In June of 2019, the World Food Programme (WFP) issued an ultimatum to the Houthi Government in Yemen: participate in our biometric identification system or receive less aid. The Houthis chose a partial stoppage of aid, accusing the WFP of being a surveillance operation. The issue is complicated – on both sides – but it points to a significantly larger trend: humanitarian organizations’ digital operations and data sharing relationships increasingly shape whether beneficiaries, governments, and partners trust them. And, for humanitarian organizations, trust determines their license to operate, which is often negotiated with a range of parties in difficult contexts. At a practical level, humanitarian organizations digital transformations aren’t just changing response efforts – they’re also changing the role of humanitarian organizations themselves, from direct service providers to managing a network of digital vendors, public/private partnerships, local partners, and governments – and all of their competing interests in the data response efforts produce.

Humanitarian organizations are increasingly in the position of negotiating the license to operate, including to collect and share data, without the ability to enforce those licenses across their supply chains. As a result, one of the clearest opportunities to protect shrinking humanitarian space is to focus on building transparent data management and governance into humanitarian supply chain contracting. This article highlights the relationship between digitization and humanitarian supply chains, with a focus on data protection and governance, and makes concrete recommendations on where to focus reform efforts to meet practical needs of digital humanitarianism.

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