Channeling Cassandra: Humanitarian Intelligence and Decision Making in the Age of Complexity

Improving the analysis and intelligence techniques that inform humanitarian response, programming and policy decision making can save lives, reduce human suffering, and restore the security and livelihoods of disaster and crisis-affected populations. Yet, the international humanitarian community, as well as the Intelligence Community, has undervalued the application of analytic intelligence techniques in humanitarian response, programming, and policymaking.

This monograph examines the complexities and challenges that humanitarian organizations and personnel face when deciding how to respond to, mitigate, or prevent the catastrophic aftereffects of natural disasters and conflict emergencies. It examines decisions at the response, programming, and policy levels, as well as the techniques and technologies used for analysis. It includes key findings and recommendations on how the international humanitarian community can adapt its analytical methods to address increasing complexities and challenges. These findings fall into four categories: adapting analysis to complexity, facilitating decisionmaking, enhancing analytic effectiveness, and understanding technology’s benefits and limitations. Adopting more innovative, collaborative, and anticipatory techniques will help analysts account for the inherent complexity and uncertainty surrounding humanitarian issues and promote better understanding of the processes, limitations, and drivers of humanitarian decisions at the response, programming, and policy levels.