Colloquium: David Kaelin

In the past decade, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was more active than ever in cities. In the pursuit of its core mandate, the protection and assistance of victims of armed conflicts, the ICRC followed the path of new conflicts into the urban space. An old terrain for war, but one that is expanding again, at least in ICRC’s own recent experience. The ICRC witnessed and responded to an increasing number of urban crisis, on all continents, from Venezuela, to Congo, through Syria, Ukraine and all the way to Myanmar or the Philippines.

In the same way operations in cities pose particular challenges to fighters, the “parties to conflicts” (militaries, armed groups,…) they pose particular challenges to humanitarian organizations. The laws or armed conflict need to be interpreted through the urban scope. The vulnerabilities and the needs of victims must be considered specifically in the urban context. Unsurprisingly, for ICRC’s engineers, urban conflicts also come with enormous and very specific challenges that require specific responses and often call for new ways of working.

Through the eye of an engineer, this will be a presentation of some of the learnings of the ICRC in urban conflicts. Their effects on civilian populations, infrastructure and on the delivery of essential services. And some of the responses available for an organization like the ICRC, from the dialogue with parties to conflict, advocacy for consideration of infrastructure in the military planning to emergency responses or long-term resilience building of infrastructure and services.