Acceptance is widely regarded as the foundation of humanitarian security risk management, yet its effectiveness is increasingly contested in politicised aid environments.

Drawing on interviews with 20 senior practitioners and a targeted literature review, this paper explores how politicised environments reshape the conditions under which acceptance can be built, maintained, and lost, and how practitioners are responding.

It finds that acceptance in these settings has become weaker, more conditional, and more vulnerable to wider political dynamics that no single organisation can control. In response, the paper sets out practical pathways for how organisations and the wider sector can adapt their acceptance strategies to environments where the traditional framework is no longer fit for purpose.

This paper is aimed primarily at NGO practitioners and decision-makers involved in SRM, access, programme delivery, and partnership management, while also speaking to staff in other NGO functions, UN agencies, institutional donors, and researchers engaged in this space.