Reflections from research on local legitimacy, hybrid security and the everyday politics of humanitarian action in Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict
Humanitarian workers are often seen as the people who arrive when others are in crisis. They register displaced families, distribute assistance, conduct assessments, mobilise communities, provide protection services and connect people to vital support.
But there is another side to humanitarian action that receives far less attention: what happens to the people delivering the assistance?
In conflict-affected environments, humanitarian workers can themselves become exposed to violence, suspicion, harassment, abduction, detention and other forms of insecurity. This raises an uncomfortable but important question:
Who protects the people who are expected to protect and assist others?
My research on humanitarian action in Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict explores this question by looking beyond formal security procedures and examining what protection looks like in everyday humanitarian operations.
The findings suggest that protecting humanitarian workers is not simply a matter of security protocols, technology or international law. It is a layered and negotiated process shaped by organizations, institutions, communities and frontline realities.
Humanitarian work in a difficult security environment
The demand for humanitarian assistance has increased as conflicts become more fragmented, unpredictable and difficult to navigate.
Cameroon is no exception. The Anglophone conflict has created significant humanitarian needs while making access to affected communities increasingly complex. Aid workers operate in an environment where their activities can be misunderstood by different parties to the conflict. They may be viewed with suspicion, accused of bias or even perceived as providing information to one side.
This makes humanitarian protection particularly difficult.
The challenge is not only how to protect workers once they are in the field. It is also how to ensure that they can reach communities, maintain acceptance and move safely through contested spaces.
My research therefore examined how humanitarian organizations and their personnel actually navigate these risks in practice.
The study used a qualitative approach and drew on the experiences of humanitarian actors working at different levels of the humanitarian system.
What emerged was a picture of protection that is much more complex than the existence of a security policy might suggest.
When community trust becomes a security mechanism
One of the clearest findings was the importance of community acceptance.
In conflict settings, a humanitarian organization can have security procedures, communication systems, risk assessments and trained personnel. Yet these measures may not be enough to guarantee safe access.
Sometimes, protection begins with a relationship.
Local leaders can play an important role in helping humanitarian workers enter communities, establish credibility and navigate local dynamics. They may endorse humanitarian activities, facilitate introductions and contribute to safe passage.
In this sense, community acceptance is not simply a question of public relations.
It can become a practical security mechanism.
This is particularly important in the context of Cameroon, where humanitarian workers can face mistrust from different actors involved in the conflict.
Neutrality, therefore, cannot always be treated as something that exists only because an organization declares itself neutral. It must also be demonstrated through everyday relationships.
A humanitarian organization may have a global mandate, but its ability to operate safely can depend heavily on how that mandate is understood locally.
This is where humanitarian diplomacy at the community level becomes important.
Protection is becoming hybrid
The research also shows that humanitarian security in Cameroon involves a combination of formal and informal approaches.
Organizations use conventional security measures such as:
- risk zoning;
- curfews;
- trackers;
- incident reporting;
- travel procedures;
- communication systems; and
- daily headcounts.
But these measures operate alongside locally adapted practices.
Frontline workers described the use of daily phone check-ins, headcounts and buddy systems, where workers travel together to improve accountability and reduce vulnerability.
Technology can help, but it has limitations.
A tracker may tell an organization where a worker was when something went wrong. It does not necessarily prevent the incident from happening.
In areas where communications infrastructure is unreliable, workers may still depend on local knowledge and community relationships.
This suggests that humanitarian protection should not be understood as a choice between technology and local relationships.
The two need to work together.
Technology can support protection, but relationships can make protection possible.
This combination of organizational security systems, technology and local relationships represents what can be understood as a hybrid, multilayered approach to humanitarian security.
The humanitarian workers we rarely see
Perhaps the most concerning finding from the research concerns informal and subcontracted frontline workers.
Much of the discussion about humanitarian security focuses on formal national and international employees.
But humanitarian operations often depend on people working through temporary, informal or ad hoc arrangements.
These may include:
- community mobilizers;
- field guides;
- facilitators;
- enumerators; and
- other temporary frontline personnel.
They may be responsible for registration, sensitization, coordination and community mobilization—functions that are essential to humanitarian delivery.
Yet their institutional protection may be much weaker.
Some may work without formal contracts, organizational identification or clear documentation demonstrating that they are carrying out humanitarian duties.
This creates a troubling protection gap.
A person may be sent into a community to perform a humanitarian function, but when confronted by a checkpoint or security actor, may have little evidence to demonstrate who they are or why they are there.
This is the unprotected humanitarian.
Their work is necessary for humanitarian action, but their protection can remain unclear.
The problem is therefore not simply one of individual vulnerability. It raises a broader question about who is included within the duty of care of humanitarian organizations.
If someone performs a humanitarian function and faces risks because of that function, should their protection depend entirely on whether they have a permanent employment contract?
The findings suggest that humanitarian protection frameworks need to consider the function a person performs, not only their employment status.
When humanitarian access has a price
Humanitarian access also presents difficult ethical questions.
In some conflict-affected environments, organizations may encounter demands for payments or other forms of compensation in exchange for access.
This creates a difficult dilemma.
Refusing may mean losing access to communities or increasing operational risks.
Agreeing may undermine humanitarian principles and create incentives for further demands.
The research identifies this phenomenon as access monetization and highlights its implications for humanitarian impartiality and collective acceptance.
The issue becomes even more complicated when the actions of one humanitarian actor affect how other organizations are perceived.
If communities or local actors begin to believe that humanitarian access can be bought, this can damage trust in the wider humanitarian system.
This means that access decisions cannot always be treated as isolated operational choices.
They can have consequences for the legitimacy and security of other humanitarian actors operating in the same environment.
Coordination is essential—but fragmentation remains a problem
Another finding concerns coordination and information sharing.
Humanitarian coordination mechanisms exist to support information exchange and improve collective security. In Cameroon, platforms such as the Access Working Group and Civil-Military Coordination Working Group provide spaces for humanitarian actors to share information and harmonize approaches.
These mechanisms can help organizations coordinate travel advisories, develop risk maps and understand potential threats.
But coordination does not automatically produce information sharing.
Organizations may hesitate to report incidents such as kidnapping, harassment or extortion.
One reason is concern about reputation and donor confidence.
This creates a difficult contradiction.
Humanitarian organizations need information from one another to improve collective security, yet individual organizations may have incentives to keep security incidents within their own systems.
When incidents are under-reported, other humanitarian actors may continue operating without knowing the risks that have already been encountered.
The result is a fragmented protection environment.
National and international staff do not always experience risk equally
The research also draws attention to disparities between national and international humanitarian personnel.
The available evidence from Cameroon shows a striking concentration of reported casualties among national staff. The Aid Worker Security Database recorded 108 humanitarian workers affected by killing, wounding, kidnapping or detention in Cameroon between 2001 and 2024, with 100 national staff compared with 8 international staff. fileciteturn1file1L130-L142
These figures raise important questions about how risk is distributed within humanitarian organizations.
National staff are often deeply embedded in the communities where organizations work. They understand languages, cultures and local dynamics and may be essential to maintaining access.
But being locally embedded can also mean being exposed to risks that international staff may be able to avoid or leave behind.
This produces what the research identifies as a localization paradox: humanitarian action increasingly depends on local actors, while the risks associated with humanitarian work may also become increasingly localized.
Localization should therefore not mean simply transferring responsibility to national and local personnel.
It must also mean sharing protection, resources and duty of care.
Protection is more than physical security
Another lesson from the research is that humanitarian protection cannot be reduced to preventing physical attacks.
Repeated exposure to threats, insecurity, harassment, kidnapping and uncertainty can have psychological consequences.
Humanitarian workers may continue to perform their duties while carrying considerable anxiety and stress.
This means that psychosocial wellbeing should not be treated as an optional welfare benefit that comes after security.
It is part of security.
A humanitarian worker who is physically protected but psychologically overwhelmed is not necessarily fully protected.
A comprehensive approach should therefore consider:
physical safety + psychological wellbeing + organizational support + community acceptance + institutional recognition.
So, what does protecting the protectors really mean?
The central lesson from this research is that humanitarian protection is not a single mechanism.
It is a layered system.
It involves organizational security procedures, legal protections, technology, coordination and information sharing.
But it also involves something less visible: trust.
A local leader who helps an organization establish credibility.
A community member who provides information about changing security conditions.
A colleague who makes a phone call to confirm that a field team has returned safely.
A frontline mobilizer who understands how to navigate a community where outsiders may be viewed with suspicion.
These relationships may not appear in a security manual, but they can be critical to whether humanitarian workers are able to operate safely.
At the same time, relying on local relationships should never become an excuse for organizations to transfer risk onto local workers.
The responsibility for protection remains an institutional responsibility.
What needs to change?
Several practical lessons emerge from the research.
First, humanitarian protection needs to become more inclusive.
Protection frameworks should consider all people performing genuine humanitarian functions, including informal and temporary frontline workers.
Second, protection must be equitable.
National and international staff should not experience fundamentally different levels of insurance, training, evacuation support or security coverage simply because of their employment status.
Third, community engagement should be recognized as part of security management.
Local legitimacy is not merely an access tool. It can be an important component of protection.
Fourth, humanitarian organizations need stronger systems for sharing security information.
Reporting incidents should not automatically become a source of blame or reputational punishment. A learning-oriented reporting culture can strengthen collective protection.
Fifth, psychosocial wellbeing must be integrated into duty of care.
Humanitarian organizations and donors need to recognize the psychological consequences of working in prolonged conflict environments.
Finally, humanitarian protection needs stronger legal and institutional foundations.
The research highlights the limitations of relying on fragmented legal provisions for humanitarian worker protection. More comprehensive approaches are needed to recognize and protect those delivering humanitarian assistance in contemporary armed conflicts. fileciteturn1file0L26-L47
Protecting the protectors
Humanitarian workers enter difficult environments because other people need assistance.
But their commitment to serving crisis-affected populations should not mean accepting preventable risks without adequate protection.
The experience of Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict demonstrates that humanitarian security is negotiated every day.
It happens through policies and procedures, but also through relationships.
It happens through trackers and risk maps, but also through local knowledge.
It happens through organizational systems, but also through the trust that humanitarian actors build with communities.
And it must happen for everyone—not only those with the strongest contracts, the clearest identification or the easiest access to evacuation.
If humanitarian action is about protecting human dignity, then protecting the people who deliver that assistance must also be part of that mission.
The protectors cannot remain invisible.
Their safety, wellbeing and dignity are part of humanitarian justice.
This blog draws on my 2026 publication, “Protecting the Protectors: Local Legitimacy, Hybrid Security and the Everyday Politics of Humanitarian Action in Cameroon’s Anglophone Conflict,” published in Canadian Social Science, 22(2), 17–28.
