Why Protection Mainstreaming Still Fails in Humanitarian Response and How Field Leaders Can Fix It

 

Why Protection Mainstreaming Still Fails in Humanitarian Response and How Field Leaders Can Fix It

Tahir Ali Shah

Protection mainstreaming has long been a foundational concept in humanitarian work. It appears in strategic plans, donor proposals, cluster guidance, and training materials. Almost every organization claims to apply protection across its programs. Yet on the frontline, people affected by crises continue to experience harm, directly or indirectly, linked to humanitarian action. Women and girls are harassed while accessing aid, children are exposed to grave violations, and people living in conflict zones face multiple layers of risk that humanitarian programs fail to address systematically.

These persistent protection gaps raise a difficult but necessary question: if protection mainstreaming is so widely understood and promoted, why does it continue to fail in practice?

One reason is the way responsibility for protection is perceived. Protection mainstreaming is often described as “everyone’s responsibility.” While this sounds positive, it frequently leads to diluted ownership. When responsibility is assigned to everyone, it is often claimed by no one in particular. In many field operations, protection is quietly delegated to a single focal point, often with limited influence over broader program planning. Technical sector teams, such as those working in water, sanitation, shelter, food security, or health, treat protection as something secondary that can be addressed later, or only in checklists required by donors.

This results in protection risks being identified too late, addressed superficially, or ignored altogether when pressure to deliver on targets and timelines intensifies. According to the Global Protection Cluster, as of October 2025, an unprecedented 395 million people across 23 countries were exposed to protection risks, including violence, coercion, denial of services, and psychosocial distress. This is not a marginal concern but a defining feature of contemporary humanitarian crises.

Another reason protection mainstreaming fails is the shift toward compliance rather than genuine accountability. Over time, protection has become closely associated with policies, trainings, codes of conduct, and paperwork. These elements are necessary but not sufficient for meaningful accountability. Staff may know protection principles in theory, yet they lack real authority to challenge harmful practices, especially when these are backed by senior management decisions, security constraints, or donor priorities.

Reporting systems exist, yet many staff avoid them because they fear retaliation, contract non-renewal, or reputational damage. A system that emphasizes reporting without protection for those who raise concerns reinforces silence rather than accountability. Meanwhile, communities are often asked to provide feedback through mechanisms they did not help design, in languages they may not fully understand, and through channels they do not trust.

Operational pressure further undermines protection by design. Humanitarian programs operate under intense constraints such as shrinking funding, short project cycles, access restrictions, high security risks, and heavy reporting demands. In such environments, protection is sometimes seen as slowing things down. Speed and visibility are prioritized, while safety and dignity are treated as secondary concerns. For example, a food distribution may meet quantitative targets but expose women and girls to harassment because the distribution site was not designed with their safety in mind. A peace or education activity may exclude the most vulnerable children because accessibility and inclusion were not considered during planning.

Research findings show how pervasive protection risks are. According to recent United Nations data, by the end of April 2025 more than 122 million people had been forcibly displaced worldwide because of conflict, persecution, violence, and human rights abuses, continuing a long upward trend in global displacement. This figure includes refugees, asylum seekers, and people displaced inside their own countries, and reflects how deeply insecurity affects civilians in major crises such as Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, and Ukraine. Alongside displacement, more than 60 million women and girls who are forcibly displaced face high risks of gender-based violence, with reports of conflict-related sexual violence rising sharply and accounting for the vast majority of verified incidents in recent years, although experts stress that many cases still go unreported.

In displacement contexts, gender-based violence is often assessed as a severe or extreme risk in over 80 per cent of crisis-affected countries, yet only about 61 per cent of refugees and asylum seekers know how to access the services intended to support survivors. These figures demonstrate how risk remains unmitigated even when services theoretically exist.

The burden on children is equally alarming. According to UN reports, children in conflict zones suffered record levels of violence in 2024, with tens of thousands killed, injured, forcibly recruited, or denied humanitarian aid. Verified incidents of attacks on schools surged, and sexual violence against children increased sharply, illustrating that protective environments for children have deteriorated rather than improved.

These problems are not primarily technical failures. They emerge from leadership gaps, how leaders define success, allocate resources, and prioritize protection in operational decision making. Protection mainstreaming succeeds when it becomes a core operational value rather than an add-on check box. However, many leaders are evaluated based on budget utilization, donor satisfaction, and reporting outputs, not on whether their programs reduce harm or enhance safety.

To shift this dynamic, field leadership must take proactive ownership of protection outcomes. This does not require reinventing the humanitarian system but rather making deliberate changes in how programs are designed and implemented. Protection considerations need to be integrated at the earliest stages of planning and revisited throughout implementation, not treated as an afterthought during final reporting.

Leaders must redefine what success looks like. Traditional performance indicators such as numbers served, funds spent, or activities completed do not capture whether people feel safer, whether women and girls can exercise agency, or whether children are protected from harm. Measurement frameworks should include protection outcomes such as meaningful community participation, accessibility of feedback mechanisms, mitigation of identified risks, and staff confidence in raising and addressing concerns without fear of reprisal.

Investing in staff capability is equally crucial. Simple attendance at a training workshop does not ensure understanding or practice. Staff need sustained mentoring, safe spaces for reflection, and feedback loops that reinforce ethical decision making. When teams know that raising protection concerns is supported rather than discouraged, integration happens more naturally across sectors.

Community engagement also matters. Protection cannot be achieved without listening to affected people and involving them in decisions that affect their futures. Feedback systems should be designed with communities, be accessible and understandable, and show accountability by explaining how concerns have been considered and addressed. When people see that their input leads to real change, trust in humanitarian actors grows, which in turn supports better protection outcomes.

Finally, leaders must model accountability through their own behavior. A culture of openness, transparency, and willingness to acknowledge mistakes encourages others to follow suit. Protection becomes more than a policy statement when leaders visibly act on evidence of harm and work collaboratively with communities to prevent it.

Protection mainstreaming will only succeed when humanitarian leadership closes the gap between rhetoric and action. Doing good is not enough. Humanitarian work must ensure that assistance does not cause harm and that the dignity, safety, and rights of affected people are protected. This responsibility starts at the top and influences every decision made in the field. With millions still exposed to violence, coercion, and neglect, the stakes could not be higher.

The author has worked for more than three decades in humanitarian and development contexts across conflict and crisis-affected settings, with experience in senior leadership, program management, and advisory roles. tshaha@gmail.com