Dealing with Insecurity

Humanitarian actors must constantly navigate insecurity — whether it’s negotiating access to affected populations while maintaining impartiality and neutrality, when ensuring their response keeps staff safe, or when designing conflict-sensitive programming. We explore how humanitarian actors can best deal with these challenges. Discover some of our key observations from past work: 

Security management – and the related lack of international field presence – emerged as recurrent obstacles for an improved humanitarian response and undermined humanitarian principles in Somalia.

Evaluation: The International Response to the Humanitarian Crisis in Somalia

Ensure that prevention and protection activities have clearly defined and well-understood shared objectives.

The Contribution of Prevention Work to ICRC Protection of Civilians Engagement

Contrary to what most protection actors can or are willing do, military allies of an armed actor have the option of enhancing the protection of civilians by providing combat support like weapons, tactical advice and intelligence.

The Logic of Protection Approaches. Four Models to Safeguard Civilians from Harm

There are good reasons for focusing on community capacities when trying to protect civilians from harm.

Three Ley Lessons From Efforts to Strengthen Community Protection in Iraq

Conflict sensitivity is supported in principle but neglected in practice.

Evaluation of the Policy on WFP’s Role in Peacebuilding in Transition Settings

The vast majority of humanitarian organizations fail to engage strategically with armed non-state actors in order to negotiate access.

Secure Access in Volatile Environments

Where access is constrained, agencies should invest more in communicating with and involving communities.

Eyes and Ears on the Ground: Monitoring Aid in Insecure Environments (SAVE)

What works to increase access in one context can be counterproductive in another.

Evaluation and Review of Humanitarian Access Strategies in DG ECHO Funded Interventions

Portraying the humanitarian principles as sacrosanct has created a culture of silence on what trade-offs are acceptable to gain access.

Evaluation of WFP Policies on Humanitarian Principles and Access in Humanitarian Contexts

A more principled approach requires giving priority to impartiality, neutrality and independence, at the expense of access in the short term.

Evaluation of WFP Policies on Humanitarian Principles and Access in Humanitarian Contexts