In our second article for 2025, Raphael Gorgeu presents the outline of an analytical framework to approach humanitarian policy review exercises, based on the example of the IASC System-Wide Scale-Up Protocols. Instead of working from ‘abstract’ policy to ‘concrete’ practice, this review reversed this framework, starting instead from practice in order to grasp the reality of the policy, which enables actors to maximise its use and deploy it more efficiently.
As the author reflects, this acknowledges the ways in which a policy works on the ground, allowing users to mobilise it for what it is, not for what it should or could be.
Gorgeu’s analysis revolves around revolves around two central steps. Firstly, starting from practice in order to grasp the reality of a protocol or policy, and secondly, considering a protocol or policy (as revealed through its practice) as a sui-generis social object whose patterns of realisation can be identified.
