Summary: In this Practitioner Profile, we discuss the use of private military and security companies (PMSCs) in the humanitarian sector. With growing threats against humanitarian actors and operations, and growing pressures for humanitarian programming in highly insecure settings, we speak about the role of PMSCs in the market for humanitarian security, and the implications for principled humanitarian action in the field. Dr. Birthe Anders is a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) and a Visiting Scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
