The protection of populations affected or threatened by conflict and natural disasters is a critical component of humanitarian action. Challenges of ensuring protection are notably complex, touching on myriad intersecting issues including international legal norms, frontline humanitarian negotiation, gender, and the migration patterns of vulnerable populations.

In this episode of the Humanitarian Assistance Podcast, Yves Daccord, the Director General of the International Committee of the Red Cross gives the opening keynote address for the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative’s 2018 Humanitarian Action Summit. In his talk, Mr. Daccord discusses four current challenges in addressing protection: the protection of aid workers—including the increasing use of remote management to transfer risk to local partners, impunity for attacks on healthcare, the use of detention as state policy to dissuade migration, and the digital insecurity of vulnerable populations fleeing violence.