From aid drops to assessment of critical infrastructure, humanitarian engineers help communities build back post-crisis – and need is only growing.
“Doctors save people; engineers save communities.” Those six words galvanise the work of humanitarian engineer Neil Greet FIEAust CPEng EngExec.
As a Director of RedR Australia, a member of the world-leading international RedR Federation of humanitarian response agencies, Greet helps communities prepare for and recover after crises and conflict.
The work of RedR and other bodies such as Engineers Without Borders is vital to global health and security, but the increasingly turbulent and fractious global aid and development climate is a cause for grave concern across the sector.
“We have a system that’s in crisis,” Greet told create, citing the recent Trump administration dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the UK cutting its aid budget to 0.3 per cent of gross national income (GNI).
The cuts to aid have left humanitarian organisations facing an existential crisis – but for Greet, humanitarian engineering and disaster resilience are more important than ever.
The role of humanitarian engineers
Australia has a long history of responding to humanitarian crises such as the East Timorese domestic crisis and the Boxing Day tsunami. Humanitarian engineers have played a central role in those efforts.
As Greet explained to create, humanitarian engineering is more of an ethos than a discipline.
“It’s not like an engineering discipline, per se. It’s about pragmatic delivery of engineering to vulnerable people and communities, so it cuts across all types of engineering. At its heart, it’s using engineering to advance society.”
Humanitarian engineers are one piece of a complex puzzle. The broad remit of RedR, for instance, encompasses engineering, logistics, health, law and many more overlapping fields.
“All of the aspects of improving people’s lives in vulnerable situations,” Greet, who is also a committee member of Engineers Australia’s College of Leadership and Management, explained. “Engineering is one of the critical components in assisting vulnerable communities. We provide all that essential background work that spreads through all disciplines of engineering, from the traditional ones like civil and mechanical to software and AI.”
When communities have faced conflict or disaster, it’s a common desire to reconstruct what was lost. It’s the job of engineers, however, to improve on the status quo.
“Building forward wiser, not just building back better, has been one of the notions of the humanitarian community,” Greet said. “If you really want to improve and be up for the challenges that are coming our way, then you need to shift that focus and rebuild with the wisdom that we have that anticipates the changes that are coming.
“To build forward wiser, we need a multi-disciplinary approach that’s within ourselves, and a transdisciplinary approach that embraces all the other professions.”
Read how a RedR humanitarian program addresses threats to fresh water in Kiribati.
Aid drops while need increases
The need for a strong response capability to disasters and conflict is only growing in an increasingly turbulent world. Funding cuts have left the humanitarian system demoralised and in crisis at a time in which there is more need than ever.
“There are disasters occurring around the world. The problem is that these disasters and conflicts are complex, competing and concurrent,” Greet said. “The system we’ve had for humanitarian action since WWII is failing now. It was recognised by the community over the last decade that they needed to change, but the removal of funding from USAID has now brought that sharply into focus. The UN, as an organisation, is struggling to keep pace.”
Australia itself contributes only 0.2 per cent of GNI to aid – far short of the 0.7 per cent target set by the UN. The Federal Government is weighing whether it should bolster foreign aid after the US freeze halted development projects across the South Pacific region.
To step into the gap, organisations such as RedR rely on multiple sources of funding, from project partnerships with the UN and DFAT to support from the corporate and philanthropic sectors, and public donations.
RedR around the world
There’s certainly no shortage of work for RedR’s roster of humanitarian engineers around the globe. The organisation is currently contributing to humanitarian responses in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific.
Disaster response is the more obvious element of its work, but training people involved in humanitarian work remains equally important. A recent RedR-run training course conducted in Jordan for people preparing for humanitarian work in Gaza proved hugely successful, Greet said.
“The training involves learning how to be efficient on the ground and how you deal with hostile environments – there are mock-up scenarios of being kidnapped, checkpoints and all that sort of thing. People really want the training that we do so that they are prepared to go into a hostile environment like Gaza.”
The Rohingya refugee crisis is another flashpoint for RedR. Its volunteers are on the ground in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh.
“We’ve had deployees there working on all the things you need to keep this massive refugee camp going. Shelter, water, food, safety: all those sorts of things that we consider normal in a city or town environment.”
Across the Pacific region, RedR’s engagement with training locals in resilience projects has the additional layer of soft diplomacy.
“You’ve got to show to the people you’re working with that you’re committed. There is this tendency that we might just ride in on our white horse and save the people and then ride off into the sunset.
“But it’s much more than that. It’s about engaging with people and listening. We work with the locals; it’s not about going over and employing Australians to do work there. It’s entwined in trying to help build forward, wiser.”
The way forward
RedR is stepping up to the unprecedented historical moment.
“Do you just admit defeat? That sort of attitude doesn’t pay off,” Greet said. “We believe that there is only one pathway, and that’s for us to look to new ways to generate revenue and to encourage more people to come onto the roster.”
The RedR volunteer roster currently consists of around 1500 people, of whom Volunteer engineers typically spent 6-12 months in the field on deployment. RedR is also looking to step up its training and engage more deeply with the domestic disaster response sector.
For Greet, it’s a direct response to an ever-changing world.
“We have to face up to the fact that just pretending what we did in the past isn’t going to cut it anymore. It is a really black and white situation.”
Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Week will be held from 17-28 March 2025. Join RedR CEO Helen Durham as she leads a discussion on how indigenous communities can better prepare for and recover from natural disasters. Register now.
