Today, interest in mutual aid and community led responses during crises is growing. However, mutual aid is nothing new as both voluntary community led responses and existing research have long demonstrated. With today’s growing interest, the challenge is to better understand the mechanisms that drive mutual aid - as well as their possible interactions with mainstream humanitarian aid (local or international). The goal of this session is to identify ways for established aid actors to understand and possibly support mutual aid and community led responses - but doing it without confining or even destroying the people led responses in the rigid processes and regulation that constrain most mainstream humanitarian actors.

During the session the Groupe URD and Local2Global Protection will present recent research and actions relevant to mutual aid. We will put forward a few key recommendations and then invite participants to join us in exploring if - and possible how - mutual aid can be supported without stifling it.