Rethinking humanitarian aid & making the case for humanitarian social protection: A response to the 2019 Global Refugee Forum
Zina Nimeh, Tamara A. Kool, Francesco Iacoella & Alex Hunns
#2020-053
The challenges and responsibility posed on the entire international
community as a result of the increasing prevalence of the global refugee
population and humanitarian emergencies is ever intensifying. While in
its essence humanitarian aid seeks to alleviate some of the perils that
refugees face, it transpires as insufficient and unsustainable
particularly when displacement becomes protracted. This article draws
attention to this issue by arguing that if social protection is viewed
from a transformative lens, it could be regarded as a strategic approach
to reduce deprivations and enhance resilience through strengthening the
link between humanitarian aid and human development. Structurally
extending coordinated social protection provisions to refugees could be
a pathway forward to durable solutions. This article is written as a
response to the 2019 Global Refugee Forum and tackles the complex
question of extending social protection benefits to refugees while
simultaneously linking the need promoting resilience of the host
community through developing a framework that links humanitarian social
protection to human development processes.
Keywords: Humanitarian Social Protection, Humanitarian Development
Nexus, Global Refugee Forum
JEL Classification: I31, I38, Y80