Navigating Crisis, Complexity, and Courage in Myanmar - with Gwyn Lewis

Gwyn Lewis: When you arrive in Myanmar, m what strikes you most is how beautiful the place is, the country and the people. And you soon realize how separated communities are. If we can understand protection as being about rights, about dignity, and making sure people are safe, it's a much better strategy than giving, uh, people things to help them. And so I think what's very important is bringing all of that expertise together as a management team, as a leadership team. And we're not successful if we work separately from each other. We need to come together and really think through who can we influence in order to make sure that those needs and those rights of the most vulnerable are respected.

Panos Mumsis: Protection leadership means ensuring that the safety, the dignity and the rights of the people affected by humanitarian crisis guide every decision we make. Humanitarian leaders in field operations need to work together to advocate and to keep attention firmly on those most at risk. Protection is everybody's business. Hello and welcome to the Protection Leadership Podcast, where we explore what it means to place the protection of civilians at the center of the humanitarian leadership. In today's world, with multiple crises, civilians face escalating risks in conflict situation, with violence, with displacement, with violations of international humanitarian law, shrinking humanitarian space for humanitarians, and now, of course, with severe funding cuts that are really forcing extremely difficult choices to be made across the humanitarian system and by humanitarian leaders in every location. The question that I'm asking today is what does it take for humanitarian leadership at the country level to keep protection at the center of the decisions made by senior leaders to be able to bring the best decisions to ensure protection outcomes for the people that we serve? In today's episode, we're going to explore the question of protection leadership. And in one of the world's most complex crises, in Myanmar. Myanmar remains one of the most challenging humanitarian contexts today. With millions of affected people in conflict situation with massive displacement, and with the deepening humanitarian needs across the country, Leading a response in such an environment really requires difficult decisions, strong leadership, strong, strong partnerships, and the constant focus on protection of civilians. I'm Panos Mumsis, and I'm really pleased to be joined today by Gwyn Lewis, the resident and humanitarian coordinator in Myanmar. Gwyn, thank you for joining and what a pleasure to have you with us today.

Gwyn Lewis: Thank you, Panus. It's great to be with you.

Panos Mumsis: I would like to start first of all with your journey and I wanted to, if you could really share with me a personal story kind of in your leadership role, a situation where you got to apply the protection leadership in a concrete example and realize what a difference it Makes when we intervene and in some situations where we cannot.

Gwyn Lewis: So when I was thinking about this, um, what came to mind was when I was working in the Red Cross many years ago, and I was based in Palestine, uh, and one of the big challenges we had was really thinking how we could bring protection to everybody, regardless of who you were supporting. And I was working on the assistance program, meaning delivery of food, uh, health services, water and sanitation services to people across the West Bank. But what we were finding was that people didn't necessarily want assistance. What they wanted was to be able to take care of their families themselves. And one of the big challenges in the west bank is actually around access and around restrictions that are imposed by, uh, the Israeli Defense Forces and the occupation. So we switched our programming around and made it about helping people access their agricultural land that was on the other side of the wall. It was about supporting, um, women, uh, to get to markets that had been cut off by checkpoints or earth mounds. And that actually meant more engaging with, uh, the authorities than it did about delivering anything. And that's really when I realized the importance of having protection driving everything that we do. It's really at the heart of the work. And if we can understand protection as being about rights, about dignity, and making sure people are safe, it's a much better strategy than giving, uh, people things to help them.

Panos Mumsis: Yeah, uh, this is where it makes the difference on the ground. When you arrived in Myanmar around about six months ago and took really this kind of important, uh, leadership and position, uh, so what were your first impressions when you arrived? How did you see things?

Gwyn Lewis: When you arrive in Myanmar, what strikes you most is how beautiful the place is. The country and the people have been nothing but gracious, hospitable, um, and such a warm, warm community. And you soon realize when you're traveling around and visiting, we have offices across the country, how separated communities are and how the conflict over the many years that have really impacted communities, but has also separated people and isolated people from each other. And we're very fortunate very often as humanitarian actors, to be able to cross into some of those areas that have been completely cut off. Living in Yangon, it's a beautiful city and very multicultural, but it's very divided from the rest of the country. Just the impact over time and the separation of family members, separation of communities, and just the devastation that the war has had where when you meet every family, every individual you meet has been impacted in some way. So that's. It's really striking how much pressure people are under and how tired they are of the conflict. And once you get over the initial kind of, uh, appreciation of the country and the people, you really begin to see how sad and difficult it is.

Panos Mumsis: Yeah, you're talking about the people and about the difficulties out there. Uh, can you elaborate a little bit further? What are these protection challenges, risks? What are the difficulties? What do people face in different parts of the country, given the current complexity and the context on the ground?

Gwyn Lewis: So that's the challenge. Every part of the country is difficult, but almost every part of the country is in conflict. Um, so it means, uh, that people are impacted by airstrikes, um, bombs falling, drone strikes. It's one of the countries, uh, where we have the highest rate of, uh, mine casualties in the world. There's active conflict. 3.7 million people have been displaced because of the country.

Panos Mumsis: Wow. The numbers are staggering.

Gwyn Lewis: The numbers are huge. And sometimes it's really difficult to get your head around what that means. And it means people have been forced out of their homes and are living in, uh, camps or are living in cities, uh, across the country. And sometimes those same people are displaced not once, but twice or three or four or five times.

Panos Mumsis: Wow.

Gwyn Lewis: And I even, uh, visited some camps in my first weeks, ah, first months, rather, when I visited Rakhine, where people had been displaced in camps for over 12 years. So just the impact that has on communities, um, and families, babies born into camp situations and freedom of movement being restricted. Uh, so the conflict over the many years, really, it's really grinding. And year, um, after year after year, um, and you don't reach 3.6 million people displaced in a year. It's years and years of conflict.

Panos Mumsis: Yeah. Um, so, I mean, it's a grim picture, and the numbers are staggering. The situation impacting many, many millions of people in the country. Uh, you are leading there as a resident humanitarian coordinator, you're leading the effort on behalf of the United nations, bringing together the NGOs, the other UN agencies, the international community. What can you do in a context like this? How can one bring change? How can you lead a team in particular, in view of the protection challenges that are really clearly political and so huge in terms of how to bring positive outcomes for people?

Gwyn Lewis: I think the role of the partners and the national NGOs, international NGOs, the UN are really critical because, as I said, we're probably one of the few neutral brokers. And I think that's really what the humanitarian principles, the principles of protection bring to a country like Myanmar is where we're able to access and Reach some of the families and the most impacted, the most vulnerable. So the role that the, uh, humanitarian community have is so vital. And we say that and we, you know, we're in a time across the world where conflict is everywhere. And I know there's constant appeals for financing and for support, but I see the real impact it has on people's lives and just giving the people that little hand and to be able to pick them up in order for them to be able to then go back and help their families, take care of their children, get the help they need if, uh, they've been injured, so many children have lost limbs from the mines, um, and being able to put programs in place to support, to hold up some of the health, uh, system that has really been under a lot of pressure to get medicines in, uh, to try and get children back to school. Because we also forget that five years of conflicts means five years of children very often not being in a classroom. So. So that lifeline really helps communities pick themselves up. And I think that's really what the value of coming together as partners, um, and having one vision of what we're trying to achieve, which is really ultimately helping the most vulnerable, regardless of the politics and regardless of the conflict lines.

Panos Mumsis: Wow. Uh, and giving some hope to people who are in extreme situations and extreme difficulties on the ground. So if you look at yourself leading the team, I'd be interested to hear some, Some examples of some interventions or the importance of protection leadership. And you're on the helm of the team to be able to bring them forward with interventions that either you or team members or together with team members you will undertake. So I'd love to hear some examples if possible.

Gwyn Lewis: Some examples would be, um, the lines of the conflict are very complex across the country. So the country is very fragmented, um, and so it's very important, uh, to engage with all, uh, groups that are involved. So we work with the, uh, Myanmar Armed forces, we dialogue with them in order to provide assistance to the communities that may be not under their control. And so that means conversations with all of the groups that could be involved in the conflict and negotiating that access. So it's a very, very complicated thing to do. But unless there's trust, uh, and an understanding that the intention is humanitarian assistance for the most vulnerable, for the children, for the civilians, for pregnant women, it's not possible to do it. But I think by building that trust and by, um, ensuring that we have the most vulnerable at the center, that protection work, to raise issues of rights, to make sure communities are safe, and to be able to reach those communities with what is vital assistance is really a key, I think, role that all of the international community and the national humanitarian community in Myanmar play.

Panos Mumsis: Yeah, you mentioned the humanitarian community, and in the country, you have the senior humanitarian management team, the humanitarian country team, but also the UN country team that brings more UN agencies. So I'm interested to know, how do you mobilize, basically, a team to be able to work together with so many issues that are on the ground and to have some protection outcomes, to have some concrete results in mentioned assistance, but also in terms maybe of some of the rights questions that are there. So I'd love to hear. And we've just come out also from a retreat we've just had with the team. So I'd love to hear your reflections on this. Mobilizing a team together in their challenging circumstances.

Gwyn Lewis: I mean, we talked about it the last couple of days. I think what is very challenging about Myanmar is the situation is so overwhelming. It's. The numbers are huge. I mean, it's a country of 55 million people or so, and 16 million people are in need, and the people who are displaced, and. And so sometimes when we sit down and we look at all of the rights issues and we look at all of the safety issues, it's very overwhelming. And so I think what's very important is bringing all of that expertise together as a management team, as a leadership team, and thinking, okay, what's the most important, first and foremost, what's the most important issue? It's protecting civilians. Is it, um, making sure that some of the legal frameworks are changed? What. What is it that we think is the most vital that will have the biggest impact on the communities? And then having conversations about how do we prioritize and who our stakeholders are and how we can influence them to make the change on the ground. And we're not successful if we work separately from each other. Um, we're not successful if we only focus on our mandates, um, or if we allow smaller organizations or national organizations to work alone. We need to come together and really think through who can we influence in order to make sure that those needs and those rights of the most vulnerable are respected. So it's about trying to influence constituencies in countries across the world in order to put pressure on, um, different governments to change how they're approaching this situation. It's to try and leverage funding, uh, so that we can reach those communities. It's negotiating with all of the armed actors, which is a very complex thing, with hundreds and hundreds of groups in Myanmar in order to ensure rights are being respected, that uh, children are allowed to access school, but also that they're not recruited into some of the armed groups, that their sexual violence is addressed, um, or you know, prevented, ideally. So some of those very difficult conversations we need to have with all of the groups in order to make that change. But unless we're focused and unless we come together as a team, it doesn't work.

Panos Mumsis: Yeah, um, you mentioned about accessing people, reaching people, being able to crisscross this very complex environment with different groups to be able to reach people, often with access. In humanitarian world, one of our, uh, dilemmas is access almost versus principles. You know, do we go pushing for international humanitarian law and principles? And sometimes we're afraid that this may result to loss of access. And it's a balancing act. So I'd love to hear your reflections on how do you ensure that we have access. And at the same time some of these principles on behalf of people and values are kind of pursued.

Gwyn Lewis: It's always a balance. There's no easy answer. Um, and I think that's the value of having teams on the ground and as much as possible working with organizations that are in areas that may be not in the capital, that we really get a grasp of, of the reality of the ground. Because that understanding then helps prioritize how we work and where we work. But, um, one of the kind of the balancing acts we have and leadership's role is I have three hats. I have a development hat where we focus on how we advance and support the longer term programming in the country. But then as a humanitarian coordinator, I also need to raise issues of international humanitarian law and rights and prevent communities being put at risk. But I also have another hat which is around the security. I have to make sure my teams are safe. And sometimes there's trade offs between those three roles. And uh, I was in Bangladesh before, uh, joining the team in Myanmar. And uh, you know, there was moments where it was very difficult to, to decide on the trade offs. And one thing is the pressure, because we come under pressure from each of those constituents to behave in a certain way. And that was very strong in Bangladesh because the development portfolio is incredibly important. But at the same time, the insecurity was very real at moments during the last couple of years with the uprising and the student revolution. And then at the same time we needed to call out and the rights abuses, you know, young people were being killed and were being shot on the streets. So finding the moments, finding the ways to advocate with the duty bearers is often very complicated. But there's also moments where you need to make very difficult decisions because you have to live with yourself. And so those moments are, um, real tests of our character, but also of the system, because the system often is not, uh, always behind all of this very challenging decisions that we make.

Panos Mumsis: No, it has the leadership skills to be able to bring it all together and to drive it to bringing results. And a balancing act, as you said. You mentioned the three hats. There's also the political dimension. So I would like to ask you, how do you manage this humanitarian development, political safety nexus, to bring it all together and are you able to leverage them in a way? I kind of feel sometimes that as humanitarians, we're very shy to go on the political side. And we always feel, no, no, we're neutral, independent, and we don't. So at the same time, it's the political that can bring this change in crisis that sometimes is purely political. So I'd love to hear your reflections on this triple nexus or quadruple nexus. And how do you bring it all together?

Gwyn Lewis: There's advantages of having that overview, because I think you're right. We sometimes need to really engage politically in order to be able to make the change. And that engagement isn't necessarily us making a political decision. It's informing the political actors of what the humanitarian needs are and what's actually happening in country. So I think there's a very real role there. But also another example would be, um, I'll go back to the camps in, uh, Sittway that I visited recently in Rakhine, where, as I mentioned, the communities there have been displaced for almost 12 years now. Providing food parcels is no longer adequate. Yeah, um, children need to go to school, young people need to be trained. We need to think about livelihoods. So that's really where that nexus thinking and, uh, how we bring in some of those solutions for the longer term are really, really important. And so it's a constant. Again, another balancing act and to make the best use of all of the system. I think in Myanmar, we're very lucky because we have a special envoy for Myanmar, Ms. Julie Bishop. And she has a very clear mandate to help provide and mediate. So it's also helpful to have that role so I can really focus as well on remaining impartial and remaining an honest broker. And really working together really creates that very clear and, I hope, cohesive approach to these very, very complex issues.

Panos Mumsis: Yeah, no, having especially void, that's definitely to bridge with that political leverage. That may also bring, in whichever way, the best possible results for the people working in the ground. Gwyn, I'd like to ask you about the local actors as a humanitarian system. We have gone a long way for a number of years now, empowering the so called localization, uh, in the context of Myanmar, a country where there is a sizable number of very able, skilled, professional, compassionate, uh, humanitarian workers leading local national organizations at different levels. How do you work with them? Um, how do you involve them? Not just an implementation, but also on leadership position, kind of being part of the decision making in the context of Myanmar.

Gwyn Lewis: I think that's one very, very positive aspect of the humanitarian reset and all of the changes that are happening at the moment. Because we finally, we stopped saying we need to have local partners at the center. We are actually doing it for the first time. And you're absolutely right. The Myanmar national, uh, partners, the NGOs are extraordinary. They're strong leaders. They're the people who really understand what's happening on the ground. So they're a key component of our humanitarian country team in Myanmar. So we have a kind of a proportionate system now, let me put it that way. We have five national partners, five international NGOs and five UN agencies. And we are the humanitarian country team. And that's really where we get our advice and the leadership. And that's informed by coordination structures at a local level that are all, every single one of them led by national partners. And that's a sea change because what we're actually saying is we're not going to strengthen and build on local capacity. What we're saying is we need to listen and we need to, uh, allow local partners to lead the response because they're the people who know what's best for their own communities, which is so self evident. But I think it's taken us a long time as a humanitarian community to be humble enough to recognize that, as

Panos Mumsis: you say, they have knowledge more than us a lot of the time to be able to. At the same time, there is a question of not passing risk on them and how to do that, basically.

Gwyn Lewis: And that's very challenging because I think because you're from a community and because you care so much, you're going to take more risks than you would otherwise. And I think that's really where again, we go back to protection. We go back to making sure that rights are respected, but that there's dignity not only for the people that we're trying to help, but also for the people who are delivering those services. So um, it's very important that we share that risk, um, that if the UN agency or an international organization is better placed to provide the delivery, that we're there and that we do that and that we're supportive and that we stand up for maybe people who are arrested from national, um, partner organizations or people who are arrested, checkpoints, that they know that there's a support mechanism, mechanism behind them and that our donors are aware of some of that risk sharing that they also need to take, because that's also an important part of this.

Panos Mumsis: Uh, Queen, you're in a top leadership position in the country, reading a complex operation. If you were a CEO of a private company, let's say, and you had to make some decisions, it could impact maybe the profitability, the margin of, uh, how much money the company. In humanitarian situations, the leadership decision is crucial because it's obviously about lives and saving lives. So I wanted to ask you if you could share a story of maybe one of the most difficult leadership decisions you had made, given the complexity, given also the shrinking financial funding situation where we're seeing now, where tough decisions have been made. I'd, uh, be interested if you could share an example.

Gwyn Lewis: I worked a lot on the Rohingya response because a lot of people have fled, fled, uh, Myanmar to Bangladesh. Um, and currently there's about 1.2 million refugees in Bangladesh. And that community is very reliant on humanitarian assistance for various reasons, but one of the main ones is that they cannot work. Um, and they're living the largest camp in the world. In fact, it's a huge, enormous, uh, camp that's, you know, you can't see from one end to the other. When you're standing on top of a building and you're looking at it, it's quite. It's quite extraordinary. And we were providing every month basic food assistance to the entire population. And, uh, funding was cut very dramatically last year, and we forecast that we would have about 30% of what we had the previous year.

Panos Mumsis: Wow. 70% cut.

Gwyn Lewis: 70% cut. So we had to reprioritize the entire response in this pandemic space of two or three months. And I can tell you those. Those decisions are incredibly difficult. But the. The humanitarian country team, it was a Rohingya response team in, in Bangladesh, came together and said, okay, what we want to make sure of is that people are getting food assistance. Children don't stop getting fed. Because when we've had to, We've had moments where the food rations were cut and we saw very high spikes in nutrition Rates going down in young children. In particular, issues of gender based violence increased dramatically when you cut food. And so again, the protection risks increase exponentially. So we reached a common agreement that that would be the focus. And as a result we had to close down programs that were aimed at supporting people with disabilities. We had to close down the education system for a few months. Um, but it was really a concerted effort. And it was a, uh, concerted effort based also on feedback from the community themselves about what they thought was important. So, you know, some of those conversations and those decisions are very, very tough because you're making choices that you don't want to make. And as humanitarians, we don't join, uh, the UN or an NGO in order to cut people's food rations or their access to healthcare. We do it because we're trying to help. So some of those moments are very challenging and I think it's a challenge that many responses are facing across the world at the moment. Because of the decline in funding.

Panos Mumsis: No, it's heartbreaking. It's overwhelming hearing your voice, uh, to make these tough decisions, services. But education is like future piece of the next generation to be able to get them. So really tough situations.

Gwyn Lewis: Yeah, very difficult. Yeah.

Panos Mumsis: I want to ask you in this highly complex, highly kind of political, difficult, politicized situations, being an honest broker, being somebody that maintains the neutrality, maintaining the trust is vital to one's credibility, to one's being able to be seen as really kind of representing values. Yet everything you do can be interpreted by one side or another of taking sides, of being political. How do you ensure this neutrality, this independence, this uh, impartiality, the ability to operate in a very political context.

Gwyn Lewis: I think for me the most important thing is to listen. I mean, even now in Myanmar, I've been there a few months, I'm still listening because I don't know very much yet. And I think that's. Once people appreciate that you're paying attention to what they're saying and what their concerns are, and then you're trying to answer truthfully about how you can help or what you would like to see happen, um, is very, very important. And it takes time. Relationships don't happen overnight. It really is a lot of effort and a lot of outreach and a lot of conversations to build that trust. But key to that is not over promising. And if you commit to something, I think to make sure that you deliver on what you've committed to, um, and over time that trust will be built. I'm very lucky in Myanmar because we have, as we've already mentioned, incredible organizations with very strong leaders who have been there for decades. And so I can benefit from those relationships and that leadership. So I think, um, just being very clear that I will speak to everybody, but at the end of the day, my objectives are. Are very, very clear. My objectives are to try and do the best thing we can do. We're clearer about our principles, we're clear about the values we stand for as a community. I find that no matter who's in front of me, there's always, um, a moment where we can connect and communicate and understand each other.

Panos Mumsis: Yeah. So trust with your counterparts, interlocutors is really important. But how about trust and motivation within the team? Sometimes I've been in situations where the team can get demotivated, particularly when it's prolonged for a long time. But also the external politicization, sometimes it creates its own dynamics on the team because nobody wants to be in trouble, nobody wants to be in danger. And while you're operating helping people, uh, the pressures are enormous. How do you keep that trust and motivation in the team itself to keep the hope alive and to keep on going?

Gwyn Lewis: And that's what's also interesting about what's happening in the world right now, because it's not only the pressures inside Myanmar and all of those challenges, but it's also the broader pressure on the humanitarian system. I mean, we've seen huge cuts in aid assistance. We've seen, uh, organizations that have had to cut personnel by 30, 40, 50%. So you can imagine somebody coming to work every day not knowing if they're going to have their position cut tomorrow. And then they're working with vulnerable communities and they're dealing with the conflict and all of those pressures. So I think what's really important is to be human, because we're all going through this incredibly difficult time until, again, listen to each other. And I think that's the dynamic I try to create within the team. I see myself as one of many, um, and that we're there to work together. My position, I'm lucky because I don't manage an organization and I don't have to take care of a huge number of staff. And so I can spend my time and my energy in making sure that the other organizations are supported and that if something difficult has to be said, I can say it on behalf of the community. And I think just providing that reassurance and being the person who can, you know, you have somebody to call when things get very difficult is really just a very important Part of the role of a resident humanitarian coordinator.

Panos Mumsis: So when I hear you're a leader, you're a counselor, your voice, your shoulder, your support, to come to see how to keep the team also together.

Gwyn Lewis: But I think that's what everybody in the team does.

Panos Mumsis: Everybody does.

Gwyn Lewis: That's what we have to do. And sometimes it's just taking a moment to remember, you know, who we are and why we're here. Yeah, but, you know, it doesn't mean it's always easy.

Panos Mumsis: No. Um, Gwyn, you mentioned about when somebody can come to you and you can speak up the question of advocacy, influencing, how to go about it in such a complex situation with so many sensitivities that all around, can you advocate collectively? Can you bring the team around? What's the best way to go about it in kind of this very difficult, uh, context on the ground, there's no

Gwyn Lewis: easy answer to that. It really, it's. Each and every issue is its own approach. I think we have to be very smart about how we engage because it's important to say what needs to be said, but we need to keep the doors open so that we can go back next week. And I think it's finding that balance. And there's a lot of other actors out there who are monitoring human rights violations and who are looking at the political issues. And so leaning on their voices is very important and thinking what the most important role is for the humanitarian country team and finding the best entry point. Sometimes it's private conversations, sometimes it's, um, programming, sometimes it's outreach, sometimes it's a public statement, but also telling the story, telling the. Really the story about what individuals and what people are going through. Um, for example, women. We celebrate Women's Day recently, and we talked to, uh, women across Myanmar and what it was like and how they felt their rights were being respected and no matter what community we engage with, you know, rights were being violated and, you know, so there's a commonality there and a humanity there that we really try to emphasize so that there's an understanding of how to address some of those concerns.

Panos Mumsis: So multiple tactics and methodologies to be able to reach the influencing. Uh, yeah, Gwyn, at the moment, the United nations, the humanitarian system is going through quite a lot of, uh, attack reform, financial resetting, operational coordination, resetting. It's a moment for soul searching, but also for adaptation to remain relevant, to keep that value and principle that, ah, guided all of us to do the job that we do in making this system and organization more efficient, more effective. So my Question is, in the middle of all of that particular, uh, with the funding cuts, which have been quite significant, how do you keep protection a priority? How do you ensure that this is a lens where we help the most vulnerable of the most vulnerable, because the needs are tremendous in the context. So how do you do that with cutting funds and keeping protection at the center?

Gwyn Lewis: It's a very difficult moment for the entire UN system, for all of the humanitarian partners. And so I think what we really have managed to do in Myanmar over the last few months, but it's a constant effort, is really to come together and think through what are the most important things that we need to do. We have more than 20 UN agencies in Myanmar. We have hundreds of. And, uh, NGOs across the country. Um, but if we can work together and reach a common understanding of what's the most important, then we can prioritize that. And that is always based on identifying protection needs. It's about dignity. Again, it's about the rights people have and how we gain respect for those. And it's about how to keep communities safe. And once, once we have an understanding of that, we can tailor our health interventions to make sure that it's also about health and that we're prioritizing reproductive health for pregnant women because it's very challenging for them to access particular areas. So it's really keeping that protection lens. And so I think rather than being complex, to keep it on, um, focus. That has to be our guiding star. It has to be the way we work. Again, when we do an analysis of all of the needs, it becomes very difficult to know where to start. But that helps, you know, looking at the protection aspect helps us to decide where we need to focus and what we need to work on.

Panos Mumsis: Uh, it's a good lens to look at things and decide which way to go. Um, Gwynne, we've had a long career and in different positions in different organizations in quite challenging context, also different parts of the world. So. So my question is, what advice would you give to a new humanitarian leader in terms of kind of caring, holding themselves and moving into a very complex world, a world where also values and principles are, in today's world, being questioned. So what would be your advice to an emerging leader?

Gwyn Lewis: I think it's important to be very centered and to really understand what your own red lines are and understand those. And, um, the UN principles are very clear. The UN values are very clear, and it's important to keep on going back to them and remembering, um, because you can lose yourself because of the pressures because of the stress, because of the expectations. And, um, it's very important to keep that center. And I think the other thing I would do is just come back to this point I've already made is really listen, because the more you know, the less you know. And, um, every context is totally different. So you need to come with a very open mind and not bring expectations of what you can do or an arrogance because you've done it somewhere else. It doesn't work. You really have to start from zero. So it makes it quite exhausting, but also fascinating and challenging. And I think if you can listen and you can continue to listen and you can keep centered, I think that, uh, will make a very good leader.

Panos Mumsis: Active listening. Something as leaders often don't do enough, uh, where, uh, to be able to. And as you said, the more you know, the less you know as you go through. So very wise words. My final question I want to ask you. I mean, I. We've been together now for a couple of days of this strategic leadership workshop, and I got a sense of your energy and your drive on being hopeful in a context where some people would have lost the hope, where you say the complexity, the number of years, the no solution, the protractedness. So my question is, what is it that keeps this hope? What keeps you hopeful as you're moving along?

Gwyn Lewis: I mean, it's always the same answer. It's the people we meet along the way. You know, one of the very stark things about Myanmar is the number of young people who are leaving the country because they can't find jobs, because they're, they're fearful of the conflict, um, because of conscription, uh, into various military groups, into the armed forces. But the young people who are in Myanmar are putting in place projects to start up businesses. They are working with their communities to prevent the impact of climate, which is also a huge issue in Myanmar. So that energy or just visiting camps or communities and you see women holding their families together and caring, that energy and that resilience, um, is really what brings hope. And, um, we need to be hopeful in today's world. And the people we meet and the engagement, despite all of the odds with our families and our communities is really what we all hope. We hope our children will have a brighter future than ours. And you see that in Myanmar, like everywhere else.

Panos Mumsis: Yeah. Uh, thank you so much for, uh, joining the Protection Leadership Podcast. Listening to you, really, one gets the sense of the complexity of the leadership role, but also the importance of the leadership in protection to drive protection outcomes, to lead a team and bring it together. So, really, thank you very much for joining us. And I want to say to our listeners, thank, uh, you for being with us again today. My aim continues to be simple, to give voices, to give the space to leaders working in the humanitarian sector and to hear the stories, the human stories like you just heard today from Gwyn, about their personal experience, their personal journey, and the leadership shadow they bring with them on bringing the best outcomes for the people and protection outcomes in particular, in very difficult circumstances. So thank you very much for joining us today and looking forward to seeing you. To the next episode of Protection Leadership. Thank you,

Gwyn Lewis: Sam.