Protection Standards Updated: What You Need to Know
InterAction welcomes the launch of the newly-revised Professional Standards for Protection Work, and encourages humanitarian and human rights actors worldwide to adopt and integrate them into their work. The first version of these Professional Standards was published in 2009, and the shifting challenges that humanitarian and human rights actors face have prompted an update. Humanitarian and human rights actors both work to reduce and mitigate risks people face during armed conflict and other situations of violence. While their expertise and methods differ, these Professional Standards seek to provide a common understanding and an agreed-upon minimum level of professionalism that both humanitarian and human rights actors uphold.
The development of these Professional Standards was initiated and led by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), through extensive consultations, literature reviews, and interviews with leading protection experts, in conjunction with an advisory group of UN and NGO humanitarian and human rights experts. In 2012, the ICRC saw a need for updating the Standards in three main areas: the management of protection strategies, civil-military liaison and managing sensitive information.
Managing Protection Strategies
The new Standards emphasize the importance of regular program monitoring. While monitoring of programs has always been an essential program component, the significance placed on continuous monitoring – with an emphasis on revisiting the risk analysis of a situation – supports better protection programming. Stronger protection responses are possible through detailed risk analysis looking at the threats, vulnerabilities and capacities of affected communities.
For example, an NGO working on girls’ education in Chad was able to identify risks in the process of program monitoring, and ultimately developed a strategy that reduced girls’ exposure to the threat of sexual violence. Recognizing that they were more at risk when they collected firewood on the outskirts of their homes, the organization provided solar cooking stoves to reduce the amount of time spent collecting firewood. Reported incidents of sexual violence in the outskirts of the area decreased dramatically as a result, the NGO reported, in a recent presentation to InterAction’s Results-Based Protection Practitioners’ Roundtable. Engaging with the local population and conducting an in-depth analysis reduced multiple risks causing immense human suffering.
Interface with UN Peacekeeping Operations and Other Internationally-mandated Military and Police Forces
Internationally-mandated multinational forces often operate in the same environment where humanitarian and human rights organizations are working to enhance protection. Association (or the perception of association) with peacekeeping forces can prove to be dangerous in situations of active armed conflict. These circumstances require scrupulous adherence to the humanitarian principles of neutrality and impartiality and, yet, engagement with these military forces is essential to secure the best possible protection outcomes for the civilian population. The Professional Standards encourages a proactive approach to shape and manage that engagement, including sharing information with peacekeeping forces that is vital to the protection of civilians while remaining impartial and neutral.
For example, in 2007, widespread civilian causalities led the Human Rights Unit of the UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) to establish systematic monitoring and reporting on civilian casualties. Public reports provided an analysis on the patterns of harm endured by civilians, which served as a basis for dialogue with the parties to the conflict about measures that could reduce the threat to civilians. In doing so, they were careful to ensure that their activities could not be seen as aligned with any of the parties and maintained a focus on the nature of the risk as experienced by the civilian population. Their careful documentation and dialogue with the parties decreased harm to civilians: UNAMA reports showed that even when military activity in ongoing conflict increased, civilian causalities did not.
Managing Sensitive Protection Information
Data collection allows humanitarians and human rights workers to capture the situation on the ground and provide vital insights for programming purposes. However, data should not be collected or compiled just for data’s sake and should ultimately be tied to a particular purpose or objective, according to the updated Standards. Conducting interviews can place interviewees and their families in danger in conflict settings. Information technology, although it can allow for a more effective response and ease data collection, must not be seen as a panacea for the humanitarian and human rights sectors.
Although more people are able to communicate their needs through the use of mobile phones and social media in times of crisis, it also increases the risk that other actors will manipulate that information for their own purposes. As violence began to erupt in Syria, for example, people filmed attacks and posted them online to document atrocities. It was later found, through news media investigations, that some of the videos were altered, casting doubt on whether some acts of violence were actually committed.
Another form of data collection described in the Professional Standards is crowdsourcing. New technologies and social media allow for affected populations to respond and report information almost instantly. During Hurricane Bopha in the Philippines, citizens were able to tweet to the national emergency responders to request evacuation assistance. This agency’s Twitter feed was constantly providing updates on the movement of the storm, allowing families the time to evacuate safely. The updated Standards reinforce the importance that crowd-sourced data be validated and crosschecked to the extent possible.
The Professional Standards for Protection Work will remain a living document and will evolve as the operational environment changes. InterAction applauds the role of the ICRC to facilitate ongoing dialogue in this regard. We hope that the Professional Standards will enable greater collaboration among a growing field of actors to better meet a minimum level of protection and, ultimately, lead to greater protection for people in conflict. We call on all humanitarian and human rights actors to adopt and integrate the Professional Standards for Protection into their work.
By Andrea Aramburu, program associate for InterAction's Humanitarian Policy & Practice Team. For more information on the Standards, see this Q&A with Guilhem Ravier, who is responsible for ICRC's activities aimed at protecting civilians.
