Humanitarian Exchange articles tagged:Principles

A decade ago, only a handful of agencies were aware of and seriously considering the challenges posed by operational insecurity. At the time, few international or national organisations had designated security positions or policies on how to manage the risks of violence against their staff and operations. The impact of high-profile attacks such as the 1996 assassination of six ICRC workers in Chechnya spurred a number of international aid organisations into action. A collaborative learning initiative on security issues resulted in the earliest interagency security training, as well as the first edition of the Good Practice Review on Operational Security…

Repeated bombings and attacks in Afghanistan, carjackings in Sudan and persistent insecurity in Somalia and elsewhere demonstrate the challenges of providing security for humanitarian aid workers. The statistics point to higher numbers of targeted attacks against aid workers between 2006 and 2008, driven largely by insecurity in Afghanistan, Somalia and Sudan.[1] This growing insecurity has prompted media articles and a persistent and increasingly prevalent discourse among humanitarian organisations that challenges the efficacy of ‘acceptance’ as a legitimate, effective approach to security management. For example, a conference in April 2010 discussed the ‘limits and possibilities’ and the ‘(perceived) end’ of the…

Integration remains one of the most controversial issues in debates among humanitarians and between them and their colleagues in the peacekeeping, political and development areas. But many of these debates do not reflect recent developments, particularly in the UN context; instead, they tend to perpetuate a number of myths and misperceptions. This article  provides an overview of recent policy developments and addresses some of the more persistent sources of confusion. It explains that the UN’s policy on integration is much less rigid than is generally assumed, and shows that some of the arguments still being made against integration have been…

At 45 years and counting, Colombia’s internal armed conflict is one of the longest in recent history. Its consequences are dire. Summary executions, threats, the forced recruitment of children, hostage-taking, sexual violence and the use of anti-personnel mines have all had serious humanitarian costs, especially during the past 20 or so years. The conflict has also produced one of the world’s largest populations of displaced civilians. According to government and civil society figures, between three and four million people have been forced to flee their homes due to threats, armed clashes and forced recruitment.  The ICRC and ‘humanitarian space’ The…

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)’s approach to delivering aid is based on obtaining ‘acceptance’ of its work from the population, authorities and communities concerned. Acceptance here means that MSF seeks a social contract whereby its presence is respected by all parties to a conflict, including civilians, who all understand and accept that MSF’s humanitarian identity is central to its operations, and that MSF is there to assist those in need of emergency medical care. In practice, this approach is more complicated than it first appears. A lack of awareness of how we are perceived is proving to be a growing impediment…

Over the past 15 years, NGOs have focused much effort on improving collaboration amongst themselves to reduce duplication of effort and wasted resources, promote skilled institutional responses and simplify emergency response. Increasing complexity surrounding humanitarian policy and action, including challenges associated with climate change and the global economic crisis, further emphasise the urgency of collaboration and partnerships for improving the speed, quality and effectiveness of humanitarian response. By identifying factors affecting collaboration and partnership, this article outlines how effective NGO collaboration can enhance humanitarian response.   Humanitarian collaboration and the Principles of Partnership (PoP) The Inter-Agency Working Group (IWG) was…

We are not certain where the line is between being practical – and therefore liaising with the local power base – and taking a principled stand. World Vision staff survey, April 2008 In a world where very few NGOs are perceived to be neutral by the beneficiary population, the urgency of good policy thinking cannot be overstated. World Vision staff survey, March 2008 The world of the humanitarian worker has changed. It has grown more insecure and more complex in recent decades. As we strive for greater professionalism, accountability, adherence to standards and improved quality across the industry, we also…

States are increasingly contributing military assets in humanitarian emergencies. As a result, the humanitarian community has paid growing attention to civil–military relations, culminating in a series of guidelines and research activity and more frequent interaction on the ground. Most of this work has focused on complex emergencies. The subject is undoubtedly more contentious in conflict settings, where blurring the lines between humanitarian and military actors can compromise neutrality and independence, restricting humanitarian access and increasing security risks. It is also relevant in responses to natural disasters, for two reasons.  First, many recent large-scale disasters have occurred in contexts of ongoing…

For aid organisations working in eastern Chad and Darfur, theft and banditry are among the greatest impediments to the effective implementation of programmes. Vehicle hijackings and attacks on compounds have led to enormous material losses and delays and reductions in services to conflict-affected populations. The issue has been widely discussed by the humanitarian community, and one studyon advocacy in Darfur cited insecurity for aid workers as the third most common subject in press releases issued by humanitarian organisations. However, despite solid evidence to show that stolen humanitarian vehicles, equipment and cash are being used to fuel the war economy, few…

The Sphere Project was developed by thousands of stakeholders over the course of several years, starting in the early 1990s. It has one aim: to increase the quality of humanitarian assistance based on a set of agreed principles and standards. More recently, the Humanitarian Accountability Partnership (HAP) has been launched to try to tackle another outstanding challenge in the provision of humanitarian aid, that of ensuring that disaster-affected people have a right to speak and be heard about the assistance they may be receiving. HAP is perhaps the best known amongst several initiatives explicitly trying to address this problem in…