Links that unite

© Alain Boinet (August 2026) – Narva, on the border between Estonia and Russia, where these two fortresses face each other

What connection could there possibly be between the Estonian city of Narva, on the Russian border, and the upcoming National Humanitarian Conference (CNH) in Paris on October 6, and finally with our journal Défis Humanitaires? There’s no obvious link — and yet there is one!

Media outlets, experts, and governments are reporting serious Russian threats, particularly against the Baltic states and Finland, which may explain why CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Moscow on August 26 by way of Riga, the Estonian capital.

This has to be understood within the context of the war in Ukraine and a broader confrontation between Russia and its allies on one side and the European Union and NATO on the other. Vladimir Putin is raising a new army against Ukraine, intensifying his missile and drone strikes every day, and could be tempted by diversionary, expansionary, or probing maneuvers meant to divide and weaken his opponents.

Has this ongoing process of escalation led President Emmanuel Macron to announce the delivery of the Franco-Italian Aster anti-missile system, and, at the same time, the British to authorize the manufacture in Ukraine of the Franco-British Storm Shadow/SCALP cruise missile with French assistance?

Make no mistake: we are in a dangerous and uncertain period of escalation, one that includes Russian tactical nuclear weapons.

Given the dramatic consequences of the war in Ukraine that we already know, we cannot help but be wary of any risk of intensification or geographic spread of the war across Europe.

From Narva to the Suwałki Corridor

I traveled with my family this summer through the Baltic states, and I went as far as Narva, where the Estonian Hermann Fortress stands face to face, across the Narva River, with the Russian fortress of Ivangorod just a few hundred meters away.

Right nearby is the so-called Friendship Bridge, one of the few open crossing points with Russia — Saint Petersburg is only 150 km away — on which the Estonians have placed several rows of anti-tank “dragon’s teeth.” Watch this short video filmed in Narva here :

In a speculative-fiction book published in 2025, La guerre d’après (Grasset), German political scientist and military expert Carlo Masala imagines, in the year 2028, two Russian brigades seizing Narva while simultaneously capturing the island of Hiiumaa, allowing them to blockade the Baltic Sea. It’s only a scenario — but it’s a possible one.

Narva has 57,000 residents, 88% of whom are Russian-speaking, and many of whom hold Russian passports. For reference, Russian-speaking minorities make up roughly 31% of the population in Estonia, 35% in Latvia, and less than 7% in Lithuania, as one learns from Céline Bayou’s excellent book Les pays Baltes face à la menace russe en 100 questions (Tallandier). These Russian-speaking minorities are concentrated along the borders with Russia and Belarus, and in the capitals Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius.

Comparison isn’t proof, but the parallel with Ukraine’s Russian-speaking populations — whether in Crimea or in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts where the front lines lie — comes immediately to mind.

© Ministry of the Armed Forces – French battalion (500 soldiers) serving as part of a multinational NATO “battle group” under British command (900 soldiers) in Estonia

Traveling through the Baltic states, what strikes you is the presence, everywhere, of Ukrainian flags flying side by side with these countries’ own flags on official buildings.

Likewise, history is very much alive here, especially in the “museums of occupation and freedom,” which draw large numbers of visitors. It’s striking how present the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its secret protocols — signed on August 23, 1939, in Moscow between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union — remain in people’s minds (notably the partition of Poland and the Soviet military presence in the Baltic states). For the Baltic states, independent and recognized by the League of Nations from 1918 to 1940, German occupation was followed by Soviet occupation from 1944 to 1991, the year they regained independence, now 35 years ago.

In between, for 47 years, these populations endured repression, deportation to the Gulag, summary executions, and ideological servitude, which every family fell victim to in one way or another. They also remember the guerrilla campaign waged from 1944 to 1953 by the resistance movement known as the “Forest Brothers,” 170,000 of whom fought against the Soviet occupation — an occupation that most of the world’s countries never recognized as legitimate.

During this journey, after Narva and Estonia, then Latvia, we reached Lithuania, home to the famous Suwałki Corridor — about 80 km long — which forms the border between that country and Poland. This corridor has the distinction of sitting between the heavily armed Russian exclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea and Belarus, Moscow’s ally.

© LCI – Map showing the significance of the Sulwaki and Narva corridors in the tensions within the region

This is a major vulnerability for the West: if Russia seized control of it, the Baltic states would be cut off from the rest of Europe. Every day, information warfare, disinformation, cyberattacks, and sabotage attacks occur — to the point that one could argue a war has already begun. Will humanitarian aid be needed there one day?

Against this backdrop, the position taken by Kaja Kallas — former Prime Minister of Estonia and now the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy — becomes easier to understand.

I also invite you to read, in this issue, our friend Cyprien Fabre’s excellent article “Crises Never Come Alone,” which shows clearly how cracks eventually undermine an entire structure, risking collapse if nothing is done.

Don’t be surprised to learn that NATO is currently strengthening its military resources in response to the Russian threat — even as tourism continues to thrive in the beautiful Baltic states and Finland!

And What About Humanitarian Aid in All This?

While the risk of the war spreading is real, the escalation is, first and foremost, happening in Ukraine today, where humanitarian aid remains an urgent necessity. Other crises abound too — in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gaza, and Lebanon — but what’s increasingly lacking is relief itself, as humanitarian funding from too many states keeps declining.

There are moments that call for remobilization, and this is precisely one of them: the upcoming National Humanitarian Conference (CNH), to be held in Paris on October 6 at the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs. The conference is organized by the ministry’s Crisis and Support Centre (CDCS) in coordination with humanitarian actors, under the framework of the Humanitarian Consultation Group (GCH). Don’t miss this opportunity, which will bring together numerous actors and leaders (the European Union, ECHO, the UN, the ICRC, NGOs, and more).

The three main themes chosen for this CNH are:

International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and access for relief operations.
UN humanitarian reform and the actors involved.
Funding and partnerships.

These three major themes should help establish a clear-eyed assessment of the current situation, and above all, launch initiatives to safeguard aid to populations in danger.

There is no humanitarian aid, and no strategy, without the funding that turns it into action. Funding is dropping sharply. The figures speak for themselves, as UN appeals and contributions keep shrinking.

For reference, the UN, through OCHA, launched an appeal for 2026 seeking $23 billion to help 87 million people, while noting that $33 billion would actually be needed to help 135 million people across 50 countries.

According to information available as of August 31, contributions currently stand at $14.21 billion, or 40.6% of a revised appeal of $35.02 billion. In 2025, $23.23 billion was raised. What will this year bring?

© OCHA – Chart showing all funds recorded by the Financial Tracking Service (FTS) from 2016 to 2026 (both under coordinated plans and outside of them)

As for France, the humanitarian budget across its three channels (CDCS, NUOI, AAP) totals €285 million. It stood at €800 million in 2023, with a commitment made to raise it to €1 billion by 2025. The drop has been steep.

© CHD – “NGO Funding in France,” a table published with the permission of Coordination Humanitaire et Développement (CHD), a member of Coordination Sud

While these figures paint a necessary diagnosis, what matters most now is taking action — communicating, innovating, pooling resources, coordinating, and seeking out solutions and allies. All the more so since institutions like the European Commission, along with a number of states, continue to affirm their humanitarian commitment and are stakeholders in a new humanitarian alternative.

The October 6 CNH cannot, and must not, resemble previous editions, which since 2011 have accompanied a steady rise in French humanitarian aid. This one must mark a genuine turning point and firmly commit to a new direction.

Among the paths identified by humanitarian actors are the following:

Safeguard current institutional funding.
Improve efficiency, synergy, coordination, and impact among field actors working for populations in danger.
Simplify and reform institutional procedures that are too heavy and too costly.
Strengthen communication and ties with public opinion, lawmakers, young people, the media, think tanks, and businesses.
Build new, alternative partnerships.

On the subject of new funding sources, you’ll find of interest in this issue a well-documented article and project by our friend Antoine Vaccaro, proposing the creation in France of a Humanitarian Lottery, as already exists in most neighboring countries. It could bring in up to €800 million per year! Here’s a serious avenue worth considering. What will we actually do with it?

We have high expectations for this National Humanitarian Conference, which we will cover live on our YouTube channel and in our upcoming issues.

Meeting Humanitarian Challenges Together

To confront a geopolitical rupture of major scale, and a risk of existential weakening for the humanitarian sector, Défis Humanitaires has decided to rethink its mission — and to do so together with you.

To that end, let’s be very concrete.

We urgently need reliable, useful, constructive, and impactful information. In the face of misinformation and disinformation, which are thriving, serving the public interest is a priority. A recent study shows that while 75% of public opinion supports humanitarian aid, 82% say they want to be better informed!

To meet that need, we propose to:

Overhaul the journal.
Broaden and deepen its editorial line.
Grow its audience, impact, and influence.

To achieve this concretely and quickly, your support is essential and precious. While our journal is independent and free, it has costs, and volunteer work alone isn’t enough. Covering that cost is the essential condition for this new humanitarian mission!

I need your support, and your donation (link to HelloAsso) will make it possible to build this renewed journal together with you. We produce Défis Humanitaires for you, our readers.

With your donation, we also want to broaden our partnerships: editorial partnerships, distribution of the journal, strategic support, grants from foundations, companies, local authorities, and institutions — and the donations from our readers, which are invaluable support for the Défis Humanitaires project. Readers, with your donation, become part of the project starting today (link to HelloAsso)! A big thank you for your donation. (3)

We’ve come full circle; there is indeed a common thread, “links that unite” between the risks faced by the Baltic States and Finland, as well as in Ukraine today with the escalation of the war; the humanitarian response, which is at the heart of the upcoming National Humanitarian Conference; and *Revue Défis Humanitaire*, which here fulfills its role of raising awareness, providing information, making proposals, and mobilizing support? That is its very purpose. Thank you for supporting us with your donation.

Alain Boinet.

(1) La guerre d’après – La Russie face à l’Occident, Carlo Masala, Éditions Grasset.

(2) Les pays Baltes. Face à la menace russe. En 100 questions, Céline Bayou, Éditions Tallandier.

(3) Your donation is tax-deductible in France up to 66% of its amount. A tax receipt will be sent to you in January 2027. Thank you.

Alain Boinet is the president of the association Défis Humanitaires which publishes the online review www.defishumanitaires.com. He is the founder of the humanitarian association Solidarités International of which he was director general for 35 years. Moreover, he is a member of the Humanitarian Consultation Group with the Crisis and Support Center of the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, member of the Board of Directors of Solidarités International, of the French Water Partnership (PFE), of the Véolia Foundation, of the Think Tank (re)sources. He continues to go to the field (north-east Syria, Haut-Karabagh/Artsakh and Armenia) and to testify in the media.

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Listen to Afghan women—but above all, hear them

© Solidarités International – Farah, Gulestan District, in the village of Tel Kamad. SI is helping by building a well, providing access to sanitation, distributing hygiene kits, and conducting awareness sessions. Schoolchildren go to this water source to fetch water, which they use for drinking, washing, and household chores.

For the past five years, Afghan women have faced the gradual erasure of their rights, their visibility, and their participation in decision-making spaces. Yet behind the statistics and the restrictions, they continue to act, to fight for their rights, and to sustain their communities. In this fifth year of Taliban rule, the NGO SOLIDARITÉS INTERNATIONAL has created “Women in WASH,” an initiative focused on water, hygiene, and sanitation, designed not only to listen to Afghan women but, above all, to recognize their expertise and create the conditions for them to influence the decisions that affect them.

Made invisible, but never silent

August 15, 2026 marks the fifth anniversary of the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan. The numbers describe a brutal reality. Since 2021, Afghanistan has ranked last every year on the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Index, which measures women’s inclusion, justice, and security around the world. During this period, more than 100 decrees, directives, and practices have restricted the freedom, work, education, movement, and daily lives of Afghan girls and women. Today, they are largely excluded from the public sector, from employment with international and national non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and from formal decision-making structures. According to UN Women, there is currently no institutional mechanism left that allows Afghan women to take part in decisions affecting their lives and their future. Women are often required to go through a *mahram* — a male relative — to communicate their needs and views.

But their daily lives did not stop in 2021. Women continue to carry responsibilities within their households. Some run businesses, lead civil society organizations, or head local initiatives. “Afghan women are not passive,” explains Sameera Noori, director of COAR, a major Afghan NGO. “They organize themselves into formal or informal collectives, negotiate, and find solutions”. And this work pays off: through negotiation, patient explanation, and daily effort, small victories do happen. In one place, authorities eventually agree to allow a training session for women. In another, a mullah agrees to supply his daughter with sanitary pads. These spaces for action are fragile, constrained, and often invisible. Yet they point to a reality frequently lost in the dominant narrative about Afghan women: they remain active agents in their own lives, their families, and their communities, even as their room to act has been sharply narrowed.

© Solidarités International – In the village of Brige, located in the Khashrod district of Nimroz province, the team is conducting water quality tests on the borehole (pH, conductivity) as well as pressure tests to ensure that there will be enough water for the entire village and that it will be safe to drink. (February 11, 2026)

Male decisions, female needs

The issue of access to Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) crystallizes these contradictions. In Afghan households, it is women who fetch water, manage household hygiene, care for children and the sick, and handle their own needs, including menstrual health. In some rural settings, they also continue to work the fields and tend livestock. They hold very concrete knowledge of the day-to-day needs and constraints surrounding water. And yet they are frequently excluded from decision-making — as in traditional irrigation systems run by *mirabs*, groups of men responsible for allocating water among farmers along an irrigation canal, where women’s participation is socially unacceptable[2]. “Water is an essential resource for women in all of their daily activities,” Sameera explains. “Their difficulties in accessing it could be resolved by involving them in the design of humanitarian programs.” Despite this, the WASH sector — public, private, and humanitarian alike — remains overwhelmingly male in its workforce and its decision-making spaces. WASH activities are often designed by men, from a technical perspective that gives little consideration to women’s specific needs, and the consequences are immediate: water points that are too far away, latrines that are poorly lit and unsafe at night, and spaces that offer no privacy and are ill-suited to women’s lives.

© Solidarités International – Nimruz, in the Khosh Rod district, in the village of Garo in Gulestan. A 10-year-old girl who attended the hygiene promotion sessions organized by SI washes her hands following the advice she received..

Consulting women is now considered standard practice in program design and monitoring. But being consulted doesn’t necessarily mean influencing a decision. Between what a woman says in a community discussion and the service that ultimately gets funded and implemented, many trade-offs take place. Which priorities make it through to decision-makers, and which get lost along the way? These are the questions SOLIDARITÉS INTERNATIONAL set out to address through “Women in WASH,” an initiative launched in 2024 in partnership with the French Crisis and Support Centre (CDCS).

Women in WASH: putting women back at the center of expertise

Designed to strengthen the practices and technical capacities of WASH sector actors, Women in WASH aims to improve the quality, safety, dignity, and contextual adaptation of basic services to women’s needs. The initiative seeks to enrich, through the direct and active contribution of Afghan women, the evidence base on their practices, needs, and priorities. It supports the development of practical tools and guidelines for WASH actors, and strengthens knowledge-sharing, technical exchange, and the standing of women’s expertise within the sector. To do this, three components work together and reinforce one another:

A technical platform designed to foster learning, sector engagement, and support for women-led initiatives. Currently run by SOLIDARITÉS INTERNATIONAL, it is intended to become an independent structure led by Afghan women and organizations. It aims to bring together bodies representing the full range of civil society actors in the WASH field — public, private, or non-governmental — with a central role given to Afghan women and women’s organizations.
A diagnostic assessment analyzing women’s practices, knowledge, needs, and priorities regarding WASH; how these are gathered, understood, taken into account, and implemented across different interventions, including formal programmatic processes; and existing local initiatives, both formal and informal.
“The reform”, which translates the diagnostic’s findings into concrete tools, measures, and recommended initiatives for actors implementing or supporting WASH services, in order to better integrate women’s and girls’ needs, ideas, and participation into decision-making. These will be discussed, reviewed, adapted, and promoted through the technical platform.

So where do things stand?

The “Women in WASH” initiative entered its first operational phase in 2025 with the establishment of an initial version of the technical platform. Partnerships have been formed with several women-led Afghan organizations and technical partners:

Citizens Organization for Advocacy and Resilience (COAR), a national NGO with 36 years of experience, contributes operational expertise on women’s access to WASH services.
Safe Path Prosperity, a social enterprise manufacturing reusable sanitary pads in Kabul and Kandahar, contributes technical expertise on menstrual health and market access for women’s products.
The Afghan Midwives Association (AMA), a professional association, contributes expertise in women’s health, hygiene practices, and service interfaces.
Samuel Hall, a research partner, provides technical and methodological support for evaluation design and analysis. SOLIDARITÉS INTERNATIONAL contributes to the coordination and implementation of the initiative.

In 2026, the diagnostic assessment — the second component of “Women in WASH” — was launched following the co-development of tools and methodologies with platform stakeholders. The entire process is led by women, from defining the research questions and developing the tools through to data collection, translation, and analysis. As of August 2026, more than 40 discussions and interviews have been conducted with women and men across six provinces to compare women’s realities in varied geographic, social, and operational contexts: Bamyan, Herat, Kabul, Kandahar, Nangarhar, and Nimroz. The analysis will highlight:

Women’s realities: their practices, knowledge, needs, and priorities regarding WASH.
Response and decision-making processes: how women’s priorities are assessed, interpreted, prioritized, and taken into account at the community, organizational, and institutional levels.
Underlying determinants: the family, community, institutional, and contextual factors that shape these dynamics, including social norms, power relations, education, socio-economic conditions, and operational constraints.

© Solidarités International – December 1, 2022 – December 10, 2023. Bayiman and Kapisa provinces: a program funded by SI and ECHO on water, hygiene, and sanitation, benefiting 91,270 people. Photo of a well being built in the village of Tel Kamad (October 10, 2025)

A first version of the report presenting the diagnostic’s findings is expected by the end of September, with the final report due by the end of October 2026. It will then inform “the reform”, the operational component of “Women in WASH”:

Translating the findings into practical tools and recommendations to help humanitarian organizations better understand, account for, and respond to women’s priorities.
Engaging WASH sector actors, donors, and technical partners in structured dialogue on how this data can be better integrated into the design of programs and basic services.
Testing and refining these approaches before encouraging their wider adoption across the sector.

Through this research work and the establishment of the technical platform — both designed, driven, and led by Afghan women and women’s organizations — “Women in WASH” seeks to create a mechanism through which Afghan women’s realities, knowledge, and solutions can shape the decisions that affect their daily lives. Five years after the Taliban’s return to power, the challenge is to keep women’s expertise from disappearing as spaces for influence continue to shrink. For the humanitarian sector, listening is no longer enough.

Laure Larroquette and Rayhana Karim.

[1] Women, Peace and Security Index – Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security

[2] https://www.academia.edu/2997-6006/3/1/10.20935/AcadEnvSci8027

For more information, or to receive a copy of the Women in WASH report, please contact Rayhana Karim at wash.pm@solidarites-afghanistan.org or Laure Larroquette at llarroquette@solidarites.org

Rayhana Karim

Program manager for SOLIDARITÉS INTERNATIONAL in Afghanistan, Rayhana has spent several years working on issues of participation and inclusion of Afghan women in humanitarian action and development. After leading a local organization dedicated to women and working on protection, health, economic empowerment, and participation programs, she now leads the Women in WASH initiative.

Laure Larroquette

Technical Referent for Water Resource Management at SOLIDARITÉS INTERNATIONAL, Laure has worked with the NGO for more than 11 years, managing or coordinating water and sanitation access projects in Central Africa, the Middle East, and Southwest Asia. Having recently returned from a visit to Afghanistan in June 2026, Laure is currently working with the SOLIDARITÉS INTERNATIONAL mission on a more sustainable water access strategy — one that protects resources while also being more inclusive of women and girls, their primary users.

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