Emergency Gap Series 5
Civilians in the most insecure regions of today’s armed conflicts are often those most in need of humanitarian assistance. They are also the least likely to receive any. That humanitarian agencies struggle to be relevant where it matters most is hardly news.
The recently published research study Secure Access in Volatile Environments provides the evidence for what many humanitarians have suspected for a long time: too few humanitarian agencies manage to provide meaningful assistance in the most insecure areas, leaving many people without the aid they need.
This paper, drawing partly on some of the findings of the study, attempts to offer a reflection on the subject of risk acceptance, and some of the underlying factors that –apart from the actual security threat– influence security decision-making in the humanitarian sector. Why, despite the significant investments and the professionalisation of the sector, do humanitarians continue to fail to deliver in the hardest-to-reach places? It is too easy to put the blame on the external security environment alone. Instead, humanitarian organisations need to examine how they fare in terms of their institutional willingness and capabilities to accept and manage security risks, which are, after all, an inherent part of humanitarian action.