Mitigating the unintended humanitarian impact of UN targeted sanctions

With support from the Geneva Science-Policy Interface, NRC is working together with the Graduate Institute to facilitate learning between sanctions scholars and humanitarian actors to mitigate unintended consequences of UN sanctions on humanitarian action.

The project seeks to promote dialogue between sanctions scholars – particularly with their work on the UN Sanctions App – with humanitarian actors working in areas where sanctions apply. The project will support further development of the sanctions app in order to become more relevant for humanitarian actors. In turn humanitarian practitioners and policy makers will advise what information is useful to better navigate the impact of sanctions on humanitarian action.

The UN Sanctions App maps all UN sanctions and where they are applied, including their impact on humanitarian action and local communities.

The project seeks to ensure that the humanitarian community has real time access to relevant information on how to mitigate negative humanitarian consequences of UN sanctions. 

Other activities include:

1. Cross-training of sanctions scholars and humanitarian practitioners
2. Joint analysis of humanitarian and policy needs for scientific information on the unintended consequences of UN sanctions
3. Research and synthesis of relevant evidence and information related to all UN sanctions regimes.
4. Update of the Sanctions App with new data and consultations of end-users.
5. Production of relevant outputs to facilitate uptake by humanitarians and policy actors
6. Engagement of key stakeholders to facilitate scaling and sustain science-policy-practice collaboration

The project duration is until July 2022.

This project is part of NRCs broader focus on building capacity of humanitarian actors to mitigate the impact of counterterrorism-related risks in humanitarian action. This ongoing work, including the roll-out of NRCs Toolkit for principled humanitarian action: managing counterterrorism risks, supports organisations in mitigating these risks, and to make risk management approaches accessible to a broad range of staff operating in sanctions affected areas.