Project description
Taking a closer look at emergency aid systems
When crisis hits, emergency response and risk management are urgently needed as those affected require immediate assistance. But how do aid agencies provide assistance? What is the role of civil society? How do crisis-affected people shape humanitarian governance? The EU-funded HUM-GOV project aims to answer these questions. To that end, it will consider how humanitarian governance is evolving and moving towards the resilience and localisation of aid reforms. The researchers will identify the changing landscapes of humanitarian governance and variations in terms of type of crisis and local context, focusing on Congo, Colombia and Ethiopia. Climate-affected migration will also be studied. Moreover, they will address inequalities and participatory methods in humanitarian studies. By combining conceptual work on ethics and humanitarianism, the project aims to advance humanitarian governance systems.
Objective
How is humanitarian governance evolving in response to global and local changes, and how do civil society actors and crisis-affected people shape humanitarian governance ‘from below’ using accountability and advocacy?
Growing humanitarian need, increasing population displacement, and expanding impact of climate-related disasters multiply the challenges of preserving life and dignity in crisis-affected populations. At-risk populations are increasingly difficult to capture using the traditional categories of disaster/conflict victims and refugees, and humanitarian governance (attempting to govern individuals and groups to preserve life and reduce human suffering) is in flux. Changes in humanitarian governance include a paradigm shift to resilience and localization of aid reforms. As yet, these changes and their consequences are poorly understood.
Through a dynamic research programme engaging at-risk populations and civil society actors, the project pursues the objectives of 1) understanding changes in humanitarian governance; 2) clarifying advocacy and accountability relations in changing landscapes of humanitarian governance; 3) identifying variations in humanitarian governance and revealing how they relate to key variables, including the type of crisis and the local context; 4) providing conceptual tools for analysing variations of humanitarian governance; and 5) addressing inequalities in humanitarian studies.
Using a mixed-methods approach combining conceptual work on ethics and humanitarianism with four case studies using qualitative and participatory methods, the project will explore how the interplay of actors and contextual factors produce variations in humanitarian governance, with a special focus on how crisis-affected populations and civil society actors use accountability and advocacy to influence the system. The project has the potential to transform humanitarian studies and to impact protection and service delivery in humanitarian emergencies worldwide.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
ERC-ADG - Advanced GrantHost institution
3062 PA Rotterdam
Netherlands