Global Humanitarian Platform Background Paper: "Changing environment, growing complexities, increasing demands – implications for humanitarian actors"

Source: International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA)

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Introduction

A number of inter-connected factors contribute to exacerbate people's vulnerability around the world: including climate change, global financial crisis, rapid demographic changes and human displacement, growing stresses on natural resources, and sometimes underlying political instability or conflict. All these factors when combined often have dramatic consequences for poor people and will most likely increase the humanitarian caseload in the years to come. The traditional distinction between natural and man-made disasters is often blurred in reality: people face what has been called "compound crises", characterised by multiple and inter-connected aspects of vulnerability reinforcing each other .

At the same time, it is becoming particularly challenging for humanitarian actors to maintain sufficient humanitarian space in order to access populations in need: in some contexts like in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Somalia, maintaining an operational presence requires considerable efforts and sometimes a complete rethink of the modus operandi, with greater emphasis on working with or through local partners and a renewed commitment to principled humanitarian action.

This paper highlights some of the trends that contribute to a deteriorating cycle of vulnerability. It then examines the different factors that affect "humanitarian space" and make operations sometimes extremely difficult or dangerous. In conclusion, it draws attention to some of the implications for humanitarian action.