Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) & Relationship Building techniques for Frontline Humanitarian Aid Workers

Given the diverse nature of the conflicts around the world as well as the dynamic power relations putting more emphasis on the state and non-state actors, the activities and functionalities of the humanitarian organizations are prone to multiple challenges. A lack of the contextual understanding of the conflict at different levels of analyses, therefore, is fundamental to develop a structural understanding of the conflict and its geopolitical realities. The Front-line Humanitarian Aid workers need to develop diplomatic relationship with the native or the indigenous elements in the power amidst the conflict situation to communicate their mandate, and ensure cross-level humanitarian assistance. This communication and the relationship between the Interlocutors and the subjects need to be a two-way process where the information flow is smooth and transparent. Moreover, media tracking and monitoring via different digital avenues and the coding of information to create a valuable input can contribute to cope up with the posed challenges. These techniques in addition to the recommendations for the strength and optimization of the Network of the Interlocutors has been presented in the paper with the information based on empirical knowledge, primary, and secondary sources. The purpose is to provide the Front-line Humanitarian Aid workers in their humanitarian operations with new insights and relevant information to function properly. Moreover, the recommendations can also contribute to the efforts of the Humanitarian organizations to improve their acceptance and perception.

The Impact of Integrated UN Missions on Humanitarian NGO Security

Since the end of the Cold War, the UN has extended many of its missions in conflict zones to include political, military, and humanitarian activities. Many humanitarian nongovernmental organizations have been critical of these “integrated” UN missions, claiming that they can blur the distinction between political, military, and humanitarian action, thus placing humanitarian aid workers at risk of retaliation from warring factions opposed to the UN’s political objectives. This proposition is empirically tested using generalized methods of moments statistical analysis of sixty-seven countries that experienced intrastate conflict between 1997 and 2018. When assessing attacks in general—to include the sum of aid workers killed, wounded, and kidnapped—the results indicate that humanitarian aid workers are more likely to come under attack in countries that have an integrated UN mission. However, when the attacks are assessed separately, results show that this relationship holds only with aid workers who are killed in the field.

Self-efficacy and humanitarian aid workers

As a result of frequent exposure to trauma, aid workers are at high risk for negative psychological symptoms. Training specifically geared at fostering critical incident self-efficacy in humanitarian aid workers may bolster critical incident self-efficacy as well as general self-efficacy as they relate to experiences of traumatic symptomatology and resilience. Sixty-three aid workers completed questionnaires regarding efficacy, resilience, coping, and posttraumatic stress symptomatology at baseline, and 46 aid workers completed the same measures after the training workshop. Multiple regression analysis indicated that higher levels of self-efficacy related to higher resilience levels. General self-efficacy and critical incident coping self-efficacy (CICSE) were stronger after the training, even when controlling for histories of trauma. Histories of trauma contributed significant variance to CICSE before the training but were insignificant after the training. These findings suggest that aid organizations can support their workers by providing training that promotes resilience through enhancing efficacies.

Following Fatigue, Feeling Fatigue: A Reflexive Ethnography of Emotion

This article takes the emotion of fatigue both as its analytical object as well as a methodological tool to engage in a reflexive ethnography, to question the categorical borders of researcher, researched and the field, in the politicised context of migration studies. I do so by drawing on ethnographic material collected during my fieldwork between Athens, Hamburg and Copenhagen in 2019–2020. This article’s theoretical and conceptual framing is informed by feminist scholarship on emotions, as well as decolonial scholarship in migration studies. By bringing these theoretical threads into the conversation, I study the different qualities of fatigue, amongst others the collective; how fatigue circulates in and through the ethnographic field; and how it shapes relations between refugees, humanitarian aid workers, activists and researchers such as me. Following fatigue across and through its many different instances in this reflexive ethnography of emotions lays bare the uneven emotional geographies that exist and are (re-)produced in the encounters between actors in Europe’s migration control field.

Humanitarian Aid Workers: The Forgotten First Responders

Humanitarian aid workers are an overlooked population within the structure of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) research and assistance. This negligence is an industry-wide failure to address aid workers’ psychological health issues. The suspected numbers of death by suicide, diagnosed PTSD, depression, anxiety disorders, hazardous alcohol and drug consumption, emotional exhaustion, and other stress-related problems are impossible to quantify but are considered endemic. Tools for establishing organizational frameworks for mental health and psychosocial support are readily available. However, the capacity to implement this assistance requires the creation and practice of an open and non-judgmental culture, based on the realistic acceptance that aid work has become inherently dangerous. The possibility of developing a psychological problem because of aid work has increased along with the rise in levels of disease, injury, kidnapping, and assault. As a result, expressions of traumatic stress have become the norm rather than an exception. This commentary outlines the essential steps and components necessary to meet these requirements.

Responding to the Psychological Needs of Health Workers During Pandemic: Ten Lessons From Humanitarian Work

ABSTRACT When a complex emergency (CE) overwhelms infrastructure, the ability of health-care providers to work efficiently under duress saves lives. The author uses her experience of providing mental health supports to humanitarian aid workers and the pieces of training conducted for internal medicine practitioners to offer guidance on how to manage severe job-related stresses during the response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This work reminds responders about their professional mission and purpose, but its extreme physical and mental demands can take a toll on their well-being and health. In CEs, the sheer volume of work and the emotional over-engagement tend to produce toxic fantasies (eg, rescuer or helper fantasies), acting upon which threatens integrity of care and increases risks for both patients and providers. Accumulated fatigue and exposure to mass suffering and mortality can change the perceived value of life and increase reckless, risk-taking, and suicidal behaviors. Introducing a self-awareness framework prioritizes the awareness of the available choices and making situation-appropriate and informed decisions about balancing one’s own and others’ needs. The COVID-19 response has demonstrated that fostering peer supports, changing organizational culture, addressing self-awareness within a training and supervisory context, and strengthening supports for managers are important parts of disaster preparedness. It also revealed that more research is needed to better understand and meet the special psychological needs of health-care responders.