Articles

Partnerships with local organisations are vital for conducting health research in Syria—personal reflections

Throughout the 9 years of the Syrian conflict, humanitarian actors have accumulated enormous experience of dealing with this complex environment and collected substantial data—only a tiny fraction, however, is...

Authors: Abdulkarim Ekzayez

Harmonising data systems for cash transfer programming in emergencies in Somalia

Quality data and information are fundamental for effective implementation of cash transfer programmes in emergency contexts. Establishing a robust information system can facilitate the equitable and responsive...

Authors: Boniface Owino

How social capital can inform targeting formal social safety net interventions in vulnerable communities in eastern Ethiopia: an ethnographic case study

Safety nets in Ethiopia are targeted and delivered in a context in which informal social capital practices also operate. But the role of social relations is largely overlooked in welfare programming. Understan...

Authors: Getachew Shambel Endris, Paul Kibwika, Bernard B. Obaa and Jemal Yousuf Hassan

Data to the rescue: how humanitarian aid NGOs should collect information based on the GDPR

Data collection is valuable before, during and after interventions in order to increase the effectiveness of humanitarian projects. Although the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) sets forth rules for t...

Authors: Theodora Gazi

To counter the rationality of sexual violence: existing and potential policies against the genocidal use of rape as a weapon of war in the Democratic Republic of Congo

The population in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been terrorized by widespread sexual violence for decades. Local armed groups, including the government army, continue to systematically rap...

Authors: Kjeld van Wieringen

Engineering and humanitarian intervention: learning from failure

In this paper, we challenge the belief that failure is necessarily a bad outcome. Instead, we argue that failure—specifically articulated as productive failure—should rather be seen as an educational moment an...

Authors: Adeela Arshad-Ayaz, M. Ayaz Naseem and Dania Mohamad

Promoting digital humanitarian action in protecting human rights: hope or hype

The digital transformation has affected every aspect of human being by bringing fundamental changes in technology, culture, operations, and principles of creating new products and services in the framework of ...

Authors: Dzhennet-Mari Akhmatova and Malika-Sofi Akhmatova

Network analysis as a tool for humanitarian protection: research and practice

In this article, we explore how network analysis could be used for humanitarian protection. Our objective is bringing together what is known about the role of networks for humanitarian aid intervention and exa...

Authors: Romina Cachia and Daniel Holgado Ramos

Big data, privacy and COVID-19 – learning from humanitarian expertise in data protection

The COVID-19 pandemic leads governments around the world to resort to tracking technology and other data-driven tools in order to monitor and curb the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Such large-scale incursion into priv...

Authors: Andrej Zwitter and Oskar J. Gstrein

Treating implicit trauma: a quasi-experimental study comparing the EMDR Therapy Standard Protocol with a ‘Blind 2 Therapist’ version within a trauma capacity building project in Northern Iraq

Psychological trauma is a silent epidemic which presents as a global public health issue, often in the form of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therap...

Authors: Derek Farrell, Matthew D. Kiernan, Ad de Jongh, Paul William Miller, Peter Bumke, Salah Ahmad, Lorraine Knibbs, Cordula Mattheß, Paul Keenan and Helga Mattheß

Decision-making at the sharp end: a survey of literature related to decision-making in humanitarian contexts

In a humanitarian response, leaders are often tasked with making large numbers of decisions, many of which have significant consequences, in situations of urgency and uncertainty. These conditions have an impa...

Authors: Paul Knox Clarke and Leah Campbell

The potential for computational IT tools in disaster relief and shelter design

The expanding use of IT has brought an increase in productivity to the world of business, industry and commerce. However, this is not mirrored by an equivalent growth in the use of IT by aid agencies in post-d...

Authors: Noorullah Kuchai, Paul Shepherd, Juliana Calabria-Holley, Alexander Copping, Aude Matard and David Coley

Identification and prioritization of critical success factors in faith-based and non-faith-based organizations’ humanitarian supply chain

In the last few decades, an exponential increase in the number of disasters, and their complexity has been reported, which ultimately put much pressure on relief organizations. These organizations cannot usual...

Authors: Muhammad Azmat, Muhammad Atif and Sebastian Kummer

Understanding disasters: managing and accommodating different worldviews in humanitarian response

Over the past decade, humanitarian events affected on average 120 million people annually. Whilst many of these events are human-induced, a large number of the 400 or so complex humanitarian emergencies that r...

Authors: Matthew Clarke and Brett W. Parris

Beyond ethical approval: fostering ethical research practices within inter-sectoral research projects involving academic and NGO sector partners

While research and innovation collaborations between NGOs and academic organisations can create considerable synergies with positive effects for the humanitarian sector, the inter-sectoral nature of such colla...

Authors: Ronan McDermott, Pat Gibbons, Desire Mpanje, Sinéad McGrath, Anne Markey, Pablo Cortés Ferrandez, Dini Haryati and Nur Azizah

Ethical considerations for closing humanitarian projects: a scoping review

Authors: Nicole E. Pal, Lisa Eckenwiler, Shelley-Rose Hyppolite, John Pringle, Ryoa Chung and Matthew Hunt

Multi-criteria decision model for the selection and location of temporary shelters in disaster management

The occurrence of natural or anthropic disasters in Brazil and the world emphasizes the importance of humanitarian logistics. Scholars and practitioners have developed modeling approaches to support aid delive...

Authors: Manuela Marques Lalane Nappi, Vanessa Nappi and João Carlos Souza

Challenges to ethical obligations and humanitarian principles in conflict settings: a systematic review

Humanitarian health care organizations and health workers working in contexts of armed or violent conflict experience challenges in fulfilling ethical obligations and humanitarian principles. To better underst...

Authors: Grant Broussard, Leonard S. Rubenstein, Courtland Robinson, Wasim Maziak, Sappho Z. Gilbert and Matthew DeCamp

Defining, measuring and interpreting the appropriateness of humanitarian assistance

This paper presents findings from a literature review of methods that explicitly assess the appropriateness of a humanitarian response. We set out to highlight the key features and limitations of each method a...

Authors: Nada Abdelmagid, Francesco Checchi, Sylvia Garry and Abdihamid Warsame

The ICRC at a crossroads: Swiss roots—international outlook

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has undergone a considerable transformation in the recent decades: from being driven by a pre-dominantly Swiss body of employees, it has become an organizati...

Authors: Claudia Franziska Brühwiler, Patricia Egli and Yvette Sánchez

Correction to: Search and rescue with autonomous flying robots through behavior-based cooperative intelligence

Following publication of the original article [1], the authors reported errors.

Authors: Ross D. Arnold, Hiroyuki Yamaguchi and Toshiyuki Tanaka

Prevention and treatment of acute malnutrition in humanitarian emergencies: a multi-organisation collaboration to increase access to synthesised evidence

Program decision-making to prevent and treat acute malnutrition in an emergency can be hampered by a lack of accessible and relevant overviews of directly available robust research evidence. There is often evi...

Authors: Claire Allen, Jeroen Jansen, Celeste Naude, Solange Durao, Monaz Mehta, Erik von Elm, Saskia van der Kam, Claudine Prudhon, Amy Mayberry, Marie McGrath, Carmelia Alae-Carew, James A. Berkley, Patrizia Fracassi, Nancy Aburto, Mica Jenkins, Jessica Bourdaire…

How to talk with dying patients and their families after disasters and humanitarian crises: a review of available tools and guides for disaster responders

In responding to those affected by sudden onset disasters and chronic humanitarian crises, disaster responders and humanitarian aid workers will face the challenge of caring for dying patients. While medical i...

Authors: B. R. Daubman, H. Cranmer, L. Black and A. Goodman

Humanitarian health programming and monitoring in inaccessible conflict settings: a literature review

Increasing global conflicts and risk to humanitarian aid workers have necessitated innovative approaches to deliver humanitarian assistance. Remotely managed operations aim to continue the provision of service...

Authors: Simran Chaudhri, Kristina Cordes and Nathan Miller

Positive worry and negative hope: paradoxical perceptions of the experiences of Syrian refugee girls in Lebanon

Literature on refugee well-being has largely focused on trauma, stress, and medical diagnoses. Less is known about how refugees adapt to their new contexts and experience hope for the future. This study examin...

Authors: Annie Dube, Susan A Bartels, Saja Michael and Valerie Michaelson

Getting relief to marginalised minorities: the response to cyclone Komen in 2015 in Myanmar

Little academic research has examined the challenges humanitarian actors face or the strategies they develop in the increasingly numerous authoritarian and low-intensity conflict settings. Based on 4 months of...

Authors: Isabelle Desportes

Revisiting the Sphere standards: comparing the revised Sphere standards to living standards in three urban informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya

Humanitarian actors have long used the Sphere Handbook and its minimum standards to guide operational practice. The new revision attempts to update these standards partly to address urban crises that have chal...

Authors: Ronak B. Patel and Jay Chadhuri

Hosting as shelter during displacement: considerations for research and practice

Hosting or local families taking in displaced families is an important way to shelter persons displaced during war or by natural disaster. While field-level evidence of hosting is on the rise, academic and pol...

Authors: Cynthia M. Caron

Responding to mental health vulnerability in Maltese detention centres: the use of psychological support groups as an intervention tool

Maltese immigration law means that individuals seeking asylum in this country undergo a period of mandatory detention upon arrival lasting a maximum of 18 months. During their stay in detention centres, these ...

Authors: Julian Caruana and Alexia Rossi

‘Safeguarding’ as humanitarian buzzword: an initial scoping

Suddenly, talk of ‘safeguarding’ and a sector-wide ‘safeguarding crisis’ seems to be everywhere. Grappling with the scope and content of ‘safeguarding’ as a parameter of humanitarian practice, this commentary ...

Authors: Kristin Bergtora Sandvik

Lessons from the Interagency Emergency Health Kit for access to essential medicines in Canada

Despite Canada’s efforts to position itself as a global health leader, important medicines, including multiple drugs found on the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines, are not available domestically. Of the f...

Authors: Adam R. Houston and Jason W. Nickerson

Crowdsourced mapping in crisis zones: collaboration, organisation and impact

Crowdsourced mapping has become an integral part of humanitarian response, with high profile deployments of platforms following the Haiti and Nepal earthquakes, and the multiple projects initiated during the E...

Authors: Amelia Hunt and Doug Specht

Thematic analysis of aid workers’ stressors and coping strategies: work, psychological, lifestyle and social dimensions

Aid workers experience elevated levels of stress which has a detrimental impact on individuals, organisations and the aid sector; however, there is limited qualitative research capturing aid worker’s views on ...

Authors: Tarli K. H. Young, Kenneth I. Pakenham and Michael F. Norwood

Search and rescue with autonomous flying robots through behavior-based cooperative intelligence

A swarm of autonomous flying robots is implemented in simulation to cooperatively gather situational awareness data during the first few hours after a major natural disaster. In computer simulations, the swarm...

Authors: Ross D. Arnold, Hiroyuki Yamaguchi and Toshiyuki Tanaka

The impact of emergency aid work on personal relationships: a psychodynamic study

Humanitarian organisations and researchers have paid increasing attention in recent years to the psychological wellbeing of aid workers. This attention, however, has tended to focus more on the practicalities ...

Authors: Mark Snelling

Culture’s influence on social network vulnerabilities for ethnic minorities in rural disaster events

This paper aims to explain survey findings regarding disaster recovery processes among ethnic groups in a rural Texas community. The research was conducted over a 4-year period with most of the survey data col...

Authors: Kim B. Galindo, Zohreh R. Eslami and Hassan Bashir

Blockchain for humanitarian action and development aid

Blockchain technology is swiftly entering the fields of humanitarian and development aid. While it has the potential to revolutionize the aid sector, e.g., through pairing smart contracts with forecast-based f...

Authors: Andrej Zwitter and Mathilde Boisse-Despiaux

Repatriation of Afghan refugees from Iran: a shelter profile study

One in every nine refugees worldwide is from Afghanistan, and Iran is one of main host countries for these refugees. Close to 40 years of hosting Afghan refugees have depleted resources in Iran and resulted in...

Authors: Mitra Naseh, Miriam Potocky, Paul H. Stuart and Sara Pezeshk

Classical humanitarianism and resilience humanitarianism: making sense of two brands of humanitarian action

Humanitarian aid has long been dominated by a classical, Dunantist paradigm that was based on the ethics of the humanitarian principles and centred on international humanitarian United Nations agencies and non...

Authors: Dorothea Hilhorst

Moral experiences of humanitarian health professionals caring for patients who are dying or likely to die in a humanitarian crisis

Wars, disasters, and epidemics affect millions of individuals every year. International non-governmental organizations respond to many of these crises and provide healthcare in settings ranging from a field ho...

Authors: Matthew Hunt, Ani Chénier, Kevin Bezanson, Elysée Nouvet, Carrie Bernard, Sonya de Laat, Gautham Krishnaraj and Lisa Schwartz

A humanitarian response to the West African Ebola virus disease outbreak

The 2014–2016 Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in West Africa was of unprecedented magnitude with a total of 28,616 suspected, probable, and confirmed cases reported in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

Authors: Linda M. Mobula, Jolene H. Nakao, Sonia Walia, Justin Pendarvis, Peter Morris and David Townes

Towards an holistic approach to energy access in humanitarian settings: the SET4food project from technology transfer to knowledge sharing

The increasing number of displaced people in the world not only requires rapid humanitarian actions, but also attention to host communities and a holistic and long-term vision. Energy has not been really consi...

Authors: Jacopo Barbieri, Fabrizio Leonforte and Emanuela Colombo

Humanitarian aid workers’ knowledge of minority cultures in Iraqi Kurdistan

The Yezidi population in northern Iraq has faced genocide by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), have been driven from their homes, and forced to take refugee anywhere that is deemed safe. The curren...

Authors: Kyle A. Msall

The new informatics of pandemic response: humanitarian technology, efficiency, and the subtle retreat of national agency

Digital communication technologies play an increasingly prominent role in humanitarian operations and in response to international pandemics specifically. A burgeoning body of scholarship on the topic displays...

Authors: Christopher Wilson and Maria Gabrielsen Jumbert

Research agenda-setting on cash programming for health and nutrition in humanitarian settings

While the evidence base for cash transfer programming (CTP) in humanitarian contexts is more established for food security, it is very limited for health and nutrition. The aim of this study was to develop a r...

Authors: Aniek Woodward, Andre Griekspoor, Shannon Doocy, Paul Spiegel and Kevin Savage

Pilot testing and evaluation of a toolkit for menstrual hygiene management in emergencies in three refugee camps in Northwest Tanzania

Displaced adolescent girls and women face many challenges managing their monthly menstrual flow with dignity and comfort in various challenging settings around the world, such as refugee camps, informal settle...

Authors: Marni Sommer, Margaret L. Schmitt, Tom Ogello, Penninah Mathenge, Magdalena Mark, David Clatworthy, Samanatha Khandakji and Ruwan Ratnayake

Palliative care in humanitarian crises: a review of the literature

This paper presents findings from a systematic review of the literature (2005–2017) on palliative care in humanitarian crises (e.g., disasters, armed conflicts, epidemics). This review set out to describe pall...

Authors: Elysée Nouvet, Mollie Sivaram, Kevin Bezanson, Gautham Krishnaraj, Matthew Hunt, Sonya de Laat, Stephanie Sanger, Laura Banfield, Pedro Favila Escobio Rodriguez and Lisa J. Schwartz

Social capital in vulnerable urban settings: an analytical framework

Social capital has been identified as crucial to the fostering of resilience in rapidly expanding cities of the Global South. The purpose of this article is to better understand the complexities of urban socia...

Authors: Desire Mpanje, Pat Gibbons and Ronan McDermott

Safety planning for technology: displaced women and girls’ interactions with information and communication technology in Lebanon and harm reduction considerations for humanitarian settings

The appropriate use of mobile technology for service provision, information dissemination, empowerment activities, and data collection in humanitarian settings can have several benefits on both the micro and m...

Authors: Kristy Crabtree and Petronille Geara

The militarization of cattle raiding in South Sudan: how a traditional practice became a tool for political violence

Cattle raiding, a longstanding practice among pastoralists in South Sudan, was historically governed by cultural authorities and ritual prohibitions. However, after decades of on-and-off integration into armed...

Authors: Hannah Wild, Jok Madut Jok and Ronak Patel