Risk‐Aware or Risk‐Averse? Challenges in Implementing Security Risk Management Within Humanitarian NGOs

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AbstractHumanitarian aid agencies that deliver assistance in complex emergencies increasingly face violent incidents that not only put the humanitarians’ lives at risk but also jeopardize the delivery of life‐saving aid, thus affecting those parts of populations in need that are already the most vulnerable. In response, numerous humanitarian aid agencies have introduced professional security risk management systems. However, these systems are not implemented to the full extent in every humanitarian organization. I conducted 29 interviews with and a survey among 54 representatives from European and U.S. humanitarian not‐for‐profit non‐governmental organizations to study the implementation of security risk management systems within aid agencies. Combining an organizational perspective with findings from the International Relations literature on norms allows to understand security risk management in terms of ideas and values, which in turn makes it possible to study how security risk management systems are perceived and appropriated within the organizations in order to identify internal organizational barriers to the implementation of relevant policies, procedures, and structures as well as the different ways in which these concerns are addressed by those who are responsible for the implementation of security risk management.