What’s the Point of Foreign Aid? – Ambassador Deike Potzel in the Inside Geneva Podcast
The discussion, titled “What’s the Point of Foreign Aid?”, brought together Gilles Carbonnier, Professor of International Economics at the Geneva Graduate Institute (IHEID) and former Vice-President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Chris Lockyear, Executive-in-Residence at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) and former Secretary General of Médecins Sans Fronières (MSF), and Jaclyn Lee, Master Student in International and Development Studies at the IHEID.
The panel explored critical questions surrounding the effectiveness and future of foreign aid, including the impact of funding cuts, operational inefficiencies and effectiveness, and the consequences for humanitarian action, global stability, and international diplomacy.
Ambassador Potzel reaffirmed the European Union’s commitment to principled and effective international cooperation in addressing humanitarian crises and supporting vulnerable populations worldwide through the provision of humanitarian aid and cooperation on the matter of sustainable development. This commitment is backed by an approval rate of 91% of EU citizens that support international humanitarian aid policies, which is a crucial factor in the current state of the globe with over 60 state based armed conflicts taking place. In 2025, the EU provided roughly 2 billion in global humanitarian aid and this number is expected to continue to rise in 2026.
The podcast’s new episode comes at a particularly timely moment, as humanitarian needs continue to rise globally - for the first time in decades - while international aid systems have come under increasing financial and political pressure. Ambassador Potzel also highlighted the newly adopted Joint Communication on Humanitarian Aid, which sets out how the EU will remain a reliable and principled donor in a global aid system under severe pressure. With this, the EU is responding with concrete solutions to ensure principled humanitarian aid reaches people in need across the globe. This builds on three pillars: protect, perform and partner.
The discussion was moderated by Imogen Foulkes, BBC Geneva Correspondent and host of Inside Geneva from Swissinfo and will air on June 9.