On March 4, 2021, Ali Soufan, Founder of The Soufan Center, joined the launch event for Hostage Aid Worldwide, in partnership with the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation. The event included a number of renowned panelists and former hostages to discuss the increasing threat of hostage taking globally and ways to intercept the hostage business model. Ali Soufan participated in a panel on ‘Hostage Diplomacy: The global hostage business model and strategies to disrupt it,’ alongside Dr. Julia Nesheiwat, Maziar Bahari and Jason Poblete, with moderator Geoffrey Dive of Hostage Aid Worldwide.
Hostage Aid’s mission is to assist hostage victims and their families by providing insights on their cases, coordination with governments & UN bodies, or a strategy to disrupt the hostage business model and the emerging threat of hostage diplomacy. This will be done by combining global advocacy with empirical data driven methods and extensive research.