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 discussed in…
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…
Internships can play a critical role in preparing the next generation of security practitioners. At a time when risks faced by aid workers are intensifying and demands on NGOs are increasing, creating strong early-career pathways into security risk management (SRM)…
Against a backdrop of 674 ribbons – each representing a humanitarian worker killed in service since the start of 2024 – the Declaration was launched. The sight of those ribbons, moving gently in the breeze, was a stark reminder of…
Les drones armés représentent une menace croissante dans les contextes humanitaires, et leur utilisation devrait continuer à s’intensifier. Autrefois rares, ils sont désormais une caractéristique marquante des conflits en Ukraine, dans les territoires palestiniens occupés, au Soudan et au Myanmar,…
As a 20-year-old intern in Washington DC at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, I overlapped with the release of The Last Best Chance, a docudrama that explored the threats posed by unsecured nuclear material around the world. It was an…
“For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.” Aristotle What is HEAT? The number of casualties among humanitarian workers, diplomats, and journalists…