After the two special issues on humanitarian numbers (JHA, 5.1) and the future of humanitarian medical data studies (JHA, 5.2), the Journal of Humanitarian Affairs publishes a general issue that brings together pieces addressing a variety of issues in the study and practice of humanitarianism. Addressing diverse contexts, including Nigeria, South Sudan and Sudan, the articles provide critical insights on questions of inclusion and innovation in humanitarian aid, contributing to perennial debates about humanitarian ethics, voice and decision-making. A common thread running through the contributions is their concern with making humanitarian action more responsive to the needs and perspectives of affected populations. Within this broad area, three main – and overlapping – themes emerge: the participation of affected populations; the roles of data and politics in humanitarian decision-making; and the ethics of humanitarian innovation.
The first research article, by Rita Iorbo, Sanjeev Sahni, Tithi Bhatnagar and Dick Andzenge, examines the political participation of internally displaced persons (IDPs), drawing on the case of Benue State in Nigeria. Employing semi-structured interviews with IDPs, the authors show that IDPs are not included in decisions taken by government and humanitarian agencies regarding their economic recovery, housing conditions and employment opportunities. Iorbo et al. further suggest that the severe restrictions on effective political participation have exacerbated IDPs’ social and economic exclusion, especially vis-à-vis livelihoods recovery and their ability to meet basic needs. They thus highlight how essential it is to embed IDPs’ voices in policymaking to cease the protraction of displacement. Re-reading the classic works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the article contends that through the participatory democratic theory (PDT) one can comprehend the limits of top-down solutions in displacement. Ultimately, the PDT framework pushes for grassroots bottom-up solutions, which will take into consideration IDPs’ perspectives in decision-making.
In the second research article, Vicki Squire, Ọláyínká Àkànle, Briony Jones, Kuyan Logo and João Porto de Albuquerque reflect on the proliferation of data in humanitarian responses to displacement. The datafication of aid exacerbates the well-established power imbalance between humanitarians and crisis-affected communities. A product of their interdisciplinary project, Data and Displacement, the authors investigated how datafication has been understood and experienced by IDPs in north-eastern Nigeria and South Sudan. They identify several concerns, including IDPs having their data extracted without being told the purpose of the data collection or giving informed consent, and without any meaningful follow-up or sharing of the resulting information and analysis. Based on the experiences of their research project, Squire et al. argue that both practitioners and academics should go beyond amplifying the voices of affected communities and better representing their views in humanitarian data, to engage with them through critical reflection on the production and use of data. At the same time, they caution that critical data literacy is not an easy fix to empowerment challenges and highlight the need for dismantling deeper-rooted power asymmetries.
The field report by Will Plowright explores the role of armed escorts in humanitarian operations. Combining analysis of policy documents with fieldwork conducted in Darfur in 2022, Plowright argues that, while many international humanitarian agencies consider the use of armed escorts to be a violation of principles and a ‘red line’, in practice this is often no more than a ‘thin red line’. He shows that use of armed escorts by one agency tends to have ‘knock-on’ effects, by which other humanitarian actors are impelled to use them, and ‘lock-in’ effects, by which once humanitarian actors start using them in a specific context, it becomes difficult to stop using them there. Plowright highlights some of the negative consequences of using armed escorts, notably in terms of undermining acceptance strategies and potentially providing support to a party to conflict. Ultimately, he suggests that armed escorts are often used even when they are not strictly necessary, and in doing so he implicitly challenges the ethics of decision-making around their use.
In their analysis, Matthew Hunt, Ali Okhowat, Gautham Krishnaraj, Ian McClelland and Lisa Schwartz, focus explicitly on the ethics of humanitarian innovation. While the other contributions in this issue are concerned primarily with the ethics of particular policies and practices, the authors of this piece are concerned with the organisational settings in which innovation is occurring. Starting from the premise that the ethical infrastructure of humanitarian organisations can support humanitarian innovators, they outline the ways that an approach of a positive organisational ethics can foster conditions that promote ethical innovation. Hunt et al. identify three main forms of organisational ethics infrastructure: ethical resources (e.g. institutional values, policies with ethical implications and ethics tools or decision-making frameworks); ethical practices (activities and procedures that support ethical action e.g. onboarding of new staff, structured approaches to learning from past experiences and the creation of space to reflect on and discuss ethical commitments and challenges); and ethical capacities (valuing and developing the skills and knowledge to make ethical decisions and enact ethical practices). They contend that each of these three components of ethical infrastructure can support humanitarian innovation individually, and that they can also positively reinforce one another to create a virtuous circle.
The literature review by Mathieu Seppey, Michaël Arnaud, Gabriel Girard and Christina Zarowsky encourages us to recognise the heterogeneity of affected populations and their experiences. Focusing on people with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC), the authors highlight their differential needs and vulnerabilities, and discuss some of their experiences and difficulties accessing humanitarian assistance. Searching three databases, which cover both peer-reviewed articles and grey literature, the review shows that service providers frequently do not recognise or meet the specific needs and vulnerabilities of diverse SOGIESC communities, and that members of these communities are sometimes excluded or stereotyped or subjected to homo/bi/transphobic interactions at the point of service provision. In an interesting connection with the article by Squire et al., this piece highlights problematic data-collection practices, with humanitarian agencies commonly using inappropriate categories, confusing SOGIESC concepts and employing methods and tools for data collection that may expose nonconforming communities to risk. The authors call for changes to humanitarian culture and governance – essentially proposing that SOGIESC notions should be explicitly incorporated into organisational ethics.
Finally, in her brief intervention, Hayley Umayam probes the operational impact of ‘humanitarian numbers’, discussed in the special issue of Journal of Humanitarian Affairs (5.1). Adding to the ‘ten things we know about humanitarian numbers’, Umayam reminds us that decision-making is driven by more than numbers. Given the limited impact of data on decision-making, Umayam questions the ethics of the datafication of aid, challenging us to ask what the data frenzy is doing for affected populations.
All the pieces in this issue speak more or less directly to the question explicitly posed by Hunt et al.: How can humanitarian action be more effective, efficient and equitable in responding to the needs of populations affected by crisis? Throughout this collection of articles, we can see an ongoing interest in the ethics and practices of humanitarian decision-making. Hunt et al. reflect on organisational ethics, and they highlight the complexity of responsible engagement with the link between innovation practices, humanitarian decisions and impacts on affected communities. From Umayam’s critique of the limited impact of humanitarian data, to Plowright’s contribution on the knock-on and lock-in effects of armed escorts in humanitarian policy, we can see tension between the politically nuanced decision-making required in crisis settings and the policies and knowledge structures which guide those decisions. The remaining articles (Iorbo et al., Squires et al., Seppey et al.) bring attention to the other side of these humanitarian decision-making and knowledge processes, highlighting the exclusion of affected populations from knowledge sharing, participation and even visibility. While making distinct contributions in their individual fields of knowledge and practice, these papers encourage reflection on the methodologies and epistemologies deployed in humanitarian practice.