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Abstract
Each year over the last decade, there were on average 400 humanitarian disasters or emergencies, killing more than 100,000 people and affecting a further 200 million. Such humanitarian events require immediate responses as well as effective longer-term activities to aid communities recover. The global response is now valued over US$27 billion annually. More than half a million people are estimated to work in this sector, the majority being locally engaged staff. The international community provides significant resources to assist local communities impacted by these humanitarian emergencies. This aid flows through multiple channels, including national and regional governments, international non-governmental organisations and local community based organisations. Increasing the skills and knowledge of leaders and managers of these responses is a critical need to ensure the most effective recovery in communities as well as use of resources. Understanding the professional journey in the humanitarian sector is vital, but currently limited. As the humanitarian sector continues to expand, greater focus on the skill-set needed by humanitarian workers responding to these events is needed. However, tensions exist between the primacy given to the experiences and soft-skills of humanitarian workers over the value of academic qualifications. This paper provides some suggestions how this tension within the humanitarian sector may be addressed and reconciled. This paper presents new data based on interviews with 20 humanitarian professionals from a range of humanitarian aid agencies and considers their experiences and reflections on building a career within the humanitarian sector.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the Australian-American Fulbright Commission for support of one of the authors to undertake a period of study in the USA as the 2017–2018 Fulbright Scholar for Non-Profit Leadership (funded by Origin Foundation and Australian Scholarships Foundation).
Notes
1 Various terms can be used to describe humanitarian emergencies, including complex humanitarian emergencies or disasters. These terms are used interchangeably within this paper in line with their common usage within the sector.
2 ALNAP, The State of the Humanitarian System.
3 Development Assistance, Global Development Assistance Report.
4 ALNAP, The State of the Humanitarian System.
5 Dynes, “Dialogue between Voltaire and Rousseau.”
6 Gaillard and Texier, “Religions, Natural Hazards, and Disasters,” 81.
7 Murray and Clarke, “Improving the Capacity to Respond.”
8 This study focuses on the careers of international humanitarian workers employed by agencies. Similar work is required to consider the circumstances of how the professionalisation agenda is operating in resource-poor countries and how staff in these environments are able to navigate the same pressures and demands for professionalisations as the sector simultaneously seeks to emphasis a ‘localisation’ agenda. There has also been consideration of inequities between ‘international’ and ‘national’ staff in this sector.
9 Walker and Russ, Professionalizing the Humanitarian Sector; ALNAP, The State of the Humanitarian System.
10 Richardson, “Meeting the Demand.”
11 James, The Professional Humanitarian.
12 Martin, “Forced Migration and Professionalism,” 226.
13 Walker and Russ, Professionalizing the Humanitarian Sector; Walker and Russ, “Fit for Purpose”; Voutira et al., Emerging Trends.
14 Kene et al., The Professionalization of Humanitarian Health Assistance.
15 Shanks, “Why Humanitarian Aid became Professional.”
16 Carbonnier, Reason, Emotion, Compassion.
17 Walker and Russ, Professionalizing the Humanitarian Sector.
18 Walker and Russ, “Fit for Purpose.”
19 Kene et al., The Professionalization of Humanitarian Health Assistance, 7.
20 Mosse, Adventures in Aidland; Fechter and Hindeman, Inside the Everyday Lives of Development Workers; Alexander, Changing Chaos; Elliot, Zen under Fire.
21 Smirl, Spaces of Aid; Roth, “Professionalisation Trends and Inequality.”
22 Fechter, “The Personal and the Professional”; Fechter, “Living Ill While Doing Good”; Roth, “Professionalisation Trends and Inequality.”
23 Burke et al., “Academic Affiliated Training Centers.”
24 Martin, “Forced Migration and Professionalism”; James, The Professional Humanitarian.
25 Kene et al., The Professionalization of Humanitarian Health Assistance.
26 Fechter and Hindeman, Inside the Everyday Lives of Development Workers.
27 Walker and Russ, “Fit for Purpose.”
28 Walker at al., “A Blueprint for Professionalizing.”
29 Roth, “Professionalisation Trends and Inequality.”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Matthew Clarke
Matthew Clarke is Alfred Deakin Professor and Head of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin University (Australia).
Sophie Perreard
Sophie Perreard is Course Director of the Graduate Certificate of Humanitarian Leadership – Francophone, Centre for Humanitarian Leadership at Deakin University (Australia).
Phil Connors
Phil Connors is Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Centre for Humanitarian Leadership at Deakin University (Australia).