Social Sciences for Community Engagement in Humanitarian Action - Mapping Review on Ethics and Data Sharing

The mapping of ethics for the application of SS4CE in HA was conducted through a partnership with Sonar-Global, the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) of Brazil and members of Technical Working Group-1 (TWG-1). This analysis was envisioned to review existing ethics guidelines and approaches currently applied in the humanitarian system and academic world, related to social sciences and community engagement in humanitarian action (HA). By reviewing the content of identified guidelines and literature, it challenges the status-quo of humanitarian programmes, wherein at risk and affected communities’ engagement continues to be notional and reinforces capacity gaps to engage communities in their social-cultural realms. This underpins the necessity to have increasingly adaptive HA that is contextually specific, sensitive to vulnerabilities and power relations, and planned in consultation with at risk and affected communities and local institutions based on social, and interdisciplinary, science evidence. Community engagement, informed by social sciences, addresses participation issues and the immediate needs of the affected communities but also strengthens community systems where marginalised groups become equal partners in finding solutions, having wider knowledge and understanding of social science disciplines’ conceptual frameworks (e.g., historical, political, sociological, economical) and providing pathways to deal with systemicfallacies and challenges (i.e., social justice, gender equity, decolonization and localization).