Paper details

Paper authors	Jeeyon Kim
In panel on	Communities matter: Examining the role of informal support networks in humanitarian response
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

Resilience studies from around the world demonstrate the importance of social connections, particularly during crises, including violent conflict. Social connectivity may manifest in many forms – communities may rely on their immediate neighbors, extended family, livelihood groups, and/or clan chieftains for food, for assets and economic opportunities, for psychosocial support, or to negotiate safe passage when fleeing from a conflict. Social connectedness must be better understood and accounted for by the humanitarian community. This is in part because social networks and related support systems may be fragile, and aid interventions risk inadvertently undermining resilience capacities if they do not account for social connectedness. Additionally, aid actors can obtain more nuanced understandings of household vulnerability and resilience by identifying factors that may cause the support shared within social networks to collapse. Further, understanding social connectedness has implications for the targeting of formal types of humanitarian assistance, given that some groups or individuals may be excluded from social networks, with implications for their ability to mobilize support during difficult times.

In this paper, we synthesize findings from two studies conducted in Yemen and South Sudan. We provide an overview of the studies and discuss the role social connectedness plays in households’ resilience in these two conflict-affected contexts. We offer recommendations on the ways that donors and aid actors can design and deliver programs in conflict contexts that account for social connectedness and strengthen existing support networks, and at the very least, do not undermine them.

Back