Humanitarian Affairs
Key findings from PeaceRep research on humanitarian affairs (2021 – 2026)
PeaceRep’s humanitarian affairs research was led by …
Humanitarian action in contemporary conflict environments is increasingly shaped by fragmentation, politicisation, and the blurring of humanitarian, development, and security objectives. Across Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, and Iraq, humanitarian systems are no longer temporary emergency mechanisms but have become long-term governance tools that shape livelihoods, local acceptance, and political settlements. At the same time, the humanitarian sector across contexts is facing a legitimacy crisis, as international organisations are perceived as disconnected, paternalistic, or complicit in political agendas, while local actors carry disproportionate risk and responsibility.
Our research highlights three cross-cutting realities: (1) humanitarian response is driven by local civic ecosystems; (2) humanitarian aid is deeply embedded in political and conflict economies; and (3) the humanitarian system faces structural risks that undermine legitimacy, access, and effectiveness. These patterns show that, beyond delivering aid, humanitarian action is also about negotiating power, identity, and authority in contested environments.
Local civic ecosystems
In multiple contexts, humanitarian response is led by informal civic networks rather than formal institutions. In the Ukrainian refugee response, rapid mobilisation occurred through personal contacts, local networks, and diaspora communities, enabling flexible and timely assistance that complemented state efforts while formal systems were still mobilising (Czerska-Shaw and Dunin-Wąsowicz 2025). Similarly, Poland’s response relied on civic actors for rapid support, although this created coordination and accountability challenges (Pankowski, Czerska-Shaw and Rangelov 2023). In Afghanistan, community structures such as Community Development Councils enabled effective delivery despite political constraints (Alam 2023). In Tigray, local organisations and community-based groups are identified as essential for rapid, locally owned response and reconstruction (Gebrehiwot and de Waal 2023).
These civic ecosystems also support humanitarian negotiations and small-scale cooperation. In Ukraine, local civic mobilisation created networks of trust and coordination that enabled pragmatic cooperation across conflict lines and facilitated aid delivery in ways that complemented formal diplomacy (Czerska-Shaw and Dunin-Wąsowicz 2025). During the Syrian conflict, the fragmentation and weakness of formal governance made local civil society indispensable, particularly in opposition-held areas, not only for delivering services and humanitarian aid but also for mediating conflict dynamics and maintaining social cohesion (Beaujouan 2022; Beaujouan 2026, chapter 6). Humanitarian action in Syria also depended heavily on negotiation with armed groups and informal power structures, a reality that local civil society actors navigated daily through mediation, corridor management, and conflict-sensitive programming (Beaujouan 2023a).
In this context, humanitarian negotiations often take the form of “islands of agreement and civility” that describe temporary, issue-specific arrangements that allow limited cooperation on humanitarian, environmental, or security risks without requiring a broader political settlement (Wittke 2023). These localised forms of negotiation and cooperation can reduce immediate risks and create space for civil society resilience, but they also risk being instrumentalised by conflict actors or normalising unequal power dynamics if not paired with safeguards for accountability and civilian protection (Beaujouan 2023b).
Politicised aid economies
Humanitarian action is deeply entangled with political and military logics, especially in protracted conflicts. In Ukraine, humanitarian and military support merged as the crisis evolved, driven by a shared political objective of survival and victory. This resulted in practical integration across humanitarian, development, and security activities without formal coordination mechanisms (Czerska-Shaw and Dunin-Wąsowicz 2025). In Tigray, the post-cessation environment similarly points to the need for integrated approaches that combine emergency aid with reconstruction and reconciliation (Gebrehiwot and de Waal 2023).
Neutrality and impartiality are increasingly contested. In Ukraine, neutrality is often perceived as tacit support for aggression, undermining the legitimacy of agencies that insist on strict neutrality (Czerska-Shaw and Dunin-Wąsowicz 2025). In Syria, humanitarian access and aid distribution are inseparable from political negotiations, generating persistent perceptions of bias and unequal treatment among populations (Beaujouan 2023a and Beaujouan 2023b). In Somalia, religious leaders are forced to speak out against the exploitative practices they associate with humanitarian aid (Edle 2025).
Syria further illustrates how humanitarian access is shaped by geopolitical competition and border politics. The use of cross-border closures as bargaining tools has constrained aid delivery and undermined local civil society actors (Beaujouan et al 2023; Beaujouan, 2026, chapter 5). Similarly, the response to the earthquake in Syria showed how humanitarian channels increasingly depend on diplomatic negotiation and external leverage, turning aid into geopolitical strategy (Beaujouan 2023c).
Structural challenges
The humanitarian system faces systemic constraints across diverse contexts. In Syria and Somalia, humanitarian delivery is embedded in local power economies, requiring negotiation with armed groups and informal governance structures, which increases risks of diversion, coercion, and political manipulation (Beaujouan et al 2023; Thomas and Majid 2023). In Afghanistan, sanctions and compliance requirements create persistent legal uncertainty, often forcing humanitarian actors to rely on informal financial channels and networks to operate (Alam 2023). In Somalia and Afghanistan, common humanitarian practices such as rapid scale-up, subcontracting, and third-party monitoring create incentives for corruption and diversion, suggesting that these problems are structural rather than exceptional (Jackson and Majid 2024).
Transitions from humanitarian to development funding also carry significant risks. In Iraq, the shift from emergency assistance to development-oriented funding following the defeat of the Islamic State group raised concerns about speed, transparency, and capacity, risking gaps in support for displaced populations (Travers 2024).
Digital innovation offers potential solutions but remains constrained by capacity and governance. In Syria, blockchain has been proposed as a tool to improve transparency and reduce compliance burdens, yet adoption is limited by technical capacity and fragmented governance arrangements (AlOkaily & Alzoubi 2024). More broadly, reliable payment systems are essential for delivering cash assistance, paying staff, and enabling remittances. With Syria’s formal banking sector weakened by years of conflict and sanctions, informal money exchangers (sarrafs) and hawala networks have become the de facto payment infrastructure. Their growing use of mobile applications, digital ledgers, and stablecoin settlement has created a hybrid system that could enable faster humanitarian transfers, provided it is appropriately regulated and monitored to prevent diversion, illicit finance, and political capture (Thompson 2025).
Lessons from Somalia point out that technical fixes to corruption and diversion risks may have limited effectiveness and it is important to maintain safe spaces to discuss sensitive power dynamics where humanitarian actors are often deeply embedded in these dynamics (Majid, Abdirahman and Adan 2023; Hailey and Majid 2024).
References
PeaceRep’s key findings series presents a top-line overview of findings from the breadth and depth of the consortium’s data-driven and in-country research between 2021 – 2027. The findings presented here represent our main contributions to the field, but for the sake of brevity and ease of uptake are not necessarily exhaustive of all PeaceRep work on each thematic and geographic area. Read the individual works linked here for more detailed analysis. To view all PeaceRep publications, visit the publications database.
The list of authors below includes all authors whose work is represented in the key findings.
To cite these findings, use the suggested citation below.
Citation
Beaujouan, J., Abdirahman, K., Adan, G., Alam, al-Rish, M., H., AlOkaily, A., Alzoubi, S., Czerska-Shaw, K., Dunin-Wąsowicz, R., Edle, A., El hafi, A., Gebrehiwot, M., Ghreiz, E., Hailey, P., Jackson, A., Majid, N., Odat, A., Pankowski, R., Rangelov, I., Thomas, C., Thompson, R., Travers, A., de Waal, A., Wittke, C. (2026). PeaceRep Key Findings: Humanitarian Affairs. PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.
Alam, H. (2023). Humanitarian Aid Delivery in Contemporary Afghanistan (Afghanistan Research Network Reflection). PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh
AlOkaily, A. and Alzoubi, S. (2024). Exploring Blockchain Technology for Humanitarian Aid in Conflict Zones: A Syrian Case Study (PeaceRep Report). PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.
Beaujouan, J. (2026, forthcoming). Power Peace. The Resolution of the Syrian Conflict in the Post-Colonial Era of Peacemaking. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Beaujouan, J. (2023a). ‘Negotiating Humanitarian Aid with Armed Groups: Humanitarian Imperative or Red Line?’, PeaceRep Blog, 9 August July.
Beaujouan, J. (2023b). Humanitarian Aid and Peace in Syria: An Intricate Relationship’ ‘, PeaceRep Blog, 3 August July.
Beaujouan, J. (2023c). ‘Syria and the Politics of the Earthquakes’, PeaceRep Blog, 28 July.
Beaujouan, J., al-Rish, M., El hafi, A., Ghreiz, E., and Odat, A. (2023). Navigating Fragmentation: Humanitarian Aid, Borders and Conflict Lines (Policy Brief). PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.
Beaujouan, J. (2022). ‘The Covid-19 Pandemic and Alternative Governance Systems in Idlib’ in Allouche, J. and te Lintelo, D.J.H. (Eds) Humanitarianism and Covid-19: Structural Dilemmas, Fault Lines, and New Perspectives, IDS Bulletin, 53.2, Brighton: IDS.
Czerska-Shaw, K., and Dunin-Wąsowicz, R. (2025). ‘Enacting the humanitarian-development-peace (HDP) Triple Nexus: civic ecosystems at the frontlines of the Russo-Ukrainian war’. Globalizations, 1–18.
Edle, A. (2025). Humanitarian aid in Baidoa: religious leaders speak out, PeaceRep blog, 27 January.
Gebrehiwot, M. and de Waal, A. (2023). Humanitarian Priorities for Tigray, Ethiopia, after the Cessation of Hostilities. Somerville, MA: World Peace Foundation.
Hailey, P. and Majid, N. (2024). Fighting corruption in Somalia: continuing the momentum, building on technical ‘fixes’, PeaceRep blog, 13 November.
Jackson, A. and Majid, N. (2024). Time for Change: The Normalization of Corruption and Diversion in the Humanitarian Sector (PeaceRep Report). PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.
Majid, N., Abdirahman, K. and Adan, G. (2023). Can we (ever) have a conversation about corruption and accountability in Somalia, PeaceRep blog, 7 August.
Pankowski, R., Czerska-Shaw, K., and Rangelov, I. (2023). Poland’s Role in Ukraine’s Security Amid the Challenge of Migration: Humanitarian Responses, Civic Solidarities and Downstream Risks (PeaceRep Report). Conflict and Civicness Research Group, London School of Economics.
Thomas, C. and Majid, N. (2023). ‘Powerful networks impose taxes on aid in Somalia. It’s time for this to end’. The New Humanitarian, 10 October.
Thompson, R. (2025). From Cash to Code: Payment Rails as Peace Infrastructure in Syria (PeaceRep Report). PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh
Travers, A. (2024). The UN’s Humanitarian Transition from Emergency Assistance to Development Funding in Iraq: The Politics of Delivering Aid in a Country of Protracted Post-Conflict Displacement (PeaceRep Research Paper). Middle East Centre, London School of Economics.
Wittke, C. (2023). Creating ‘Islands of Agreement and Civility’ through Humanitarian Negotiations: A Conflict Management and Disaster-Mitigation Strategy in Russia’s War against Ukraine (PeaceRep Report). Conflict and Civicness Research Group, London School of Economics.