Upholding the Humanitarian Principles in Conflict Areas – Challenges and Compromises: The Cases of Syria and Afghanistan

Sammanfattning: In recent years localising humanitarian aid has been a strategic direction for many humanitarian organisations to give local actors more ownership and make humanitarian interventions more efficient. Nevertheless, in conflict situations localising humanitarian aid can result in a series of dilemmas. This thesis is concentrated around humanitarian organisations’ adherence to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence in conflict situations. The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the discourse of localising humanitarian aid in conflict areas, looking specifically at examples of Syria and Afghanistan. For this purpose, a literature review on the key concepts of humanitarian aid, the humanitarian principles, localisation and conflict was conducted. The challenges of humanitarian interventions were further developed by looking at case studies of Syria and Afghanistan. Furthermore, semi-structured interviews with academic key informants and humanitarian aid workers were conducted and the results were triangulated with the results from the literature review and case studies. The results show that there is still a strong hierarchical structure in the humanitarian aid system that slows down localisation efforts. Both international and local actors face difficulties adhering to the humanitarian principles in practice. Those challenges are related to access constraints, donor dependency, counter-terrorism measures, pressures from governments and influenced perception. Nevertheless, there is a need for both local and international actors to provide humanitarian assistance. Therefore, local actors should be treated as partners and not be used as subcontractors to deliver programme activities for international humanitarian organisations.