On August 19, the world commemorates World Humanitarian Day, a date that reminds us that millions of people depend on aid to survive. This year, the United Nations has issued a clear and forceful message: the humanitarian system is at its limit. Needs are growing unchecked, and humanitarian workers —more than 380 lost their lives in 2024— continue to be targets of attacks that violate international law. This deterioration affects not only the professionals but also the communities that await their support.
To reverse this situation, the United Nations has relaunched the #ActForHumanity campaign, which calls for three essential commitments: protecting humanitarian workers and the civilians they serve, respecting international humanitarian law, and ensuring the vital resources that states and the international community claim to defend.
But beyond denunciation and urgency, scientific literature offers relevant perspectives for moving forward. A recent study [1] distinguishes between spontaneous venturing, traditional humanitarian aid, and entrepreneurial local humanitarian aid. The first modality describes how citizens spontaneously self-organize after sudden disasters to fill gaps left by official systems. Although these local initiatives are fast and close to affected communities, they face serious challenges: scarce resources, lack of infrastructure, and the difficulty of sustaining themselves over time.
In contrast, traditional humanitarian aid, represented by large organizations such as the World Food Programme, Médecins Sans Frontières, or the Red Cross, among many others, benefits from extensive networks, state funding, and logistical capacity. However, according to this study, this modality also faces criticism for its slowness and rigidity in some circumstances, and it is increasingly restricted by governments limiting the entry of international actors and by the pressure of humanitarian demand, which has tripled in the past decade, with a record number of refugees and overlapping crises.
In response to these tensions, localized humanitarian aid with an entrepreneurial logic has emerged. This research highlights how new actors seek to transform the sector through innovative aid models, rooted in local contexts and giving greater protagonism to affected communities. These humanitarian ventures promote civic resilience, local production of supplies, and participatory governance. Their challenge is to obtain legitimacy and financing in an ecosystem still dominated by criteria of scale and speed, but their potential lies in offering sustainable responses adapted to each crisis.
Similarly, another research [2] points out that there are initiatives such as local humanitarian observatories, which strengthen the capacity of national actors to produce knowledge, influence agendas, and cooperate horizontally with other affected countries. This turn towards “humanitarianism from below” reflects the need to recognize that not only large international organizations, but also organized civil society, have a fundamental role in emergency response.
World Humanitarian Day, therefore, is not only a reminder of the risks and sacrifices of those who help on the front lines. It is also an opportunity to merge efforts, to rethink a system in crisis and to create space for solutions that combine protection, sustained financing, scientific evidence, and co-creation from local communities. Acting for humanity today means both defending humanitarian law and promoting new forms of real solidarity that restore dignity and agency to communities in emergency situations.
References
[1] Browder, R. E. et al., Localizing humanitarian aid: A rapid response entrepreneurship model, Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 2025. 23, e00542.
[2] Hilhorst, D. et al., Humanitarian observatories: insights for reforming humanitarianism from below, Journal of International Humanitarian Action, 2025. 10:10.
Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Barcelona