Humanitarian crises appear dramatic, overwhelming and sudden, with aid required immediately to save lives. Whereas climate change is about changing hazard patterns and crises are in reality rarely unexpected, with academic researchers and... more
Humanitarian crises appear dramatic, overwhelming and sudden, with aid required immediately to save lives. Whereas climate change is about changing hazard patterns and crises are in reality rarely unexpected, with academic researchers and humanitarian and development organisations warning about possible risks for months before they take place. While humanitarian organisations deal directly with vulnerable populations, interventions are part of global politics and development pathways that are simultaneously generating climate change, inequities and vulnerability. So what is the level of convergence between humanitarian interventions and efforts to support adaptation to climate change, and what lessons can be drawn from current experience on the prospects for reducing the risk of climate change causing increased burdens on humanitarian interventions in the future?
This IDS Bulletin is a call for increasing engagement between humanitarian aid and adaptation interventions to support deliberate transformation of development pathways. Based on studies from the ‘Courting Catastrophe’ project, contributors argue that humanitarian interventions offer opportunities for a common agenda to drive transformational adaptation. Changes in political and financial frameworks are needed to facilitate longer-term actions where demands move from delivering expert advice and solutions to vulnerable populations to taking up multiple vulnerability knowledges and making space for contestation of current development thinking. Yet while the humanitarian system could drive transformative adaptation, it should not bear responsibility alone.
In this issue, alternative pathways and practical ways to support local alternatives and critical debates around these are illustrated, to demonstrate where humanitarian actions can most usefully contribute to transformation.
Sexual violence has been firmly put on the internal agenda of the humanitarian community. Despite commendable advances in both policy and practice, there continues to be a gap between what is recommended and the reality in the field. In... more
Sexual violence has been firmly put on the internal agenda of the humanitarian community. Despite commendable advances in both policy and practice, there continues to be a gap between what is recommended and the reality in the field. In this paper, I argue that, notwithstanding the profound challenges of working in humanitarian emergencies, our understanding of sexual violence in conflict is watered down to such an extent that it impedes effective humanitarian action. First, humanitarians' reductionist approach to sexual violence not only disregards victims/survivors other than the stereotypical but also exempts perpetrators from scrutiny—including the international humanitarian community itself, through whose extensive depoliticisation of sexual violence has erased the link between gender inequality and violence. Second, the international humanitarian community has positioned itself as the white, western, heroic protector of vulnerable women and girls (and not men and boys)—a narrative that not only escalates power differences between humanitarian and beneficiary but also reproduces the subordination of women. Third, an exposé of silences in international discourses about sexual violence in armed conflict shows the humanitarian community's complicity in reproducing systems of gender inequality that allow for sexual violence to occur and remain unaddressed, by refusing to transform the restrictive political environment that ultimately impedes effective humanitarian action. This analysis of humanitarian sexual violence discourses indicates a mismatch between the nature of the issue and the way in which it is understood, leading to ineffective programmes on the ground. Humanitarians' engagement with critical research, as well as researchers' engagement with feminism, may recreate meanings that benefit our understanding rather than impede it.
Humanitarian crises appear dramatic, overwhelming and sudden, with aid required immediately to save lives. Whereas climate change is about changing hazard patterns and crises are in reality rarely unexpected, with academic researchers and... more
Humanitarian crises appear dramatic, overwhelming and sudden, with aid required immediately to save lives. Whereas climate change is about changing hazard patterns and crises are in reality rarely unexpected, with academic researchers and humanitarian and development organisations warning about possible risks for months before they take place. While humanitarian organisations deal directly with vulnerable populations, interventions are part of global politics and development pathways that are simultaneously generating climate change, inequities and vulnerability. So what is the level of convergence between humanitarian interventions and efforts to support adaptation to climate change, and what lessons can be drawn from current experience on the prospects for reducing the risk of climate change causing increased burdens on humanitarian interventions in the future? This IDS Bulletin is a call for increasing engagement between humanitarian aid and adaptation interventions to support de...
Humanitarian crises appear dramatic, overwhelming and sudden, with aid required immediately to save lives. Whereas climate change is about changing hazard patterns and crises are in reality rarely unexpected, with academic researchers and... more
Humanitarian crises appear dramatic, overwhelming and sudden, with aid required immediately to save lives. Whereas climate change is about changing hazard patterns and crises are in reality rarely unexpected, with academic researchers and humanitarian and development organisations warning about possible risks for months before they take place. While humanitarian organisations deal directly with vulnerable populations, interventions are part of global politics and development pathways that are simultaneously generating climate change, inequities and vulnerability. So what is the level of convergence between humanitarian interventions and efforts to support adaptation to climate change, and what lessons can be drawn from current experience on the prospects for reducing the risk of climate change causing increased burdens on humanitarian interventions in the future?This IDS Bulletin is a call for increasing engagement between humanitarian aid and adaptation interventions to support del...
