Maria Gabrielsen Jumbert explores the pitfalls and potentials of the use of AI to provide windows into humanitarian crises and human rights abuses. From the photo exhibition launched by the Australian law firm Maurice Blackburn. AI-generated images have already been used by charities and human rights organizations to illustrate mass suffering and abuse. A lot is potentially at stake as we become exposed to more of these types of images, including public trust in what is real, and ultimately our ability to engage. A debate was sparked when Amnesty International deliberately used images ma ..read more

The war in Gaza is the most deadly in modern times for journalists and UN personnel. Despite the seriousness of the situation, these killings are under-reported. Funeral of Al-Quds TV journalist Cebr Abu Hedrus’, who died in Israeli attacks in Gaza. December 30, 2023. Photo: Doaa Albaz/Anadolu via Getty Images The war in Gaza is an exceptionally gruesome conflict, as shown by all the relevant statistics. Since Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) attacked and killed approximately 1,200 Israelis on 7 October 2023, Israel has killed over 28,000 Palestinians. Seventy percent of the Pales ..read more

While humanitarians remain sceptical of legal regulation, litigation, and lawyers, the sector is going through a process of juridification. This blog post takes stock of the ambivalence to law and emergent shifts in the sector and calls for international law scholars to pay more attention. Illustration: Getty images ‘We have a toxic relationship with the law’ the aid worker at the end of the table exclaimed. It was mid-January 2024, and we were seated in a meeting room at the European Convention Center in Luxembourg. A large group of humanitarians from the Red Cross family, INGOs like MSF ..read more

Kristin Bergtora Sandvik and Kristoffer Lidén discuss the type of accountability challenges generative AI, such as Chat GPT, represents for humanitarian governance. Created by Tim West / Pexels.com A need to recalibrate humanitarian accountability discussions In the summer of 2023, as the UN convened to discuss generative AI, there were calls for an ethical and responsible governance framework to deal with risk and harm. In the humanitarian sector, it has been suggested that generative AI could help with content, participation, funding, administration, and stakeholder mappin ..read more

As Libya’s death toll rises due to the massive floods triggered by Hurricane Daniel, it’s normal to wonder if such a catastrophe could have been prevented. Search and rescue operation teams continue their efforts after the floods caused by the Storm Daniel ravaged the region, in Derna, Libya on September 17, 2023. Photo: Halil Fidan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images New research published this month gives a better understanding of how and why countries affected by armed conflict are more vulnerable to disaster. Over 5,000 people lost their lives in Libya as torrential rain caused two dams ..read more

Morocco was hit hard by the earthquake in the evening of September 8th, and has been scrambling to organize rescue and first aid operations to the affected areas since – notably the hard-to-reach and most badly hit villages of the Atlas mountains. A man stands next to goods he has salvaged from the ruins of his house on September 13, 2023 in Ardouz, Morocco. Photo: Carl Court/Getty Images On Monday 11 September, it was announced that Morocco had accepted the aid offer from four countries: Spain, United Kingdom, Emirates and Qatar – referred to as “friendly countries” by the Moroccan ..read more

“What is happening with the Rohingya refugees? We heard so much about all the horrible things, but how are they now?” These are questions I often get when I talk to people about my research. Rohingya refugee woman in front of her shop at Noya Para Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh in May 2023. Photo: K M Asad/LightRocket via Getty Images What is the situation for the Rohingya? The situation is terrible. I have visited the refugee camps four times over the years and each time I am struck by how much more desperate it has become since the last time I was there. Six years since the endles ..read more

Kristin Bergtora Sandvik and Maria Gabrielsen Jumbert identify a problematic lack of engagement with AI in the humanitarian strategies of donor countries and offer a set of pointers for framing conversations on AI in aid policy. Artificial intelligence robot hand and human hand. Image: Getty Images. At present, no major donor country engages extensively with artificial intelligence in their humanitarian policies or in their strategic thinking on aid. This blog looks at the development of humanitarian strategies in important donor countries, and how policy conversations around AI in aid can ..read more

The earthquake in Turkey and Syria on 6 February is tragic beyond what we are able to fathom. Photo: EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid / Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0 The World Health Organization’s Europe branch has labelled the 7.8 magnitude earthquake and a secondary 7.6 magnitude aftershock as the region’s “worst natural disaster” in 100 years. By 17 February, there have been near 44 000 registered deaths. “The earthquake was inevitable. The scale of the disaster was not”. While everyone is equally powerless in the face of collapsing buildings, shattered by the forces of nature, we al ..read more

Two seemingly unrelated global events in September – the devastating floods in Pakistan and the Russian closure of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline – intersect on the issue of funding for humanitarian relief. The devastating floods in Pakistan is one of the events that impacted funding of humanitarian relief in 2022. Photo: UNICEF The surge in power prices, the fall in European currencies, and the fears of economic downturn in Europe as a result of collective European support for Ukraine threatens the ability to raise emergency relief funds for future humanitarian crises in the Global South ..read more