Promoting local perspectives in humanitarian crises
Local to Global Protection (L2GP) is an initiative intended to document and promote local perspectives on protection and survival in major humanitarian crises.
Based on studies in Burma/Myanmar, Sudan, South Sudan and Zimbabwe, the L2GP initiative explores what people living in areas affected by natural disasters and complex emergencies do to protect themselves. The studies also describe how people and communities perceive the protection efforts undertaken by others such as local authorities, UN, NGOs, etc.
You can find the studies via the menu bar above and you can find summaries as published by the Humanitarian Practice Network Paper 72 at the ODI/HPN site here - or you can download it directly here.
Common to all the studies is the finding that it is people at risk themselves who take the lead in providing their own ‘protection’. In most of the studies livelihoods and protection were intimately linked. Contrary to conventional practice by international humanitarian organisations that puts individual human rights at the forefront of theirwork, the studies found that customary law, local values and traditions in fact mattered more to local communities than formal human rights. Psychological and spiritual needs and threats – to some – were as important as physical survival.
What is also common to all the studies is the observation that such self-protection does not provide the full protection and safety people need. Thus, crucial as it is, local agencycannot and should not be seen as a substitute for the protection role and responsibility bestowed on national authorities or – when that fails – international actors .
Please explore the site for the individual study summaries, the full length reports and a synthesis of all the studies and work so far under L2GP.
The analysis and opinions in the individual studies and on this web site are solely the responsibility of the credited author(s).
