Guidelines for the rights & protection of local staff in international missions

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. While data on local staff remains fragmented, available evidence from military, humanitarian, development, and diplomatic operations indicates that millions of individuals worldwide support international missions as local staff. The absence of harmonised definitions, reporting frameworks, and accountability standards has limited effective protection for this workforce, constraining policy development, preparedness, and the realisation of rights in practice. These Guidelines respond to that gap. They serve as a shared foundation for accountability and collective responsibility, ensuring that duty of care is upheld not as a discretionary policy choice, but as a professional and moral obligation that applies consistently across missions, employers, and delivery models. Across all work packages, these Guidelines reflect a central lesson from past missions: where responsibility is not clearly defined, resourced, and confirmed at the outset, it is most likely to collapse under political, administrative, or operational pressure at moments of crisis.