Threat Reduction for Protection Outcomes in Constrained Humanitarian Environments

In humanitarian settings affected by armed conflict, efforts to reduce protection risks often focus narrowly on alleviating vulnerability without sufficiently addressing the behavior of those who deliberately inflict harm. The aversion is driven by a combination of factors: institutional risk aversion; legal and operational constraints on engaging designated armed groups; a misinterpretation of humanitarian neutrality as passivity in the face of violence; and a sectoral history that places greater comfort in service delivery than in direct confrontation with sources of harm. The consequence of this aversion is a chronic failure to meaningfully reduce protection risk. In some instances, humanitarians have arguably contributed to the “well-fed” dead problem, wherein meeting basic needs fails to prevent actual violence.

This dynamic is visible in many contexts. In Colombia, despite an active peace process and a long history of civil society dialogue with armed actors, humanitarians have struggled to effectively engage in threat reduction due to legal prohibitions and political sensitivities. In Somalia, a long history of informal engagement with Al Shabaab has been chilled by antiterror legislation and organizational fears, even as communities face intensifying risks from the group.

Drawing on InterAction’s Action-Based Research (ABR) project in both contexts, this case example explores how humanitarian actors, working closely with communities, can pursue threat reduction strategies even in constrained operational environments. These experiences demonstrate that, while legal and political constraints are real, threat reduction is both community knowledge and pursued through strategic, multi-actor collaboration. They also reveal critical lessons for how to navigate the ethics, risks, and trade-offs inherent in this work and point toward a need for renewed global dialogue on threat-focused protection strategies.

Jowhar, Somalia
In Jowhar, intense cycles of drought and flooding, entrenched conflict between the state and A.S., and clan conflicts over the fertile lands near the Shebelle River have generated repeated rounds of displacement, forcing minority clan IDPs to adopt extremely precarious livelihood strategies such as firewood collection and other forms of day labor. There, they are subject to beatings, extortions, sexual violence, kidnapping, and killings by A.S., which uses violence to maintain territorial control and extract economic contributions.

The objective of the ABR project is to reduce the risk of A.S.-perpetrated violence and extortion against conflict-displaced men engaged in high-risk manual labor. Through a participatory co-design process, community members and humanitarian actors developed a comprehensive strategy that touches all three elements of the risk equation. First, the project seeks to reduce vulnerabilities by creating recourse to alternative, safer livelihood options for people engaging in high-risk livelihoods. Second, the project seeks to strengthen existing capacities by enhancing civilian mitigation, early warning, and self-protection strategies. Finally, the project aims to reduce threats by generating commitments from AS to reduce punishments for perceived incursions in their operational space by rural laborers.

To reduce the threat, the project focuses on working with community leaders (elders, religious leaders, business leaders) and other actors (humanitarian, peacebuilding, civil society) to create spaces for dialogue on reducing restrictions and punishments on rural laborers. This two-pronged strategy seeks to support existing informal and indirect channels for communication with A.S. while strengthening the dialogue capacity of local civil society.

The consortium will conduct a power mapping, assessing local actors with previous communications with A.S., especially regarding humanitarian access, to identify existing and potential entry points for dialogue. Power mapping will allow the consortium to develop a collective understanding of A.S. red lines and willingness to have dialogue over issues of punishment and extortion. Simultaneously, community and clan leaders and other peacebuilders will receive mediation training, leading to the development of a negotiation strategy with contingency and safety plans. This strategy operates under the key assumption that A.S. can be convinced that its interests and territorial control will not be threatened by reducing punishments and extortions of rural laborers. In turn, this assumption is based on the ABR’s initial risk analysis, indicating that the armed group is motivated to negotiate in order to develop a minimum level of acceptance and legitimacy with the communities in its operational space.

Quibdó, Colombia
In Quibdó, communities identified the systematic denial of their freedom of movement as the primary protection risk they face, perpetrated by armed groups, including the EGC (Gaitanista Army of Colombia), ELN (National Liberation Army), and various smaller criminal gangs in the city.

Armed groups enforce “invisible borders” with violence, restrict community movement to certain areas of their territory and certain times of day, increase the difficulty of movement with checkpoints and vacunas (extortion), and place informants (puntos) in the communities to monitor and restrict community movements.

The objective of the proposed project is to reduce confinement and movement restrictions for Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities. First, the project seeks to reduce vulnerabilities by supporting the recovery of community economies, enabling families to minimize reliance on economies controlled by armed groups. Second, it aims to strengthen existing capacities by promoting intercommunity self-protection mechanisms and enhancing the ability of communities to monitor and respond to risks. Finally, the project seeks to reduce threats by reinforcing platforms for dialogue on International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and human rights, increasing the pressure on armed groups to respect community freedom of movement.

To reduce the threat of armed groups imposing movement restrictions on communities in Quibdó, the consortium has developed a strategy to strengthen existing legal channels for civilian engagement in peace discussions, promote respect for IHL among key state actors, and develop proactive protection capacities with community leaders. The strategy builds on the expressed willingness of armed groups in Quibdó to engage in dialogue with the state, which in turn generates political and strategic pressure for them to recognize and engage with the platforms of an organized and empowered civil society.

To ensure a contextualized approach adapted to local needs, the consortium will consult with key actors from communities, organizations, and the state to evaluate existing dialogue channels and community risks. The consortium will build on existing platforms including the Mesas Humanitarias, which is a platform that communities have developed to communicate their concerns and peace proposals to official state-armed group dialogue spaces. The consortium will reinforce these efforts through resources and trainings in IHL to strengthen the negotiation capacities of community and religious leaders.

Additionally, the consortium will lead advocacy efforts with key actors—including local authorities, civil society, and dialogue platforms—to promote compliance with IHL. Through targeted training and capacity-building, the consortium will strengthen proactive protection practices within communities and among local authorities. As part of this work, consortium members will accompany community leaders and residents in key activities, particularly in high-risk and hard-to-reach areas.

In most conflict contexts, communities have no choice but to engage in day-to-day informal interactions with armed actors, making them positioned to identify opportunities to influence their actions. Community leaders from Jowhar and Quibdó overtly or subtly signaled regular contact with armed groups at checkpoints or within their communities, in required participation in armed group ideology meetings, through familial relationships with armed group members, or as part of proactive self-protection strategies such as collective dialogue, traditional conflict resolution, and early warning systems. These interactions have granted communities deep knowledge of the personalities, interests, internal cultures, and political alignments of local commanders and their units. This information is necessarily the starting point of any sensitive threat reduction strategy.

Accessing this information requires sustained community participation in spaces that foster trust and safety. In Quibdó, the consortium is built on existing relationships with key ethnic leaders who provided critical insights into current armed group modes of operation and the strengths and limitations of existing self-protection mechanisms. In Jowhar, where the consortium faced more dangerous operational conditions, it was more challenging to establish open communication. In one instance, clan leaders ended a collective analysis session prematurely, expressing unwillingness to engage on the subject of Al-Shabaab due to serious security concerns.

One crucial insight communities can offer is identifying which local actors (if any) have the legitimacy and freedom of movement needed to engage armed groups safely. In Quibdó, this role is played by the Catholic Church, which holds both moral authority and legal permission to engage in dialogue with armed actors. This insight guided the consortium to put significant focus on supporting priests—through training in humanitarian principles and practical support such as transportation and logistical facilitation—to enhance their capacity to approach dialogue safely.

In Jowhar, clan elders possess the cultural authority to potentially engage in dialogue with Al Shabaab. However, participatory research also revealed significant internal divisions and limitations among clan leaders. As such, the consortium strategy focuses on deliberate advocacy and capacity-building efforts with clan leaders to strengthen coordination among clan leadership and collectively focus on violence against highly marginalized rural workers.

A second crucial insight communities can offer is their knowledge of armed group dynamics, including their motivations and interests, red lines, and strategic and normatively resonant approaches toward potential dialogue with armed groups on protection risk reduction. Armed groups in Quibdó are involved in formal peace processes and have an incentive to project legitimacy, which potentially includes greater openness to respecting IHL. These groups often publicly claim to fight for the community’s interests, offering a narrative foothold for community-led advocacy. However, certain topics—such as accessing drug trafficking routes—remain nonnegotiable due to their centrality to armed group revenue.

In contrast, Al-Shabaab in Jowhar has less clear political motivation or incentive to engage in formal negotiation. Nevertheless, like most armed actors, it maintains an interest in local legitimacy to preserve recruitment pipelines, access to information, and general tolerance within communities. This creates space, albeit limited, for dialogue strategies centering on the legitimacy of communities freely engaging in subsistence economies, which do not undermine stated armed group interests.

Furthermore, where formal dialogue platforms already exist, humanitarian actors can build upon these foundations through advocacy and community capacity strengthening. If and when these actions fall outside the mandate of traditional humanitarian actors, they offer opportunities to build multidisciplinary partnerships with peacebuilding actors operating under complementary mandates, fostering integrated approaches to reducing protection risks. Legal and technical capacity building, such as community training in IHL, not only prepares leaders to engage in formal humanitarian spaces like the Mesas Humanitarias but also equips them for informal interactions with armed actors that cannot be publicly supported. In Quibdó, community feedback helped the consortium understand how this knowledge serves both formal and informal engagement strategies, reinforcing community self-protection.

Finally, operational security and language sensitivity are crucial in threat reduction work. In conflict environments, some degree of informal engagement with armed actors by both humanitarians and communities is often inevitable. While these engagements serve as the foundation for building a highly effective threat-reduction strategy, they can be easily compromised if stated too explicitly. Organizations must establish secure internal spaces for cross-team reflection and strategy development on high-risk engagement. Simultaneously, external communications, such as concept notes and donor-facing documents, could consider using calibrated language and framing activities in terms of general capacity strengthening and risk mitigation rather than direct engagement.

The strategies outlined in this paper reflect an adaptive, context-specific approach to altering threat actor behavior to reduce protection risks in highly constrained humanitarian environments where direct dialogue with armed groups is legally limited. They are grounded in the recognition that communities possess critical knowledge, relationships, and leverage points that can inform efforts to reduce threats. However, this is an inherently imperfect strategy, shaped by serious operational, ethical, and political limitations.

One of the most pressing concerns is the risk transfer to communities. In settings where humanitarians cannot safely or legally engage directly with armed actors, the responsibility often de facto shifts toward building the capacity of communities to do so. While this can be empowering, it also places civilians on the front lines of some of the riskiest and most sensitive negotiations.

In many contexts, communities are already navigating these realities daily, and thus strengthening their ability to engage more safely and strategically can offer substantial benefits. However, civilian-led approaches must always be accompanied by a careful analysis of whether the benefits outweigh the risks. Humanitarians must be exceedingly clear about what kinds of protection and legal cover they can or cannot offer communities.

Furthermore, not all armed groups are open to or influenced by civilian dialogue. Some deliberately target civilians and see organized civil society as a means of control, using extreme violence to suppress perceived resistance. Others may lack the internal coherence to uphold negotiated commitments. These realities underscore the importance of deep analysis to identify credible avenues for threat reduction. Armed actors, like any other social actor, are made up of multiple factions, viewpoints, and interests which are subject to influence through some combination of strategic incentives, coercion, and ethical or ideological appeals.

Within this combination of available strategies, humanitarians may not always be the best-positioned actors for threat reduction. However, it is still the job of humanitarians to use the risk equation to identify entry points for influence, whether through diplomats, peacebuilders, state armed forces, individuals within the armed group, or others. Analyses should contribute to collective, multidisciplinary understandings of what tactics are available and how these fit into a broader network of actions that work toward risk reduction. Furthermore, humanitarians’ ability to measure protection outcomes depends on understanding the contributions of relevant actors, whether they directly engage with threat actors or not.

Finally, the ABR project has highlighted the deep chilling impact of the criminalization of armed group engagement on humanitarian activity. While A.S. is a profoundly difficult armed actor to deal with, humanitarian engagement was not uncommon through most of the conflict. However, since the ABR has operated in Somalia, InterAction’s partners have expressed profound hesitancy to engage in anything resembling dialogue with threat actors, even the discreet and informal approaches reflected above. In both Colombia and Somalia, several partner organizations pulled out, citing the organizational risks involved in threat reduction. Partners who remained have had to seriously consider potential implications even for teams operating in other sectors and locations.

Ultimately, these experiences highlight an urgent need for stronger and sustained advocacy at both national and international levels to expand the space for humanitarian actors to engage directly with armed groups. Without consistent advocacy to preserve the ability of humanitarians to engage with all armed parties to the conflict on the basis of neutrality and impartiality, humanitarian work is being gradually and effectively restricted to state-approved engagement only.

This also means that humanitarian actors must continue meaningful dialogue on organizational risk tolerances and collective appetites to engage in the inherently political process of protection risk reduction. However, as humanitarian space continues to shrink, opportunities to openly explore, discuss, and train on threat-focused strategies are also diminishing. A renewed global dialogue is needed to develop ethical, context-specific best practices.