Paper details

Paper authors	Selma Porobic
In panel on	Volunteer Humanitarians in Europe: their Role, Significance and Potential Implications for the Humanitarian Sector
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

This paper looks into the operational and situational challenges of volunteers and informal grassroots organisations as humanitarian actors which typically are not integrated and/or do not interact with the formal aid system.
In recent years, many grassroots groups have provided remarkable humanitarian support, particularly in response to the refugees and migrants that arrived in Europe during 2015-2016. While there have been limited academic and policy discussions regarding this topic, specifically regarding the effects of operations, it seems to be clear among the practitioners within the humanitarian sector that there is a need to think globally about how the international aid system can better recognize and engage with local grassroots groups and volunteers, because as much as 75% of international humanitarian assistance is in fact delivered by them. It is also clear that their operations differ starkly from those of the formal system, as they act on ad hoc basis, often with the support of social media, anonymous philanthropists and crowdfunding.
This paper builds on a case study analysis of the grassroot humanitarian responses in the wake of the new developments on the Western Balkan Route (since April 2018), involving a rapid increase in the number of irregular migrants registered on the teritorry of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Drawing from current fieldwork and newly collected data from Bosnia and Herzegovina (March-July 2018), I will discuss the significance and role of the grassroot movments in the Western Balkans in general, and the situation of the volonteers providing basic humanitarian aid to migrants in Bosnia and Herzegovina in particular. The aim is to scrutinize the best practices and trigger a discussion on how the volunteers and aid organisations can collaborate for more effective response.

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