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Intersectionality and the Impact of Humanitarian Aid
Humanitarian interventions aim to provide essential support to those in crisis, providing relief to vulnerable populations, but this is not as straightforward as it may seem. Despite good intentions, these efforts – aid distribution, development projects, or emergency response- can have both positive and negative effects as they unfold within complex social structures, whether intentional or not. Foreign aid has the potential to reinforce existing hierarchies, particularly those shaped by gender, race, class, and other markers of identity.
A common misconception is that these types of unintended effects are unforeseen and unavoidable, when in fact, they can often be anticipated (Koch, 2020). Improving measurement tools and adapting trials are good practices that can be implemented, but by no means do they represent a solution. As long as a lack of objectivity exists, strategies that benefit one group to the detriment of another will persist. Looking back at the twentieth century, it´s clear that impartiality and neutrality are far from a-political, and aid can be instrumentalised by a range of actors (e.g., Terry, 2002). Efforts towards anti-racism, gender parity, decolonisation, and a move away from Eurocentric framings of both development and humanitarian action, will ideally reduce the fallout of external interventions, and coupled with a targeted intersectional approach, improve humanitarian practice.
Intersectionality, a concept introduced by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989), examines how different axes of oppression—such as gender, race, class, sexuality, and disability—intersect and compound the experiences of individuals. It originally emerged from black feminist movements but has become a crucial tool in various fields. As highlighted by Roth, Purkayastha, and Denskus (2020), in humanitarian contexts, the failure to account for intersectionality can result in interventions that do not address, and often exacerbate, inequalities faced by vulnerable groups. This approach is key in designing programs and policies that address these complex layers of vulnerability more effectively.
Technology: Enhancing or Exacerbating Vulnerabilities?
Technology has become a popular tool employed by humanitarian organisations, and is a good example of how its use can provide critical support or exacerbate vulnerabilities, especially for women and other marginalized groups. A recent study published by Cambridge University argues that the use of digital technologies for forest governance such as camera traps and drones tends to transform these forests into masculinized spaces that extend the patriarchal gaze of society. A good example of this is how in 2017, one of the cameras installed by the Tiger Project (a wildlife conservation movement initiated to protect the endangered tiger) in the north of India captured the image of a semi-naked woman urinating in the woods, which was then circulated around local social media groups. What was intended to be a tool for environmental conservation inadvertently became a source of harm for women.
While humanitarian technologies can improve outcomes, their impact must be carefully considered through an intersectional lens to ensure they don´t reinforce existing inequalities or create new risks. Digital tools are becoming an integral part of humanitarian responses and increasingly facilitate access to support, offering better data for context analysis. Increased connectivity and digital access can empower affected people in conflicts, and digitalized services can allow humanitarian workers to more efficiently serve, or even predict, crises. Furthermore, artificial intelligence facilitates outbreak mapping and the development of treatments, biometrics and digital cash enable contactless access to aid, chatbots provide vital information and telehealth support, and digital tools enable children to continue their education and businesses to remain open.
Digital tools don´t operate on a blank slate, and the access to them is not equal, creating divides across multiple levels. There is also an increasing concern over data protection and privacy, cybersecurity, personal liberty, and misinformation. Humanitarian organisations have the responsibility of making sure the data they collect is not misused or disseminated in a harmful way. The widespread use of social media platforms and artificial intelligence has brought on new risks, including hate speech and the spread of false information by using deepfake (generating synthetic video, audio, and text content). Lastly, technologies can be used in armed conflicts as a means of warfare, as cyber operations against electricity grids, health-care systems, and nuclear facilities have become a possibility.
Ethical Technology Deployment in Humanitarian Action
To tackle even just one of these concerns, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Centre for Humanitarian Data has drafted general guidelines on how to manage sensitive data for the humanitarian sector. EU priorities linked to the adoption of digital technologies for humanitarian assistance include:
- Data protection and data ethics: the sector must share a common understanding of data ethics and work together on the development of data protection standards.
- Strengthening collaboration: enhancing digitalisation in the humanitarian sector requires greater data sharing in line with data protection standards, system and database interoperability, and sharing lessons learnt on best (and worst) practices.
- Focusing on impact and efficiency: encouraging EU partners to use innovative digital solutions where these can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of humanitarian response.
These types of ethical frameworks, suggest that technologies should be designed to protect users’ integrity and autonomy, particularly in contexts where individuals are at risk. Unfortunately, these risks are often overlooked in favor of efficiency or expediency, or whether they could benefit the aid providers themselves. The disconnect between technological development and local context is especially problematic when Global North institutions impose solutions on Global South communities without sufficient local involvement, a practice deeply rooted in colonial power structures. To avoid technology doing more harm than good, a gender-sensitive, decolonized, and intersectional approach must be incorporated into their deployment, and locals should be consulted in all the design and implementation stages. Only be recognizing the complexity of inequalities can humanitarian agencies make sure their actions not only help those in need but contribute to empowering marginalized populations.
Natasha Cooper
Sources
Cambridge University Repository. Data and Technology in Humanitarian Contexts: A Critical Review. Cambridge University Press, 2023. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/items/0b837021-8d44-48c0-9f80-ddc9408fb60f.
Cambridge University Repository. Digital Technologies in Humanitarian Action: Ethical and Operational Challenges. Cambridge University Press, 2023. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/items/0b837021-8d44-48c0-9f80-ddc9408fb60f.
El Diario. “Hombres Usando Cámaras Trampa: El Proyecto Tigre en India para Espiar y Acosar Mujeres.” El Diario, 2023. https://www.eldiario.es/sociedad/hombres-usando-camaras-trampa-proyecto-tigre-india-espiar-acosar-mujeres_1_11840865.html.
European Commission, Civil Protection & Humanitarian Aid. Digitalisation in Humanitarian Aid. European Commission, 2022. https://civil-protection-humanitarian-aid.ec.europa.eu/what/humanitarian-aid/digitalisation_en.
Humanitarian Advisory Group. Intersectionality Untranslated: Local Solutions in Myanmar. Humanitarian Advisory Group, 2023. https://humanitarianadvisorygroup.org/intersectionality-untranslated-local-solutions-in-myanmar/#:~:text=.
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Digital Technologies and Humanitarian Law: Policy and Action. International Review of the Red Cross, 2022. https://international-review.icrc.org/articles/digital-technologies-humanitarian-law-policy-action-913.
Koch, Dirk-Jan. Foreign Aid and Its Unintended Consequences. Taylor & Francis, 2020.
Overseas Development Institute (ODI). Digital Inclusion: A Synthesis of Findings and Recommendations. ODI, 2021. https://media.odi.org/documents/Digital_inclusion_synthesis.pdf.
Roth, Silke, Bandana Purkayastha, and Tobias Denskus, eds. Handbook on Humanitarianism and Inequality. Elgar Handbooks on Inequality. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020.
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The Digital Promise: Frontline Practice with New and Emerging Technologies in Humanitarian Action. OCHA, 2022. https://www.unocha.org/publications/report/world/digital-promise-frontline-practice-new-and-emerging-technologies-humanitarian-action
I found the Tiger Project example very helpful in understanding how the forests are transformed into masculinized spaces that perpetuate patriarchal dynamics. It is a tragic “unintended” consequence, unintended in the sense explained here, due to the intersectional aspects of the local community tot being taken into account.
the guidelines of the Centre for Humanitarian Data are a good place to start, but I think they are lacking on several points, which the UN OCHA should take into account, in my opinion. They mention a common understanding of data protection and ethics, but without defining what this understanding is. There is no mention in the guidelines of accounting for and listening to the local needs and of an intersectional approach. Another limitation of these guidelines is the focus on digitalization. In practice, digitalization means adding new users and new dependencies to systems made by big tech. Under the guise of digitalization, relational entanglements are produces where the public infrastructure in a country halfway accross the world will be wholly dependent on the good functioning of a data centre in California.
As this article highlights, that would deepen the unequal power dynamic between what is called the Global North and South.