Understanding protection

1Defining protection

The definition adopted by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) in 1999, and reaffirmed in its 2016 Policy on Protection in Humanitarian Action, is the common reference: protection covers all activities aimed at obtaining full respect for the rights of the individual in accordance with the letter and the spirit of the relevant bodies of law.

Three bodies of law are involved: international human rights law, which applies at all times; international humanitarian law, which regulates the conduct of hostilities and protects persons who are not or are no longer taking part in the fighting; international refugee law (1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol). To these are added regional instruments, such as the African Union's Kampala Convention for internally displaced persons, and national law.

Protection is not a list of activities: it is an outcome. An intervention is protective if it concretely reduces the risk people face: less violence, coercion, deliberate deprivation or exploitation. The State bears the primary responsibility for protecting its population; humanitarians support, remind and, as a last resort, substitute.

2The centrality of protection

In 2013, the IASC Principals affirmed that protection must be central to humanitarian action. The 2016 Policy draws the consequences: protection is not the sole business of the Protection Cluster, it involves the Humanitarian Coordinator, the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) and all sectors.

• The HCT adopts a protection strategy that sets a few priority risks and collective outcomes.
• Each sector identifies the risks that its own programmes can create or reduce.
• Protection analysis feeds into the humanitarian needs overview and the response plan.

Three types of activities are often distinguished, illustrated by the "egg model": responsive actions, which stop or prevent an ongoing violation; remedial actions, which help people recover (care, documentation, reparation); and environment-building actions conducive to respect for rights (laws, practices, social norms).

3The protection risk equation

Protection analysis is based on a simple equation, used by the Global Protection Cluster: Risk = Threat × Vulnerability / Capacity.

• Threat: a human action, policy or practice that causes harm (violence, coercion, deliberate deprivation). The perpetrator, their behaviour and their motivation are described: for example "armed men extort women who collect firewood more than 3 km from the site".
• Vulnerability: the characteristics and circumstances that expose certain people more to this threat (age, gender, disability, status, lack of documents, isolation). Vulnerability is not a permanent label: it depends on the threat.
• Capacity: the resources, skills and strategies of individuals and communities to avoid the threat or limit its effects (moving in groups, vigilance committees, social networks, knowledge).

A protection response acts on at least one of the three terms: reducing the threat (dialogue with weapon bearers, advocacy), reducing exposure (fuel provided, lighting, documentation) or strengthening capacities, without ever transferring the risk to other people.

4Actors and the Protection Cluster

The Global Protection Cluster is led by UNHCR. At country level, the Protection Cluster coordinates analysis, standards, service mapping and joint advocacy. It includes four areas of responsibility (AoRs) with their own coordination:

• Gender-based violence (GBV), led by UNFPA.
• Child protection, led by UNICEF.
• Housing, land and property (HLP), with the Norwegian Refugee Council as lead.
• Mine action, led by the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS).

In refugee situations, protection coordination is the responsibility of UNHCR under the Refugee Coordination Model, not of the cluster system. The ICRC, whose mandate derives from the Geneva Conventions, is not a member of the clusters but engages with them while respecting its neutrality and its confidential dialogue with the parties.