Paper details

Paper authors	Megan Daigle
In panel on	Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Humanitarian Action: Anyone Still Interested? (Roundtable)
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

Since the collapse of USAID, multiple humanitarian agencies have scrubbed their websites of commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion and mentions of gender-related programming, ostensibly in an effort to avoid further cuts and attacks on their legitimacy. However, calls to go ‘back to basics’ and ‘re-focus on immediate needs’ have been prevalent in the sector for years already, and they dovetail with existing narrow interpretations of humanitarian principles (especially neutrality and impartiality) as antithetical to approaches that are feminist, LGBTQ+ inclusive or anti-racist. This approach leads to blanket programming for diverse crisis-affected people, which is less effective and often interpreted as dehumanising or irrelevant by those on the receiving end. For humanitarian workers, themselves a diverse population often facing complex risks, it leads to calls for individual resilience rather than systemic or structural change. This intervention will reflect on the challenges of pursuing meaningfully intersectional and feminist approaches within this landscape.

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