This World Humanitarian Day, solidarity is needed more than ever to reflect the realities of a world in turmoil 

On World Humanitarian Day, Natalia Chan reflects on the challenges facing the humanitarian sector and why conflict sensitivity and peacebuilding offer key insights for navigating the complex realities of a world in turmoil. Natalia is a Senior Conflict and Security Adviser at Saferworld and works closely with the conflict sensitivity facilities in Sudan and South Sudan. The facilities support the aid sector to be more conflict sensitive in fragile and conflict-affected humanitarian contexts by strengthening contributions to peace and reducing the risks of causing harm. 

The theme of this year’s World Humanitarian Day is ‘Strengthening global solidarity and empowering local communities’. World Humanitarian Day honours the many humanitarians who live and breathe the spirit of solidarity every day. It is a day to pay tribute to the aid workers who have been killed or suffered great harm as a consequence (including volunteers and local responders who are not included in official figures).  

At this time, when solidarity is needed more than ever, the notion of solidarity is, in practice, something that the ‘formal’ humanitarian sector is often uneasy with. Some find discomfort in its proximity to being ‘political’ and wonder if it is incompatible with humanitarian principles of neutrality and impartiality. Others may assume that solidarity is inherent in every humanitarian action, and they may be unaware of the ways in which well-meaning actions can unintentionally undermine or damage solidarity. This risk is manifested in both everyday practical ways – such as when interventions supplant existing local solidarity-based structures – and at a systemic level, where the rigidity of humanitarian structures or lacklustre efforts at localisation translate into the technocratisation of solidarity. The cumulative effect risks undermining the living, breathing nature of the relationships that are essential for solidarity, stifling the empathy and connectedness it depends upon. There are also increasing concerns that the trajectory of parts of the global humanitarian system totally contradicts the principles and values associated with solidarity, particularly trends towards privatised models of humanitarianism.  

Re-appraising four realities – as evident in global trends and based on the contexts Saferworld and our partners work in – can help to re-invigorate and re-imagine the meaning of solidarity in humanitarian action, including overcoming practical challenges regarding how to navigate the complexity of today’s humanitarian crises:  

1. The reality of locally led humanitarian action: Genuinely centre local responders and civil society 

While oppressors have sought to control and manipulate international humanitarian aid and its access in contexts such as Sudan, Gaza and Myanmar, individuals, communities and civil society have quickly adapted and responded to the devastating toll of war on civilians and, in particular, the most vulnerable. Mutual aid groups and networks of volunteers – with varying roots in long-term traditions, social collectivism, professional unions, existing community groups, or civil and political resistance movements – have grown and adapted to respond to both acute needs and long-term vulnerability, driven by a sense of collective responsibility and moral duty.  

In some contexts, this reality includes humanitarianism as a form or extension of resistance, based on viewing justice for affected populations as inseparable from humanitarian needs. This relationship with justice seems particularly relevant given contexts where rights abuses prolong or cause humanitarian crises, how starvation and dehumanisation have been used as part of war strategies, and instances of attempts to ‘weaponise’ access to aid. This has also been particularly challenging for those who struggle to balance this with traditional humanitarian notions of neutrality. However, it can also be argued that in a vast majority of contexts, it is very difficult to separate the determination embedded in local action from a more transformative vision for the future, and the inherently ‘political’ nature of this.  

While locally led humanitarian action has been receiving growing attention – for example, with a spotlight on mutual aid volunteers as frontline or last mile responders who are often the sole lifeline in the hardest-to-reach places – those involved have also demonstrated their ability to help sustain social protection and resilience over longer periods and integrate important conflict prevention approaches (see below). The mosaic of locally led responses has also included collaboration with existing national NGOs, civil society organisations and local staff working for international NGOs, alongside established professionals such as doctors, infrastructure engineers, IT technicians and others. Solidarity is at the heart of such responses and fundamental to how they have been so effective and how they endure immense challenges — often at great personal cost. 

Yet ‘traditional’ humanitarian structures and systems have been slow to recognise and adapt to this and appear unwilling to place local responders at the centre of strategies that truly reflect the nature of the response on the ground. To realign with these networks and actions of solidarity demands skills (such as the ability to build relationships and trust) and behaviours that are rarely captured in technical toolboxes. It also requires updated approaches to respond to new complexities of ensuring the protection of those on the frontline. The second part of the theme of this year’s World Humanitarian Day – ‘empowering local communities’ – is indeed essential. By failing to do so, or by engaging in clumsy ways that are based on a poor understanding of their complexity, we also risk harming this solidarity and contributing to weakening or undermining essential local structures.   

2. The reality of multi-faceted needs: Recognise the critical importance of peacebuilding for crisis contexts 

For all the commitments to and talk of the humanitarian, development and peace (HDP) nexus and the relevance of more collaborative and coherent HDP actions for protracted crises, it remains nebulous and is still often perceived as a top-down concept that is little understood in practice. In reality, the nature of multi-faceted needs demands a much more integrated approach. Communities do not distinguish between ‘H’, ‘D’ and ‘P’ needs. Integrated approaches are a logical response to contexts that demand that initiatives and programmes address varied, evolving and interconnected needs. Indeed, many local organisations already see addressing conflict and building peace and social cohesion as a core part of their objective, even if most of their resources end up being restricted to targeting humanitarian needs due to available funding. 

Peacebuilding is also often deprioritised (by donors and parts of the aid community) during times of humanitarian crisis, and there can still be a prevailing general attitude that ‘you can’t do peacebuilding when there is active conflict’, alongside questions of how such support can be justified when people are starving. Yet, local conflict prevention and peacebuilding initiatives have continued in Sudan and other conflict-affected contexts and have had notable impacts despite the active fighting and continued deterioration of the context. For example, mediation mobilised by community leaders and peacebuilders has helped to bring about essential local ceasefires – even temporary ones – which have in turn enabled essential protection measures, evacuation and channels of access to emergency support. A legacy of community coexistence and local peacebuilding has meant that communities have resisted efforts at recruitment into violent, armed groups and pushed back against hate speech and divisions being instrumentalised by conflict parties. Peacebuilders have played an important role in supporting humanitarian access, needs assessments and information-sharing. Peace has been intertwined within locally led humanitarian action, and this has helped it to be fluid and adaptable to the multi-faceted needs of communities. 

3. The reality of complex and fluid contexts: Integrate conflict sensitivity as a minimum standard  

The biggest and most challenging global humanitarian crises of this era are characterised by violent armed conflict, volatility and unpredictability. This carries immense implications for how the aid sector operates, how it is perceived and what contribution it is expected to make. In times of crisis, aid workers face increasingly challenging dilemmas, in extremely complex operating environments within highly fluid contexts. It is particularly during such times that short-term decisions can have unforeseen long-term consequences on things like inequality or divisions, or even contribute to the fragmentation of civil society; difficult decisions around trade-offs may be rushed through based on little information; and aid is at the greatest risk of being manipulated as part of nefarious strategies. 

Conflict sensitivity is often interpreted as a set of tools and approaches which, at its core, is about building an understanding of the context, understanding how an action or intervention might interact with that context, and seeking to adapt and adjust actions to mitigate the risk of causing harm and achieve the best possible positive impact. It has become more widely known across the humanitarian, development and peacebuilding sectors, and there are many tools, templates and training models that can help to provide guidance on how to integrate this into operations, programmes and policies.  

However, the value of conflict sensitivity is vastly reduced if it is seen as purely technical. Ultimately, conflict sensitivity is at its best when it enables the most difficult conversations to happen, and when it creates spaces for collective problem-solving that is both practical and principled. It can have the biggest impact when it positions current problems within the context of long-term lessons and trajectories, and it helps us to avoid repeating the same mistakes. It can help to inform a more nuanced solidarity (for example, this article describes how solidarity can come with its own risks, such as favouring certain groups), based on centring the experience and perspectives of those who are the most knowledgeable about the context, the effects of the response and what is needed: local communities and those at the forefront of locally led humanitarian action.  

4. The reality of long-term, protracted crises: Be in it for the long haul 

Experience and recent history have taught us about the toll of protracted crisis, extending into multi-year and even multi-generational timeframes with long-term consequences. This ought to inform how we strategise and plan, especially with the onus to build self-reliance and resilience during an era of massive aid funding cuts and an increasingly stretched humanitarian system. This also brings to mind the question of what solidarity looks like over such long timeframes.  

Practically, this places greater emphasis on willingness and ability to share burdens, risk and resources, and to ensure that relationships and trust are in place to enable this. It also highlights the question of what kind of models are important to enable genuine coordination based on collaboration and a sense of unity of purpose (for example, we often hear frustration from local responders that the way the cluster system is operationalised can be clunky, exclusionary and over-proceduralised when a more context-specific, flexible model that prioritises local leadership seems more relevant), and what kind of knowledge systems enable us to avoid repeating the same mistakes and to improve over the long term. 

Importantly, it also speaks to deeper and profound questions that affect every individual living or working in such contexts to varying degrees – how to acknowledge and deal with trauma, to manage the stress of such immense pressures. How can solidarity help to sustain what remains of the social fabric, to create spaces for hope and visions for an alternative future to survive? 

Humanitarian crises are at a record high at a time when the sector is grappling with ‘the most devastating funding cuts that our sector has ever seen’. There is a grave risk that efforts to respond to a system in crisis (for example, the humanitarian reset) only focus on nuts and bolts, infrastructure and funding, and high-level discussions, rather than genuine transformation. This is a critical moment to make space to reflect deeply on both the gritty ramifications of the different realities outlined above and the solidarity that is fundamental to humanitarianism. 

Photo credit: © Sari Omer / Conflict Sensitivity Facility Sudan