From the frontlines to decision rooms: Leveraging multi-level humanitarian dialogue for the protection of civilians - Submitted in the framework of Protection of Civilians Week 2025

Date: Friday 23 May 2025, 10:30-12:00 (local time)
Location: Permanent Mission of Norway, New York

Focal point: Joëlle Germanier, Executive Director – Centre of Competence on Humanitarian Negotiation
Email: jgermanier@frontline-negotiations.org

Event co-sponsors
States: Norway, Switzerland, Colombia, Qatar (tbc), South Africa (tbc), Japan (tbc), UAE (tbc)
Humanitarian organizations: Geneva Call, IFRC, UNOCHA, CIVIC, Oxfam, MSF (tbc), WFP (tbc), UNHCR (tbc)

Additional speakers
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)

I. Background

In today’s conflicts, civilians bear the brunt of violence, displacement, and deprivation of resources. Attacks on schools and hospitals, forced displacement, and restrictions on humanitarian access have tragically become more and more common. Ensuring the protection of civilians requires more than the direct provision of aid; it demands dialogue, influence, and persistent engagement with those who control territory, can impact the conduct of hostilities, and have leverage to facilitate humanitarian assistance.

At the heart of these efforts are two interconnected domains: humanitarian negotiations and diplomacy. On the ground, humanitarian professionals engage on a daily basis with local authorities, armed actors, and other stakeholders to negotiate access to affected populations, ensure the safety of humanitarian personnel, and advocate for the respect of international humanitarian law (IHL). At the same time, humanitarian diplomacy operates at a higher dimension – leveraging the influence of states, multilateral institutions, and other international decision-makers to pave the way for humanitarian actors to reach affected populations, remove administrative obstacles, or hold parties to a conflict accountable to respect humanitarian norms.

Despite their common objectives, these two spheres of engagement are too often disconnected. Frontline negotiators struggle to gain political backing for their efforts, while diplomatic initiatives cannot afford remaining detached from the operational realities on the ground. As highlighted in recent research by the Centre of Competence on Humanitarian Negotiation (CCHN), disconnects between these levels can result in missed opportunities for leverage, inconsistent messaging, and weakened protection outcomes for civilians.

On the other hand, training, peer exchanges, and shared analysis between humanitarian negotiators and diplomats help build a more coherent and strategic approach to humanitarian diplomacy. Coordination efforts are also critical to facilitate engagement between humanitarian organisations, governments, and multilateral institutions to strengthen protection efforts and ensure that operational realities inform diplomatic engagement.

By bringing together humanitarian practitioners, diplomats, and policymakers, this session will examine how humanitarian diplomacy can be better leveraged to support frontline negotiations and how improved coordination between humanitarian and diplomatic actors can enhance protection outcomes for civilians caught in conflict.