Together with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG) is organising a series of conferences bringing together policy makers with international and national humanitarians. The conferences cover a range of issues, including: what humanitarian models work best, what degree of proximity humanitarian actors need and how those outside the formal system can best influence the debate on the future of humanitarian action.

The second conference in the series, on "Refreshing Humanitarian Action: developing and reframing responses to meet new challenges", was held in Jakarta in collaboration with Humanitarian Forum Indonesia. The conference explored how humanitarian action in Southeast Asia has undergone a dramatic shift over the past couple of decades. Whereas in the past humanitarian aid was, to a large extent, dominated by Western donors and international aid agencies, today a diverse range of local, national and regional actors are taking the lead in many forms of humanitarian action, including disaster response, recovery and preparedness, providing humanitarian assistance in conflict-affected areas and delivering services to and protecting refugees and victims of trafficking.