20 - Jan Egeland on humanitarian negotiations

This episode features a conversation between Kristoffer Lidén (Senior Researcher, Peace Research Institute Oslo) and Jan Egeland (Secretary-General, Norwegian Refugee Council, NRC) on the topic of humanitarian negotiations. Egeland has longstanding experience with humanitarian negotiations - both as Secretary-General of the NRC and from work on humanitarian issues at the UN and other humanitarian agencies. The conversation starts with the recent negotiations of the NRC regarding women aid workers in Afghanistan (see also episodes 18 and 16 on this topic). The discussion then turns to the history of humanitarian negotiations in general and Egeland’s role in promoting this agenda as Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator in the early 2000s. Finally, Egeland shares more about his role as Special Adviser to the UN Special Envoy for Syria on humanitarian affairs, leading high-level negotiations on multiple fronts. This episode is part of a series of discussions on ethics in humanitarian action, relating to the research project “Red lines and grey zones: Exploring the ethics of humanitarian negotiations”, led by Kristoffer Lidén.