Humanitarian Protection in Violent Urban Settings: Challenges and Dynamics

Today more than three billion people, half of the world´s population, are living in urban areas. The increase of urban violence in some cities has reached even higher intensity levels of violence than armed conflicts. In response, over the past five years, humanitarian organizations are increasingly interested in the humanitarian consequences of urban violence, and are focusing more in violent urban settings in order to provide protection to urban dwellers. While humanitarians are playing a crucial role in providing protection to victims of urban violence, they are also facing challenges to give it.

This paper explores those challenges that affect the humanitarian protection activities carried out by humanitarian actors in violent urban settings. Based on evidence from a literature review of primary and secondary sources, complemented by interviews with key experts on urban violence, and looking at the particular case of Mexico, the research reveals that there are assessment, security, legal, coordination, and human resources challenges. Those challenges are caused by the complexity of the urban setting and its dynamics, which are explored in this paper. Moreover, the study proved that humanitarian actors need to adapt protection strategies to the realities of urban violence. Since understanding these protection challenges should enable humanitarians to take operational measures and adapt approaches accordingly, the present paper concludes with some recommendations which would help them face the challenges identified in the research. Future studies should go deeper into legal and ethical aspects of the challenges identified and, in particular, into how to overcome the protection challenges identified and bring operational solutions. This would be necessary so as to continue improving the protection response, and alleviating suffering of victims of urban violence.