Displaying items by tag: Principles

South Sudan is host to one of the world’s largest humanitarian responses, bringing together national and international humanitarian actors in an operation worth more than $1.2 billion in 2013. While the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005 brought an end to the civil war and led to the creation of an independent country, the security situation in the new nation remains volatile. Out of a population of 12 million, more than 4.6m are food insecure, many of them recent returnees. Ongoing tensions between Sudan and South Sudan, as well as communal violence within the country, displace hundreds of thousands of…

About the course The training covers essential methodologies of evaluation and applies them to conflict intervention, peace-building, and recovery initiatives. We cover challenges such as rudimentary plans, lack of information and complex implementation structures. 

This post originally appeared on Global Observatory. Hugo Slim, a former aid worker and leading humanitarian academic, said in this interview that he believes humanitarian agencies can disregard state consent in pursuit of accessing populations in need of assistance, as in the case of Syria. “It seems ethically acceptable to me at that point; if a government is not accepting more humanitarian agencies, for humanitarian agencies to go cross-border in such a situation,” he said. Mr Slim said that, in terms of international law, it is clear "that we live in a world of law which recognizes the rights of…

International police and Formed Police Units (FPUs) are deployed in a range of contexts and by a range of actors, including the UN, the European Union and the African Union (AU).[1] Their tasks include substituting for national law enforcement actors, empowering or building their capacity and monitoring their performance, as well as joint patrols and co-location with national police forces, crowd control and criminal investigations. These forces have also become increasingly involved in the protection of civilians under threat. This article assesses the experience of the police component of the UN/AU peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID), outlining the challenges it…

In July 2011, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Working Group asked the Task Force on Humanitarian Space and Civil–Military Relations to review and update the IASC Non-binding Guidelines on the Use of Military and Armed Escorts for Humanitarian Convoys (2001). The primary concerns that led to the decision to revise the guidelines were the recognition of a growing reliance on armed escorts, the need to synchronise a more robust decision-making process on the use of armed escorts with the new UN Security Management System (SMS) and inconsistencies in the interpretation and application of the out-of-date guidelines. The revised guidelines, which…

With an annual budget of $650 billion and over two million military and civilian personnel, the US Department of Defense is the largest institution in the world. Since September 2001, its primary focus has been the ‘global war on terror’, a war of avowedly unlimited scope and duration. Its critical components include counter-insurgency and stabilisation operations, which have increasingly involved the US military in relief and development activities. NGOs have struggled to develop a unified response to the growing scope and pace of US military involvement in areas normally reserved for civilian leadership and action. Although regular dialogue has been…

Civil–military coordination in humanitarian crises is a controversial issue, particularly for humanitarian actors. There is anxiety about cooption and contagion by the military, about trade-offs between enduring political solutions and long-term basic assistance and about the relationship between principles and pragmatism in the delivery of aid. In the midst of these debates the original purpose of civil–military coordination – to have a structured dialogue that enables more effective and principled delivery of assistance to affected populations – tends to be forgotten. With growing interest on the part of militaries to be involved in the provision of assistance there is both…

The special feature of this edition of Humanitarian Exchange, co-edited with Victoria Metcalfe, focuses on issues related to humanitarian civil– military coordination. In the leading article, Simone Haysom sets out the rationale for civil–military coordination, and the challenges involved in establishing effective relations between humanitarian actors and the military. In their article, Jenny McAvoy and Joel R. Charny argue that NGOs must continue to invest in dialogue to address new challenges arising from the US military’s expanding presence in increasingly diverse contexts and roles. Heiko Herkel, from the Civil–Military Co-operation Centre of Excellence (CCOE), makes the case for the continued…

A podcast from HPN In this podcast you can listen to HPN coordinator, Wendy Fenton, in discussion with the author of 'The Golden Fleece,' Antonio Donini. The author addresses some of the key questions covered in the book - most centrally whether it is inevitable that the aspirations of humanitarianism will always be subject to manipulation - be it for political, military or security reasons.    Listen online   Download to your computer or device The podcast is available for download in two formats: M4A Enhanced (for chapter selection, dynamic artwork and higher quality audio) MP3 (for greater compatibility and…

This is a welcome report; it highlights successes, but also failings and weaknesses. It asks whether Kosovo refugees obtained appropriate protection and assistance, and whether UNHCR met its own standards. It looks at five areas in particular, namely context, including background, preparedness and initial responses; management; assistance and coordination; protection; and relations with the military. This short review touches only a few. Kosovo was not unique, even though no one disputes that the exodus was unusually large and swift – some 500,000 refugees fled within two weeks, rising to a high probably in the region of 850,000. No one disputes, either, that UNHCR was constrained by circumstance. But that aside, all the errors…