Our latest Humanitarian Leader edition features a research paper called ‘Re-visioning protection: Civilian-centred safety and security amidst escalating conflict and constrained resources’ by Felicity Gray, Hannah Jordan and Megan Corrado. In this paper, the authors explore how to effectively address increasing violent conflict and crises, particularly as international and bilateral donors slash foreign aid funding and military spending skyrockets.
"From Gaza to Ukraine to Sudan, egregious patterns of attacks on civilians are raising deep concerns about respect for life and the laws of war."
Gray, Jordan and Corrado reenvision civilian protection as prioritising the safety, security, needs, and perspectives of affected and particularly vulnerable populations through reducing risks, interrupting violence, and supporting sustainable and locally-driven approaches that elevate conflict, atrocity, and violence prevention, contending that civilian protection practices can and should be reoriented to better meet the moment and immense needs of civilians facing violence.
The paper presents an analytical framework that outlines key characteristics of effective civilian protection programs and approaches and practical recommendations for recommendations, which can be used and adapted by protection actors and donors across the humanitarian, development, peacebuilding, and human rights sectors.
