The humanitarian sector is confronted by a period of decreasing warfare and increasing fragility. Since the beginning of the 1990s there has been an unprecedented decline in armed conflict. Notwithstanding the wider decline in armed conflict, the military, relief and development sectors are confronting what many describe as new forms of “fragility” or “ungoverned spaces”.

The preoccupation with “fragile” states and cities, along with growing investment in so-called stabilization and reconstruction, reflects a set of priorities and assumptions of predominantly western donor and affected governments. They also demonstrate that while security and development establishments are shrewdly adapting, humanitarian agencies are slower on the up-take. This is partly because such environments also include an array of comparatively “new” settings for the humanitarian sector, including post-conflict settings, urban spaces and what the ICRC describes as “situations other than war”.

Cities and inner city neighbourhoods are now of greater international importance, including to the humanitarian sector. Although the application of traditional “conflict” analysis and approaches may offer important insights and perspectives, they are insufficient – and the humanitarian sector is finding that in these environments – especially contexts marked by high levels of urban violence – a business as usual approach may not be appropriate. Likewise, humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence may have comparatively little purchase.

To tackle this new challenge, HASOW advances five core pillars:

• a review of the so-called “tipping points” or thresholds at which organized violence can be considered armed conflict;
• the international humanitarian legal implications of relief and development interventions in so called other situations of violence;
• the organizational dynamics of humanitarian action in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Port-au-Prince and Rio de Janeiro;
• the outcomes and impacts of humanitarian action in urban settings, particularly fragile cities; and
• the transfer of so-called “social technologies” in the humanitarian sector across setting.

Coordinators
Robert Muggah
Paulo Esteves

Senior Researchers
Carolina Moulin
João Pontes Nogueira
Mônica Herz

Research Assistants
Jana Tabak
Renata de Figueiredo Summa
Aline Fernandes Vasconcelos de Abreu

Interns
Felippe De Rosa
Ana Paula Pellegrino
Isadora de Andrade
Giulia Bruno

Workshop “Urban Violence: Patterns and Trends”
(8 September 2011 – BRICS Policy Center, Rio de Janeiro)

>Program

Lecture “Regulating Drug Wars: International Rules on Violence”
(19 October 2012 – BRICS Policy Center, Rio de Janeiro)

> Agenda

First Hasow International Conference “The Politics of Protection and the Future of Humanitarian Practices”

(25 -26 March 2013 – PUC-Rio)

>Report

International Workshop: Humanitarian Protection and Contemporary Forms of Violence

(30 April 2014 – PUC-Rio)

>Program