Dr Helen Durham AO, CEO of RedR Australia and a leading figure in international humanitarian law, joins Robin Davies for a wide-ranging conversation about her career, the challenges of protecting civilians in conflict, and the future of humanitarian action. Durham, who was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2017 for her distinguished service to humanitarian and criminal law, reflects on her journey from grassroots legal work to senior leadership at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and her current efforts to strengthen Australia’s crisis response capabilities. The discussion explores her pivotal role in global legal reforms, the complexities of working with diverse actors-from military commanders to non-state armed groups-and her commitment to practical, culturally sensitive solutions in humanitarian settings.
The episode opens with Helen describing her unexpected route into humanitarian law, beginning as a labour lawyer before being drawn into international work through her involvement with women from the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Her early efforts to help establish rape as a war crime led her to gather evidence for war crimes tribunals and pursue a PhD on the laws of war, focusing on the prosecution of sexual violence and the impact of civil society on legal change.
Helen recounts her experiences working at the grassroots level in Thailand and the Pacific, where she learned the importance of listening to affected communities and adapting legal frameworks to local realities. She reflects on her time at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), where she became the first woman and first non-Swiss to lead the International Law and Policy department. Helen discusses the cultural and gender dynamics she navigated, the need for a more open and solution-oriented approach, and her efforts to highlight the effectiveness of international humanitarian law in practice.
A major focus of the conversation is Helen’s role in global treaty-making and legal reform. She shares insights from her work on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, her advocacy for new norms on autonomous weapons, and her push for stronger compliance mechanisms within international humanitarian law. Helen also discusses the challenges of promoting legal accountability in an era of shifting geopolitics and the rise of non-state armed groups.
Turning to her current role, Helen outlines her vision for RedR Australia: building a robust, sovereign capacity for deploying skilled professionals to crises both internationally and domestically. She emphasises the value of practical training, the importance of maintaining expertise within Australia, and the organisation’s expanding partnerships with government departments and emergency agencies.
The episode concludes with Helen’s reflections on the paradoxes of humanitarian action, the ongoing need for political solutions, and her cautious optimism for the sector’s capacity to adapt and make a difference. She also highlights her involvement with Geneva Call, a Geneva-based humanitarian organisation that engages armed groups to improve the protection of civilians in conflict zones.
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Helen Durham:
“You don’t wake up one day as a young kid and go, I want to be a humanitarian lawyer when I grow up. It came very much through a desire to do something really practical, which led to something quite intellectual, a PhD on the laws of war.”
“You have to be smarter and clearer and more rigorous when you’re a woman in those environments, because you get only a couple of minutes to prove yourself, whereas perhaps if you’re a bloke, you get a little longer.”
“What I was really proud of was, working with the team, we gathered a whole lot of examples of when actually international humanitarian law works to push back a little bit that the law is pathetic. It was more about the political appetite to apply it.”
Amita Monterola: We wish to acknowledge the indigenous people of Australia, the wider Asia, Pacific region and other parts of the world, and express our respect for their traditional knowledge and practices, which stem from a deep connection to the lands and waters they have inhabited for millennia.
Robin Davies: Welcome to Devpolicy Talks, the podcast of the Development Policy Centre. We're part of the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University, on Ngunnawal and Ngambri country in Canberra.
I’m Robin Davies.
This is our twelfth season, and we’re bringing you a mix of interviews, event recordings, and in-depth features on topics central to our research – including Australia’s overseas aid, development in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific, and broader regional and global development issues.
In this episode, I speak with Dr Helen Durham AO, a distinguished Australian humanitarian lawyer and leader. Helen is the CEO of RedR Australia, a Professorial Fellow at Melbourne Law School, a member of the Standing Commission of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, and a board member of Geneva Call – a neutral humanitarian organisation that works with armed groups and de facto authorities to promote respect for international humanitarian norms and the protection of civilians in armed conflict.
Over her 30-year career to date, Helen has held senior roles with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), including as Director of International Law and Policy in Geneva – the first woman and he first non-Swiss citizen to hold this position. She has been instrumental in advancing international humanitarian law, notably helping to establish rape as a war crime, contributing to the creation of the International Criminal Court, and leading negotiations on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. In recognition of her service, Helen was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2017.
In our conversation, Helen reflects on her rather diagonal pathway into humanitarian law, her experiences gathering evidence for war crimes tribunals, and the challenges and opportunities she encountered as a leader at the ICRC. We discuss her advocacy for stronger legal protections in armed conflict, her vision for RedR Australia’s role in humanitarian response, and her insights into the evolving landscape of international humanitarian law.
Helen Durham: Hi. My name is Helen Durham. I am currently CEO of RedR Australia. I'm also on the Standing Commission of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, a Professorial Fellow at Melbourne Law School, a board member of Geneva Call and do a few other things, but that's mostly me.
Robin Davies: A few other things. Thanks, Helen. Look, I just wanted to start by looking at your earlier career, because it wasn't initially obvious that you would end up spending 30 years in humanitarian agencies, working on international humanitarian law. How did your early career lead you in that direction?
Helen Durham: Thank you. And it's actually a really good question, because these things, you don't wake up one day as a young kid and go, I want to be humanitarian lawyer when I grow up. I started as a labour lawyer, but then I got very interested in a friend of mine who had gone to the former Yugoslavia, this was in the 90s, in helping her find out what the women of the former Yugoslavia needed at the time, and that what they asked for was jurisprudence or clarity that rape was a war crime, which seemed a big request, but what that did is lead me into the pathway to understand about international humanitarian law, the law of war, and to work really at a grassroots level with communities who had fled from the former Yugoslavia to gather evidence and provide it back to the war crimes tribunal. And then I got fascinated, so I applied for a scholarship and went to New York University to do a PhD on this topic. So, it came very much through a desire to do something really practical, which led to something quite intellectual as a PhD on the laws of war, focussing on the prosecution of, particularly rapes, of war crime, but also how civil society impacts upon these big shifts in diplomatic and mechanisms to bring enforcement. So that was a bit of a journey, and it was, it was great. I'm very glad that I did that voluntary work.
Robin Davies: That's interesting. So, I was aware that you had worked on, I guess, the definition of rape as a war crime during your career as an international lawyer, but that's something that you had already been drawn into right at the beginning.
Helen Durham: Absolutely it was the practical experiences of sitting down with refugees who had arrived from the former Yugoslavia and also talking to the tribunal, what they needed, which was evidence and hearing the stories and understanding the complexity, the impact of a whole community when things such as sexual violence during times of armed conflict are perpetrated. It's not about an individual. It's about much wider and that led me through years and years, and in fact, I still, when I teach at the law school, really like to clarify, and it's often a great joy when I see all the jurisprudence that has come out of years and years and years of the tribunals focussing on that. So, it's great to have something that I can look back on as part of a journey of one person involved many, many others are involved. Heartbreaking that we still happen to experience sexual violence over and over again in armed conflict, but that we now have some clarity that it's illegal.
Robin Davies: If I'm correct, you did some volunteer work in Thailand.
Helen Durham: I did, I did. I went to Thailand when I first finished my law degree, and I worked in a law firm during the day as an intern or associate, and at night, I lived with the, I would say, the sex workers and worked with them on some of the legal issues to protect them. But then, once again, it always reverted back to being really practical. So, I learned that actually, you needed to listen very carefully to what they needed, and not coming with a presupposed understanding of how you could assist - I've got talking marks around assist - and that really, once again, led me to today, we call it accountability to affected populations. But in those days, it was just understanding that these women, many of them, were supporting whole communities back up in the north, and the idea of coming in and saving them was certainly not on the radar once I got to understand the issues. But that, once again, led me through a really interesting process of understanding where I could add value and where I had to learn.
Robin Davies: Your first job in law sounded like a fairly bread and butter job. This was with Holding Redlich.
Helen Durham: That's right, I was working for the labour firm. In those days, they were really focussed on my area, particularly was on personal injuries and working with the unions. I learnt to swear, I had never sworn before. But you know, when you're working with the builders’ workers industrial union, you certainly know how to get them to sit down and shut up and listen to you.
Robin Davies: Was that the old Builders Labourers Federation?
Helen Durham: That was. Yeah, so I was Solicitor on site one day a week to work out some support. So, when I first I remember a few years later, when I was working with the Red Cross, and I went to Aceh to work with the military. There it was in the late 90s, so before the tsunami, and I thought these guys are so much easier than working with these unions. They weren't going to scare me. So, it was a really good training. I mean, very respectful to my clients. But you know, there was a whole lot of interesting work going on in that role. I know.
Robin Davies: You've described that as a hyper-masculine environment, as many law firms were, and some still. I guess that leads me to my next question, and we're jumping ahead to ICRC. So, when you took up your role with the International Committee of the Red Cross [ICRC], which was in, what, 2014 as director of international law – now, it's famously a very French, male formal organisation. Before we get on to the substance of the ICRC. What was that transition like?
Helen Durham: It was a very interesting one, because in the 150-year history of the organisation, they'd never had a woman leading the international law and policy department. So, I had 150 lawyers, about 40 based in Geneva and the rest in conflict zones, about 100 or so former military officers, usually Colonel-level and above, who were there to interface, particularly with arms but weapons bearers and diplomats and policy advisors. So, it was a very eclectic group, but they'd never had a woman running it, and they'd never had a non-Swiss. And so just trying to break down that culture – I try not to make stereotypes, I've learned through my long life that there's no such thing – however, I would say in general, Australians are more informal than you find the Swiss. So, you know, I kept being called “Madame directrice”, by some of my colleagues, particularly the military side. And I have to keep saying my name is Helen, you know, please. This is just not how we do it back in Australia. So, I think it was a very interesting substance, which I'm happy to talk about. But I think culturally, I learned a lot. On the other hand, you had to be, you know, remember Shakespeare’s “to thine own self be true”. I remember going to talk to the Director General of the ICRC at the time, and he was very clear saying, ‘if we'd wanted a formal Swiss gentleman, we've got hundreds of them, we could have asked, we want you to instigate some change’. And so, I had had backing to really try and do things differently, to open up, to breathe differently, to have a different way of engaging with interlocutors, whether it be the Russian military to try and get access to the Ukrainians, or in Mogadishu, when I was there talking to the non-state armed groups. So, but the cultural internal elements were quite, quite stark. I actually found that me, being myself, being an Australian, a harder challenge than being a woman, because I'd sort of grown up working for the unions and spent many years before that working directly with the military. The gender issues I was pretty used to, you have to be smarter and clearer and more rigorous when you're a woman in those environments, because you get only a couple of minutes to prove yourself, whereas perhaps if you're a bloke, you get a little longer. That's certainly what I've witnessed. But as an Australian, where you want to be a little bit more informal, that was very interesting, informal and direct, that's correct. We say it how we see it, but with politeness.
Robin Davies: So, over the eight years that you were based in Geneva, did you see any change in the culture of the organisation?
Helen Durham: Well, I think was sort of clear after my first mandate was four years, and when I got elected to a second I think they were starting to understand there was a different way of doing it, particularly in the law and policy area, working with Red Cross and Red Crescent. So there's 193 national societies, and I was really keen, having been a national society legal advisor many years ago, and having flown to Geneva to go to a legal meeting early on, it felt like you sat down and talked to and some of the ways I made some changes was to really pivot it and say we've got a lot to learn from our colleagues globally out there doing it. So, it's always hard to say, because you look for the bits that you're happy with. Of course, I couldn't revolutionize such a whole amazing organisation, but I've certainly had comments since that. I was able to bring a little bit of a different perspective, which I'm really happy about.
Robin Davies: I guess it's worth noting that you didn't exactly join the organisation cold. You'd had a long prior history with the Australian Red Cross and then with the ICRC based here. I think.
Helen Durham: That's correct. So, I worked with Australian Red Cross for, well, at least seven years, and then I had the really interesting job of legal advisor for the International Committee of the Red Cross in the Pacific region. And that involved having 16 Pacific countries with which I would go and work with the governments to try and support them if they had the desire to ratify treaties and to implement legislation to help train their militaries and sometimes police forces if they didn't have a military. So, I'd really had that experience, and it taught me a lot about I remember going to Tonga and the deputy prime minister I was working with, they wanted to ratify treaties. He said, ‘stop talking about Geneva, Helen, we think of cuckoo clocks and chocolate. You know, it's a long way away, talk about something that resonates with us.’ And so, I set up a project called “protection under the palm”, where we were able to look at cultural ways that the Pacific over many, many decades and centuries and such a rich history, had undertaken activities that actually limited the suffering during times of armed conflict. And then I was teaching International Humanitarian Law [IHL] in Vanuatu for the ICRC and gathered that with the students. So, when I went to Geneva, I had that in the back of my mind. And now we have a whole range of projects the ICRC has in Africa and others we can speak to this foundational issue of trying to reduce suffering, sort of find the common humanity in the suffering through stories and folk laws and things that are much more interesting than talking to everyone about the story of Henry Dunant and the Battle of Solferino. So, you're right, I was able to sort of weave in my, I would say I'd had at least 15 years, experience working as a national society, legal advisor and in the Pacific.
Robin Davies: Coming to the substance of your work during that time, the eight years you had with ICRC in Geneva, what were your, I guess, main preoccupations over that period. And what were you proudest of? And what was hardest?
Helen Durham: Ah, they're the big questions. I was very proud that I was there in the time. So, 2014 to 2022. We saw, in 2015-16, and that stage the rise of lot more non-state armed groups, whether it be ISIS or others. And there started to be a narrative, particularly coming from the United Nations [UN], that IHL was eroding, that IHL didn't work anymore, that we had these non-state armed groups that really didn't care. And, you know, having spent quite a bit of time in the field, because as a director, you couldn't just talk to the UN and the Security Council. They had to throw you in the middle of the field, whether it be Iraq or Gaza or other places, which was really good, because you could never, ever forget what you were doing when you're in diplomatic environments. But what I was really proud of was, working with the team, we gathered a whole lot of examples of when actually international humanitarian law works to push back a little bit that the law is pathetic. It was more about the political appetite to apply it. And I must admit, some of the work in gathering that, and you know, seeing that more invigorated sense of actually this is worthwhile when we do actually apply the laws of war, whether it be changing the calibre of a weapon, whether it be making different decisions around targeting, it does save lives, and it's worth working towards, to give some confidence back to the international system, to push further. So, I suddenly saw the work that we were doing in the ICRC seeping into discourse and discussions at the most important tables, whether it be North Atlantic Treaty Organisation [NATO] or the UN so that was a very exciting thing to sort of help, help frame with a lot of other people a discourse on that. And then I always have some favourite times when I was visiting people detained, and you could see you're making a difference, you know, doing a Red Cross tracing message or something. So, there's a lot of things that actually I'm really proud of, pushing hard for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. ICRC played a strong role in that, and I was able to lead a lot of those negotiations. So those things that I feel really happy about, I think the hardest part was the impossibility of what one was doing, the hubris of thinking that you can try and reduce suffering in humans, most difficult time, which is armed conflict, and the times where you would see that it just wasn't being followed, and you wondered why you were doing it. So, it was keeping that hope up, pushing forward with a team of 500 experts to make sure that there was still a sober, clear eyed, cautious optimism that the status quo could be changed. And I suppose in that that space; it was probably the most difficult.
Robin Davies: The process to conclude the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons must have been satisfying, in a sense. It was like a 75-year process, and it was concluded at a time when some of the survivors of the bombing of Hiroshima, in particular, were still alive, and you were able to interact with them. I think you visited Japan …
Helen Durham: That’s right. Yes, I went to probably Hiroshima four or five times, sat with the hibakusha [atomic bomb survivors]. Was able to lead within the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, with the support of the Japanese Red Cross and many, many others. But in my role as Director of Law and Policy, could sort of lead a lot of the internal discourse within the movement about the need for the Red Cross to raise its voice, you know, seeing and meeting the not only survivors, but the heartbreak of the young kids who were the grandkids of the grandkids, or the grandkids who were getting terrible thyroid cancers, talking to amazing scientists globally about the impact the potential of starvation, food insecurity. Really able to then work with governments who were interested to shift the discourse from being one about military security to one about human security. So that was very, very satisfying. I started that work when I was with Robert Tickner, as he was the CEO of the Australian Red Cross, and he was very passionate on the topic. So, it was nice to be able to be able to start it in the national societies and then do some leading when I got to my role in the ICRC. I'm very aware people get cynical. I mean, of course, you're not going to get the nuclear possessor states signing up to it. You don't get smokers to develop anti-smoking law, but you have a norm to work towards and somewhere to make pressure and have the right discussion. So, I think that was great also. The other bit of specific work was I worked with the president of the ICRC to do a call out to all diplomats to push for a new treaty around autonomous weapons systems. ICRC asked for 10 years, states to identify where along the decision change should humans be involved and when there wasn't to be an answer that at least as an organisation like ICRC felt happy with, there was a push to call for a new treaty. Now that might take 10 years, but it's a start on a step and a long journey we need to take. So, a few of those things were really great to see a little bit how the sausage is made. You know, which ambassadors you go to, which state you engage with, but also just to be, I suppose, synthesizing between experiences on the ground and what needs to be done at an international level.
Robin Davies: I guess it's worth noting, there's a certain amount of what the ICRC does that you can't really talk about.
Helen Durham: A large amount. So many people kept saying to me when I came back, oh, you should write a book. And I'm like, I signed so many confidentiality clauses. But there were times when I just thought, wow, this is super-interesting. But I understand and deeply respect this need to be to be discreet, to be confidential, because you get to get in a privileged position.
Robin Davies: And it's related to the impartiality and the neutrality.
Helen Durham: Absolutely, you get a privilege to have discussions and to push things, engaging things, and to find, I think the thing that I really liked was these what seems like wicked problems coming along and talking to foreign ministers or militaries or non-state armed groups to say, how can we help you solve this solution? And I think coming at things that are solution orientated way is always to me, a much easier opener than you should do this.
Robin Davies: Turning to areas that you were less satisfied about or frustrated about when you left, what? What do you regret you had to leave behind in an unfinished state?
Helen Durham: There was a very large project that ICRC worked on which was called the compliance track. It was the aim to create some sort of mechanism where states could come and talk about their advances and what they were doing in the space of the IHL treaties, because unlike the human rights framework, which has a reporting mechanism, there's no reporting mechanism on the Geneva Conventions and the additional protocols. It wasn't the right time. It was scuttled at the time, and it was pretty clear by a group of states, probably led by Russia, Iran and a few others, who really were worried that this would somehow slip into a space of prosecution or be more punitive for in fact, what we wanted was to gather best practice to move forward that we couldn't get that up as an organisation. I do now see there's wonderful I still stay in touch because of particularly my role in the Standing Commission now and still engage with my all my colleagues and dear friends. You know, increasingly, states are doing voluntary reports on what they're doing. They're choosing to do it themselves. But there were a few things that I think would have made a real difference to where we are right now today, that just didn't have their time.
Robin Davies: Last year, for example, I spoke with the CEO of Médecins Sans Frontières [MSF] about similar issues, and there's certainly a general feeling that there needs to be a strengthening of the compliance apparatus in relation to international humanitarian law. But at the same time, paradoxically, I think a lot of humanitarian organisations don't really want to put forward very concrete, detailed proposals, they feel that, okay, we are practical actors. We are impartial actors. It's not our job.
Helen Durham: That's right, it's a deep paradox, and I must admit, I mean, very honest about this. It was some of the challenging times I had was interfacing with my fabulous and dear friend, colleague, say, the Director of Operations. Yes, because, you know, the pesky lawyers were always going and, you know, speaking truth to power, as they say, which would make it difficult, or could make it difficult, to be able to get moving humanitarian assistance. So even internally within the organisation, I, you know, we always found excellent ways to settle things. But, you know, I had a department of 500 he had a department of 16,000 and they wanted to get stuff done. They were, they were loggies [logisticians], as we called them. They wanted to set up the hospitals. And I was like, well, we want to talk to the government about not using this particular weapon. So, I do think that tension, it's healthy. It makes you really be crisp on what your messages are, what is worth burning your fingers about and, but I do think that it can't always be about response. I always hold close to my heart that statement I think, it was Ms [Sadako] Ogata, there are no humanitarian solutions for humanitarian problems. The solutions are political solutions, and we all know that. So, I do think finding that balance between trying to stop things and trying to respond to things, I think is really important, and I have sympathy when people find it hard to have a foot in both camps, but I think we need to at least be constantly stretching ourselves.
Robin Davies: And do you think that some of the reforms that you've alluded to could have made a difference in relation to situations like Gaza or Ukraine.
Helen Durham: It's a big one. Sometimes that keeps me awake at night, like I have sleep well, but I reflect on when I'm going for works. States have political desires, and they often find ways to respond to what they want to what I think could have made a difference is keeping the issue of IHL high on the agenda. That would mean that states feel more ownership to talk about it with other states when they feel they're not living up to it. That's a very long answer. I think I'd be there'd be, you know, there'd be an arrogance to say yes, it would have made a difference. But I do believe, when you look across the international legal diplomatic landscape, if something is given a highlight, if states have to think about it, if that's a report on it, whether it be torture, whether it be enforced disappearances, it makes a dialog about it when it's really needed, a little easier. So, I think it could have contributed. It certainly wouldn't have made it any worse. Let me put it that way.
Robin Davies: Do you think the United States [US] is retreat from this whole policy domain makes any difference? Or were they already not especially prominent in that domain?
Helen Durham: I mean, the US for many years, even before my Red Cross Red Crescent times played an interesting role, I was fortunate to be part of the negotiations for the International Criminal Court back in 1998 and even under relatively progressive government, relative to da progressive government, they played a role, but they didn't go there. Sometimes it was hard to work out whether they were saying they wanted to help, but in doing so, putting a few roadblocks in the way. I mean, the US is, let's be honest, a big player and a massive player, particularly around support. Well, they were economic support in the space. And I think the retreat, you know, I don't think the US were perhaps always doing exactly as you know. They were no knight in shining armour, if I can put it that way. However, they were always excellent to have a discussion with. There were excellent people who wanted to drive for forward progressive policies. And the retreat and the loss to the ecosystem, I think, is big, yeah.
Robin Davies: I guess there was always a pattern where the administration of the day was quite reasonable and forward looking, depending on the details, and yet they would always point to Congress and say, but we will never be an international criminal.
Helen Durham: Yeah, exactly. So what I would say, it's a huge blow globally, I think, on for many reasons, to see a withdrawal of the US. There's another whole podcast I want to mention. But you know, what's going to fill that hole and how we can rethink is really important. But yeah, I mean, I would go to the Pentagon quite regularly in Washington and have excellent discussions. We might not have seen eye to eye, but there was certainly a lot of food for thought.
Robin Davies: I wanted to ask about a specific aspect of the sort of international humanitarian legal framework, the protection of civilians and the protection of humanitarian workers. Under the previous Labor government, Penny Wong took an initiative in that area, convening a ministerial group on the protection of humanitarian personnel, leading a declaration and so forth. How important is this from your perspective? Is it something that could have teeth, or is it more symbolic?
Helen Durham: Yes, I believe that this idea of the creation of the declaration will have and can have teeth if three things are done. One is if it has a diversity of support. So, it's not just the usual suspects. And it was delighted, I was delighted to see the sort of multilateral broader reach, whether it be Jordan and other countries that can come on board, because this problem can't be so involved in London, Paris or Canberra, it needs to have the buy-in. So, one is if it's diverse. The second thing is, if the declaration can have some practical application, some practical work that is done to underpin it, whether it be the training, better training of humanitarian workers, particularly local staff, if there's something that falls from that declaration that is practically done on the ground, I think that's excellent. And the third is, it keeps the critical issue on the table. It keeps conversations happening. It means foreign minister to foreign minister, they're raising the issue. And I'm a big believer in keeping humanitarian issues on the table. There's a lot of forces that flip them off. So, if it's diverse, if it has some legs with some, I would say, practical applications that fall out of it. And if it can, Australia and its ministerial counterparts continue to push this issue in the right multilateral fora, I think it's a really worthwhile thing to do. I do know, and having one of the big horrors, it was a horror as Director of Law and Policy of losing colleagues, colleagues kidnapped, colleagues, beheaded. It was a constant. It was one of the things that did keep you awake at night. It's not just the individuals, it is then the chilling effect on the whole sector, and then the wider suffering and the fact that then there's no one witnessing and that there's no one bringing things in. It's a devastating issue if humanitarians keep being killed, maimed and injured at the level they are. So I was, I was delighted to see the Australian Government taking a step.
Robin Davies: Just to note that that level, I think last year, was around 350 people, and we're not talking about expatriates here, I think more than 95% of them were national or local.
Helen Durham: That’s right.
Robin Davies: Just before we started talking tonight, the Prime Minister announced his ministry and cabinet and Penny Wong will continue as foreign minister, so I guess we can expect some continuity on this policy work.
Okay, well, turning now to your current role at RedR Australia, I'm interested. I mean, I'm sure you were keen to come back to Australia, and in particular, to Melbourne, but I'm interested why you were interested in taking on this role, responsibility for this organisation in particular, and how you see it relating to your previous work.
Helen Durham: Yes, I wanted to come home. I think there's a point to when you've got kids and you go, oh, they might grow up completely after eight years as Europeans. And so, coming back home, I knew that I wanted to teach. I love teaching, but just at a master's level, and just once or twice a year. I wanted to find a role where I could use some of my experience in a way that continued the journey. And so, with the RedR deployments, I had deep appreciation of what it means to be sent into either natural disasters or conflict or turbulent environments. So, I thought that's something that really speaks to me. And I loved the in the past, the RedR training – I used to, many years ago, come and do the IHL section on the RedR training. So, I knew about it. But this idea of what I call the virtuous circle, which is, you know, you have amazing trainers. We've got at the moment, 80 or so, maybe 90 trainers. But often they're the same people who are the employees, and so you don't have an academic training. Recently, when I was in Amman and we had our HEAT, hostile environment training. You had people who the trainers that had just come straight out of their work in Ukraine or out of Africa. And so, this sense of working in Melbourne, I also had a threshold, I really wanted a job I could ride my bike to after having flown around the world and addressed the Security Council and being in and out of probably, I think I've worked out I met 60 or 62, foreign ministers. It's important sometimes in life to go ‘I want to ride my bicycle’. So there was that, I suppose, that balance between doing something that was meaningful, that maybe my experience would be able to have an impact on, but also having a bit more time, my beautiful husband had said to me, you know, do go back to work, but get a job that takes less oxygen out of the family, which is a fair cop. I mean, he was wonderful with the kids and looking after everyone as I travelled the world as Director of Law and Policy. So, in summary, that's a long answer. Again. Wanted something local, something real, something where I could contribute and where I had an understanding of the impact.
Robin Davies: And for people who haven't been to Geneva, that's a place where you would never ride your bike. You wouldn't last very long.
All right, so you've been in the role for a little while now. Where do you want to take this organisation? What are your main priorities for this organisation?
Helen Durham: Well, one of the things I'm really witnessing is I think they could potentially be a bit too much of a carve out of sovereign capabilities in the deployment space. I understand the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade [DFAT] has got different views and attitude, but increasingly, I think the managing contractors, the large multinational, often American based organisations, are taking programs, and I understand some of the efficiency, effective discourse, but I do think that we really need to hold on to the expertise. One of the things that RedR is doing as we continue to implement elements of Australia Assist, which is a DFAT programme, great programme, where we actually downstreaming from another company, particularly in the area of the UN standby partnerships, is, I think there is a wider capacity for other government departments to utilize this skill set of highly trained professionals ready to go to places that are needed. So, I was really delighted that we ended up doing recently, a deployment with what's called DAF, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. We're able to send a public health expert who was a specialist in comms to help in Timor Leste with the rabies outbreak. And so, one of the visions is to sort of move across, not from just DFAT, but to other departments when they have international deployments. The other thing that we're looking at is finding ways to take and pivot the roster we have to domestic opportunities as the Australian Defence Force sort of moves out a little bit of some of the domestic emergencies, it's great at the moment to be talking to groups like Disaster Relief Australia [DRA] and Australian Red Cross and even the National Emergency Management Agency [NEMA] to see how we can use, once again, highly trained experts who recently went into Myanmar after the earthquake, went into Vanuatu and utilize their skill sets, their understanding of the asymmetrical power in community, the fact that you can't go in and make assumptions. You have to really deeply understand where the needs are. So, one of the visions is across the Australian Government, I'd love to be able to also increase our training. We recently did new types of training. Wouldn't surprise you, we did a one-day course on IHL for practitioners. We're about to do a one-day course on protection for practitioners and bring back, not just our long great, I would say, keystone courses around essential humanitarian practice. But look at some other thematics, Artificial Intelligence [AI] for humanitarians. So really build up a training capacity across the sector, and more broadly, with government and domestic and looking more horizontal where there's needs.
Robin Davies: I'm interested in what you say about that I guess carving out of sovereign capacity around the deployment of personnel to humanitarian situations. Various different models have been tried, both by Australia and a number of other donors. I'm thinking back to the days of the Rudd Government, when Labor established the Australian Civilian Corps, which was an initiative that came out of what was called the 2020 Summit. And that was, I guess in some ways, what you described. It was an attempt to ensure that there was a mechanism to deploy public sector expertise from across the whole government. It was a mechanism that was relatively internal to government, and yet, after a while, it collapsed under its own weight. It's just inherently difficult to run these big roster-based deployment mechanisms when there are not when there's when there's not sufficient demand for the deployments. You just can't keep people interested. It becomes very expensive. So ultimately, that was a very grand design. Everyone was going to get tax deductibility. They were going to be trained to within an inch of their life, and so forth. And it just fell, fell apart in the end. So, based on your experience both previously and here, what do you think is the ideal model for having a standby deployment capability?
Helen Durham: I think the ideal model, I mean, I'm really happy with what RedR is doing. You have a large roster within that. I would say you have an expert roster. So, you've got 1200 people, but then you might have a smaller inner circle, say, of a couple of 100 that are constantly being deployed, but it means you can have the reach and the depth. So, you know, we have architects that go and support in Romania as the people are fleeing from the conflict in Ukraine, and they help design the shelter space in a way that, as the architect says out designs some of the protection issues. Now, it's hard to get an architect that's got that humanitarian understanding every day, but if you've got them on the roster, you can pull them out. One of the things I think, is, and sadly, as we're having say, the UN system get smaller and smaller, I think there'll be, well, there has been a lot more interest in deploying radar deploys into places because you only use them for the specific time. The thing is to keep the roster warm enough, I hate that term, warm enough that they interested. So, you have to, you know, for example, we do seminars, we do send out newsletters. But usually, people are out there doing their normal jobs but being prepared to ready to go when they need to. I think it's also having an organisation like RedR, where the staff are very value based. They're very they're doing this job because they deeply believe in it. So, when you get the duty phone, which is the phone one of us has to carry all the time because of the deploys in the field, 50 or so, you've got to be available at any time, day and night for them to. Thing that everyone does it because they believe in it. You don't have to commercialize that. It's very expensive to commercialize this work, or otherwise you have it where it goes to a, you know, an out-of-office or something. So, I think one of the things is to make sure it's done with people who deeply believe the value of it. And secondly, that you have an understanding that the roster, people can sit dormant in the roster for years and then be ready to be deployed. It's about depth of the roster, but it's also about the quality. So, it's both the small rosters within the larger roster. I don't know if that answers the question, because it is, it's something of the last year and a half since I've been in the job I've watched really carefully, and it's the skill to deploy people when they're needed within a really short temporal time at the short space, is not easy, but I've been really impressed with my colleagues that do it.
Robin Davies: Now, of course, in the current environment, I have to ask about the global funding situation. Well, really, for development organisations in general, including humanitarian organisations. RedR itself is not just an Australian organisation. You are the Australian RedR, but you know, it started out in the UK and has other branches all over the world, and then the ICRC is also going to suffer the consequences of some recent funding reductions. And it's not just the United States, it's the United Kingdom [UK] and increasingly, other donors too, so far not Australia. So, what, what impacts are you already seeing, both in the RedR network and in the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement from these reductions.
Helen Durham: The impacts are varied, but they're all dramatic in their own way. I think the biggest impact is, of course, less resources. I know it's challenging for my colleagues in RedR UK, because they were getting money from United States Agency for International Development [USAID] to do training. And I can see also my colleagues in RedR India, they were getting money from United Nations Children's Fund [UNICEF] to undertake all sorts of work. So, it's putting increasing pressure on the RedR system, which is why I think we need to be a bit innovative and look at where we can add value in different ways, and pivot, as I said before, domestically for us, but not every RedR has the capability to do that. What I see in the broader sector, I think the thing that I'm seeing the most is obviously programs having to close down, and that has a massive impact on those who need those programs in the field. But it's the conditionality that is potentially, even if there is money that's going to be put back into the system, this idea of a conditionality, of carving out, I would say the beating heart of what many in the development and humanitarian world are trying to do, whether it be inclusion, whether it be ideas around equity. So, I think it's twofold that I'm witnessing. One clearly, money going, programs closing, but the second is this idea of, you know, some UN agencies have changed their websites in relation to how they explain themselves. And you know, do you make those awful, awful … you know, both, both decisions are bad. Do you say no and stick to where you are in a very skinny way knowing that you know you can't do some of this work. If you don't take a gender approach to development, you might as well close up shop anyway. So how to balance, I would say, the values and the interest of much in the humanitarian sector. I'm hoping it's a horrible, and, I would say, almost brutal way to do it, but I'm hoping it does give a rethink, a reset. You know, all those things that this the system needed. I mean, there needs to be a lot a lot of work done in the humanitarian development area. I just feel so sad for the individuals, the people on the ground, the people who had expectations raised that they would get a vaccination, I feel very sorry of the literal bodies that will be piling up as the sector has to rearrange itself. I'm on the board of SPHERE standards as part of the work with RedR, as we very closely followed those with our training and others, and that's a very small organisation, but just to see the needs, it plays such a great role in setting standards for those in in humanitarian and development settings that I fear that it's going to be both the intellectual as well as the practical, that we're going to suffer.
Robin Davies: I had a conversation with the global health commentator Nina Schwalbe not long ago, and she made the same point about conditionality. In some cases, it might almost be better if the US were simply not at the table.
Helen Durham: That's right, yeah, for certain organisations.
Robin Davies: My final question is really about the Australian government and its priorities in humanitarian policy and action. So, they have been re-elected, we've got the same minister. You have to assume that the broad policy framework will be similar and that funding allocations will be broadly similar as well for the next few years now. Against that background, what would you like to see the Australian government giving highest priority to in policy terms and in funding terms in the humanitarian sector in the years ahead.
Helen Durham: I very much hope, and it seems to be the case, that the foreign minister will continue to put the pressure on the issue of the protection of humanitarian workers. I think they've started a process since the declaration hasn't come out yet, but I would really like them and to do it properly, if I may say so, properly in the sense of a political declaration, but then the capacity to follow up. So, I think that's a big one. The second one, I think, is clearly Australia's not going to be able to plug the holes where the US and other allies are walking away, but I would really hope that Australia continues to live up to its existing and, if possible, more aid and was very strategic on where they could add the most value in shifting dynamics of the existing aid so, you know, Australia, a lot of our humanitarian policies and the development policy focuses around protection, focuses around issues such as gender and inclusion, and I really hope that they put them as even a higher priority. I know there's a lot of geopolitical discourse in humanitarian development, and I know the Pacific is a very important place, but I do think we need to also lean more into Southeast Asia, some of the issues that are arising then and really hold high, the issues that will be falling behind as the US perhaps has a different view on some of these critical elements of the humanitarian development space. So, continue the work on the diplomatic declaration to protect humanitarian workers, continue the funding, if possible, increasing it, understanding that it's not going to fill the gaps, but you can still do stretch some more. I think our GNI, our percentage, is still less than others. And then I would say focus on the thematics and the regions that will really need the help.
Robin Davies: Yeah, there's so much focus on Australia's engagement, diplomatic and aid, with the Pacific in the context of geo strategic competition …
Helen Durham: It is important. There's needs there. I've spent time there, so I wouldn't dispute that, but I do think that we also have the Asia Pacific region, which both for you know that constant balance between values and interests has a lot to play. And then if there's a key gender issue outside the region, gender or inclusion or disability, knowing that there's been a pullback to really help on that, so perhaps a bit more of a widening scope.
Robin Davies: Yeah. And the two big situations in Asia really are Myanmar, Cox's Bazar. We hear a little about Myanmar. There was a commitment in the budget to ongoing humanitarian assistance to Myanmar, or to displaced populations in Myanmar. We hear very little about Cox's Bazar.
Helen Durham: Yeah. And I mean, as RedR has many deployees in Cox's Bazar, so we're very seized of the situation. It is a big humanitarian challenge. I think it's the biggest refugee camp in the world. And obviously it relates back to the political challenges. But you've also got, you know, tensions in Southern Philippines. You've got some of the tensions and challenges which have a huge humanitarian impact. We don't hear much about in Thailand. I think there's some areas also in Indonesia. So, I think, you know, as I said, to widen the scope beyond not. I'm not saying we just did the Pacific. I think Australia obviously has wider than just the Pacific, but I think we can start looking at the Asia Pacific region in general.
Robin Davies: And it's not necessarily about big dollars. It could indeed be the deployment of specialized personnel.
Helen Durham: Absolutely. And really looking at how small amounts, at critical impact times, can make a real difference. We always talk about our deployees, very proudly about, you know, people as catalysts for change. They might not be a multi-million dollar programme, but they're individuals that can go in there and really make a difference.
Robin Davies: Alright. Well, it just remains to thank you very much. I wish you all the best for this new role. I look forward to talking to you again, I hope in the future.
Helen Durham: Thank you very much. It was a great, great delight to be able to chat about some of these things, and I do hope we reconnect.
Robin Davies: Thanks.
Amita Monterola: Devpolicy Talks is the podcast of the Australian National University's Development Policy Centre. Show Notes are posted to Simplecast. Our producers are Robin Davies, Amita Monterola and Finn Clark. You can read and subscribe to our daily blogs on aid, international development and the Pacific at Devpolicy.org and you can follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter. You can send us feedback and ideas for episodes to devpolicy@anu.edu.au. Join us again in another fortnight for the next episode of Devpolicy Talks.