Protecting local staff is not only an ethical obligation. It is also an operational and a safety issue for international staff.

International missions rely on local staff for language skills, cultural expertise, logistical support, community relationships, technical knowledge, and contextual understanding.

Failure to meet obligations to local staff can damage trust, undermine relationships with local communities, and make it more difficult to recruit and retain qualified personnel in future missions. It can also affect humanitarian access, diplomatic credibility, operational continuity, and the legitimacy of governments and organisations undertaking international missions.

The Guidelines support mission effectiveness by encouraging accountability, trust, preparation, and continuity throughout the mission lifecycle.

Clear communication is a practical safety measure. Local staff need to know whom to contact, what support is available, how risks are being assessed, and what steps to take as conditions change. For that reason, communication with local staff should be built into pre-deployment training for international staff and reinforced throughout the mission, especially during drawdown or crisis.

Local staff often face unique risks because they are visibly associated with foreign governments, international organisations, humanitarian operations, diplomatic missions or military forces.

At the same time, unlike humanitarian workers or journalists, locally engaged staff do not enjoy a specific protected status under international law. They frequently fall between employment frameworks, immigration systems, security arrangements, and legal responsibilities.

The Guidelines aim to address these gaps and establish a more consistent standard of protection.

Any protection system needs clear criteria, appropriate screening, and accountable decision-making. The Guidelines do not suggest that protection should be automatic, unlimited, or disconnected from security realities. Instead, they call for fair, transparent, risk-informed systems that identify eligibility, assess individual circumstances, document employment and service, and make decisions through clear procedures rather than ad hoc crisis response.

Stronger protections and stronger safeguards are not opposites. In fact, better systems can reduce risk by ensuring that recruitment, documentation, vetting, contracting, communication, and crisis planning are handled responsibly from the beginning. When missions fail to plan, decisions are more likely to be rushed, inconsistent, politicised, or left to individual personnel to navigate under pressure.

The Guidelines therefore aim to prevent abuse while also preventing abandonment. They support systems that are principled, evidence-based, and operationally realistic: protecting those who are genuinely at risk because of their work, while allowing governments, organisations, and mission partners to apply appropriate verification, risk assessment, and security measures.

Local staff are individuals who, in their home country, are employed by or on behalf of a foreign government or international actor to support a mission or programme, regardless of contractual form.

This includes direct employees, subcontracted personnel across all tiers, and functional equivalents.

Because local staff are often identifiable as supporting foreign actors, they may face specific and heightened security, legal, economic, and social risks tied directly to that association.

This is a fair and important question, particularly for governments, humanitarian and diplomatic missions,  and military organisations that may engage large numbers of local personnel through complex contracting arrangements.

The concern is often that recognising all subcontracted personnel as local staff could create limitless obligations. The Guidelines address this concern through two important distinctions.

First, protection is role- and risk-based, not contract-based. An individual’s contractual status does not determine what protections they should receive. Their role and the risks associated with that role do. An interpreter embedded in military operations and a worker performing low-risk support functions may face very different levels of risk and therefore require different measures.

Second, responsibility may be primary, shared, or derived. States, organisations, contractors, and subcontractors may all hold different responsibilities depending on their relationship to the local staff member and the risks involved. The critical point is that responsibility should be identified upfront: local staff should know who is responsible for their employment, protection, grievance escalation, and duty-of-care decisions, and responsible actors should have the authority, resources, and accountability needed to act.

The Guidelines deliberately avoid a narrow contractual definition because contracting arrangements have, at times, been used to exclude individuals from protections that would otherwise have been available to them.

Not necessarily. The Guidelines recognise that standards and delivery models differ across nations, organisations, and mission contexts. The aim is not to impose identical systems in every circumstance, but to ensure adequate, risk-appropriate, and non-discriminatory protection for local staff. Where local staff face the same or related risks as international personnel, missions should consciously assess those implications and put appropriate measures in place rather than excluding local staff by default.

The Guidelines do not assume that family eligibility is simple or unlimited. They recommend defining criteria transparently before a crisis, consulting local staff where appropriate, and recognising dependency patterns that may differ by context. In practice, this means balancing feasibility, fairness, and risk: missions should identify who may qualify for protection or relocation support, explain those criteria clearly, and revisit them where credible threats extend to dependents or household members.

No.

The Guidelines recognise that psychosocial needs can be long-term, but they do not require organisations to provide open-ended clinical care in every case. The expectation is that missions plan proportionate, time-bound, and context-appropriate aftercare, such as transition briefings, referral pathways, peer support, access to trusted providers, and follow-up for high-risk cases.

The goal is to avoid a sudden cliff edge at contract end while also recognising practical limits and the need to work through appropriate health, community, or protection partners.

LSI’s focus is on locally employed and engaged civilians rather than local military partner forces.

Military partner forces operate under different legal frameworks and raise distinct questions regarding status, obligations, and protections. Those issues sit outside the scope of the current Guidelines.

Jurisdiction is one of the most complex areas affecting local staff.

In many cases involving locally recruited employees or contractors, there is a degree of legal ambiguity whether the law of the country where the work is performed applies or the legal framework of the foreign mission partner.

This complexity is one reason shared standards matter. Differing national laws and jurisdictional arrangements have contributed to situations in which local staff performing similar roles and facing similar risks receive very different treatment.

The Guidelines establish guiding principles and minimum standards across four phases:

Pre-Mission Engagement

• Responsible recruitment
• Transparent employment conditions
• Risk planning
• Documentation systems
• Training and accountability

Protection and Support During Employment

• Safety and security measures
• Fair pay and benefits
• Mental health and trauma support
• Data protection
• Family protection measures

Aftercare, Transition, and Reintegration

• Reintegration planning
• Individual risk assessments
• Access to employment records
• Redundancy procedures
• Ongoing support and aftercare

Crisis Response and Continuity of Duty of Care

• Safe and legal pathways to protection when required
• Emergency preparedness
• Documentation and verification systems
• Family protection
• Communication and coordination mechanisms

National resettlement programmes such as the UK’s Afghan and Relocation Assistance Policy (ARAP) or the US’s Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) schemes, and similar initiatives are generally reactive mechanisms created after risks have already materialised.

The Guidelines take a broader and more preventative approach.

Rather than focusing only on relocation pathways, they address recruitment, employment conditions, risk management, documentation, accountability, transition planning, reintegration support, crisis preparedness, and continuity of duty of care throughout the mission lifecycle.

No.

The Guidelines are not law and do not create new legal obligations.

Instead, they provide a practical framework that governments, organisations, contractors, and mission partners can use to strengthen policies, procedures, and practices within their own legal and operational contexts.

Yes.

The Guidelines are grounded in nearly nine years of research and consultation involving local staff, veterans, practitioners, legal experts, researchers, and advocates.

They are informed by real-life scenarios shared by local staff and their supporters across multiple countries and mission contexts.

A companion legal report analyses existing legal protections, identifies gaps in current frameworks, and includes an extensive review of relevant legal cases involving local staff from around the world.

No, and this is one of the most common misunderstandings.

The purpose of the Guidelines is not to increase reliance on emergency evacuation. It is to reduce the likelihood that emergency evacuation becomes necessary in the first place, while recognising that when crisis response is required, prioritisation may be necessary and should be based on transparent, non-discriminatory, risk-informed criteria.

The framework emphasises prevention, planning, risk management, reintegration, documentation, and continuity of duty of care.

Evacuation remains a measure of last resort when earlier protections have failed or circumstances have become unsafe. The ultimate goal is not better evacuations, but fewer situations in which evacuation becomes the only option.

There are three engagement pathways, designed so people and organisations can start where they are and deepen their involvement over time:

Supporter | Individuals, organisations, and networks that want to help raise awareness of the Guidelines in practical, accessible ways. Supporters may read and share the Guidelines, attend a briefing, circulate resources internally, make introductions, or help bring the issue into relevant conversations

Ambassador | Individuals, organisations, and networks that are ready to take a more visible role by publicly supporting the intent of the Guidelines and helping build awareness, credibility, and uptake across their professional communities.

Signatory | Organisations that are ready for formal institutional endorsement and deeper policy-level engagement, including reviewing relevant policies, procedures, contracts, mission-planning tools, and duty-of-care practices through a local staff protection lens.

Supporters help widen awareness and make practical contributions without needing to take on a formal public role. They may share the Guidelines, attend or request a briefing, introduce LSI to relevant contacts, or bring the issue into their own organisation or network.

Ambassadors take a more visible role. They publicly support the intent of the Guidelines, promote awareness and uptake through their networks, and encourage aligned organisations to consider formal endorsement where appropriate.

Signatories make a formal institutional commitment. They endorse the Guidelines at leadership level and engage more deeply with how the principles may inform policy, practice, accountability, and continuous learning.

The pathways are complementary and progressive: a person or organisation may begin as a Supporter, become an Ambassador when ready to be more visible, and later explore Signatory status if institutional alignment is possible

No.

The Guidelines are designed to support progressive alignment. Organisations can assess their current practices, identify areas for improvement, and strengthen systems over time in ways that reflect their operational realities and available resources.

Endorsement signals commitment to the direction of travel rather than a claim that every minimum standard has already been achieved.