The GISF Podcast - Global Interagency Security Forum

In this episode, Mila Shutova (Christian Aid) unpacks some of the challenges facing security managers operating in complex environments, including the importance of historical understanding, community engagement, neutrality of information, and the importance of self-care.

This podcast series ’Evolving NGO Security Risk Management’, looks at the innovations, transformative developments, and dynamic trends facing the humanitarian and development sector. We have elected to explore the facets of ‘Evolving NGO SRM’, to unpack the changing environments, practices, discussions, and technical considerations impacting the safety and security of aid workers and operations. These conversations are enriched by expert guests spanning security professionals, humanitarians, and more.

In an ever-changing humanitarian and development space, we ask what does the security and safety of aid workers look like? And what might it look like in the future? Join us as we unpack the evolutions of NGO security risk management.

You can access a transcript for this episode on the GISF website, here: https://www.gisf.ngo/resource/gisf-podcast-evolving-ngo-security-risk-management-e1-insights-from-a-security-manager-managing-operations-in-complex-environments/

Last year, GISF released a host of innovative resources facilitating the professionalisation of SRM, held conversations on making security practices more inclusive, and returned to face-to-face opportunities for shared learning. In this podcast, members of the GISF Secretariat reflect on some of their favourite moments from 2022 and the projects they are excited for in the coming year.

In this episode, Javeria Ayaz Malik unpacks the qualities and qualifications it takes to be a security manager of today, and examines how we can improve the security sector by amplifying good inclusive practices.

This podcast series explores the elements of inclusive security, what it is, and what it looks like in the humanitarian context. These conversations are enriched by expert guests spanning security professionals, humanitarians, and more.

While anti-discrimination practices and legislation exist, the extent to which these are interpreted and lineally applied to all staff can raise challenges. This episode explores reflections on the dynamic challenges facing organisations and opportunities to improve inclusive SRM practices.

This podcast series explores the elements of inclusive security, what it is and what it looks like in the humanitarian context. These conversations are enriched by expert guests spanning security professionals, humanitarians, and more.

This episode focuses on inclusive security at the UN featuring guest speaker, Catherine Plumridge from the UN Department of Safety & Security. 

This series explores inclusivity through the lens of security risk management (SRM). It can be said that inclusivity is at the heart of successful SRM. Organisations have a responsibility to provide a duty of care to all staff. They must take all reasonable measures to protect their staff from foreseeable risks, including those that emerge due to an aid worker’s personal characteristics such as, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, gender, disabilities, sexual orientation etc. Security professionals need to have a comprehensive understanding of how personal identities and characteristics can impact personal security. This knowledge should be integrated into security polices and approaches so that they are inclusive and effective for all.

While it is important to design and create inclusive security policies and practices, operationalising inclusivity can come with challenges. What do security mangers need to know? How can they stay up to date and ultimately keep producing and designing inclusive security procedures? This podcast series explores the elements of inclusive security, what it is and what it looks like in the humanitarian context. These conversations are enriched by expert guests spanning security professionals, humanitarians, and more.

We are excited to release the second episode of GISF’s new Inclusive Security Podcast Series. This episode focuses on a operationalising inclusivity featuring guest speaker Araba Cole from the International Rescue Committee (IRC). This series explores inclusivity through the lens of security risk management (SRM). It can be said that inclusivity is at the heart of successful SRM. Organisations have a responsibility to provide a duty of care to all staff. They must take all reasonable measures to protect their staff from foreseeable risks, including those that emerge due to an aid worker’s personal characteristics such as, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, gender, disabilities, sexual orientation etc. Security professionals need to have a comprehensive understanding of how personal identities and characteristics can impact personal security. This knowledge should be integrated into security polices and approaches so that they are inclusive and effective for all.

While it is important to design and create inclusive security policies and practices, operationalising inclusivity can come with challenges. What do security mangers need to know? How can they stay up to date and ultimately keep producing and designing inclusive security procedures? This podcast series explores the elements of inclusive security, what it is and what it looks like in the humanitarian context. These conversations are enriched by expert guests spanning security professionals, humanitarians, and more.

This episode highlights the ongoing and unique challenges faced by many security managers this year. "2020 … it’s not just a year it’s a phenomenon’. Vita Peake Associate Manager of Global Security for Population Services International (PSI), aptly describes the impactful year many have experienced. From the dramatic impact of Covid-19 to the evolving intersection of gender and diversity, we take a moment and reflect on how one security manager and their team embraced the events of this year.

As security managers increasingly contend with evolving and compounding crises, at the intersection of pre-existing security risks sits a climate crisis. In this episode we speak with Emma Villard, Global Duty of Care Project Lead and Campaigns Operation Security Advisor for Green Peace International to consider the role security managers can play in better understanding, forecasting and mitigating climate change risks.

Since its inception, humanitarian security risk management has developed rapidly. In recent years, the profession has evolved from the ‘compounds and barbed wire’ activities it used to be known for, shifting to include staff safeguarding, wellbeing, digital security and more.  

In 2020, a year that seems to define ‘compounding crises’, the profession has been forced to change yet again. NGO security risk managers can now add health and safety and domestic security risk management to their ever-growing repertoires. 

In this episode, we speak with Andrew Kirkham, Corporate Security Manager for Christian Aid, to unpack the ever-changing trajectory of the NGO security risk management profession.

In the first episode of Compounding Crises, the third GISF Podcast series, we speak to Léa Moutard, GISF’s Research Advisor. Since joining GISF in August 2019, Léa has been managing a pioneering new research project on Partnerships and Security Risk Management: from the local partner’s perspective.  

In recent years, limited access and growing risks have meant that more and more international NGOs collaborate with local and national NGOs to implement humanitarian responses. With the travel restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic, international NGOs’ reliance on local partners is likely to increase, while renewed attention to the localisation agenda has already been sparked.  

GISF’s upcoming project places the local perspective at the forefront and is one of the first pieces of research to focus entirely on security risks within NGO partnerships. Based on a series of case studies, interviews and questionnaires, the project seeks to raise awareness of the security issues faced by local partners, challenge common understandings of ‘risk transfer’, and encourage greater dialogue on security risk management between partner organisations.  

The first phase of the project, a research paper aimed at exploring the attitudes, experiences and needs of local NGOs in terms of security risk management, will be released in Autumn 2020. In 2021, a good practice guide building on the research findings will be developed to support both local and international NGOs partners in sharing responsibility for security risks.  

To open GISF’s latest podcast series, in this episode, we discuss the state of security risk management within NGO partnerships, in an era of compounding crises.

In the fourth episode of the Humanitarian Incidents series we speak to Nour Kossaibany, security lead at the International Rescue Committee. Nour explains why keeping national staff and local partner staff safe is critical for organisations and effective programme delivery. She discusses how security risk management and incident information can support this goal. Nour works with IRC in Lebanon, where she is from, and where part of her job is humanitarian negotiation mainly to ease access and maintain safer programming.

TW: this episode contains references to sexual violence throughout. 

Much information on security incidents can be considered sensitive, particularly when it relates to very personal cases, such as sexual violence. But if we are going to reduce incidents we need to know about them. In episode four of the Humanitarian Incidents podcast, Megan Nobert, founder and former Director of Report the Abuse, shares her advice on how NGOs should respond if a member of staff reports an incident of sexual violence.

In the third episode of the Humanitarian Incidents series, Leonard S. Rubenstein, Senior Scientist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Adelicia Fairbanks, Research Advisor at EISF, discuss how incident information can help advocacy. Len and Adelicia explain how security incident data can be used for advocacy purposes, including the benefits and challenges. They also provide guidance on ways in which advocacy professionals can use security incident data to support their organisation’s advocacy efforts. 

In the second episode of the Humanitarian Incidents podcast, Phil Candy, Security Advisor at Medair, discusses why his organisation adopted a robust online security incident information management system. He explains the benefits of the new system and the challenges Medair have faced its delivery. He also highlights some of the ongoing and future improvements planned for the system to increase its usability and encourage staff across Medair to report even minor incidents to create a clearer picture of its operating contexts. Finally, Phil provides some overarching advice for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) considering the adoption of a SIIM system, stressing the need to balance information sharing and confidentiality.

The project is supported by the European Interagency Security Forum, Insecurity Insight and RedR UK and is funded by EU Humanitarian Aid.

In the first Humanitarian Incidents podcast, Christina Wille, Co-Director at Insecurity Insight, explains what incident information is and how it plays a vital role in non- governmental organisations (NGOs) in terms of improving security risk management but also in advocacy and project management. In the podcast, Christina also addresses common criticisms made of incident data and the reasons NGO’s often give from refusing to share information regarding the security incidents they have experienced. Finally, she discusses why is it important for organisations to share incident data and what benefits can be gained through this form of collaboration.

The project is supported by the European Interagency Security Forum, Insecurity Insight and RedR UK and is funded by EU Humanitarian Aid.

Michael Kramer is the Head of the Security Section at the Crisis Management Centre of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA). In this final episode of the EISF in Conversation podcast, Michael discusses the differences between security risk management for governments and NGOs, and shares his thoughts on how to write a good proposal to the Swiss FDFA.

In this episode of the EISF in Conversation podcast, Lisa Reilly, Executive Director at EISF, shares stories about how coordination can help ensure the safety and security of aid workers, and improve humanitarian access. Lisa is committed to improving humanitarian security risk management through the sharing of information and coordination between as many actors as possible. 

In the fourth EISF in Conversation podcast, we spoke to two humanitarians working in Iraq: Craige Grice, Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) Security Adviser, and Salah Noori, NRC Programme Adviser. They discuss the significance of security risk management in accessing those in need and the challenges that gaining access can pose for humanitarians. Finally, they consider the need to increase efforts to develop the security capacity of national staff and mitigate their exposure to security risks.

In the third episode of the EISF in Conversation podcast series, Heather Hughes, Oxfam GB’s Global Security Advisor, speaks about what security risk management means to her organisation. She highlights the benefits and importance of security risk management and challenges perception the perception that it is about being risk averse. Finally, Heather describes her responsibilities, the challenges that she faces and gives advice to those thinking about a role relating to NGO security risk management.

In the second episode of the EISF in Conversation podcast series, we sat down with Eva Svoboda, a Senior Research Fellow at the Overseas Development Institute, to discuss the humanitarian principles and how they relate to security risk management. Eva speaks about the importance of dialogue in achieving humanitarian access and the legalities of communicating with armed non-state actors. Finally, she considers what characterises good security risk management and the possible impact of the localisation agenda.

In the first episode of the EISF in Conversation series, we speak to Loretta Minghella, CEO of Christian Aid. 

We discuss why effective security risk management is so important for Christian Aid, how they have created and maintained the security culture within the organisation, and what the main drivers are for change and continuing development. 

The EISF in Conversation podcast investigates different perspectives and aspects of humanitarian security risk management.

The aim is to raise awareness of security risk management, encourage a better understanding of what security risk management can achieve, and start conversations in and outside the sector.

The European Interagency Security Forum (EISF) is an independent network of security focal points who represent European-based humanitarian NGOs operating internationally.