Programming in transitional contexts

This area of focus, led by the Humanitarian Policy Group, looks at the contexts in which the substantial majority of humanitarian expenditure currently occurs, but which pose some of the greatest challenges for policy-making, strategy and operations.

Since most protracted crises are characterised by violent insecurity and either weak or abusive state institutions, humanitarian engagement increasingly takes place alongside other modes of engagement (security, state-building, development). How to configure these together constitutes an issue of concern to ODI as a whole. Issues of principle combine with questions about ‘what works' in different kinds of context, though generalisation is dangerous.