Together We Stand

[ 159 ] The humanitarian capacities challenge: dealing with the present and preparing for the future Dr Randolph Kent, King’s College, London, UK T he global community is faced with an expanding number of humanitarian threats — their dimen- sions and dynamics growing in many instances exponentially. Those within the traditional humanitarian sector face the prospect that they may lack the expertise, capacities and resources to deal with such risks, and such inadequacies will significantly impact the lives and liveli- hoods of untold numbers around the world. In this fundamental sense the global community must prepare to address a humanitarian capacities challenge requiring a different concept of risk, a broader definition of a humanitar- ian actor and organizational transformations that run contrary to today’s ‘humanitarian ethos’. All too often perceptions of humanitarian crises reflect a world that harks back to the mid-1970s, when humanitarian crises were mainly the purview of poor countries, principally but not solely in Africa and South Asia. This perspective may be a holdover from what has been described as ‘Western hegemonic’ attitudes, where resilience was seen to be inherent in the West and vulnerability a feature of those who did not share in its wealth, values, culture and forms of governance. The rationale for humanitarian action continues to be closely linked to those assumptions. While most cultures and reli- gions have clear ideas and histories of response to assist the vulnerable, the predominantly Western humanitarian sector has intentionally or inadvertently pursued humanitarianism through the lens of selflessness and charity. There can be little doubt that most would hope that humanity would underpin humanitarian action, but there has emerged a ‘charitable conde- scension’ that separates oneself from the plight of others. It is in one sense the dominance of sympathy over empathy. In the context of the humanitarian capacities challenge, humanitarians need to bear in mind that the kinds of crises that will have to be faced are ever more global — their impacts spilling across regions and continents. ‘Messes,’ or multidi- mensional causation and consequences, have always been part of such crises, but now they will be more overt. The humani- tarian capacities challenge will have to reflect the fact that the dimensions and dynamics of future humanitarian crises mean that more people will be affected, and that effective humanitarian action will increasingly be an issue of perceived self-interest and mutual self-interest. Reflecting upon the transformative factors that may affect soci- eties and consequently reduce or create a growing number of crisis threats, there can be little doubt that the solutions for miti- gation and response will require, for example, an appreciation of the technologies that may drive or resolve humanitarian crises. Artificial intelligence, big data, cyberspace and outer space, 3D and 4D printing, teleportation and tactile communications, mass desalinization, direct solar transfers and unprecedented health innovations will be transformative factors over the next quarter of a century — in many positive ways, but also in ways that are negative and intensify the precariousness of human well-being. Here, too, is a humanitarian challenge that must be met. An understanding and appreciation of such factors is essential if crisis mitigation, as well as response, is to deal with many aspects of such transformative factors. While, for example, it is increasingly recognized that the voices of ‘hard science’ need to be heard, the sciences have only occasionally been let into the planning room, and all too often are not at the planning table. Similarly, many humanitarians have recognized the impor- tance of innovation. However, innovation too often begins with the objective of fixing a problem rather than looking for innovations outside the domain of specific problem solving. The mobile phone, through which a growing number of remit- tances are transferred, was not the result of an attempt to deal with remittance flows, but rather the unintended consequence of an innovation far from the problem-solving arena. In a highly complex and uncertain global community, organizations that should be responsible for anticipating and dealing with humanitarian threats need to be anticipatory and flexible. However, an organization that is sufficiently anticipa- tory and adaptive remains a rarity in the sector, and all too often Western hegemonic assumptions as well as institutional survival define standard humanitarian responses and princi- ples. Such assumptions, too, define the nature of collaboration for those in the humanitarian sector. As has become evident — reflected in the response to the West African Ebola crisis in 2014, the 2011 Fukushima nuclear plant disaster and the enduring impact of hurricane Katrina in 2005 —more efforts at multisector and multidisciplinary strategic planning will be a step towards meeting the humanitarian capacities challenge. Dealing with the humanitarian capacities challenge will require fundamental rethinking about the nature of humanitarian crises, their dimensions and dynamics, their sources and consequences and how we prepare and respond to them. With that objective in mind, humanitarians might wish to reflect on steps towards meeting the humanitarian challenges of the future. First, to ensure that timely and appropriate preparation and response will be in place to meet future challenges, humanitarian actors must ensure that their organizations are inherently anticipa- T ogether W e S tand