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Civilian Protection and Humanitarian Assistance—Report of the 2009 Civilian Protection Working Group

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2012

Geoff Loane ,
Jennifer Leaning ,
Sara Schomig ,
Alexander van Tulleken  and
Kelli O'Laughlin
Geoff Loane
Affiliation:
Head of Regional Delegation for the US and Canada, International Committee of the Red Cross
Jennifer Leaning*
Affiliation:
Professor of the Practice of Global Health, Harvard School of Public Health, and CoDirector, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative
Sara Schomig
Affiliation:
North America Office, International Committee of the Red Cross
Alexander van Tulleken
Affiliation:
Harvard School of Public Health, and Rapporteur for the 2009 Civilian Protection Working Group
Kelli O'Laughlin
Affiliation:
Harvard School of Public Health, and Rapporteur for the 2009 Civilian Protection Working Group
*
Harvard Humanitarian Initiative 14 Story Street, 2nd Floor Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138USA E-mail: jleaning@hsph.harvard.edu
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Abstract

The concept of protecting civilians in armed conflict is enshrined in international humanitarian law and widely acknowledged in humanitarian norms. Making this concept operational in humanitarian service delivery is a challenge. Yet, there are many ways in which humanitarian workers could learn from local people about underlying tensions in their community and with these new insights adjust service delivery accordingly.

The 2009 WG developed a qualitative verbal tool that could be used by humanitarian field staff to assist them in understanding issues of civilian protection from the local perspective. The attributes and uses of this tool are described in detail in this WG report. The fundamental aim of this tool is to enhance the capacity of humanitarian workers in their daily work to observe markers of activity and behavior and to inquire and listen from local people about what these markers might or might not mean. The WG emphasized the needs for confidentiality, focus on service delivery (not legal or advocacy work), and iterative routine integration of information gained into field team deliberations. The proposed tool is offered as a possible pilot step towards improving humanitarian understanding and response to local civilian protection needs.

Keywords

civilian protectionhumanitarian assistancehumanitarian spacesecuritywar and conflict
Type
Working Group 2
Information
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine , Volume 24 , supplement S2: 2009 Humanitarian Action Summit , August 2009 , pp. s197 - s201
Copyright
Copyright © World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 2009

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References

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