Strategische Beratung

Humanitarian action is understood as measures taken by international organizations and NGOs to save lives, alleviate suffering and maintain human dignity of victims of armed conflicts, chronical crisis and natural disasters. These measures go beyond first aid emergency measures and involve more often comprehensive rehabilitation activities like reconstruction of private or public infrastructure or projects in the sector health, education or agriculture or even preventive activities like disaster risk reduction or similar. Therefore humanitarian activities of governmental or non-governmental agencies have to follow strict quality standards as outlined in the Code of Conduct of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies IFRC ( http://www.ifrcorg/en/publications-and-reports/code -of-conduct/) or the SPHERE Minimum Standards (http://www.sphereproject.org)

Humanitarian action should be guided by the humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, and independence. Activities can be designed on a short-termed or middle-termed basis and should contribute towards a situation in which the affected population can return to safe living conditions as soon as possible.  Therefore the planning of humanitarian action should consider linkages to the longer-termed development work.

Humanitarian Action are

• activities which ensure basic services for the affected population. This includes the provision of clean and safe water and food, temporary shelter, and medical assistance. These activities last between 3 up to 6 months and aim primarily at the physical well-being of refugees and internal displaced persons (IDPs). In complex or chronical emergencies the implementation period can be prolonged on the basis of an up-dated needs assessment.
• activities which aim at the permanent resettlement of refugees and IDPs. These returnees are supported by the re-/construction of private houses or by the re-/construction of public infrastructure for the affected community. Reconstruction programmes are implemented for several years.
• activities which aim at the rehabilitation of livelihoods and rebuilding assets for the affected population. In this phase of restoring livelihoods various activities are combined like income generating by agricultural or small trade, micro credit projects, the distribution of animals, seeds or materials, cash assistance and so on. The fundamental principles of livelihoods programmes should be reflected in the approach which is people-centred, multi-level and holistic, dynamic and sustainable. Furthermore, restoring livelihoods might include also the public sector activities like the rehabilitation of a well-regulated medical care or a functioning schooling system. This brings humanitarian action close to development work.
• activities which aim at preventive systematic strategies and approaches to identify, to assess and to reduce the risks of disasters. These measures are implemented to reduce socio-economical vulnerabilities to disaster as well as dealing with environmental and other hazards that trigger them.