In 2018, safeguarding became impossible to ignore.
Serious allegations affecting major international organizations, triggered intense public scrutiny of the aid and development sector. Survivors, journalists, governments and the public asked difficult but necessary questions. Had organizations done enough to prevent abuse? Were concerns being reported and acted upon appropriately? Could the sector be trusted to protect those it swore to serve?
The criticism was uncomfortable. At times, it was painful. Much of it was justified.
Yet something important happened during that period. Organizations that had often operated independently, and sometimes competitively, began working together in ways that would previously have seemed unlikely. UN agencies, INGOs, NGOs, regulators, donors and safeguarding specialists came together with a shared recognition that no single organization could solve these challenges alone.
From that collaboration emerged many of the foundations that reinforce safeguarding in aid and development today. New standards were developed. Reporting mechanisms improved. Expectations around accountability increased. Communities of practice formed. Professional networks strengthened. Safeguarding moved from the margins of organizational life to the centre of strategic discussion.
These achievements should not be underestimated.
Safeguarding has changed, but so have the risks
However, as safeguarding systems have matured within organizations, it is worth asking a difficult question. In our efforts to strengthen internal safeguards, have we lost some of the collaborative spirit that enabled progress in the first place?
Those who seek to exploit, abuse or harm others are not constrained by the structures that govern our institutions. They move between organizations, sectors and countries. They exploit gaps between systems. They take advantage of situations where information, expertise or responsibility remains fragmented.
Increasingly, the environments in which humanitarian and development organizations operate are themselves international.
Local and international staff, volunteers, consultants and contractors may work across multiple countries throughout their careers. While this mobility brings significant privileges, it also creates opportunities for individuals to exploit those gaps.
The uncomfortable reality is that safeguarding systems often remain internal or national in scope, while the risks they seek to address are increasingly transnational. Preventing harm therefore requires not only stronger organizations, but stronger connections between the systems designed to protect people.
If the defining challenge of 2018 was recognizing that safeguarding failures existed, the defining challenge of the next phase may be recognizing that no organization, sector or profession can address them alone.
The challenges facing safeguarding today rarely fit neatly within organizational charts, professional boundaries or national jurisdictions. Offenders do not respect these boundaries. Increasingly, our response must adapt to the evolving landscape.
This requires a shift in mindset.
Why partnerships must become the new normal
For many years, safeguarding has been viewed through an organizational lens. The focus has been on strengthening internal systems, improving reporting mechanisms, conducting investigations and managing risk within institutional boundaries. These remain essential responsibilities and must continue.
But safeguarding cannot be achieved through organizational effort alone.
Significant risks sometimes exist between organizations rather than within them. They emerge in the spaces where information is not shared, where expertise remains isolated, and where opportunities for collaboration are missed.
This is why partnerships between safeguarding professionals, UN agencies, INGOs, NGOs, regulators and law enforcement are becoming increasingly important.
For many years, law enforcement sat at the very edge of safeguarding discussions. Concerns about survivor trust, confidentiality, criminalization and institutional power were both understandable and necessary. Those concerns remain important today.
Yet safeguarding has matured. Increasingly, the conversation is no longer about whether different sectors should engage with one another, but how they can do so responsibly. The challenge is to build partnerships that strengthen prevention and accountability while maintaining confidentiality, survivor-centred approaches, human rights standards, data protection, proportionality and appropriate safeguards. However, there is a difference between managing complexity and allowing complexity to become a barrier to action.
Too often, discussions become dominated by the reasons collaboration may be difficult rather than the reasons it may be necessary. Organizations can become focused on managing local risks, local concerns and local interpretations while missing opportunities to contribute to something much larger.
Turning partnerships into prevention, disruption and protection
This is where initiatives such as INTERPOL’s Project Soteria become increasingly relevant.
Soteria represents a practical recognition that safeguarding and prevention are shared responsibilities. It creates opportunities for safeguarding professionals, organizations and international law enforcement to work together in ways that would have been unusual only a few years ago.
Importantly, this is not based on the assumption that law enforcement is the answer to safeguarding challenges.
Rather, it reflects the belief that safeguarding challenges have become too interconnected for any one sector to solve alone.
At its heart, this is not about transferring responsibility from organizations to law enforcement. Nor is it about replacing existing survivor-centred safeguarding approaches with criminal justice processes.
Project Soteria offers aid organizations a dedicated channel to deter and identify perpetrators of SEAH during the recruitment phase.
The Threat Identification Scheme (TIS) and the INTERPOL Substantiated Misconduct Referral Mechanism (SMRM) work together to receive and share data from participating aid organizations.
Organizations can upload selected candidates' information through a secure platform that is checked by INTERPOL criminal intelligence analysts against its databases and member country networks.
If a threat is identified, INTERPOL will notify the relevant national law enforcement agencies, who will aim to share, where applicable, the outcome with the aid sector organization.
It is about recognizing that prevention becomes more effective when different actors contribute what they do best.
Safeguarding professionals understand organizational culture, vulnerabilities and protective measures. UN agencies, INGOs, and NGOs understand the realities of operating in complex – fast moving environments and maintaining survivor-centred responses. Law enforcement agencies understand offender behaviours, networks, emerging patterns and threats. Each perspective is valuable. None of them are enough on their own.
If safeguarding is ultimately about protecting people from harm, then we must be willing to challenge some of the assumptions, habits and boundaries that can limit our collective effectiveness.
Perhaps the greatest risk facing safeguarding today is no longer that organizations fail to act alone. It is that we fail to act together.
The progress made since 2018 has been substantial. The next phase is about building on it. The foundations created during that period of crisis demonstrated what can be achieved when sectors come together around a shared purpose.
The challenge we face now is not whether collaboration creates risk, it’s whether those risks are worth overcoming to achieve a transformational improvement in how we prevent harm and protect people.
If the last decade was defined by building stronger safeguarding organizations, the next decade may be defined by building stronger safeguarding partnerships.
The potential gains are significant: early identification of risk, stronger prevention mechanisms, effective disruption of those who seek to cause harm, and better protection for vulnerable people across organizational and national boundaries.
We understand that collaboration is not without complexity. Different sectors will continue to bring different perspectives, responsibilities and legitimate concerns.
The risks of collaboration are limited, but manageable. The potential benefits are enormous.
The question is no longer whether safeguarding requires partnership.
The question is whether in 2026, we are committed to building the partnerships that the next phase of safeguarding demands.