Humanitarian futures: practical policy perspectives

This paper is about the future, and about how agencies can adapt to meet it. The humanitarian environment of tomorrow may well not look much like the humanitarian environment of today.

It argues that many of the changes that are occurring now are likely to impinge in some way on the humanitarian community. In the foreseeable future, we may face new types of humanitarian crisis, with new tools at our disposal to reduce their impact.

In turn, many of the assumptions upon which humanitarian organisations base their work may be becoming increasingly less relevant. The question – and the central issue addressed here – is whether and how humanitarian organisations can deal with the dynamics of change, and its consequences. What strategies do they need to develop, and how should such strategies be linked to policies and practice on the ground?