The Humanitarian Congress is an annual event, organised by INTERSOS, with the aim of openly reflecting on the challenges of the present, the changes in the humanitarian system and the role of our organisation within it, always focusing on the reasons for our commitment: the people we assist and our ability to offer principled, adequate and meaningful responses to their needs.

This year’s event was held on the 10th of November in Rome, in the Sala della Protomoteca at the Campidoglio, and involved experts, researchers and practitioners from the humanitarian world, who focused on dilemmas, difficulties and perspectives. The Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna of Pisa was the Academic partner of the second edition of the Congress. Students have been involved in recent months on issues related to humanitarian access, producing research papers that were presented during the congress.

In the last decades, humanitarian aid has become more and more complex to manage. Humanitarians face increasingly complex security issues, the need to negotiate humanitarian access with multiple armed groups, political, administrative and bureaucratic impediments, pressures on humanitarian principles, decreasing funding trends despite growing humanitarian needs, and many other obstacles, placing them between a rock and a hard place. This year, the Humanitarian Congress focused on the challenges of the Humanitarian World, with specific attention on principled humanitarian action, localisation and access.

Research papers

The denial of access of humanitarian assistance in the Yemeni conflict: starvation as a method of warfare – Bamoshmoosh

Humanitarian access in civil wars: lessons learned from practitioners in north-west Syria – Rasella

Satellites for humanitarian aid: which impact on humanitarian access? – Sacchi

* The papers produced by students of the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies result from independent research conducted by the authors and do not necessarily reflect INTERSOS’ views and positioning.