Archive:
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The European Inter Agency Security Forum (GISF) is pleased to announce a new publication presenting discussion papers which will look at how communications technology is creating new security risk management challenges and opportunities for agencies working in humanitarian response. The publication will present information on current technologies and their use in security risk management; explore the impact on security of both humanitarian actors and affected communities; analyse the ways in which technologies are influencing how humanitarians operate and their security; and generate debate on how communications technology can contribute to risk management.
There are a combination of factors peculiar to humanitarian negotiations with armed non-state actors (ANSAs). Talks often take place in extreme, high-stake environments with little common negotiating culture between parties. In addition, staff need to negotiate in practice what is not negotiable in principle under both organisational and legal frameworks, which are far-removed from reality on the ground (a recent HPG Policy brief described how ‘senior managers are often unaware of how ground-level staff obtain access’). Aid workers are often negotiating from a position of relative weakness – little leverage and few alternative negotiating tables present themselves, and there is a strong possibility of second-best options being the only achievement. Are organisations and their staff members ready and equipped with the necessary tools for these types of complex negotiations?
The NGO Safety and Security Training Report (2014) by Christine Persaud provides a narrative of the research findings, an updated curriculum, and guidance tools for training. It is based on extensive research and interviews with members of the NGO community.…