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The UN recognises the international community’s Responsibility to Protect (R2P) civilians during conflict, and this philosophy has quickly become embedded in peacekeeping and peace enforcement missions, but a new report questions some basic humanitarian assumptions. The reality - reinforced by a new study from the UK’s Overseas Development Institute (ODI) entitled 'Local to Global Protection in Myanmar (Burma), Sudan, South Sudan and Zimbabwe' - is that in conflicts and crisis people almost always have to provide their own protection, for themselves, their families and their villages.