrate how blended finance can support local financial institutions, strengthen payment infrastructure, and crowd in investment to humanitarian and FCA settings.

Thomas Husson

Head of Investing in Fragile Markets

Proparco

Guillaume de Chorivit

Director

Altai Consulting

Simon Meldrum

Executive Director

HFF

15:55 – 16:05 | Break

16:05 – 16:40 | Fireside chat: Fireside Chat: Improving financial access for displaced communities through blended finance

Khlood Al-Arashi

Localisation Programme Coordinator

Yemen Family Care Association (YFCA)

Anne-Sofie Munk

Director

Humanitarian Innovative Finance Hub (HIFHUB)

Gielgud Room

15:20 – 15:55 | Case Study: Mercy Corp: Enter Energy Initiative

In 2022, Mercy Corps introduced the Enter-Energy program in Ethiopia. This initiative aims to bring affordable, renewable energy services to humanitarian settings. The project includes solar mini-grids and energy services, promoting economic opportunities and improving the quality of life. To ensure sustainable delivery, Mercy Corps established a special purpose vehicle, Humanitarian Energy Plc, to manage the operations and maintenance of the solar mini-grid, ensuring a reliable energy supply. By May 2024, the project started providing clean energy to over 17,600 refugees and host community members in Sheder.

Chiara Buzzico

Senior Lead Energy

Mercy Corps

15:55 – 16:05 | Break

16:05 – 16:40 | Case Study: UNHCR: Global Islamic Fund for Refugees

Launched in 2022 by the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), Islamic Solidarity Fund for Development (ISFD), and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the GIFR represents a first-of-its-kind Shariah-compliant financing mechanism to support programs serving the refugees and host communities in IsDB member countries. It comprises of Waqf and Non-Waqf modalities, enabling contributions from a wide range of donors and benefactors. Contributions are invested according to Islamic Finance principles and Shariah guidelines, with proceeds used to support critical humanitarian efforts for refugees, including access to education, water, sanitation, shelter, and opportunities.

Lance Bartholomeusz

General Counsel

UNHCR

16:40 – 18:00 | Closing Dialogue: Financing resilience in fragile and conflict affected humanitarian settings

This session focuses on how capital providers can operate more effectively across the Humanitarian-Development-Peace (HDP) Nexus to support vulnerable communities in fragile and conflict affected settings. It examines what is required to finance resilient systems and functioning markets in environments defined by volatility, weak institutions, and chronic underinvestment. The dialogue moves beyond HDP Nexus and asks what DFIs, philanthropic investors, governments, and humanitarian actors must do together to reduce risk, create investable pathways, and strengthen resilience at scale.