An invitation to tell us your ‘rewirement’ story!
Dear XUNICEF community,
The development and humanitarian sectors are shifting rapidly and we are witnessing a moment of unprecedented contraction.
As a result of budget cuts and restructuring, the exit door is swinging open for thousands of highly skilled and motivated professionals. For some, leaving is a well-planned choice. For many others, it is a sudden, brutal thrust into redundancy.Whether you jump or are pushed, the question remains: what happens to a humanitarian beyond the mission?
The project: Humanitarians Rewired
My good friend Will Parks and I will also be leaving UNICEF in the course of 2026, making use of a voluntary separation scheme. Both of us serve as Representatives, in Cambodia and Tajikistan respectively. And both of us started hearing our colleagues referring to our ‘early retirement’. But these words jarred in our ears. ‘Early’ didn’t sound right, as it seemed to indicate unfinished business, while we feel our journeys with UNICEF have come to their logical conclusion. And ‘retirement’ also didn’t chime, as both of us are full of energy and ideas. The rocking chair is the last place where you’re likely to find us.
"Retiring" vs "Rewiring"
Enter the concept of ‘rewirement’ – the idea that separating from your organization is not the end of the book, but the start of a new chapter. For us humanitarians, our work is our passion, not simply a livelihood. And you cannot retire from a lifelong passion; you can only change how you pursue it.
Will and I will be writing a book, tentatively titled Humanitarians Rewired, to document the real journeys of aid workers who are no longer on the formal payroll.
We are looking for your stories!
We are conducting 40–50 confidential interviews with colleagues who have navigated the transition out of their roles in the UN or in other large development or humanitarian agencies – as retirees, as a result of redundancy, or having resigned. We could not think of a better place to start than amongst our XUNICEF community.
We are not looking for polished stories. We are looking for the reality of the transition, warts and all.
The Successes: Did you pivot to a new career, start a movement, or find joy in local activism?
The Struggles: Did you battle a loss of identity, the "void" of adrenaline withdrawal, or the anger of a forced exit?
The Messy Middle: How did you handle the first six months when the phone stopped ringing and the e-mails stopped rolling in?
Why Participate?
Your experience will serve a dual purpose:
A Compass for Individuals: Your story will help thousands of colleagues currently facing the "cliff edge" of separation, showing them that there is purpose — and impact — after you hand in the UNLP.
A Wake-Up Call for Institutions: The insights from this book will be used to advocate for better "Duty of Care" from HR departments. Agencies need to support staff better through the transition out of the organization. We need to push agencies to view alumni not as supernumerary budget posts to be cut, but as a resource to be treasured and supported.
How to Connect?
If you have left the aid sector (recently or years ago) and are willing to share your story—the good, the bad, and the uncomfortable—we would be honored to listen. Drop a line to us on the addresses below.
Arthur van Diesen and Will Parks Authors, Humanitarians Rewired arthurvandiesen@gmail.com and parks_will@hotmail.com
Nice project. Arthur and Will – what made you logically conclude that separation and rewiring is preferable to hanging in?
ReplyDeleteThanks Detlef, for the interest and the question. This one will be more comfortable to answer once I actually step aside! Give me another 6 months ;-)
DeleteThe suggestion that this contraction somehow came “out of the blue” is, frankly, disingenuous. Everyone who spent serious time inside the aid system knew we were drifting long before donors lost patience.
ReplyDeleteWe knew that results were often overstated, that incentives rewarded compliance rather than impact, and that weak management was tolerated as long as the language was right and the reporting good. We knew that internal dysfunctions, fear of speaking up, protection of underperformers, and bureaucratic bloat were discussed endlessly over beers and never addressed meaningfully. We knew that reform was talked about more than it was practised.
The uncomfortable truth is that many aid organisations survived for decades not because they were demonstrably effective, but because they were rhetorically convincing, morally insulated, and politically convenient. When donor priorities shifted and scrutiny hardened, that protective shell cracked. The fall from favour did not begin in 2025. It began decades ago, inside our own institution.
This is precisely why some of us chose to leave before being forced out. My own early retirement was not about fatigue or loss of belief in helping people; it was about recognising a system increasingly unable, and often unwilling, to correct itself.
If Humanitarians Rewired is to be honest, its first chapter should ask: what happened? And it should also ask: what did we know, and why did we accept it for so long? Rewirement should not be a euphemism for polite exit. It should be a reckoning.
Thanks for your reflections dear Thomas. There is a lot to be said about the aid ‘industry’ and everything that is wrong with it, but that’s not the book we are writing at the moment. Our book aims to document the stories of those who left the development/humanitarian sector, either voluntarily or involuntarily, and their journeys to find new purpose. How they found new ways to channel energy, passion and expertise, all towards personal and professional fulfillment. From initial conversations, we are clear that there is a category of people who left because of increasing misgivings about the aid ‘industry’. Question remains - how did they fare after their exit? We are genuinely interested and know there are many stories out there that are worth telling. Warm regards! Arthur.
DeleteI hope it is Ok to still to leave voluntarily, abit early, with some space left to enjoy life without deadlines, micromanagement, flogging proposals, bending the knee to donors, holding one's nose to clear a dodgy government DCT, or other things. Just enjoy life and don't over think the golden years? Rob (only one my 4th week off the teat)
ReplyDeleteThanks Rob, for the reaction. There are as many exit stories as there are people who left the development/humanitarian sector. There is for sure a category of people who were ‘glad it’s over’ and their stories are worth listening to as well. There is no judgment implied in our project. ‘Just enjoying life’ is as valid an ambition as any other.
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