A Policy Brief – New players through old lenses: Why history matters in engaging with Southern actors – has been published by the London based Overseas Development Institute. The author, Eleanor Davey, argues that a historical perspective will help to sharpen thinking about humanitarian actors from across the globe – North as well as South – and their place within the broader system. She outlines the key questions informing ongoing HPG research on the global history of modern humanitarian action. This aims to make the history of humanitarian action from a Southern perspective accessible to international actors, with a view to improving the sector’s knowledge of its own past.
More information about the ODI project on the Global history of modern humanitarian action is also available. This research project seeks to identify and understand the principal changes in policy, practice and institutional architecture that the humanitarian sector has undergone since the beginning of the twentieth century.
