What is it?
Ensuring the protection of populations is a core objective of humanitarian action. Protection is a broad concept, approached in many ways, ranging from delivering basic humanitarian assistance to deploying peacekeeping troops.
The European Commission defines humanitarian protection as addressing violence, coercion, deliberate deprivation and abuse for persons, groups, and communities in humanitarian crises. This is performed while complying with humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence, and with respect for international law.
International law defines the global framework for protecting populations; it includes international human rights law international humanitarian law and international refugee law. This framework defines the obligations of states and warring parties to assist and protect civilians, and to prevent and refrain from behaviour that violates their rights.
Why is this important?
In humanitarian crises, people need basic assistance such as food, water, medical, and psychological assistance. However, when there’s violence and hardship, they also need specific support to stay safe and keep their dignity.
Around the world, armed conflicts continue to cause high levels of civilian deaths, injury, displacement, psychological trauma, and sexual violence. Moreover, increasing numbers of people are impacted by climate change, economic instability and food insecurity, among others.
Many people caught in humanitarian crises face increasingly complex ‘protection risks’. These include gender-based violence, restrictions to freedom of movement, theft or extortion, child marriage, or trafficking in persons. Forced displacement presents significant protection risks for millions fleeing for safety. Certain vulnerable groups, such as children or persons with disabilities, are the ones exposed to the most disproportionate protection risks.
How are we helping?
When needs arise as a consequence of violence, deliberate deprivation, and restrictions of access, the European Commission aims to ensure that the projects it funds look beyond mere material needs to broader issues of personal safety and dignity.
Policy
Protection is embedded in our mandate as defined by the European Council's Humanitarian Regulation (1996) and confirmed by the European Consensus on Humanitarian Aid (2007).
The EU aligns with the IASC Policy on Protection in Humanitarian Action of 2016, affirming that all humanitarian actors have a responsibility to place protection at the centre of humanitarian action.
In May 2016, we published the staff working document Humanitarian Protection: Improving protection outcomes to reduce risks for people in humanitarian crises, which outlines the definition and objectives of the European Commission’s humanitarian protection work. The staff working document provides guidance for (i) the analysis of protection risks, (ii) programming of protection work in humanitarian crises, (iii) measuring the effect and outcome of interventions, and (iv) capacity-building activities.
In 2024, the Council of the European Union published the Council conclusions on protection in humanitarian settings. This significant effort seeks to unify and clarify fundamental ideas related to protection, thereby enhancing our collective comprehension of the concept. The document outlines specific, actionable steps and shared obligations that EU institutions and Member States are expected to undertake.
Funding
EU-funded protection interventions aim to prevent, reduce, and respond to the risks and consequences of violence, coercion, deliberate deprivation, and abuse in humanitarian crises.
Humanitarian protection is both a sector and a cross-cutting issue. We use two main approaches:
- targeted protection actions: integrated protection programming and stand-alone protection programming, with a common purpose of actively contributing to reduce the risk and exposure of the affected population; for example, helping people obtain documentation or legal status; preventing and responding to violence, including gender-based violence; child protection; mine action;
- protection mainstreaming: incorporating protection principles and promoting meaningful access, safety, dignity, accountability, participation and empowerment for all gender, age and diversity groups, in humanitarian aid in all projects, regardless of the sector.
In addition, as a third approach, we support capacity-building in the field of protection, aiming to ensure support in developing sufficient capacities within the humanitarian system to appropriately address protection in humanitarian crises.
Funded actions
In Iraq, families returning or relocating safely from prolonged displacement need support to acquire the mandatory legal documentation, which are fundamental to access services. Between May 2023 and April 2024, thanks to the support of the European Union, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) provided crucial protection and legal services to over 4,200 displaced individuals residing in informal settlements in West Ninewa, Mosul, and Kirkuk.
The staccato crack of automatic weapons fire and muffled thuds of mortar explosions echoed across Khartoum as Mohammed Khater Mahmoud woke up to another day in the embattled Sudanese capital.
Suddenly, members of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) stormed into his home, demanding money, and other valuables.
Fleeing Colombia’s revived conflicts, Ecuador’s spiraling violence, or Venezuela’s continuous collapse, close to 300,000 people have crossed the Darien Gap - the deadly jungle isthmus connecting Colombia to Panama – as of June 2024, desperate for a measure of safety.
Kenya is home to nearly 820,000 registered refugees and asylum seekers, many of whom have fled war-torn countries such as Somalia, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sudan. For them, escaping conflict often means enduring unimaginable hardships and rebuilding lives far from home.
Facts & figures
According to the Global Protection Cluster, in 2025, an estimated 166 million people require protection due to humanitarian crises.
In the past five years, on average the EU has allocated 12% of its global humanitarian budget to protection, amounting to over EUR 1.5 billion for targeted protection actions from 2019-2024.
In 2024, 14% of EU global humanitarian budget was allocated to protection in 286 targeted actions.
Last updated: 06/05/2025