Impact Trust • Working glossary

Humanitarian crisis

Large-scale threat to people's lives and basic well-being.

Details

Our Take
One of the sector's more accessible terms. The challenge is not the word but the politics of declaration: who gets to declare a humanitarian crisis, and what resources and attention flow from that declaration? Worth asking whether the label is adequate for polycrisis dynamics where the crisis is not a discrete event but a permanent condition.
Examples of Use
UN, NGOs, WHO
Synonyms/Variants
Emergency, Disaster, Crisis
Typical everyday wording
A crisis threatening people's lives and survival