ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a tentative account of how the burgeoning humanitarian enterprise grapple with what increasingly imagined as a future of permanent emergencies. It describes the emergent concept of future proofing as a prism to ask some questions about cooperation. The concept of future proofing is loosely borrowed from electronics, communications and industrial design theory. The chapter focuses on future proofing the humanitarian system by becoming stronger, faster and better. It identifies a paradox regarding how humanitarians seem to grapple with the relationship between development activities and humanitarian action, contrasted with the metanarrative of shrinking humanitarian space. The chapter examines set of conundrums points against any uncomplicated supposition that humanitarian action will "speed up" through more business engagements. It discusses the ambiguities of the assumptions of "speed" and efficiency underlying the turn to the private sector and the humanitarian market. Moreover, acting as development actors runs the risk of compromising their claim to neutrality and impartiality as humanitarians, potentially further undermining humanitarian space.
