My name is Awil Bihi, a security management professional with over 18 years of experience in humanitarian security, access, and operational risk. As Risk and Access Advisor, I support CARE International in delivering humanitarian assistance and developmental interventions in…
Context Over the past decade, the push for localisation has put partnerships with local and national actors at the centre of aid policy reform. While policy frameworks increasingly frame localisation in the language of partnership and shared responsibility, emerging…
As headline sponsor of the GISF Global Security Conference 2026, ILS was proud to join humanitarian organisations, donors, UN agencies, and security specialists from across the sector for two days of dialogue on the challenges shaping humanitarian…
Following GISF’s Global Security Conference last month, we spoke to a representative from the Venezuelan human rights organisation Center for Human Rights Defenders and Justice. They joined us at the Conference to share their experience and perspectives in a context…
As humanitarian organisations face increasingly complex threats and shrinking operating environments, collective approaches to security have become more essential than ever. Ahead of GISF’s Global Security Conference, we spoke to a representative from the…
The risk environment for lawyers and human rights defenders in 2026 In mid-February it emerged that Alexi Navalny, the late Russian opposition leader, had been poisoned by dart frog poison shortly before his death. What is less…
Disruption continues to reshape the aid sector in ways that challenge even the most experienced humanitarian leaders. Trust in international organisations is under strain, donor expectations are shifting, political environments are becoming more polarised, and rapid technological change risks leaving…
Insights from Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger Insecurity Insight’s new report, The Humanitarian Space on Social Media: Learning from Social Media Narratives in the Sahel (French version here) shows how public online…
Recent commitments from the UK and a group of UN member states on aid worker safety raise questions about what this means for our sector, and how we put them into practice. 2024 was the deadliest year on record for…
In social meetings of humanitarians, there’s usually a moment when the group starts swapping stories about safety/security staff from the past. Vignettes range from the enthusiastic to the disgusted, by way of the incredulous, and a lot…