Distribution by Region

Distribution by Organisation Type, Document Type, Region and Year

Power occurs mostly in documents published in Europe, followed by Asia, North America, Africa and MENA with comparatively smaller contributions. Overall, the top five contributors in terms of occurrences are IGO, NGO, NGO_Fed, State and RC organisations.

IGO, NGO, NGO_Fed, State and RC documents provide the greatest number of occurrences, primarily from activity reports published in Europe.

Power ...

• is the capacity to influence society and protect oneself

• is about human relationships

• is embedded in cultural norms

• exists in various areas

• is possessed by unique actors

• has geographic extensions

• has many expressions

• has relations, structures, dynamics

• has different mechanisms

  • transformative

  • soft/hard

  • visible/invisible

  • power over/power to

• is gained through

  • authority

  • resource possession

  • knowledge/information

• is often imbalanced, unfairly distributed

• the imbalance of which causes

  • competition, struggle

  • poverty

  • injustice

  • gender inequality

  • violence

  • instability

• is used, abused, transferred

• is addressed through

  • empowerment

  • accountability

  • redistribution

  • analysis & understanding its complexities

• is sometimes ignored by actors, causing further harm

• should be addressed in many areas

  • gender relations

  • economic equality

  • sustainability

  • international institutions

  • the humanitarian system

  • when working with authorities

  • the awareness of aid workers

• is shifting

  • away from national governments

  • towards international & regional/local actors

  • towards those with access to technology

• should be shifted

  • to aid givers

  • to aid recipients

  • to local actors

  • to disadvantaged groups

Agency, defined as individuals' and households' capacity to shape their own development, has a political side, as well, in terms of access to power and political participation, with "power" meaning individual's capacity to influence the process of resource allocation and to shield him or herself from arbitrary actions.

Poverty is about power, and power is about how people relate to each other.

This definition [of political economy] recognizes that power is essentially about relationships – between the state, social groups and individuals, or between the state, market forces and civil society.

• by area

  • political power

  • economic power

  • purchasing power

  • tax power

  • voting power

  • market power

  • social power

• by mechanism

  • transformative power

  • soft power

  • hard power

  • invisible power

  • visible power

  • hidden power

  • power to act

  • power over others

  • decision-making power

  • bargaining power

• by actor

  • people('s) power

  • girl power

  • collective power

  • state power

  • executive power

  • military power

  • public power

• by extension

  • regional power

  • local power

  • national power

  • global power

  • global power

PPP ( purchasing power parity) A rate of exchange that accounts for price differences across countries, allowing international comparisons of real output and incomes.

In 2016, UNICEF and our partners focused relentlessly on delivering the results that save children's lives and futures – helping deliver proven, life-saving interventions to the children and families who need them the most ... using our purchasing power to reduce the price of vaccines

Through cash transfers and water trucking interventions, the most vulnerable benefited from an immediate boost to their purchasing power allowing them to survive the food and water crisis.

In addition, the diminished purchasing power has severely impaired the capacity of the poor households to seek warm cloths in tents, health care, and children education, particularly women and children.

Households with poor diets tend to report irregular school attendance and health centre visits due to insufficient purchasing power .

JICA will provide assistance that demonstrates soft power such as knowledge and development experience, which are accumulated in industries, governments, academia, and the civil society of Japan.

If hard power consists of unilateral actions and bilateral alliances, soft power's preferred field of play is multilateralism and rule-building. It depends on a space where actors come together to negotiate and exchange ideas, not impose or threaten.

When the US and its allies went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan and referred to humanitarian organisations as 'force multipliers', 'part of the combat team' and elements of 'soft power', the very meaning and understanding of humanitarianism was fundamentally, perhaps irrevocably, compromised.

Information, of course, is a form of power. Within the global disaster system, flows of information reflect a power relationship based on concepts of giver and receiver. Do aid organizations use information to accumulate power for themselves or to empower others?

A useful guide is the distinction between three kinds of power: visible, invisible and hidden.36 Visible power is the manifest capacity of participants in formal decision-making bodies and public spaces to present and advance their respective interests, (ideological) perspectives and priorities [....]

Hidden power refers to whatever prevents the formal political and policy deliberative processes and forums from acting as civic “playing fields,” system- atically excluding certain voices and interests from public debate. Hidden power explains how formal political and policy arenas are constructed and hemmed in by specific discourses [....]

Hidden power works because it is culturally underpinned by invisible power, which stems from subjectivity, i.e. the way someone understands and enacts a sense of self as an expression of self-esteem, confidence, self-worth, dignity and physicality— i.e. individual ability to project oneself onto shared, civic urban space, and become an active part of it. Invisible power “involves the ways in which awareness of one’s rights and interests are hidden through adoption of dominating ideologies, values and forms of behaviour by relatively powerless groups themselves.”39

The survey lays the groundwork for understanding violence, and the tools to confront it, based on different forms of power: power to, power within, power with and power over.

Power in this context refers to power to act as much as power over the action of others.10 In the social relations of governance processes, both forms of power exist and remain in tension.11

The significance of power to act (or enabling power) stems from the move from a traditional model of hierarchical authority related to the formal structure of a political system to a situation where the power is diffused between those in formal political positions and other stakeholders. These actors exercise different forms of power. Those with access to either resources such as information, expertise and finance (e.g. planning professionals and experts), or rules and accountability (e.g. elected politicians) may have command-and-control power. Others with key positions in the social and economic structures (e.g. landowners, developers and infrastructure/property investors) may have systemic power (e.g. through access to substantial financial resources or ownership of land). A third group with the ability to lobby and mobilize effective local campaigns (e.g. environmental and community groups) may have bottom-up power. This latter is illustrated by Kobe (see Box 4.3) where, despite the centralized government structure in Japan, a kind of bottom-up design of planning institutions emerged from civil society protest in the 1960s called machizukuri. This later shaped the Japanese government decentralization efforts and the building of capacity in local government and civil society.

This dispersion of power among various actors means that although those with systemic and command power may have an advantage in urban governance relations, they can only make use of their position if they turn that power into enabling power. This is the power to achieve collective action. Hence, the effectiveness of urban planning and governance depends not only upon the assumed command- and-control power of a master plan, but upon the persuasive power that can mobilize actions of diverse stakeholders and policy communities to contribute to collective concerns.12

There are several types of power, including:

• Relationship power. A person with greater relationship power has power because of their determined standing with- in the social system. For example, adult- child, aid worker-beneficiary.

• Organizational power. Different positions within organizations bestow specific authority, rights and privileges as deter- mined by job descriptions.

• Position power. A person with position power has the capacity to influence and obtain respect, resources and support from others.

• Expert power is based on the perception of a person’s expertise, skills and know- ledge.

• Information power is based on a per- son’s possession of or access to valuable information.

• Connection power is determined by a person’s influential connections and relationships within or outside an organization.

• Network power is derived from membership of formal or informal networks.

• Personality power is based on gender, ethnic identity, age, physical appearance and personal presence.

• Resource power. A person with resource power has the ability to access human, financial, technical and/or educational resources.

• Reward power is based on a person’s ability to give or to withhold rewards, benefits and services.

Shelter and labour power are the two most important assets for low-income urban households. When either is damaged or destroyed in disaster, households are forced to expend savings or borrow to survive and re-establish livelihoods.

Civil society groups can organize and exert real impact on the decisions of policy-makers, offsetting the often disproportionate influence of powerful economic interests and lobbies. The possibility of developing this “countervailing power”193 depends on whether institutions in a society allow for open and free participation.

• power ...

  • power relation, relationship

  • power structure

  • power dynamics

  • power imbalance

  • power struggle

• ... of power

  • abuse, misuse of power

  • distribution of power

  • balance, imbalance of power

  • position of power

  • transfer of power

  • use of power

  • lack of power

  • transition of power

Christian Aid believes that the unequal distribution of power and unfair abuses of power are at the heart of poverty.

Deeply-rooted unequal power relations and norms persist in the region; one in three women has experienced physical violence from a partner in more than half of the countries.

Shifting the Power : ActionAid's partnership model demonstrates a consistent move to shift power to the communities especially women living in poverty and exclusion and their institutions that we partner with.

We are also living in a time of rapidly changing technology, norms and power structures, affecting everything from the future of our planet to the food and energy we consume to how we access information and evidence.

Many of NEF's local partners have been excluded from public decision-making due to poverty, lack of education, gender or cultural norms, or geographic isolation. They have no seat at the table, and their lack of political power is both cause and effect of vulnerability.

Power that is not exercised for the good of an entire society, but is concentrated in favor of elites or special interest groups, results in injustice, inequality and conflict.

New, selforganized groups of digital humanitarians are using technology to handle and analyse data, or to mobilize funds and action. More importantly, individuals and communities are using technology in new ways, which is resulting in a power shift.

In developed countries, an uneven distribution of political and economic power is the reason why the poor, ethnic and other minorities, and women will bear the brunt of climate change.

Good development work is therefore by nature political and involves addressing unjust power imbalances at all levels of society – from family, to community, to national and global levels.

The chart below represents the distribution of power between 2005 and 2019 in terms of the number of occurrences and relative frequency of occurrences. It also allows you to view the distribution across Regions, Organisations and Document types.

• accountability

  • humanitarian workers

  • technology

  • elections, limits

  • corruption

  • regulation

  • planning

  • refugee camps

• understanding power

  • by issue

    • cultural perception

    • acceptance of power dynamics

    • working with existing power structures

    • elite capture

    • unfair outcomes

    • disaster risk

  • by actor

    • military

    • civilians

    • local agencies

    • international aid agencies

    • humanitarian workers

• ignoring power dynamics

  • food security

  • sustainable systems

  • disaster risk

  • institutional reluctance

• shifting power

  • by issue

    • gender inequality

    • poverty

    • technology, automation

    • development

    • governance

    • globalisation

    • challenges w/ post-WWII institutions

    • power analysis

    • long-term goals

    • concentration of power

  • by actor

    • local actors

    • aid givers

    • recipients

    • humanitarian system

    • international organizations

    • sub-national entities

The humanitarian context makes accountability important, but it also makes it very hard to achieve. Even when humanitarian workers have the ability and time to listen to affected people, the inherent power imbalance between aid worker and beneficiary often prevents honest communication.

But there are also some specific options for agencies concerned with natural resources, such as separating functions for managing production from those for monitoring and conservation. The most extreme solution for limiting the effect of public corruption is privatization. However, this may only shift the power from one corruptor to another. The aim instead should be to establish a clear and transparent regulatory framework for rights to natural resources, whether held publicly or privately. This has to be a combination of national and international action.

Practices in the refugee camps are regulated by traditions, abuse of power is common and local practices may be contrary to the needs of victims. Despite 60 years of Palestinian refugee presence and international assistance in Lebanon, refugee camp organisation and dynamics are poorly documented.

This is a key part of the problem: to understand what interventions may work because they do not present any threat to existing power and which ones might involve significant problems for those who have power and are, therefore, unlikely to work. Underlying this is the key question that every organization that wants to engage in DRR and CCA must ask themselves: in the 'community' where they intend to work, how much of the poverty and vulnerability is a result of power relations? And from this comes the next key question: how confident is the organization that its proposals for DRR and CCA can succeed given those power relations?

Therefore, any NGO or other DRR agency arriving from 'outside' must be conscious of the fact that their presence may disturb (or worsen) the existing power relations.

Elite capture is a problem that emerges from the power relations themselves and has been analysed in many local studies for different parts of the world (e.g., Platteau, 2004; Dasgupta and Beard, 2007; Nelson and Finan, 2009). In their recent review of nearly 500 development projects, Mansuri and Rao (2013) found that in most cases wealthier, more educated and higher social status people tended to be over-represented in participatory activities and dominant in affecting the outcome of projects. Local power relations (often involving links to higher-level power systems) subvert the intentions of development interventions (see Box 4.5). Those who have power are able to use it (either during the project or after it is finished, or both) to acquire the assets or other benefits of the project activities. This can clearly be relevant to DRR and CCA programmes or any projects that are trying to be community-based. Again, the literature is well known in development studies, but seems to be almost completely missing in DRR and CCA practice.

Every humanitarian aid worker has power. With power comes a responsibility to use the power to advance the safety, dignity and status of vulnerable people. The questions we must ask ourselves are: Where does my power come from? How do I use my power in a responsible way? What are the power dynamics within the disaster setting? What kind of power do vulnerable people, like children, have in the disaster setting? How might my power be misused? In what situations am I at risk of misusing my power? How do I respond when I know that power is being misused? How do I maintain a power balance with beneficiaries? Understanding power is critical to preventing discrimination and violence. Power will either be used positively or negatively; it does not stand neutral.

We must work hard to understand exactly how shifts in power relations can be achieved in different situations, and plan to conduct research on this during 2012-15. Furthermore, both power analysis and participatory monitoring and evaluation require fundamental changes not just to our methods, but also to our own perception of what positive change really is. We must move the focus of our advocacy and lobbying away from the realisation of individual initiatives – such as the construction of a new school or clinic – and towards achieving permanent shifts in power dynamics and structures, so that citizens can continue to make demands and claim their rights.

Although the main objective of Action Against Hunger is fighting hunger, our interventions have an effect on gender relations. If we do not consider gender strategically enough, we may perpetuate imbalanced power relations and even do harm.

It could become the norm that the givers and receivers of aid exercise their power and demand that those in the middle – the governments and aid agencies entrusted with the response – deliver systematic, fair and professional responses, or risk being fired or voted out. Critical readers may dismiss this argument as a simplistic market model; others may agree with it, but wonder how it is relevant to Darfur, to Northern Uganda or to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A 2013 report published by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Humanitarianism in the Network Age, argues that "everyone agrees that technology has changed how people interact and how power is distributed". While technology has undoubtedly altered human interaction, changes in the distribution of power are far from self-evident. In many parts of the world, the digital divide persists: within communities at risk, access to information technology continues to follow traditional – and deeply unequal – patterns of resource distribution and vulnerability, including variations on the basis of gender. At the same time, settings in which access to technology is more widespread will tend to generate more data. In some cases, protection work or relief distribution may be based on biased or skewed data. Moreover, even if technological solutions can help to address the challenges posed by spaces of technological scarcity, two underlying issues remain: first, the trend towards self-responsibilization for identifying and voicing need has profound implications for how participation is understood and assessed; second, the ability to use technology to express need does not necessarily imply the empowerment of individuals or communities.

For example, a truly devolved and local response for the Rohingya, although not without its own challenges and limitations, might see a shipment of food arriving and being handed over to Rohingya community leaders, who decide based on their own criteria who should receive the aid and how much. Or, for education, books and other school supplies could be given to teachers who fled alongside their students, to support educational initiatives already under way in the camps. Suggestions such as these will involve transferring power currently held by international and local humanitarian organisations to affected communities themselves. There are some examples of good practice. In Jamtholi, an international organisation set up a community kitchen and supplied several gas cookers and a stock of spices. Rather than managing the kitchen itself, the organisation gave a nearby family control of the rota and the key.

There is a mismatch between governance mechanisms and the vulnerability and complexity of global processes. Many international institutions and structures were designed for a post–Second World War order, and reforms have not reflected changing power relations. Meanwhile, new regimes, such as those for global intellectual property rights, often benefit elites disproportionately. Governance systems are not only short on offering protections and enhancing capabilities; in some cases they are producing new vulnerabilities. In many respects the shortcomings of global governance architectures in reducing vulnerability stem from deep asymmetries of power, voice and influence.

One of the most important criticisms of the humanitarian system is that it is imposed by the West, that it uses a "top down" approach and that it does not listen. For different reasons, some good, some bad, power remains in the hands of NGOs from the North. The question of the consultation and participation of beneficiaries in humanitarian operations has regularly been brought up in different forums and publications, but nothing compared to the level of interest that exists in the world of development. In fact, very little is known about the use of participatory practices in the humanitarian sector or their impact. Before the Global Study, there had been no attempts to identify "good practices" in this area. For a long time, the role played by crisis-affected populations in ensuring their own survival was underestimated and not properly taken into account. Numerous evaluations appear to show that increased consultation and participation of the affected population are beneficial for humanitarian operations.

Power is gravitating from national governments to international organizations and, at the same time, to sub-national entities, including a range of local and regional governments and non-governmental institutions21. This new and often chaotic complexity is challenging, particularly to health authorities that hesitate between ineffective and often counterproductive command and control and deleterious laissez-faire approaches to governance. However, it also offers new, common opportunities for investing in the capacity to lead and mediate the politics of reform, by mobilizing knowledge, the workforce and people.