Protecting the Rights and Safety of Local Staff, Together.
A shared commitment to ethical responsibility, accountability, and prevention
Local staff play indispensable roles in international missions as interpreters, advisors, technical specialists, and operational personnel. Across conflict, humanitarian, peacekeeping, and development contexts, they often work at significant personal risk. Yet in many missions, protections for local staff have remained inconsistent, fragmented, or dependent on crisis-driven responses rather than embedded planning.
The consequences of these gaps have been severe for individuals, families, and communities, and have undermined trust, credibility, and ethical responsibility across international engagements.
The Guidelines for the Rights and Protection of Local Staff in International Missions exist to change this.
Why Adopt these Guidelines?
The Guidelines provide a practical framework for governments, civil society organisations, contractors, and other mission partners to strengthen how local staff are engaged and protected across the full mission lifecycle: before, during, and after employment.
The Guidelines are a voluntary commitment, intended to support organisations in aligning policies, practices, and coordination mechanisms with shared principles. At the same time, the premise of the Guidelines is that systemic change requires leadership and collective responsibility. Clear standards, adopted early and applied consistently, help prevent harm, strengthen accountability, and protect programme or mission integrity.
This is an opportunity for organisations involved in international missions to actively contribute to safer, more responsible engagement with local staff.
Who the Guidelines Are For
The Guidelines are relevant to organisations and actors engaged in international missions and deployments, humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding work, as well as conflict, stabilization, and crisis response operations.
They are equally applicable to those involved in protection, relocation, and resettlement pathways, and to stakeholders advancing advocacy, research, and policy development related to international engagement and duty of care.
This includes governments and public institutions, NGOs and civil society organisations, veterans’ and mission partner organisations, professional associations and networks, and academic and policy institutions committed to strengthening responsible practice.
How to Be Involved
There are two primary ways to support and advance the Guidelines:
1. Become An Ambassador
Ambassadors are individuals, organisations, or networks that align with the values and intent of the Guidelines and wish to help promote awareness and uptake across their professional networks and spheres of influence.
Ambassadors commit to:
2. Become a Signatory
Signatories formally endorse the Guidelines and demonstrate commitment to advancing their principles within their organisation and across the broader international mission community.
Signatories commit to:
Voices behind the guidelines
What supporting the Guidelines means …
“… standing for a simple principle: Local staff make our missions possible. Their safety must be guaranteed in return.”
Anne-Marie Snels
Former Chair, AFMP-FN
“ …ensuring that what Afghan interpreters and locally employed civilians experienced is never repeated, that sanctuary, recognition, and integration are planned from the outset, not fought for long after the mission is over.”
Ed Aitken
Co-Founder, Sulha Alliance and VP of Corporate Affairs at DLocal
“…refusing to treat local partners as temporary assets that disappear from view once a mission is over. If we expect local communities to work with us in future crises, we cannot keep abandoning them when it ends.”
Cees Roels
Veteran Dutch diplomat, former Acting Ambassador, Kabul
“…honouring the most universal principle in military service: you do not leave your people behind.”
Björn Blanck
Swedish Army veteran, six missions in Afghanistan
“…advancing the principle that translators, interpreters, and civilian staff in conflict settings are protected, empowered, and recognised for the essential role they play.”
Maya Hess, Ph.D.
FOUNDER of Red T
“…standing behind a simple truth: the safety, rights, and role of locally recruited personnel must be understood and protected by all those who employ their service.”
Linda Fitchett
Veteran Dutch diplomat, former Acting AIIC and ICZ
A Shared Commitment
The Guidelines for the Rights & Protection of Local Staff in International Missions reflect a shared commitment to learning from past experience and ensuring that protection is no longer improvised or unevenly applied.
By becoming a Signatory or Ambassador, you will join a growing, international effort convened by Local Staff International
to ensure that the protection of local staff is embedded in how humanitarian, development, diplomatic, civilian, and military missions are designed, delivered, and concluded, so that no local staff member whose support
is essential to the success of the mission is left unprotected.