Creating Safer Space: Strengthening Civilian Protection Amidst Violent Conflict

"Creating Safer Space" is a four-year international, interdisciplinary research network, which supports local civilian processes that build sustainable structures of protection from physical harm for and with communities affected by violent conflict. The Network brings together conflict-affected communities, protection practitioners, academics, policymakers and artists to jointly work on the vision of enhancing unarmed protection practices, which create safer space for communities and individuals amidst violent conflict, raise their levels of resilience and help prevent displacement. According to the UN Refugee Agency, there are now a record high of 68.5 million people forcibly displaced by violent conflict (UNHCR 2019), and the majority of deaths in conflicts are among civilians. This makes the protection of civilians from physical harm in contexts of war a pressing issue of our time. While the international community has acknowledged the need for protection, the physical safety of civilians is still seen almost exclusively as a task of armed outside actors like UN blue helmets. The originality of this Network is its focus on protection provided by unarmed actors and deployed at the local level of communities, be it by "outside" specialists or "insider/local" protection actors. Unarmed civilian protection (UCP) organisations accompany human rights defenders and deter armed actors from carrying out attacks against them through their presence and proactive engagement strategies. They use networks of relationships built with armed and unarmed parties to a conflict to negotiate safe passage of internally displaced persons to a safe camp or to bring forcefully recruited youth back to their families. They also monitor ceasefires & agreements. Moreover, some violence-affected communities self-protect by setting up peace communities and weapons-free zones, creating safer space for civilian life amidst violent conflict. There are over 40 international NGOs and a growing number of national and local organisations currently undertaking protection work in 24 countries in conflict, in addition to local self-protection initiatives. They illustrate that the protection of civilians by civilians without the use or threat of force can work to create physical safety, and may even do more: by providing a role model, and by not fuelling further violence, UCP can help break cycles of violence and thus contribute to longer-term peacebuilding. Initial research has suggested that UCP may often be more effective than armed protection and indeed, latest UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions mention the potential of UCP, indicating some change in thinking. "Creating Safer Space" aims to enhance and broaden the practice of UCP by engaging a wide range of stakeholders in networking, capacity-building, research and impact activities around three broad themes: A. Understanding vulnerability to physical harm in violent conflict: Which different kinds of vulnerabilities interact in what ways in situations that require protection, and which different protection strategies do they require? B. Building local protection infrastructures: How can outside protection strategies and self-protection mechanisms in communities work together for best protection results and without undermining each other? C. Developing civilian protection capabilities: How can unarmed local protection be scaled up in size/scope and include new actors and collaborations with a view to protect more people from violence and displacement and develop stronger protection capacity? To address these questions, our Network delivers activities for academic and non-academic partners from the Global North and South across three strands of work: networking and capacity enhancement; collaborative and innovative research; and knowledge sharing and advocacy. Taken together, these activities aim to increase the number of people benefiting from civilian protection worldwide.