Protecting Lives While Saving Lives: How USAID Supports Aid Worker Safety Around the World
Why We Commemorate World Humanitarian Day: On August 19, 2003, a suicide bomber attacked the United Nations headquarters at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, Iraq. The explosion killed 22 humanitarian aid workers, and more than 100 others were injured. Five years later, the UN established August 19 as World Humanitarian Day — a day meant to remember the fallen, honor the service and sacrifice of aid workers, and raise awareness of the risks people take every day to put their lives on the line in order to help others.
The Lives Lost
On June 30, 2024, aid workers with USAID partner organization Tearfund were driving in a convoy near North Kivu’s Butembo city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Ongoing fighting in DRC has displaced seven million people in the country this year, particularly in the eastern provinces, and it has made it difficult to get basic services to the people suffering from the conflict. But even amid this violence, aid workers still do their jobs.
When the convoy arrived, it came under attack, with their vehicles being set ablaze – horrifically killing two members of the Tearfund team.
These people were just doing their job. They should still be alive today. But there are countless stories just like this one, all around the world, of aid workers being targeted while helping others.
The Deadliest Year
Last year was the deadliest year on record for aid workers around the world. According to the Aid Worker Security Database, in 2023, nearly 600 humanitarians faced violent attacks, kidnapping, harassment, intimidation, or threats, including 280 individuals who were killed in the line of duty.
Tragically, this year is already shaping up to be an even deadlier year for aid workers. More than eight months into 2024, we are on track to see even higher numbers, with 173 recorded fatalities to date–an alarming upward trend that shows no signs of stopping. A majority of those killed last year were responding to the conflict in Gaza, which the United Nations recently declared the “most dangerous place in the world for aid workers.”
“Gaza has become the most dangerous environment for humanitarian workers around the world,” said Luis Figueroa, one of the USAID disaster experts working on the Gaza crisis response. “We receive the information that our partners feed up to us … and help develop those into the advocacy points to help ensure their safety.”
But even while attacks on aid workers have increased over that period, so, too, has the need for humanitarian assistance. Last year, USAID responded to 76 crises in more than 64 countries and supported 11 Disaster Assistance Response Teams (DARTs) — the highest number of DARTs deployed by USAID in more than 20 years.
With this combination of heightened need and an increasingly dangerous operating environment, aid worker safety is more important than ever. Here is how USAID is actively working to protect them.
Prioritizing Humanitarian Safety and Security
“Working in any humanitarian crisis, you must accept and deal with a certain amount of risk, and that threshold may vary depending on the organization and how critical the work is to saving lives,” explained Lauren D’Amore, USAID Humanitarian Access, Safety, and Security Team Lead. “You are constantly weighing the risk of putting yourself in harm’s way to help save lives versus knowing what would happen if you didn’t.”
USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance is the number one donor in support of humanitarian safety and security in the entire world. Over the last 20 years, USAID has provided over $134.4 million in funding specifically for efforts in support of humanitarian safety and security at the global, regional, and country levels.
This funding helps organizations across the world who work to support and improve aid worker safety and security through standardization, coordination, analysis, and training for humanitarian staff working in high-risk settings. A driving factor behind our support is the belief that the humanitarian community will always be safest when it works together.
“Being isolated, both metaphorically and literally, absolutely increases danger to oneself or organization,” D’Amore said.
USAID’s funding includes support for the UN’s Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS), the body within the UN that enables the activities of UN organizations within acceptable levels of security risk.
Beyond the UN system, USAID also provides funding to the International NGO Safety Organization, known as INSO. Founded in 2011, INSO acts as the leading body for safety coordination among the entire community of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operating in the humanitarian system, supporting over 1,000 registered NGOs working in high-risk contexts.
USAID prioritizes in-depth data collection, analysis, and research into aid worker security incidents. This includes supporting Humanitarian Outcomes, a research organization that created the Aid Worker Security Database, which collects and shares global data on security incidents and threats that help relief groups — including USAID partners — make decisions that protect their personnel. This database contains 30 years of information from more than 250 organizations.
USAID also works with Insecurity Insight, which researches specific risks associated with different types of humanitarian response activities. D’Amore explained that could include anything from looking at programs in Afghanistan that are focused on women and girls to water and sanitation programming in Syria.
“After the war in Syria began, one of our partners focused on rebuilding some of the water and sanitation infrastructure,” D’Amore said. “This is a high risk activity because Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s father built those systems, and it was a personal affront to his family’s legacy to have outsiders come in and fix them. Because of this, there was a spike in security incidents towards the aid workers on that program.”
Organizations that help facilitate information sharing and coordinating, like the NGO Forum and Global Interagency Security Forum (GISF), are crucial to this work. During the 2021 evacuation of Afghanistan and recent Haiti evacuation, they helped organizations share real-time information about what roads were still open. In South Sudan, organizations get updates on the status of check-points — information that literally changes throughout a day. While this information is often practical and operational, it is necessary to keep aid workers safe in these dynamic environments.
In addition to supporting humanitarian safety and security on a macro level, USAID prioritizes this on a programmatic level, requiring all NGO partners to submit safety and security plans to help address the threats their local or national staff may encounter. This can include requests for equipment, safety and security staff, and training — all of which USAID funds as a crucial part of the program.
“It is important for donors to do our part so humanitarian organizations are able to deliver life saving assistance safely and effectively, even in the most violent and insecure contexts,” D’Amore said.
Advocacy and Relationship Building
Beyond providing funding, USAID plays an active role in advocating for aid worker safety, joining other organizations within the U.S. government and international community to call on governments, all parties to conflict, and local authorities to protect humanitarian workers serving vulnerable communities in need.
This is why we listen to our partners and support development of appropriate strategies for mitigating and managing risk alongside them, as this remains the best way we can support as a donor. “Humanitarian security is an interesting sector,” said Masho Deen, a USAID Humanitarian Access, Safety and Security Advisor. “It’s a little tough sometimes for non-security professionals to appreciate until something goes wrong. But we know when things are working because of direct feedback from our partners in the field.”
USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance has a team dedicated to safety, security, and access. Their goal is to provide strategic advice, technical expertise, and operational support in service of its mission to save lives and alleviate suffering. To that end, this team of experts coordinates closely with USAID partners to learn about the safety roadblocks they’re facing in order to support and advocate for solutions that enable them to safely serve the world’s most vulnerable people.
“Our implementing partners are building relationships and integrating with communities to gain acceptance for their presence, as this is a better guarantee of security than going in with arms,” said Deen. “So what’s important in this line of work is really a lot of those soft skills, analytical skills, negotiation skills, communication skills. It’s relationship building.”
As conflicts grow around the world, so too will the challenges that humanitarians face in their work. We will continue to strengthen our own protection and coordination mechanisms to better support humanitarian aid workers, finding new and innovative ways to support their work while working to mitigate the risks they face. However, more must be done to protect humanitarian workers serving vulnerable communities in need to ease human suffering and protect the sanctity of human life in any way they can.
This World Humanitarian Day, and every day, we honor the people who put their lives at risk to help others — both our partner staff and our own — and reaffirm our effort to protect them as they do their vital work. We owe them an immense debt of gratitude for their courage and dedication.
Learn more about USAID’s humanitarian work around the world.
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