Archive:

Humanitarian Programmatic Issues

Security risk management in the age of social media

The killing of kidnapped British aid workers, David Haines and Alan Henning, by the Islamic state (IS) is another testimony of the security risks humanitarian personnel are increasingly facing. With the plummeting security situation in Iraq and Syria, humanitarian actors have increased their activity on social media to draw attention to their causes and to the plight of their beneficiaries. This activity, however, is putting them at an increased risk of kidnapping by militant groups.

17 Nov 2014 Blog

GISF – Impact of Counter-terrorism Legislation on Humanitarian Operations and Security Risk Management Webcast

In this GISF webcast, Naz Modirzadeh, (Senior Fellow, HLS-Brookings Project on Law and Security, Counterterrorism and Humanitarian Engagement project at Harvard Law School), addresses these questions. She also deals with further practical implications of counter-terrorism measures, with a particular focus on the impact for those involved in security risk management for NGOs.

21 Oct 2014 Blog

Communications Technology and Humanitarian Delivery: Challenges and opportunities for security risk management

The editors and contributors of this volume are to be congratulated on a practical text that pushes forwards our knowledge and understanding of the virtual space that now surrounds humanitarian operations, and which can have such a physical impact upon…

20 Oct 2014 Resource

World Humanitarian Day and ‘Aid in Danger’: a hard-look at violence against aid workers

The aid sector will be ‘celebrating’ the World Humanitarian Day with four level 3 emergencies. On a day that commemorates the bombing of the Canal Hotel in Baghdad we should be asking ourselves, do we need more humanitarian heroes, or do we need better responses (and better security-managed assistance) to humanitarian crises?

18 Aug 2014 Blog

ALNAP’s State of the System report

The State of the Humanitarian System (SOHS) report provides a system level mapping and assessment of international humanitarian assistance. It does this by defining key criteria for evaluating system performance and progress. Every 3 years the performance of the system is reassessed against these criteria and lessons learned are shared.

13 Aug 2014 Blog

Event report: humanitarian action in fragile contexts

On Tuesday 8th July representatives from academia, INGOs, the private sector, journalists and other interested parties gathered at King’s College London to discuss key issues around new actors and the changing humanitarian space and how they will impact on security risk management (SRM). The focal point of the evening was GISF’s report on The Future of Humanitarian Security in Fragile Contexts, written in conjunction with the Humanitarian Futures Programme (HFP) at King’s College.

8 Aug 2014 Blog

New Briefing Paper: Security Risk Management and Religion

GISF new briefing paper Security Risk Management and Religion: Faith and secularism in humanitarian assistance examines the impact that religion has on security risk management for humanitarian agencies, and considers whether a better understanding of religion can improve the security of organisations and individuals in the field.

1 Aug 2014 Blog

Launch of GISF Report – Tuesday 8 July, King’s College London

GISF and the Humanitarian Futures Programme are pleased to invite you to a discussion on the key findings of our recent report The Future of Humanitarian Security in Fragile Contexts: An analysis of transformational factors affecting humanitarian action.

20 Jun 2014 Blog

The ‘State’ of insecurity in Syria

Former UN peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has recently stated Syria is ‘going to be a failed state, with warlords all over the place’, asserting the country will soon ‘become another Somalia’. Syria entered the top five most violent aid contexts in 2012, yet the 2013 Aid Worker Security Report (AWSR) claimed it remained to be seen whether the country would follow Afghanistan and Somalia, ‘where aid workers are used as proxy targets in … warfare’. Brahimi’s predictions provide an opportunity to briefly evaluate the current state of insecurity in the country, and its implications for humanitarian operations and security risk management.

18 Jun 2014 Blog

“Saving Lives Together”: a review of existing NGO and United Nations security coordination practices in the field

The Saving Lives Together (SLT) is a framework for improving security arrangements among IGOs, NGOS and the UN in the field and was launched by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Task Force on Collaborative Approaches to Security in 2006. The Menu of Options, developed in 2001 by the UN Inter-Agency standing Committee (IASC) and the Office of the UN Security Coordinator, was the first step to formalising security coordination between INGOs and the UN. The report reviews the existing NGO and UN security coordination mechanisms and practices in the field, and is based on two online surveys that were shared through the GISF network, as well as interviews of international and national staff of a variety of NGOs and staff members of the UN in eight countries.

23 May 2014 Blog