People-centric humanitarian response in conflict

Event Summary

Organised by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), in collaboration with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), this public event aims at challenging our thinking and approach to the concept of 'Accountability to Affected People' in conflict settings. The event aspires to stimulate thought-provoking dialogue, innovation, and collaborative problem-solving within the sector, focusing on both significant paradigm shifts as well as tangible, actionable solutions.

This event is public and open to all participants. Participants can join the event in-person at the ICRC Humanitarium in Geneva or online.

Background

After years of growth of aid budgets and a matching evolution of the professional standards that come with it, the current pressure on funding, felt by the ICRC and others, sees humanitarian organisations at a crossroads. We find ourselves left with all the commitments made in terms of compliance, system improvement and reporting requirements while also trying to put in practice increasingly nuanced approaches to accountable, inclusive, localised and sustainable humanitarian response.

With aid workers spending an increasing proportion of their time tied to their desks and working on administrative tasks rather than in proximity to people affected by conflict, have efforts to professionalise the humanitarian sector generated more harm than good when it comes to bringing tangible impact on one hand and operationalising the principles of humanity and impartiality on the other hand?

This, combined with the contextual challenges in conflict zones due to growing access constraints, polarized information landscape as well as security and duty of care concerns, introduces new layers of considerations for humanitarian organisations when it comes to engagement with communities. Faced with hard choices to reorient priorities and activities, how should humanitarian organisation navigate this opportunity to put people affected by conflict and frontline workers in the driving seat to define people-centric humanitarian response?

Navigating information provision in polarized spaces, moving beyond survival towards dignity and the overall well-being of affected communities, assessing data handling practices, exploring participatory approaches to sensitive issues, grappling with the feasibility of a « do no harm » motto in conflict settings to preparing for a new world of climate change driven crises.

These are some of the thematics we hope to explore in this event with practitioners from the sector, academia, think tanks, private sector actors and community-based organisations.