GFPP 3533

SEMINAR ON DIPLOMACY &

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ISSUES

ROLE OF NGOS IN

HUMANITARIAN ISSUES

CONTENTS

• INTRODUCTION

• NGO & HUMANITARIAN BACKGROUND

• ROLE IN INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM

• OUTSTANDING ISSUES: R2P

• CASE STUDY: RWANDA

KOSOVO BOSNIA SOMALIA

• CONSLUSION

INTRODUCTION

• What is NGO?• The concept of NGO came into use in 1945

following the establishment of the United Nations Organizations which recognized the need to give a consultative role to organizations which were not classified as government nor member states.

• How did it became Legal?• In 1945, of the UN Charter formalized NGO

involvement in UN processes and activities, and some NGOs even contributed to the drafting of the Charter itself.

INTRODUCTION

• In 2000, The United Nations estimates that there were about 35,000 large established NGOs.

• There accurate figures available for the amount of resources that NGOs receive from aid, contracts and private donations.

• In 2004, it was estimated that NGOs were responsible for about $US23 billion of total aid money, or approximately one third of total ODA.

NGO & Humanitarian Background

• NGOs are now recognized as key third sector actors on the landscapes of development, human rights, humanitarian action, environment, and many other areas of public action.

• From the post-2004 Tsunami Reconstruction Efforts in Indonesia, India, Thailand, and Sri Lanka, to the 2005 Make Poverty History campaign for aid and trade reform and developing country debt cancellation.

NGO & Humanitarian Background

• NGOs are best-known for two different, but often interrelated.

• 1. the delivery of services to people in need

• 2. the organization of policy advocacy, and public

campaigns in pursuit of social transformation.

Role of NGO in International System

• NGOs are also active in a wide range of other specialized roles such as democracy building, conflict resolution, human rights work, cultural preservation and so on.

• NGO roles can be analyzed as having 3 components:

-implementer

-catalyst

-partner

Role of NGO in International System~Implementer:

• Concerned with the mobilization of resources to provide goods and services to people who need them.

• Service delivery is carried out by NGOs across a wide range of fields such as healthcare, microfinance, agricultural extension, emergency relief and human rights.

Role of NGO in International System~Implementer:• This role has increased as NGO shave been

increasingly “contacted” by governments and donors with governance reform and privatization policies to carry out specific tasks in return for payment.

• It has also become more prominent as NGOs are increasingly responding to man-made emergencies or natural disaster with humanitarian assistance.

• Example: Voluntary Organizations such as

the International Red Crescent’

Role of NGO in International System~Catalyst:

• Can be defined as an NGO’s ability to inspire, facilitate or contribute to improved thinking and action to promote social transformation.

• This effort may be directed towards individuals or group in local communities or among other actors in development such as government, business or donors.

Role of NGO in International System~Catalyst:

• It may include grassroots organizing and group formation, gender and empowerment work, lobbying and advocacy work.

• Attempts to influence wider policy processes through innovation and policy entrepreneurship.

Role of NGO in International System~Partner:

• It is reflects the growing trend for NGOs to work with government, donors and the private sector on joint activities such as providing specific inputs within a broader multiagency program or project or undertaking socially responsible business initiatives.

• It also includes activities that take place among NGOs and with communities such as “capacity building” work which seeks to develop and strengthen capabilities.

Role of NGO in International System~Partner:

• The current policy rhetoric of “partnership” seeks to bring NGOs into mutually beneficial relationships with these other sectors.

Outstanding Issues~R2P~

Responsibility To Protect

• In the international system today, the sovereignity of the state is being compramised and limited. Not as per stated in the treaty of Westphalia’

• but based on concerns of human lifes and rights. As we can see in the most current situations of Libyan crisis.

• The issue is no more local when massacre and public killing is happeneing in the borders by the government. It has become a international affair, requiring wide spread actions of international communities.

Outstanding Issues: R2P(Responsibility To Protect)

• Intervention was invoked against a state's abuse of its sovereignty by brutal and cruel treatment of those within its power, both nationals and non- nationals.

• Such a state was regarded as having made itself liable to action by any state or states that were prepared to intervene.

Outstanding Issues: R2P(Responsibility To Protect)

• Humanitarian intervention is depicted as:

"the reliance upon force for the justifiable purpose

of protecting the inhabitants of another state

from the treatment which is so arbitrary

and persistently abusive

as to exceed the limits of that authority

within which the sovereign

is presumed to act

with reason and justice.“

Case Study (1)Rwanda

• Rwanda in 1994 laid bare the full horror of inaction. The United Nations (UN) Secretariat and some permanent members of the Security Council knew that officials connected to the then government were planning genocide.

• But the Security Council refused to take the necessary action.

Case Study (2)Kosovo

• Kosovo where intervention did take place in 1999, concentrated attention on all the other sides of the argument

• The operation raised major questions about the legitimacy of military intervention in a sovereign state.

- Intervention by ‘Coalition of Willing’- Without UN (Security Council) approval

Case Study (3)Bosnia

• The failure by the United Nations and others to prevent the massacre of thousands of civilians seeking shelter in UN “safe areas” - Srebrenica in 1995

• Lost control over the area of security• Training & recruitment amongst refugees into the rebels

organization• Massacre occurred under the watchful eyes of UN

Case Study (4)Somalia

• failure and ultimate withdrawal of the UN peace operations in Somalia in 1992–93

• When an international intervention to save lives and restore order was destroyed by flawed planning, poor execution, and an excessive dependence on military force

CONCLUSION