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Humanity
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Human suffering must be addressed wherever it is found. The purpose of humanitarian action is to protect life and health and ensure respect for human beings.
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Impartiality
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Humanitarian action must be carried out on the basis of need alone, giving priority to the most urgent cases of distress and making no distinctions on the basis of nationality, race, gender, religious belief, class or political opinions.
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Neutrality
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Humanitarian actors must not take sides in hostilities or engage in controversies of a political, racial, religious or ideological nature.
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Independence
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Humanitarian action must be autonomous from the political, economic, military or other objectives that any actor may hold with regard to areas where humanitarian action is being implemented.
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Source: UN OCHA (2022), ‘What are the Humanitarian Principles?’, https://www.unocha.org/sites/unocha/files/OOM_Humanitarian%20Principles_Eng.pdf.
The precise meaning of the principles is subject to both interpretation and debate. This paper uses definitions of the humanitarian principles (see Table 1) from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and identifies humanity as the objective of all humanitarian action and impartiality, neutrality and independence as tools used by humanitarian agencies to achieve that goal.In its examination of impartiality, this paper focuses on the operational aspects of a needs-based approach in humanitarian assessments and analyses.
Applying the principle of neutrality, particularly in highly politicized conflict contexts, has been integral for ensuring that humanitarian agencies gain access to affected populations. But the application of humanitarian principles in practice is an ongoing challenge. The interpretation of what it means to operate in accordance with the humanitarian principles in situations of armed conflict has continually evolved ever since they were adopted by UN organizations, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and NGOs. As a result, organizations face significant challenges in their efforts to apply the humanitarian principles.
The focus in this paper is the compatibility of humanitarian principles, particularly impartiality and neutrality, with growing efforts to pursue gender equality within humanitarian action in conflict contexts. The paper draws on the insights and information shared by participants at a series of workshops that examined policy and practical approaches to the application of the principles, as well as the internal and external challenges facing humanitarian agencies attempting to work in accordance with the principles. The objective of this paper is to apply a gender lens to some of the key issues that have arisen through these workshops. The paper focuses on three specific issues in this regard: (i) the role and limits of impartiality in the pursuit of gender equality; (ii) efforts to promote the role of conflict-affected women, girls and gender-diverse people in humanitarian action; and (iii) the potential of integrated approaches that coordinate across humanitarian, development and peace goals to support longer-term objectives. The paper draws on the cases that were shared in these workshops, including examples from Afghanistan, Myanmar and South Sudan. In developing recommendations, the paper takes both a short-term operational perspective and a longer-term strategic one.
The promotion of gender equality and inclusivity are aligned with the fundamental humanitarian goals of alleviating human suffering and respecting human dignity. However, as this paper demonstrates, there are many challenges to implementation in practice and various approaches to the integration of gender into humanitarian programming. As shown in Table 2, these can be considered in terms of a spectrum of approaches to gender, from ‘gender blind’ to ‘gender transformative’. A particular distinction applied in this paper is the difference between ‘gender responsive’ and ‘gender transformative’ objectives (Table 2). The principle of impartiality provides an entry point for supporting gender equality, through the promotion of tailored humanitarian assistance based on analysis of gender-related discrepancies in gaining access to basic services and resources. From this perspective, impartiality can support agencies to be gender responsive. However, in pursuing gender-transformative objectives that require shifts of a deeper nature, impartiality is limited because it is predominantly concerned with responding to the outcomes of inequality rather than addressing its drivers. The needs-based approach underpinning impartiality also risks undermining the agency of conflict-affected people by focusing on their vulnerability, which could, in turn, reproduce existing power imbalances between affected communities and humanitarian agencies.
In contexts of systemic marginalization, achieving impartial humanitarian assistance may not be possible without addressing social, political and economic barriers.
In contexts of systemic marginalization, achieving impartial humanitarian assistance may not be possible without addressing social, political and economic barriers. However, perceptions of neutrality can be inconsistent with efforts to address such systemic inequalities. There is a risk that humanitarian agencies may use the principle of neutrality to avoid engaging with important gender issues, including meeting the needs of marginalized LGBTQ+ communities. There is no international agency that determines ‘compliance’ with the humanitarian principles, and international humanitarian law (IHL) does not specify who determines whether a particular organization operates in accordance with humanitarian principles, nor does IHL provide criteria for making this assessment.
In practice, the ability to work in accordance with the principles is dependent on the perceptions of actors in conflict contexts, including affected communities and warring parties. This unpredictability makes it difficult to formulate clear-cut arguments about the compatibility of principles like neutrality with the promotion of gender equality. While supporting women’s rights or those of gender-diverse people may not be considered as ‘taking sides’ in conflict, it could affect perceptions of neutrality if it is considered as engaging in controversies of an ‘ideological nature’ (Table 1), depending on the context. However, the normative anchor of humanitarian action is humanity and when the principle of neutrality is applied to avoid meeting the needs of marginalized people, agencies are less likely to be working in accordance with the principle of humanity.
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Gender blind
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Assumes gender is not an issue and is thus not considered in a humanitarian programme.
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Gender aware
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Considers gender but does not use it as an operational concept.
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Uses gender to inform the project’s design and methodology.
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Uses gender in both project design and analysis, but it does not address the underlying structures creating gender inequality, such as norms and power dynamics.
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Not only attempts to respond to different power dynamics and needs based on gender, but also to transform those dynamics to be more equitable.
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Source: Daigle, M. (2022), Gender, power and principles in humanitarian action, report, London: ODI, https://odi.org/en/publications/gender-power-and-principles-in-humanitarian-action/#:~:text=It%20has%20been%20firmly%20established,and%20unavoidably%20shaped%20by%20gender.
The paper highlights the importance of applying humanitarian principles within wider efforts to promote peace and address conflict dynamics, including the gendered drivers and outcomes of conflict. Achieving longer-term, transformative objectives is dependent on the capacity of organizations to overcome power imbalances within the aid sector, by bolstering the roles of conflict-affected communities in humanitarian action and leadership. For example, boosting the roles of women-led organizations, women’s rights organizations and organizations that represent gender-diverse people.
While external actors are in a position to support social change in conflict-affected contexts, doing so without the leadership of affected people risks such activity becoming a top-down approach that does not align with local priorities. Increasing calls to ‘decolonize’ the aid sector highlight how the promotion of gender equality can occur in the context of inequitable partnerships. At the same time, local leadership in conflict contexts is not a problem-free route to achieving gender equality. Any efforts to support local peace and social change processes requires political and conflict sensitivity. The paper also argues that the achievement of longer-term shifts towards more peaceful and equitable societies is dependent on the success of more integrated approaches that can coordinate across peace, development and humanitarian spheres.
