Protection is an alarming casualty of the global funding cuts that have sent shockwaves through the humanitarian system.
Protection, gender-based violence, and child protection have been hit hardest, according to monitoring of terminated programmes. Half of women’s organisations in crises may shut down in six months, a recent survey concluded. And there are well-founded fears that the perennially underfunded protection sector could be further sidelined as money becomes scarcer.
The UN-led humanitarian “reset” process, which is coming to a head, may consolidate the protection cluster and its four specialised workstreams – drawing strong resistance.
But merely defending the status quo isn’t enough.
Yes, protection is underfunded. Yes, civilians are under attack. But protection must be radically simplified if it is to meet the needs of people facing ever-growing risks in emergencies.
Clarity, vision, and measurable results are key. Protection agencies need to re-examine the way they work to show how – with less funding – they can have an impact on protecting at-risk populations more effectively.
Hard truths
Repeated attacks against civilians in conflicts make it abundantly clear why protection must remain at the centre of humanitarian action. Civilian deaths, forced displacement, and sexual violence are all on the rise, while humanitarians themselves are increasingly being targeted.
But today’s funding cuts are also bringing to light some hard truths.
These terms might make sense to protection experts, they are completely lost on most humanitarians – who are the same people that protection actors are asking to take the issue more seriously. Conceptually, protection must be simplified.
The protection agenda has become overly intellectualised, spawning a host of sub-genre concepts such as “centrality of protection”, “protection mainstreaming”, and “general protection”. While these terms might make sense to protection experts, they are completely lost on most humanitarians – who are the same people that protection actors are asking to take the issue more seriously. Conceptually, protection must be simplified.
The definition of humanitarian protection – generally seen as the actions aimed at ensuring respect for individual rights in international law – has always been vague and encompassed myriad kinds of interventions.
It is increasingly unclear what constitutes protection action. As the humanitarian sector is forced to prioritise with less funding, a narrowed focus should be welcome. Frequently, acute forms of vulnerability and the lack of access to food and basic services are inaccurately labelled as protection and should be dropped.
Given the scarcity of resources, protection actors must now focus on the worst forms of violence against civilians, where their rights are most egregiously being violated. Programme choices should be driven by the kind of protection support that communities say they need.
Simplify
The protection architecture has become overly elaborate and bureaucratised. While the same could be said of the entire humanitarian system, the protection sector has been particularly egregious at becoming overly process-focused.
I was one of the authors of the 2022 Inter-Agency Standing Committee protection policy review, which provided a system-wide assessment of how the humanitarian system’s approach to protection needed to be strengthened. We noted that a third of the sector’s coordination mechanisms are dedicated to protection.
Our report recommended the reform of the protection cluster. However, because protection actors preferred to keep the status quo and made only minimal changes, this did not happen. With a simplified cluster system at the heart of the humanitarian reset, the consolidation of the protection cluster – with areas of responsibilities on: gender-based violence; child protection; mine action; and housing, land, and property – is now a distinct possibility.
Reform should not be driven by cost savings alone, but by the pursuit of a positive vision: Protection – when integrated and understood as a collective humanitarian responsibility – can deliver better outcomes for at-risk populations.
The proposal faces strong resistance. Some fear that an integrated approach to protection will dilute attention and deprioritise the focus on the risks faced by women, children, and other groups.
But fragmentation has led to competition, between specialist areas of protection, for resources in appeals, and in terms of advocacy. Each loses out: The humanitarian system has simply not had the bandwidth to address so many separate protection priorities.
People in crises experience a multitude of protection risks that are often inter-related and thus need to be addressed in an integrated way. It isn’t just cost-efficient; it makes sense. Protection actors will be best served working more closely together – rather than at odds with each other, trying to protect their own turf.
In a similar vein, a leaked memo on the UN80 restructuring initiative flags proposals for a single UN human rights entity that merges several specialised protection mandates.
Back in 2023, the UN adopted an Agenda for Protection, which reaffirmed the collective responsibility of protection across the UN system. But it failed to make any structural changes, which was a missed opportunity.
The duplications and overlaps between different UN entities’ protection work is obvious. Between OHCHR, UNHCR, and UNICEF, for example, there are a multitude of protection monitoring mechanisms – which often contain the same information. Some sort of restructuring is necessary.
But form should follow function. Reform should not be driven by cost savings alone, but by the pursuit of a positive vision: Protection – when integrated and understood as a collective humanitarian responsibility – can deliver better outcomes for at-risk populations.
Results, not processes
Protection also needs to be defined more by the results it achieves rather than the processes it creates.
There has always been an overly high expectation of the protection humanitarians can deliver. The primary responsibility to protect populations rests with states; humanitarian actors are only ever able to contribute to their safety.
Protection actors have struggled to demonstrate the impact of their actions – part of the reason why it’s difficult to garner more support for it.
You can count protection activities such as advocacy letters, GBV cases managed, and trainings for duty bearers. But whether these actually make people feel more protected is difficult to measure.
However, there are ways to focus on results and measure them.
Some are developing “results-based protection” with different benchmarks, indicators, and measurement frameworks to pinpoint where progress is being made. In a reset world, there is going to be even more scrutiny about results. This should be no different for protection: These tools urgently need to be brought to scale.
The opportunity behind the threat
There was a time when protection was left to specialist agencies. Now, after years of close attention to the issue – and hard work by protection actors – it is everyone’s business.
Funding cuts and the crumbling of the international rules-based order are putting this progress at serious risk.
Rather than retrenching into familiar ways of working, protection actors need to use the “reset” to make hard choices about how they can improve their work. This is an opportunity to make changes, and to emerge stronger than before.
Damian Lilly was an author of the 2022 IASC protection policy review, and formerly the head of protection for the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
