Humanitarian Futures: Challenges and Opportunities explores the increasing types, dimensions and dynamics of crises threatening the world in the twenty-first century, and argues that those with humanitarian roles and responsibilities can only meet such challenges if their approaches to strategic and operational planning undergo fundamental paradigmatic shifts. Strategically and operationally, such shifts must begin by planning from the future, for the future.
Author Randolph C. Kent, the UN’s first Humanitarian Coordinator, with experience in some of the most complex crises of modern times, including Rwanda, Ethiopia, Kosovo, Sudan and Somalia, provides a blueprint for dealing with ever greater complexity on planet Earth and beyond. That blueprint is not about upgrading existing tools or relying upon tried precedence. Rather, it points to a new paradigm for meeting crises. It begins by looking at the changing nature of humanness and governance, and then turns to plausible future crises based on such changes, before concluding with practical steps for dealing with ever more complex humanitarian threats, now and in the future.
This book will be an essential read for humanitarian policymakers and practitioners as well as for humanitarian and global studies researchers and students who are and want to be engaged in understanding and preparing for ever more complex and unpredictable humanitarian challenges.
Preface
Introduction Cassandra’s Challenge and the Helenus Alternative
Chapter 1 An Odyssey
Chapter 2 The Changing Dimensions of Human Agency
Chapter 3 Governance and Resource Prioritisation from a Futures Perspective
Chapter 4 Towards the Brink
Chapter 5 The Entanglement Nexus
Chapter 6 Managing Humanitarian Threats in a Polylateral World
Chapter 7 The Humanitarian Organisation for the Future
Chapter 8 The Helenus Alternative – Planning from the Future
Biography
Randolph C. Kent is Visiting Professor, African Leadership Centre, King’s College London; Honorary Professor at the Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction, University College London; Senior Associate Fellow, Royal United Services Institute and Director of the Humanitarian Futures Programme [www.humanitarianfutures.org].
'As interconnected risks further compound into humanitarian crises, readers will find inspiration and practical guidelines on how to anticipate and mitigate these risks so that we can embark on a collective journey toward resilience.'
Mami Mizutori, Former Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Disaster Risk Reduction
'The types, patterns, and dynamics of threats to people’s security and survival are constantly changing. The millions who already experience high risks face ever more complex challenges. Meeting their needs asks for more skills and ingenuity from development practitioners who decide what approaches to embrace and what to jettison. They need trusted companions and mentors. Come in Randolph C. Kent whose landmark book on Humanitarian Futures: Challenges and Opportunities clearly sets the direction and lights up ways to get there.'
David Nabarro, Co-founder and Strategic Director, 4SD Foundation, Geneva, Switzerland
'Dr. Randolph C. Kent’s Humanitarian Futures: Challenges and Opportunities masterfully blends deep intellectual rigour with practical insights, drawing on his unparalleled experience to illuminate future humanitarian crises and challenge current conventions and paradigms. In our world of perpetual crises, this is a vital, visionary work for leaders, policymakers and practitioners alike.'
Ben Ramalingam, Author of Aid on the Edge of Chaos and Director of Strategy and Innovation, British Red Cross
‘Randolph C. Kent offers a compelling vision of the complexities that will define a future humanitarian landscape and the imperative of drawing from an imagined future of the "what might-be’s" to prepare for threats outside today’s zones of organisational comfort. This book is a must read for those seeking to develop a capacity to anticipate uncharted humanitarian terrains.’
'Funmi Olonisakin, Vice-President (International Engagement & Service) and Professor of Security, Leadership & Development, King’s College London
