Chapter 2: How Do Humanitarian Principles Support Humanitarian Effectiveness?

Effectiveness is commonly understood as the capacity to produce a desired result, to achieve the objectives set out or to solve the targeted problem. Naturally, humanitarian actors have always been concerned with ensuring that the effectiveness of their action benefits communities affected by conflicts or disasters. In the last two decades in particular, they have developed a number of professional and technical standards – including the recently adopted Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS) – aimed at improving the quality of their response and thus their overall effectiveness. While these normative developments have arguably contributed to improvements, a key question remains: How do the humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence (the principles “at the core of all humanitarian work” in the words of the CHS2) support humanitarian effectiveness?

While this chapter aims to give elements of the answer to this question, a number of limitations should first be highlighted. In terms of methodology, this chapter draws mostly on a desk-based review of the literature, as opposed to evidencebased field research. It also draws heavily on an internal study of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) conducted in seven field delegations in 2013-2014. The explicit aim of this study was to better understand how the ICRC applies humanitarian principles in practice and the challenges it faces in doing so, rather than to explore the causal link between principles and effectiveness. Therefore, the scope of this chapter is not so much to provide quantitative or measurable evidence as to contribute qualitative elements to the discussion, based on ICRC’s understanding and interpretation of the principles, and its concrete operational experience.