Armed Actors

Abstract

AbstractChapter 20 turns to international humanitarian agency relationships with armed actors, including international forces, national militaries, insurgent groups, and criminal organizations. These different kinds of armed actors can have important impacts on humanitarian operations and humanitarian outcomes. Insofar as armed actors control territory, agencies need their consent to be able to operate on that territory. Beyond facilitating humanitarian assistance by granting access, armed actors also often have direct impacts on the population. In some cases, for example, armed actors provide material assistance directly to the population. Sometimes they also pose a violent threat to the population. Operational agencies therefore need to engage with armed actors to negotiate access and acceptance for their work and can also engage with the goal of improving protection outcomes. In practice, the way they engage depends on the agency in question, the context, and the type of armed actor. While the International Committee of the Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontières engage with a wide range of armed actors, they also seek to maintain their independence from them. Many of the other large international humanitarian agencies are less comfortable engaging with armed non-state actors but sometimes work quite closely—even to the point of compromising their independence and neutrality—with international military forces.