Analysis of humanitarian access practices and mechanisms for DG ECHO

The European Union has long recognized the imperative of timely, meaningful, and sustainable humanitarian access. It strongly advocates for unimpeded humanitarian access, emphasizing respect for international humanitarian law (IHL). This is particularly crucial in regions like Sudan, Ukraine, Gaza, and Haiti, where humanitarian access remains a significant challenge. Through diplomatic efforts, the EU promotes stronger IHL compliance, ensuring that sanctions or counter-terrorism measures do not hinder principled humanitarian action. The EU also encourages countries and warring parties to consent to and facilitate humanitarian aid. At the operational level, EU Humanitarian Implementation Plans (HIPs) consistently identify humanitarian access as a major constraint. Both the Emergency Humanitarian Response Capacity (EHRC) and Enhanced Response Capacity (ERC) HIPs prioritize humanitarian access, focusing on logistical challenges and strengthening humanitarian negotiators’ capabilities.

This mission has several objectives:

• Clarify the scope and boundaries of humanitarian access from an EU/donor perspective.
• Build on previous efforts to complete an analysis of humanitarian access practices and mechanisms, both within DG ECHO and among external actors; identify strengths, weaknesses, gaps and areas for improvement in existing practices, as well as opportunities (SWOT analysis);
• Propose DG ECHO a set of priorities: Define / identify key priorities to guide DG ECHO policy and donor approach to humanitarian access. This includes understanding current challenges to efficient/effective humanitarian assistance, and understanding main concerns and difficulties for ECHO teams (HQ and field network).