The occasional paper seeks to provide aid personnel an analytical framework for understanding the protection challenge, reinforced by instructive examples from specific crises. Chapter 1 reviews the changed international geopolitical context within which today’s humanitarian action takes place. Chapter 2 examines practical strategies that have been devised for protecting imperiled refugees, internally displaced persons, and other vulnerable groups. Focusing in a bit more narrowly, Chapter 3 explores the dilemmas inherent in the specific challenge of mounting aid operations among belligerents and criminals. Chapter 4 looks to the challenge of improving protection in the future.