This is a scoping exercise (funded by the Norwegian and Swedish Governments) designed to define the parameters and potential importance of strategic leadership, in order to determine how best to proceed with the study, itself, and its practical implications. In so doing, the exercise is intended to open up discussions on four critical issues: (i) the extent to which strategic leadership has a role in the humanitarian sector; (ii) possible impact and consequences of such leadership for the sector as a whole as well as for individual organisations; (iii) institutional adjustments that would be needed to provide an enabling environment for strategic leadership; and (iv) types of research methodologies necessary to explore the first three issues. In anticipation of discussions to take place at HFP’s Stakeholders Forum in November 2009, a preliminary review of the Scoping Exercise took place on 29 October 2009 by a group of organisations from the humanitarian, private sector and military sectors. The results of that review are reflected in this paper.
