Even as several humanitarian agencies rely on the services of private security companies to carry out their operations, there is a reluctance to address the latter’s operational footprint. In this article, Jamie Williamson, Executive Director at ICoCA, discusses this blind spot and addresses the factors contributing to it.
“We don’t use private security, we only have guards”, I was once told by a senior humanitarian official.
In another instance, a private security company left a meeting frustrated, having lost a contract with an international organisation. The security company management was paying their guards a living wage — more than the minimum wage — which was too much for the humanitarian organisation’s procurement officer. The company’s services were deemed too costly.
“Private security, military contractors, mercenaries, they are all the same in conflicts.” This was the view expressed by a reporter to me, oversimplifying and conflating the obvious differences between said actors.
There are plenty of other examples, far too many to be shared in this article. All point to a potential blind spot in understanding the use, activities and oversight of the private security sector in humanitarian and conflict settings. Oftentimes this is compounded by a reluctance on the part of humanitarian agencies and donors to engage on the topic.
This reluctance comes, even as many humanitarian agencies and their implementing partners use security companies to run access control, manage arrivals and escort visitors, supervise CCTV, scan vehicles, respond to evacuations, or even manage offices and call reception duties outside core hours. Private security providers — armed or unarmed — often embody the first interface between aid agencies and communities.
The financial and operational footprint of private security in humanitarian operations is large. UN and NGO clients routinely spend millions on private security. In some high-risk countries those costs can represent a nontrivial share of total program budgets. Between 2015 and 2019, UN procurement data show over USD 186 million spent on private security in Afghanistan, the DRC, Somalia, and South Sudan — with USD 71 million spent in South Sudan alone. Many contracts are with local providers. Beyond the 2015–2019 UN figures, broader surveys and research indicate many NGOs allocate 5–15% of their country budget to security or threat mitigation. In some environments with elevated risk or remote supply lines, that share can climb higher.
Why then this blind spot—why the reluctance to address the presence of private security in humanitarian settings? At least four explanations can be offered, amongst others.
I. Being Risk Averse
Poor private security contractors can entail major risks for a humanitarian operations.
Aid agencies rely heavily on negotiated access, local relationships, and trust-building with local communities, authorities, and armed groups. Without such access, humanitarian operations are blocked and aid will not reach those in need. In high-risk environments where the agencies have to use private security, choosing the wrong security provider, can prove detrimental.
Misconduct by security guards or other similar incidents can fuel perceptions that the security company is not operating in line with humanitarian principles, undermining trust and acceptance, eroding local legitimacy and can turn the act of protection into a liability. Access is denied to humanitarian contexts and the agencies risk being held accountable — legally as well as reputationally — for the actions of their contracted security guards.
II. Not One of Us
Private security is treated as an outsourced service, not an integrated and necessary function, by many in the humanitarian sector.
Too often, contracting private security is treated in the same way as hiring other services such as cleaners, drivers and catering staff. Security is simply seen as a mundane task, outsourced to third parties, with the contracting humanitarian agency’s duty of care relegated to the management of the security company.
As a result, private security responsibilities involved in humanitarian settings are perceived as transactional. The security personnel are viewed as shift workers, seen as a hindrance by the agency’s staff when doing security checks at the gates, or derided as lazy, despite working 12-hour shifts day and night.
In reality, private security is unlike other contracted services. For one, security guards represent the first line of defence for premises and personnel of the humanitarian agency that has hired them. Stationed at the premises’ front gates, reception areas and other such points of engagement, they are the first point of contact for visitors. As a result, they play a critical role in influencing the local perception of the humanitarian agency. For instance, when called to help navigate a humanitarian convoy through a desperate crowd, their conduct make or break local acceptance of the agency and its missions.
III. The Bean Counter Syndrome
Cost is most often the main driver in the selection of private security providers.
A recurring problem is that procurement logic often privileges low cost over risk mitigation or quality assurances. As the ICoCA Procurement Guide warns, “price is a defining factor in many procurement decisions”.
Security departments often lack budget, staff, time and capabilities. They are regularly side-lined from budget decisions and struggle to secure enough resources to contract private security providers that best suit their standards and quality requirements. Security budgets can be excluded from proposals or included under administrative lines. Such contexts, limit the consideration of costs involved for contracting private security services. Donors often fail to realise the importance of the issue and of the need to provide an adequate budget, despite the fact that this approach can generate more risks for humanitarian organisations.
IV. Looks, Walks and Sounds like a Duck — Must be a Duck
There is a clear conceptual distinction between, on the one hand, mercenaries/proxy military actors and, on the other, legitimate and properly regulated private security providers.
Not recognising this, and by allowing a skewed narrative to persist, does a disservice to those security providers working legitimately for humanitarian agencies. It can also create a risk for the humanitarian agencies and their staff, if the security companies are viewed negatively by the local community. Properly regulated and licensed private security providers, respecting international norms, can and do operate in line with humanitarian principles. Often hiring their staff locally, they can also offer a credible interface with local communities and help build trust and access.
Plenty of other reasons could be advanced to explain the struggles faced by humanitarian agencies to fully embrace the presence of private security providers in conflict and humanitarian settings. In a perfect world, negotiated and unimpeded access for humanitarians would still prevail. However, today, unfortunately, in an increasing number of contexts, humanitarian workers are finding themselves regularly under attack.
The use of private security providers will not be able to fix the root causes of the growing threats to humanitarian agencies. However, if properly integrated into their risk management and security solutions, security providers can offer a first line of defence, an additional set of eyes and ears to help prevent harm from occurring.
V. Recommendations
First, in contexts where private security providers are hired by humanitarian agencies, this should not be as a neutral technical service divorced from humanitarian principles.
In conflict affected, fragile settings, where civilians are already vulnerable, security actors must be fully vetted, monitored and trained — especially as they operate at the interface between aid and survival.
In fragile settings, using private security providers that do not respect international standards can erode humanitarian space, deter community trust, and violate the very principles their humanitarian clients seek to uphold. The risks are immediate — reputational, legal, operational — and cumulative.
Second, humanitarian agencies should treat private security not as a burden but as a mission-critical function requiring rigorous management, oversight, and moral clarity. They should demand better, verify rigorously, and build a marketplace where only accountable and legitimate security providers can compete.
Third, the humanitarian sector should elevate the conversation on the use of private security, beyond procurement and administrative issues. Relevant UN guidelines should be reviewed, CIMCOORD handbooks revised, and platforms such as the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) should further engage with key stakeholders, including NGOs and ICoCA, on how to integrate private security into humanitarian operations.
VI. Concluding Thoughts
To conclude, private security providers are already embedded in humanitarian operations.
And until such time as their utility and need have subsided, humanitarian agencies should not shy away from recognising that, when they have to, they will use private security companies. At the same time, the private security sector should be courageous enough to call out those other actors that are not aligned to international standards. We should insist — for the dignity of the vulnerable, the integrity of interventions, and the safety of all actors — that the humanitarian and private sectors move decisively in this regard.
ICoCA is ready to support this shift.
