CIVIL SOCIETY APPROACHES TO RISK IN HUMANITARIAN RESPONSES
This briefer is developed by ASAL Humanitarian Network, Charter 4 Change Kenya Working Group, the Feminist Humanitarian Network, the Local Intermediary Actors (LIA) Network - Myanmar and the University of Melbourne Myanmar Research Network. It brings together insights and experiences from diverse humanitarian contexts across Asia, Africa, and the Pacific to examine how risk is understood, managed, and shared across humanitarian systems.
Drawing on different initiatives and the experiences of local and women’s rights organisations, the briefer captures a growing movement of civil society actors pushing back against the unequal and unjust practices of risk dumping. It documents the gaps between international commitments and realities on the ground, explores differing understandings and approaches to risk management among humanitarian actors, and highlights how local organisations and networks are challenging persistent patterns of exclusion and inequality within humanitarian systems.
Moving beyond critique, the briefer sets out recommendations for international donors and intermediaries, as well as civil society actors, networks, and their supporters, to advance more equitable and just approaches to risk sharing. At its heart is a call to move away from transferring risk and responsibility to local actors and towards humanitarian practices that recognise local leadership, address structural inequalities, and share risks more fairly.
Read the Feminist Humanitarian Network’s Full research report on Risk here: Extractive by Design: Humanitarian Risk Practices, Women-Led Civil Society, and the Structural Violence of Global Aid Governance