number 39 june 2008 hpn humanitarian practice network ... · june 2008 humanitarian exchange ......

This issue of Humanitarian Exchange

features articles on the humanitarianresponse in the Democratic Republic ofCongo. The persisting humanitariancrisis in the DRC continues to exact itstoll on the civilian population. Over amillion Congolese are still displaceddue to continuing violence in the east,healthcare across much of the countryis virtually non-existent, infrastructureand other basic services are lacking,and insecurity and frequent attackson civilians persist. The most recentmortality survey by IRC estimatesthat 5.4m excess deaths haveoccurred between August 1998 andApril 2007, 2.1m of them since theformal end of the war in 2002.Despite some progress on security,political and humanitarian indica-tors, and substantial increases infunding in recent years, the chal-lenges facing aid organisationsand communities remain vast.Articles in this feature examinethe tools in place to respond tothese challenges, in the form ofrapid response mechanisms toemerging crises, community-based recovery strategies

and best practice in protection program-ming.

Articles in the policy and practice sectionexamine key issues and lessons learned forhumanitarian practitioners. In this issue wefocus on the relationship between advocacyand action, civil–military relations, disarma-ment, demobilisation and reintegration andthe links between conflict and environ-mental degradation in Darfur. Other articlesexplore issues around surge capacity withinoperational agencies, the virtues and valuesof accountability to affected communitiesand the impact of humanitarian reformsfrom a field perspective.

These articles, along with archived editionsof Humanitarian Exchange, are available onour website at www.odihpn.org, where youcan also submit feedback on the articlespresented. As always, we welcome any com-ments or feedback, which can be sent to [email protected] or The Coordinator, Humani-tarian Practice Network, 111 WestminsterBridge Road, London SE1 7JD, UK. If youwould like to submit an article to Humani-

tarian Exchange, please see our editorialguidelines at www.odihpn.org.uk/write4hpnor contact us at the above address.

Commissioned and published by the Humanitarian Practice Network at ODI

Number 39June 2008

HumanitarianExchange

In this issueDemocratic Republic of Congo

2 Ensuring the predictability of emergencyresponse: the DRC Rapid Response Mechanism

4 Community-driven reconstruction: a newstrategy for recovery

7 Reclaiming mainstreaming: Oxfam GB’sprotection approach in DRC

Practice and policy notes

12 Civilian protection and humanitarian advocacy: strategies and (false?) dilemmas

15 Encroachment and efficiency: armed actors in the relief market place

18 Comparing DDR and durable solutions: some lessons from Ethiopia

22 Environmental degradation and conflict inDarfur: implications for peace and recovery

29 Understanding surge capacity withininternational agencies

33 Improving efficiency and effectiveness through increased accountability tocommunities: a case study of World Vision’stsunami response in Sri Lanka

36 UN humanitarian reforms: a view from the field

About HPNThe Humanitarian Practice Network at the OverseasDevelopment Institute is an independent forumwhere field workers, managers and policymakersin the humanitarian sector share information,analysis and experience. The views and opinionsexpressed in HPN’s publications do not necessarilystate or reflect those of the Humanitarian PolicyGroup or the Overseas Development Institute.

Overseas Development Institute111 Westminster Bridge RoadLondon SE1 7JDUnited Kingdom

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DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

For over a decade, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)has moved in and out of the headlines as the world’s worsthumanitarian crisis, rivalling only Darfur and natural disas-ters such as the Indian Ocean tsunami and the Pakistanearthquake. Despite the official end to civil war and demo-cratic transition, culminating in the first nationwide demo-cratic elections in over 40 years in 2006, the era ofconflict-related emergencies and the need for massivehumanitarian response is sadly far from over. One has onlyto look at such situations as the current crisis in North Kivu,where hundreds of thousands of people have fled theirhomes, to recognise how far parts of the DRC are fromemerging beyond the emergency phase.

Within this context, a unique partnership and emergencyresponse capacity arrangement called the RapidResponse Mechanism (RRM) was launched in late 2004.The RRM is designed to provide critical multi-sectoralassistance to victims of complex emergencies, naturaldisasters and epidemics in the DRC. To date, the RRM hasassisted more than 2 million victims of rapid-onset emer-gencies, the majority of them internally displacedpersons. Managed jointly by UNICEF and OCHA, andimplemented together with three international NGOs –Solidarités, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) andCatholic Relief Services (CRS) – the RRM is recognised byhumanitarian actors, donors and external evaluators asthe most effective multi-organisation, multi-sector, emer-gency response mechanism in the country. This articlebriefly presents the RRM’s operational modalities andinstitutional set-up, and the opportunities and challengesthe mechanism offers in the context of the cluster leader-ship approach. We also highlight key lessons learned,drawing on past experience and an external evaluation ofthe RRM completed in early 2007.1

How the RRM worksSince the mid-1990s, humanitarian emergencies in theDRC have been concentrated in the east of the country,where conflict between and among a dizzying mix ofarmed groups threatens the lives and livelihoods ofCongolese people living there. The crisis has been charac-terised by large-scale population displacement, abusesand lack of access to basic social services. Conflict andthe effects of displacement aggravate already alarmingrates of morbidity, mortality and malnutrition. Despite therecurrent and almost predictable nature, location andscope of the DRC’s emergencies and their impact on civil-ians, the capacity for a predictable, systematic or rapid

response has been limited. In response, in late 2004,UNICEF and OCHA, with the initial support of donors suchas DFID and OFDA, established a pilot initiative – theRapid Response Mechanism (RRM) – with the endorse-ment of the DRC Humanitarian Coordinator. The RRM aimsto guarantee standby capacity for four key activities:

1. Rapid multi-sectoral assessments within 72 hours ofnews of a crisis, security and access permitting.

2. Multi-sectoral response in three primary sectors(household family relief, water, sanitation and hygieneassistance and primary education). Two secondaryareas are also covered: the provision of basicmedicines and health supplies to partner organisa-tions and health facilities, and the punctual distribu-tion of BP-5 high-protein biscuits.

3. Advocacy and coordination with other actors topromote complementary emergency activities in thefields of food security, health and protection.

4. Systematic monitoring of activities and interventions.

RRM partners evaluate needs and provide assistance tovulnerable populations who have been internallydisplaced for less than three months, or who are newlyaccessible, as well as victims of natural disasters orepidemics (mostly cholera). The three-month criteria hasbeen flexible. While the RRM’s geographic focus is easternDRC, the response is triggered whenever and whereverthere is limited capacity to address the needs of emer-gency-affected communities. RRM interventions with adhoc partners have been carried out in every province ofthe country, in response to emergencies ranging fromflooding and torrential storms to isolated populationmovements and ethnic violence.

In the four provinces most plagued by recurrent humani-tarian crisis, long-term partnerships have been developedwith the NGO focal points (IRC in South Kivu, Solidaritésin North Kivu, CESVI and, since 2006, Solidarités in Ituri,and since early 2006 CRS in Katanga). Beginning in 2004,UNICEF has entered into agreements with these NGOsproviding them with financial and material resources to

Ensuring the predictability of emergency response: the DRC RapidResponse Mechanism

Silvia Danailov and Steven Michel, UNICEF/DRC

1 Ed Rackley, ‘External Evaluation of the Rapid Response Mechanismin the DRC’, March 2007.

the RRM is designed to provide

critical multi-sectoral assistance

to victims of complex

emergencies

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Number 39 • June 2008

meet the four core RRM activities. Each NGO partner hasestablished operational bases within their zone of opera-tion, with sufficient staffing and logistical capacity tofulfill their mandate.

UNICEF’s role is to provide technical programmaticguidance, ensure overall coordination, procure anddispatch all relief supplies to the partner’s provincialwarehouses, monitor and document the interventions andnegotiate with donors. OCHA helps coordinate the RRMinterventions with other key actors to ensure a comple-mentary response in other non-RRM sectors, as well asmanaging the complementary Rapid Response Fund(RRF), which enables other organisations to respond toemergency needs in non-RRM sectors, or to complementthe standard RRM partners’ interventions when needed.In Ituri in mid-2006, for instance, the crisis was on such ascale that support from water and sanitation specialists,particularly Oxfam, was required.

In addition to daily interactions amongst the RRM actors,OCHA, UNICEF and the NGO focal points have weeklymeetings in each of the four regions. The outcomes ofthese meetings are systematically shared with theProvincial Inter-Agency Committees attended by all UNagencies and key NGO humanitarian partners.

UNICEF received $17.6 million in 2006 to manage theRRM, and about $11m for the period January–September2007. On average, RRM partners assisted an average of100,000 people per month in 2006, and about 70,000 amonth in 2007. The cost-effectiveness, quality and scopeof interventions, and the rapidity of the RRM response,have been acknowledged by numerous organisations inthe DRC and beyond, including the donors which continueto fund the RRM. An external evaluation of the RRMfinalised in early 2007 highlighted the simplicity of themodel and the economy of scale it provides.

The RRM and the cluster approachSince early 2006, the DRC has been one of the pilot coun-tries for the introduction of the IASC cluster leadershipinitiative. UNICEF has been given the lead in five out often clusters established in the DRC – water and sanitation,nutrition, education, non-food items/emergency shelterand emergency tele/data-communications (as co-chairwith WFP). As the cluster approach aims to ensure apredictable and effective humanitarian response, the RRMand the operational partnerships with stand-by NGOs areat the heart of UNICEF’s approach to cluster leadership inthe DRC. Indeed, the RRM can be considered as the opera-tional arm of UNICEF as the cluster lead and provider oflast resort in the sectors of watsan, NFI/emergencyshelter and education. UNICEF has established provincialclusters and sub-clusters in the emergency-affectedprovinces, most of which are co-chaired and convened bykey international NGO partners. In effect, UNICEF retainsthe cluster accountability at the national level, with NGOssharing the convener and facilitator role for clusters atprovincial level. In all four provinces where RRM has astand-by partner agreement, the NGO focal point sharescluster leadership as co-chair of the provincial NFI/emer-

gency shelter cluster and, in some provinces, also as co-chair of the watsan and education clusters.

Lessons learned

Although both the RRM and the cluster approach are rela-tively new, UNICEF and its partners have been able todraw out some key lessons from the experience so far.

1. Non-RRM sectors. While the RRM has been relativelysuccessful in ensuring coverage in its three core areas ofresponse – NFI, watsan and education – the lack of a parallelor complementary mechanism to meet immediate and acuteneeds in non-RRM sectors – particularly food security,health and protection – has meant that needs in these areashave not always been adequately addressed. The externalevaluation highlighted this as a primary concern. The punc-tual assistance the RRM can provide in the fields of health(with pre-positioned medicines and medical supplies) andBP-5 high-protein biscuits has not been able to compensatefor this shortcoming. RRM partners have neither thecapacity nor the mandate to implement the whole spectrumof emergency interventions in any given crisis.

A central recommendation from the external RRM evaluationwas that the RRM concept of stand-by partnerships, staff andsupplies should be adopted by the cluster lead agencies in thefood, health and protection sectors. As an example, UNICEF –as the cluster lead for nutrition – has established, togetherwith the NGO ACF-USA, a form of rapid response mechanismfor nutrition in under-served provinces, called the RPN(Strengthened Nutrition Programme), to provide last-resortcapacity assistance. While there have been significantimprovements in complementary responses with other human-itarian actors, particularly in food assistance, significant workremains to ensure better coverage across all sectors of thehumanitarian response in the DRC.

2. Intervention criteria and triggers. The RRM has tried tomaintain its focus on rapid-onset emergencies, withresponse within three months of displacement or disaster(and in most instances much, much quicker). The chal-lenge has been in considering response in three areas: a)vulnerable communities who have been displaced, butwith minimal assistance, for significantly longer periods oftime; b) chronic health emergencies such as cholera inendemic zones of South Kivu and Katanga; and c) situa-tions of protracted displacement in host family settings orcollective sites, where displaced populations remain forseveral months and more, and where other more medium-term assistance mechanisms have not yet kicked in.

For the most part, the answer has been to be flexible, butto try to avoid being ‘all things to all emergencies’. The

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the RRM has been successful in

ensuring coverage in its three

core areas of response – NFI,

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first situation has been the subject of considerable discus-sion among UNICEF, OCHA and the RRM partners. Over thecourse of the RRM, we have become increasingly awarethat the temporal criteria of assistance (those displacedfor less than three months) is not always an appropriateindicator of vulnerability. While the assumption thatcoping mechanisms have started for people who havebeen displaced for more than three months is valid, this isnot always a sound reason in itself for according suchcommunities a lower priority for assistance. In certainsituations, the opposite has been true. Displaced familiesfrom the western shores of Lac Albert lived relativelycomfortably with host families during the first months ofdisplacement in the village of Lisasa in northern NorthKivu province. As the welcome wore thin, however, thesefamilies became more vulnerable and more in need ofRRM assistance. The assistance they received, in the formof non-food items, allowed these families to vacate hosthomes and establish makeshift settlements on land madeavailable by local leaders. With operational partners onthe ground able to examine the particularities of eachsituation, the RRM has been able to be flexible in itsapproach, while not being compelled to assist all vulner-able populations all the time.

3. Information management. As highlighted in theexternal evaluation, one of the short-comings of the RRMprogramme has been a lack of comprehensive andcomprehensible information. Robust information manage-ment has been a casualty of limited resources, and of thefocus by partners on response over information-sharingand reporting. While operational partners producenumerous reports detailing their evaluation missions,interventions and post-intervention monitoring visits,UNICEF and OCHA have not been able to compile informa-tion on the range of activities undertaken in forms that areeasy to aggregate and analyse. Nor has much emphasisbeen placed on providing guidance or leadership topartners in this area. Important steps have been made toremedy this, but in retrospect it was acknowledged thatmuch more attention should have been given to informa-tion management from the beginning of the RRM.

4. Impact monitoring. Another area highlighted by theexternal evaluation was impact monitoring. Emphasis has

been placed on process and output – numbers of IDPfamilies reached with NFI kits, numbers of people usingwater facilities rehabilitated by RRM partners, number ofdisplaced school children attending class in classroomsrehabilitated by RRM partners. Partners also invest inpost-intervention monitoring, and this has been useful inadapting the content of NFI kits. Nevertheless, untilrecently there was little attempt to understand – let alonemeasure – the impact of RRM interventions. As with infor-mation management this has not necessarily been anoversight, but a programmatic choice given limited humanand financial resources. Although UNICEF acknowledgesthis as an area for improvement, and with its partners hasstarted to study ways of looking at impact monitoring,time and resources must continue to be devoted tostrengthening capacity.

5. Evidence-based advocacy. RRM focal point teams haveoften been the first, and in some cases the only, humani-tarian actors to assess and assist certain disaster-affectedcommunities. The question has been asked: are we losingan opportunity for advocacy on displacement and civilianprotection? While partner reports systematically includebackground and contextual information on the origins ofdisasters and population displacements, it was acknowl-edged that more effort needs to be invested to leveragethis information in advocacy or dialogue on protectionissues with combatants, governments and the wider inter-national community. Efforts to address this are beingmade, including additional RRM staffing capacity onprotection advocacy and systematic linkages with theprotection cluster with regard to information-sharing andfollow-up.

The key role played by UNICEF in the implementation ofthe RRM and the cluster approach for the emergencyresponse in the DRC has enabled the organisation to fulfillits main humanitarian commitments on behalf of the mostvulnerable conflict-affected populations, in particularchildren and women, who account for the vast majority ofthe RRM beneficiaries.

Silvia Danailov ([email protected]) is Head ofEmergency Section, UNICEF/DRC. Steven Michel ([email protected]) is Emergency Specialist, UNICEF/DRC.

Community-driven reconstruction: a new strategy for recoveryLizanne McBride and Alyoscia D’Onofrio, International Rescue Committee

As humanitarian actors increasingly engage in environ-ments where transitional governments are in play, recoveryis unfolding yet the situation remains fragile, questionsarise as to what strategies should be employed. Clearly, thedays of direct service delivery are over: enough literaturehas been produced to understand that creating parallelstructures or undermining local capacity is just badpractice. But what comes in its place if we are to help

communities recover and lay the foundations for sustain-able peace and development? One strategy that is gainingground within the international community is community-driven reconstruction, or community-driven recovery (CDR).

This article provides an overview of the background,methods and intended outcomes of CDR; the InternationalRescue Committee (IRC)’s efforts to systematically build

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capacity and knowledge around CDR as a strategy forrecovery settings; and the realisation of that effortthrough a sophisticated new programme now underway inthe Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Community-driven reconstruction as aprogramme genreCDR has its origins in Community Driven Development(CDD), an approach pioneered by the World Bank and othersfor use in developmental settings. It is premised on thebelief that populations have the right, and are best placed,to drive their own development. CDD can be implemented inspecific sectors or more widely in support of a decentralisedgovernance system. According to the World Bank:

Broadly defined, CDD … gives control over planning

decisions and investment resources to community

groups and local governments … Experience has

shown that given clear rules of the game, access to

information and appropriate capacity and financial

support, poor men and women can effectively

organize in order to identify community priorities and

address local problems, by working in partnership

with local governments and other supportive

institutions.1

CDR applies this same logic, recognising that communi-ties have the right to direct their own recovery. But CDRadapts to reflect the specificities of a context where:

• local institutions may be weak or non-existent;• experience with good governance is often absent; • communities may be less willing to work together;• there is a need for rapid recovery via a tangible ‘peace

dividend’; and• there are particular vulnerabilities related to war, such

as return and reintegration, the situation of ex-combat-ants and the particular needs of widows.

Application of a methodologyTo fully appreciate what CDR can achieve, an abbreviateddescription of a generalised methodology is outlinedhere. It focuses not on sector-specific work, but rather onbuilding the community-level institutions and systemsthat allow recovery to take place.

A soundly designed CDR programme focuses on areasthat are impacted by conflict, rural or remote, and wherehigh returns are expected. An adequate level of securitymust be present, although recent experiences inAfghanistan indicate that implementation can occur inless stable environments.

In terms of process, a series of steps are conducted withlocal populations to analyse the context, including thepower relations within the community, the conflict itself andgeneral community needs. The population then elects,through a secret ballot, representative committees at oneor multiple levels (e.g. village, larger community, region).The elected representatives consult with their constituents,review context analyses and decide on community recoveryplans that outline priority projects against pre-definedbudgets. (In the early days of recovery, infrastructure isgenerally the number-one request.)

Committee representatives must defend the plans to thewider community. Once endorsed, local officials are broughtinto the process to add technical and/or resource support,as well as to ensure that recurrent costs can be met.Thereafter, an open tendering process is conducted andoverseen by the committees. Contractors are selected andmoney is transferred – sometimes directly to the contrac-tors, at other times to committees, where banking systemsexist. Project implementation is monitored by separate usergroups or community-based organisations, such as water orhealth committees and parent-teacher groups.

Processes are designed to ensure that the views ofwomen and vulnerable groups are addressed throughoutthe programme. The NGO’s role is to provide all technicaland capacity-building support.

Outcomes of an applied methodologyThe key to CDR versus some other participatoryapproaches is that: 1) it is comprehensive, attempting toaddress some of the root cause issues in conflict countries(poor governance and poverty); and 2) it aims for rapidoutcomes while providing true ownership in decision-making and management of the processes and funds. Ifwell designed, connected to the larger reconstruction andgovernance agenda and implemented by experienced staff(the latter being absolutely key to success), it can achieveresults in the categories of governance, social cohesion andsocio-economic recovery as follows:

Governance: In most relief to post-conflict countries, gover-nance programmes are targeted towards the realisation ofnational elections, or building the capacity of civil societygroups. However, if it is the base that sustains any democ-racy, the more good governance is mainstreamed the morelikely it is that any emerging governance system will takeroot. CDR targets grass roots populations through its inten-sive processes, democratic elections, representative com-mittee structures and accountability systems. Moreover, theprocesses often create the first bridging mechanism for newlocal authorities and citizens to work together, and to under-stand their mutually reinforcing roles and responsibilities.

Social cohesion: In many recovery settings, the questionof how to systematically restore the trust and confidenceof populations amongst themselves and with their institu-tions remains a challenge. CDR may redress some of this,not by addressing conflict head on, although this doesoccur in implementation. Rather, it brings once-divided

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O1 The World Bank, ‘Community Driven Development’, http://go.world-bank.org/24K8IHVVS0.

CDR focuses on areas that are

impacted by conflict, and where

high returns are expected

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HUMANITARIANexchange

communities together using a sophisticated, conflict-sensi-tive approach to planning, project development, implemen-tation, monitoring and evaluation. Through work on jointlyidentified and negotiated needs, community membersbuild collective ownership of both the product and theprocesses, creating a vested interest in maintaining publicgoods and fostering a local governance system.

Socio-economic recovery: Providing money in the form ofblock grants directly to local communities, with attendanttraining and systems to support their efforts, is believed tobe a far more efficient practice for local socio-economicrecovery than direct service delivery. Communities that ownthe money will, in general, take care to select the mostsensible projects at reasonable prices, will choose the morehonest contractors and oversee their work, will stretch theirresources further through increased contributions, and willbe encouraged to seek outside sources for co-funding.

Lastly, CDR can offer emerging transitional governments,donors and NGOs key learning opportunities in a rapidlyevolving context. Through ongoing documentation andstudy, it can provide information on community attitudes,reconstruction needs and possibilities for local or commu-nity governance structures and systems, all of whichcould inform any future decentralisation effort.

Impact evaluation on an applied methodologyIRC has been implementing CDR programmes for the last tenyears, with its longest-running in Rwanda and its largest inAfghanistan. In the former, we worked for almost eight yearsimplementing across one-third of the country’s villages,helping to shape policy and practice on governance andeventually feeding into a full-scale decentralisation process.In Afghanistan, through the World Bank-sponsored andgovernment-operated National Solidarity Program (NSP), weare now in our fifth year of programming, supporting 1,039communities in two southern provinces to administer $33million in block grants.

Through an intensive study of these and other similarprogrammes, we have confirmed that CDR seems to be astabilising force in the community, that it promoteseconomic recovery and that it furthers the understandingand practice of governance in reconstruction settings.2 Butthese results are not conclusive. CDR (as with most aiddelivery systems) presents a significant challenge forprogramme evaluation. Programmes were initiated inchaotic relief or nascent post-conflict environments, charac-terised by high demands and expectations for results fromcommunities, international NGOs, donors and governmentsalike. Need was great, it was understood that a window ofopportunity to demonstrate a ‘peace dividend’ existed andsituations were often considered too fluid for sophisticatedprogramme evaluations. As a result, the collection ofrigorous data that would allow demonstrable evidence-based impact was often sacrificed (rightly or wrongly).

To overcome this challenge, in our next programme, inLiberia, IRC piloted one of the first randomised evalua-tions in a post-conflict setting, with academics fromStanford University. The aim was not only to understandimpact, but also to determine if it was even possible towork with control and treatment groups in a conflict-affected environment. The answer was a qualified yes,and consequently we initiated plans for scaling up theseprogramming and learning efforts, using randomisedimpact evaluation in a new programme in the DRC.

A case study in the DRC Recent national elections and a democratic governmentoffer the DRC the best chance for years to move from warto sustainable peace and development. Within thiscontext, IRC piloted two small CDR-type programmes(funded by USAID). The aim was not exclusivelyprogramme implementation, but also to determine thecontextual adaptations required to our own establishedbest practices in anticipation of a much larger interven-tion. The pilots eventually led to the development of alarge, sophisticated CDR programme for three easternprovinces, amongst the hardest hit by war.

The programme is entitled TUUNGANE, which means ‘let’scome together’ in Kiswahili. It is implemented by threeinternational agencies (IRC, CARE and IFESH), and isfunded by DFID for three years. It targets approximately1.78 million people or around 1,400 villages for smallprojects, and 280 larger communities for public worksschemes. It provides approximately £12 million in directcommunity funds to local populations who, through theirrepresentative committees and councils, will own andmanage the money, with the technical support of consor-tium staff.

The scale and size of the programme renders it capable ofhaving an immediate and significant impact. Equally, itprovides an opportunity for insights, lesson learning andthe development of appropriate methodologies to helpgovernments, civil society and communities in the DRCparticularly, but other countries as well, better under-stand and respond to their transitional contexts. As aresult, the project is undertaking a large-scalerandomised impact evaluation, in collaboration withleading academics. Using a 3,000-person householdsurvey in both control and treatment areas as one ofseveral tools, it will aim to assess with confidence thethree primary aims of CDR:

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CDR seems to be a stabilising

force in the community, promotes

economic recovery and furthers

the understanding and practice

of governance in reconstruction

settings

2 See Kimberly A. Maynard, ‘The Role of Culture, Islam and Tradition inCommunity Driven Reconstruction: The International RescueCommittee’s Approach to Afghanistan’s National Solidarity Program’,IRC, May 2007; and International Rescue Committee, ‘Initial LessonsLearned on Community Driven Reconstruction’, revised 2007.

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Number 39 • June 2008 7

• Whether, and to what extent, participation in theprogramme instills social cohesion.

• Whether, and to what extent, participation in theprogramme promotes better understanding of demo-cratic governance.

• Whether, and to what extent, participation improvesthe socio-economic situation of the population.

Due to the use of a randomised survey, the programme isselecting participating communities through an openlottery. Experience in Liberia demonstrated that communi-ties were far happier with this process than those generallyemployed in direct service delivery, i.e. INGO- or elite-domi-nated decision-making. Communities felt that the openlottery was more transparent, and readily accepted non-selection through this mechanism. Moreover, it reinforcedthe transparency the programme espoused, and created aninterest from non-selected communities in the projectprocess and outcomes.

ConclusionWith CDR gaining increased recognition and becomingincreasingly used, the new DRC programme offers

tremendous opportunities. First, its size and scale allowfor direct impact in the DRC, providing a possible stabil-ising mechanism in regions long affected by war.Second, the methodology will be studied rigorously,providing new lessons to improve CDR practice bothwithin the DRC and in other transitional environments.Third, outcomes will be studied to inform or influenceany new governance systems planned for the future.Lastly, the evaluation strategy will not only certify withconfidence programme impact, but also provide insightsinto conducting randomised impact studies in fragileenvironments.

To further this learning, a TUUNGANE website will beposted within the coming months, providing updates,lessons learned and programme results. For additionalinformation in the interim, please contact us [email protected].

Lizanne McBride is Senior Director, Strategic and Post-Conflict Development, International Rescue Committee.Alyoscia D’Onofrio is Regional Director – DemocraticRepublic of Congo, International Rescue Committee.

Reclaiming mainstreaming: Oxfam GB’s protection approach in DRCSophia Swithern, Oxfam GB

In the Democratic Republicof Congo (DRC), civilians areoften the first victims andthe deliberate targets ofviolence and abuse. They aretherefore not only in need ofhumanitarian assistance, butalso of safety. As one womanin Ituri put it: ‘We wantsafety – because once wehave safety we can haveeverything else’. Protectionwork means addressingpeople’s need for safety inthe context of a humani-tarian response – under-standing patterns of fears,threats and abuses, andworking with others toidentify solutions and takeaction. Humanitarian organi-sations like Oxfam GB, whichdo not have a specific pro-tection mandate, can takesteps to help protect civil-ians. Our community-basedprogrammes mean that weare often well-placed tounderstand threats andcontribute to solutions. One

of the biggest challenges isthat ‘protection’ and ‘main-streaming’ are two of the mostover-used and impreciselydefined words in the humani-tarian lexicon. We need tomake them meaningful andmanageable in practice. Thisarticle looks at Oxfam GB’sexperience in Eastern DRC asit begins to do exactly that.

Oxfam GB’s approachto humanitarianprotection Oxfam does not have a formalprotection mandate likeUNHCR or ICRC, and is not aspecialist protection organisa-tion like the NorwegianRefugee Council. For us,protection means improvingthe safety of civilians in ourhumanitarian programming.In practice, it means trying toreduce the threats of vio-lence, coercion and deliberatedeprivation to civilians, andreducing their vulnerability tothese threats.

A woman flees fighting near the town of Sake in North

Kivu province, September 2007

©Reuters/Jam

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This simplified approach is the result of a decade’sengagement by Oxfam GB in humanitarian protection.Since 2002, we have actively been ‘doing’ protection in arange of humanitarian settings, linked to our core publichealth, food security and livelihoods responses. There isno single model of what an Oxfam GB protectionprogramme looks like. It does and must vary according toneeds and context. For example, in order to reduceexposure to sexual violence in Darfur we distributedfirewood and fuel-efficient stoves, whereas in Colombiawe supported indigenous communities to lobby centralgovernment on issues affecting their safety. However,what has emerged from a review of our experience is athree-level model of engagement. This draws distinctionsbetween mainstreaming protection, integrating protectionand protection programming:

• Mainstreaming protection means putting people’ssafety at the heart of all of Oxfam GB’s humanitarianwork. Our aim is that humanitarian responses shouldroutinely assess, analyse and monitor the risks tocivilian safety, and take appropriate action to improve it.

• Integrating protection, which builds on the base ofmainstreamed protection, and means incorporatingprotection activities or ‘mini-projects’ into a largerhumanitarian programme to sit alongside othersectors of work, such as public health, food securityand livelihoods.

• Protection programming has the primary objective ofimproving civilian safety, and is of sufficient scope andscale to be considered a specific programme.

In July 2007, Oxfam GB committed to a global approach toprotection whereby, as a minimum, protection will bemainstreamed into all our humanitarian programming.This will involve ensuring that our programmes do not putpeople at further risk and actively try to make people safer,and that we actively analyse, monitor and respond to theprotection environment as a routine part of our humani-tarian programming. From this basis, we can then decidewhether and how specific countries should go further andintegrate protection activities into larger humanitarianresponses, or run specific protection programmes. Thechallenge now is to ensure that this commitment to main-streaming is put into practice in a way that is effective andmanageable: as the Global Protection Adviser puts it, ‘weneed to reclaim mainstreaming’. It is a challenge sharedwith other commitments to mainstreaming (gender, HIV),and with other humanitarian actors who may not seethemselves as protection specialists. Our experience ofbeginning to mainstream protection in humanitarianprogramming in DRC in 2006–2007 has provided someuseful lessons for this process.

The protection context in Oxfam’s workingareas in Eastern DRCDespite significant positive developments since the 2002peace agreement, the situation in the provinces of Northand South Kivu and the territory of Ituri remains extremelyvolatile. Over a million people are internally displaced inthese areas. Sexual violence, harassment at illegal check-points and forced labour are widespread, and havebecome ‘normalised’. The perpetrators include theCongolese army (FARDC), demobilised soldiers, localauthorities, armed groups or simply ‘men with guns’. Insome areas, people are also facing abduction, killings,looting and violence by a proliferation of armed groups.

There is no shortage of legal standards to spell out exactlywhich rights are being violated. DRC has signed and ratifiedthe major international human rights and refugee conven-tions, as well as the Rome Statute of the InternationalCriminal Court (ICC). These human rights principles areprominent in the new Congolese constitution (2006), aswell as in a new law on sexual violence. But despite deliv-ering the first case to the ICC, impunity is the norm in DRC,with a police and judiciary that are absent, inadequate orcorrupt. In reality the state, in the form of the armed forcesand police, is more likely to be a perpetrator than aprotector. A report from the UN Peacekeeping Mission inCongo (MONUC) states that the FARDC are responsible for40% of human rights abuses.1 The police and other statesecurity services are responsible for 48%. Almost a quarterof sexual violence cases reported to MONUC are committedby the police. The few FARDC brigades which are well-disci-plined are scarcely able to protect themselves, let alonecivilians. Without food, water and accommodation, andoften denied their meagre $22 monthly salary, they areunder-trained and ill-equipped.

With state capacity to protect so weak, the internationalcommunity is maintaining the presence of MONUC, thelargest peacekeeping mission in the world. MONUC has arobust mandate allowing it to use force ‘to ensure theprotection of civilians under imminent threat of physicalviolence from any armed group, foreign or Congolese’.MONUC has made an enormous difference to civilian safetyin DRC, particularly in Ituri and Goma (which MONUC troopseffectively defended in November 2006). According to civil-ians in Ituri, if MONUC were not present ‘we would leavetomorrow. It simply wouldn’t be safe for us withoutMONUC. Not yet’. Yet MONUC has sometimes beenaccused of behaving more like an observer mission, usingforce only in self-defence and doing little to physicallyprotect civilians. Civilians cite attacks on Bukavu in 2004,Rutshuru in 2005 and Sake in 2006 as examples of theinternational community’s failure to protect them, and thereis much confusion about the practical scope of MONUC’smandate. One community leader told us that MONUC doesnot protect civilians against violence from the FARDC andFDLR rebels because ‘they have stopped intervening now

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civilians are often the first

victims and the deliberate

targets of violence and abuse

1 MONUC Human Rights Division, The Human Rights Situation in the

Democratic Republic of Congo, report for July–December 2006, 8February 2007, http://www.monuc.org/downloads/HRR_6Month_Eng.pdf.

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that Congo has a valid government’. The peacekeepersneed clearer guidance to help them implement theirmandate in practice, and this needs to be clearly communi-cated to civilians who are expecting protection.

With UNHCR, MONUC co-chairs the protection cluster,which exists to identify and respond to gaps in civilianprotection. In some locations it has undertaken projectsto monitor protection, train the Congolese army in humanrights, build the capacity of the judiciary and advocatewith local authorities. The performance of the protectioncluster is, however, very inconsistent across the country.In Ituri, for example, the absence of NRC and ICRC meansthat the cluster is ill-resourced to gather information andrespond to protection threats. In other locations, there isa shortage of UNHCR protection staff, and the agency hasto choose between prioritising its role in refugee returnsand its role as cluster lead and agency of ‘last resort’ forthe protection of civilians still within DRC. Given the lackof protection by the state and the pressures on the formalinternational protection agencies, there is a clear impera-tive for all humanitarian actors to incorporate protectioninto the design and delivery of their programming.

Oxfam’s approach to mainstreamingprotection in DRC Oxfam GB has worked in DRC since the 1960s, and currentlydelivers a water, sanitation and public health response inIturi and North and South Kivu. In recent years, protectionhas been a central pillar of Oxfam’s advocacy on issuessuch as the mandate and deployment of peacekeepingforces and reform of the Congolese military. In 2006, astrategic commitment was made to more explicitly andsystematically address protection within our programming.To begin this process, a Protection Adviser was recruited fora six-month period to build the capacity of the teamthrough action-oriented training, to undertake protectionassessments in the communities where we are alreadyworking and to produce a strategy and practical tools formainstreaming protection.

One hundred staff members from Oxfam GB and otherNGOs were trained to use protection tools to analysecommon threats and design responses. In North Kivu andIturi, the Oxfam teams immediately put their training intopractice, designing and carrying out a protection assess-ment in 17 communities, building the capacity of the teamto gather sensitive information about protection. In mixedfocus groups and individual interviews the teams askedabout the main protection threats people were facing, whothe perpetrators were, what the formal protection actorswere doing to protect them, what their own coping mecha-nisms were and what solutions they would like to see.

What was most striking about the results was the enormousvariation in the type and severity of threats, even betweengeographically close locations. This was particularly thecase in Ituri – when we asked communities to rate how safethey felt on a scale of 1–10, with 1 being completely unsafeand 10 being completely safe, one community respondedwith 9.1, whereas another just 20km away responded with

1.25. Some communities in North Kivu reported that theFARDC were a major threat, but one said that troops in theirarea were well-disciplined and posed no threat to the popu-lation. The variability and changeability of the protectionsituation indicate the importance of localised and ongoingmonitoring. A one-off, regionally generalised assessmentcould not have accurately reflected the real protectionpicture for individual communities.

The effectiveness of community coping mechanisms alsodiffered in the face of threats of different severity. In someplaces, communities said that they had functional alertsystems or simple responses, such as men accompanyingwomen to the fields. In others, submission was the onlyoption, with people stopping their visits to the fields, orgiving up whatever was demanded of them in armedrobberies or at illegal checkpoints. In one location, peoplesaid that they were thinking about poisoning their owncrops – it would mean they would ruin their fields and itwould not make them any safer, but it would preventarmed groups from taking their harvests.

Based on the assessment, Oxfam GB drew up a protectionstrategy, focusing in its first year on mainstreamingprotection in ongoing humanitarian programming. Thiswill provide a basis to explore the possibility of protectionprogramming, depending on the protection issues thatemerge. The mainstreaming model was based around theprogramme management cycle, providing guidance toprogramme managers and teams on what needs to bedone to integrate protection at each stage. A challengewith mainstreaming anything is to keep guidance detailedenough to avoid becoming a simple ‘box-ticking’ chore,yet manageable enough that it does not overtake theoverarching aim of the programme. So, for the needsassessment and programme design and evaluationstages, the Protection Adviser worked with programmemanagers to come up with meaningful questions, objec-tives, indicators and means of verification.

The implementation and monitoring stage is in many waysthe most important. We know that we have mainstreamedprotection properly when a humanitarian team is able toidentify protection issues when it is implementing itsprogrammes in communities, handle the informationsensitively and find an appropriate response. This needsto be the responsibility of the whole team, with theprogramme manager making the strategic or sensitivedecisions. We integrated protection into weekly fieldreporting formats and set out guidelines for three optionsof action for managers in response to the information theywere receiving from the field teams. These were:

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the effectiveness of community

coping mechanisms also differed

in the face of threats of different

severity

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• Referral of the issue to another agency competent torespond, or to the protection cluster to identify whocan fill the gap.

• Local-level advocacy to reduce people’s vulnerabilityor to reduce the threat to them.

• Adapting the programme to reduce people’s exposureor vulnerability to the threat.

Programme managers were given guidance on how tochoose from amongst these options, depending on theissue, their own capacity and that of other organisations,and potential risks.

Factors for success At the time of writing, this approach is still very new in theDRC programme, and it is too early to evaluate it. However,a number of issues can already be identified. One was thefact that the decision to mainstream protection was proac-tively made, prioritised and ‘owned’ by the DRC programmemanagement team. This meant that team members under-stood the necessity of protection and were committed fromthe start, rather than feeling they had to deliver on yetanother externally imposed requirement. It was alsostriking that programme staff were very quick to grasp themeaning and relevance of protection, once they hadreceived initial training. One staff member explained: ‘Iused to think that protection was something difficult, but infact it is obvious – it is what we see every day in DRC’. Not asingle person in the DRC team questioned the relevance ofprotection, and all were keen to find ways to take it forwardin their work. Some individual programme staff membershad already been carrying out protection interventions intheir daily work, although not calling it protection. Forexample, one public health promoter had heard that agroup of IDPs were being beaten by the FARDC. He raisedthe issue with a receptive military commander in the area,who was able to influence the perpetrators to stop. Heregarded this not as a ‘protection intervention’, but as theobvious thing to do in his job.

Oxfam’s advocacy focus on protection in DRC was also afavourable factor. Oxfam had been advocating at nationaland international levels on the presence, mandate andconduct of MONUC troops and security sector reform inDRC, and protection was one of two pillars in the DRCadvocacy strategy. There was also a network of local NGO‘advocacy focal points’, who regularly provided situationalanalysis to the Oxfam advocacy team. Whilst the linksbetween advocacy and programming on protection need tobe reinforced and systematised, there is potential for mutualbenefit. The experienced advocacy team and focal pointscan help the programme teams to undertake local-leveladvocacy, and can also take issues forward at a higher level.

Externally, the humanitarian environment, whilstinevitably imperfect, was much more conducive to protec-tion monitoring and action than in many other settings.Compared to Darfur, where Oxfam has also been workingon protection, there is a relatively large ‘humanitarianspace’. Although some areas remain inaccessible andthere have been attacks on humanitarian personnel, it isgenerally possible to publicly raise protection issues withthe authorities. The presence of the protection cluster,although again imperfect in places, also meant that therewas at the least a designated forum and lead agencies forprotection coordination for programme managers to referprotection issues to. Where strong protection actors suchas NRC, ICRC and UNHCR were present, there was muchmore optimism amongst our teams that mainstreamingprotection might be a valuable part of a bigger process.

Constraints and challengesDespite this favourable environment, the success ofprotection mainstreaming is by no means guaranteed. Thebiggest potential internal challenge will be enabling staffand managers to find time for it. Staff are working in diffi-cult conditions to deliver large-scale water, sanitation andpublic health programmes, and are extremely stretched.Programme managers feel daunted at the prospect offollowing up on protection issues, and are therefore reluc-tant to start. There were also concerns about where thelimits of mainstreaming might lie in a country of suchwidespread and endemic protection problems, and wherethe successful resolution of an issue can be hard toachieve and measure.

The extent to which a humanitarian organisation can havean impact on protection issues depends significantly on thepresence and capacity of specialist protection allies.Protection mainstreaming will therefore be difficult in loca-tions like Ituri, where key protection actors such as ICRCand NRC are absent and participation in the protectioncluster is weak. It will become more difficult across DRC ifUNHCR and MONUC reduce their investment in protection.

Conclusions and questions for the futureOxfam and other non-protection specialist humanitarianorganisations can and must mainstream protection. Wehave a duty to take people’s safety into account in ourhumanitarian programming, not to turn a blind eye toprotection issues, and to deal appropriately with them.Mainstreaming protection is a minimum of good program-ming, a necessary link to specialist ‘protection’ agencies,and can have a positive impact on people’s safety. It is nolonger a case of whether we should mainstream protec-tion, but how we do it.

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protection was one of two pillars

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Oxfam and other non-protection

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mainstream protection

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References and further reading

Hugo Slim and Andrew Bonwick, Protection: An ALNAP Guide for Humanitarian Agencies, ALNAP, August 2005.

A Fragile Future: Why Scaling Down MONUC Too Soon Could Spell Disaster for the Congo, Oxfam Briefing Paper 97,February 2007.

Andrew Bonwick, ‘Who Really Protects Civilians?’, Development in Practice, vol. 16, nos 3–4, June 2006.

MONUC Human Rights Division/OHCHR, The Human Rights Situation in the DRC, July–December 2006, 8 February2006

The next year in DRC will yield some interesting lessonson two key questions. Firstly, what will it take to makemainstreaming ‘stick’ as a programme approach, and isthis possible without a dedicated adviser? And is main-streaming enough where other actors and the statecapacity to protect are absent? As one Oxfam GB manager

in DRC explained: ‘We don’t have it all figured out yet, butwe need to be brave and try’.

Sophia Swithern is a Humanitarian Protection Adviserwith Oxfam GB. She has recently worked in DRC andLiberia. Her email address is: [email protected].

Public health in crisis-affected populations:

a practical guide for decision-makers

Francesco Checchi, Michelle Gayer, Rebecca Freeman Grais and Edward J. Mills

Network Paper 61

December 2007

Never before has it been clearer what interventions must be implemented to mitigate theadverse health consequences of wars and natural disasters, and what standards thoseinterventions must strive to achieve; similarly, the range of interventions at our disposal hasnever been greater.

Despite these advances, reviews of the global relief system suggest an ongoing failure todeliver. They also highlight the dire lack of credible data to help us understand just how muchpopulations in crisis suffer, and to what extent relief operations are able to relieve thatsuffering.

Political considerations often obstruct the delivery of appropriate relief. The premise of thispaper, however, is that lack of knowledge is also an important limiting factor. This paperargues the need for advocacy for timely and appropriate relief, grounded in clearly outlined,scientifically sound reasoning, focusing discussion on substantive matters and reducing thescope for political manipulation. As such, the paper aims to enable readers to better face upto the political and bureaucratic aspects of the global relief system.

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Sad but true: advances in the collective discussion ofcivilian security and protection during violent conflictfar outstrip any progress in actually ensuring thatsecurity or protection. In the humanitarian arena, thereis a gulf between the promise of protection and its reali-sation – a gulf downplayed by humanitarians due to ourown self-interest or self-delusion.1 Nonetheless, wemust accept our limited lot. Humanitarians do not carryarms. We cannot freeze the assets of a top-flightmarauder. We must work towards the protection of ourbeneficiaries through less potent mechanisms, such asrisk reduction via intelligent programme design, theprovision of information, strategic presence – and byraising our voice.2

As discussed during a recent series of HPG meetings atODI, humanitarian actors practicing protection haveincreasingly taken on the mantle of advocates for thevictims of crises.3 By raising public awareness of theextent or nature of a crisis, by holding organisations witha formal protection role accountable for their responsibili-ties or by confronting perpetrators with the consequencesof their actions, humanitarian organisations have soughtto reduce abuses against civilians under attack. Someappear unhappy at this apparent expansion of the human-itarian mandate, charging NGOs with political meddling,or taking steps to block access for agencies perceived asposing a threat. ICRC’s expulsion from the Ogaden regionof Ethiopia in July 2007 is testament to the gravity of theissues at stake. Whether through diplomatic lobbying orpublic denunciation, advocacy can have negative conse-quences for beneficiaries, for staff and for the organisa-tion’s capacity to deliver aid. In other words, there is aperceived tension between operationality and advocacy,with one pitted against the other.

Bearing witness in MSFMédecins Sans Frontières (MSF) uses a number of more-or-lessinterchangeable terms to refer to its humanitarian advocacy:témoignage, witnessing (bearing witness), speaking out,

campaigning and advocacy. Albeit even a core term liketémoignage has never been defined, MSF derives a substantialpart of its identity from its commitment to bear witness: its‘rebellious humanitarianism’.

Bearing witness essentially refers to active engagementwith local populations, through medical treatment andpresence on the ground. The medical act may involveproviding care to women and girls with sexually trans-mitted infections (STIs). But humanitarian action goesfurther: taking note of epidemic levels of STIs in a certainarea; seeking to understand why the prevalence is sohigh, primarily by listening to the patients themselves(collapse of the local economy? survival sex? sexualviolence?); and then calling attention to the problem. Thekey here is that MSF’s humanitarian advocacy flowsdirectly from its experience in the field, through medicaldata and eyewitness accounts, rather than through thekind of investigation and analysis a think-tank or humanrights group might conduct.

Defensibility The nature of bearing witness itself thus forms the first andmost significant protection for the organisation. Put simply,our advocacy originates in our ‘legitimate’ aid activities,meaning that advocacy is our business (contradicting thefrequent charge that we are meddling in affairs which arenone of our business). If we speak of government forcespillaging villages and burning food stocks, we do sobecause our medical responsibility includes asking care-takers in our feeding centres why their children are malnour-ished.

Conceiving of fieldwork as a filter for advocacy initiativesimplies that we are obliged to report what is happeningwhen faced with the consequences. It also implies that we

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PRACTICE AND POLICY NOTES

Civilian protection and humanitarian advocacy: strategies and(false?) dilemmasMarc DuBois, MSF-Holland

1 See Marc DuBois ‘Protection: The New Humanitarian Fig-Leaf’,Dialogues, (4):2–5, September 2007, MSF UK.2 Humanitarian protection should not be confused with the provisionof physical safety. It consists more in activities ‘aimed at obtaining fullrespect for the rights of individuals’. Strengthening Protection in War

(Geneva: ICRC, 2001), p. 19.3 Transcripts of the meetings, held in April and May 2007, are availableat http://www.odi.org.uk/events/civilians_conflict_07/index.html.

humanitarian actors practicing

protection have increasingly

taken on the mantle of advocates

for the victims of crises

if we speak of government forces

pillaging villages and burning

food stocks, we do so because

our medical responsibility

includes asking caretakers why

their children are malnourished

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confront political actors with their responsibility. However,we do not propose political solutions. This requires ananalysis well beyond the ken of our medical interventions.It also implies that MSF does not speak out on behalf of alocal population (and hence endangering that popula-tion), but speaks in its own voice about that population.

Basing a message on direct experience should improvethe accuracy of the message. Yet humanitarian organisa-tions operate in a world with little if any accountability fortheir public advocacy. On the contrary: donor publicsreward organisations for the sexiness of their revelations,for their condemnation of the plight of the victims and fortheir denunciation of the bad guys. It is easy to compro-mise accuracy through our own ardour and at the behestof our communications departments. Content must henceclear only the low bar of being motivated by good inten-tions, with little internal or external attention to the literalor scientific validity of the message.

What we denigrate as ‘backlash’ can thus be construed asthe first stirrings of accountability. In certain contexts, theauthorities have challenged the veracity of our reporting,for example charging that we are being used by locals whofeed us fabricated or exaggerated information. There is onlyone solution: NGOs must be able to defend their work. ForMSF, direct experience means that we do not assert, forinstance, that certain villages have been burned downunless we have seen the ashes for ourselves.

The same principle extends to the literal accuracy ofwhat we report. There is a critical distinction betweensaying ‘500 women were raped’ and saying ‘500 womensought treatment for rape’ or ‘500 women reported toMSF that they had been raped’. Similar concerns alsogovern the extrapolation and interpretation of data. It isin practice quite difficult to moderate the outrage whichdrives us into taking a public position. Do decliningconsultation rates after the handover of an MSF clinic tothe local government demonstrate the invidiousness ofimposing a fee for services, as MSF would be eager toconclude? Or are other factors at play, such as decliningconfidence in the quality of services or deficiencies inbook-keeping?

Beyond accuracy, public advocacy needs to respect localsensitivities. For example, one government became angrybecause the language of an MSF report lumped governmentforces and rebel militias together in one term, ‘warringparties’. Incredibly to us, the government barely reacted tothe content itself, which consisted of a denunciation ofabuses by government forces. This example highlights a keyweakness in the expatriate-driven approach to témoignage.

Defensibility: strategy and methodsMost humanitarian organisations involved in advocacyunderstand the link between modes of action or tactics onthe one hand, and impact (both positive and negative) onthe other. Countless potential messages arise from anygiven situation, and the organisation must weigh possibleapproaches (from factual exposure to persuasion todenunciation/condemnation) and tactics (quiet diplo-

macy, passing on the information to other actors, semi-public advocacy, dissemination to a limited number oftargets or full public diffusion). There can be no template,rather a case-by-case analysis balancing potentialoutcomes and consequences. There are, however, prepa-rations to be made in advance of humanitarian advocacywhich can greatly reduce the risk of a negative impact.These are outlined in Box 1.

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Box 1: Strategy and methods to improve defensibility

1. Public reports and press releases should reveal nothingnew to the authorities or other ‘accused’ actors. Publicadvocacy does not replace bilateral lobbying, andshould follow such efforts. It is critical to thedefensibility of the message that the NGO can assertthat the problem has been raised, and yet persists.

2. MSF heads of mission personally deliver public reportsto local counterparts and ‘accused’ actors prior to massdissemination, as a matter of professional courtesy andto avoid catching officials off-guard.

3. MSF uses key national staff to screen public advocacy tohighlight possible cultural or political sensitivities. Thatsaid, national staff should be insulated from perceivedresponsibility for the report as far as possible (forinstance having only a limited role in the preparation ofthe report). It is important, for example, that an MSFnurse is able to explain to the local commander that themessage (decrying the military’s burning of villages) wasthe work of expatriates, and that his job is to treatpeople at the clinic and nothing more.

4. Before publishing major reports or press releases, thecontents are discussed with the entire expatriate andnational staff. Those working for MSF in the countrymust be able to explain the report and its underlyingrationale, and not all staff will necessarily agree with agiven analysis.

5. In deciding upon an advocacy strategy, special attentionis accorded to minimising the risk of manipulation. Forexample, how does one speak of violence or a lack ofprotection in Darfur without having that messagemanipulated to favour the politically charged call for aninternational military intervention? In this regard,objectives are crucial: our actions must not intend oraim to have partisan political consequences.

6. Public advocacy must remain not only consistent with theneutrality, impartiality and independence of theorganisation, but the analysis must also anticipate andcounter effects upon the perception of these coreprinciples.

7. When it is clear to MSF that the message will becontroversial, or incurs a high risk of manipulation,provisional measures are put in place. For example, a Qand A can be developed, foreseeing certain reactions andsetting out organisational responses. In more serioussituations, contingency planning ensures programmecontinuity.

8. An obvious rule: make sure your own (glass) house is inorder before you throw stones.

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Decision-making Each organisation has its own internal structure orprotocol for making decisions about their advocacy.Typically, MSF examines a mix of factors:

• Impact on the security of MSF teams and beneficiaries.• Impact on access and operational activities.• Expected positive impact on the situation of the bene-

ficiaries.• Relation to MSF activities and identity.• Importance of medical activities and other aid.• Replacement possibilities (who can take over activities

if MSF is denied access).

Scientific calculation is illusory: in the end, with experi-enced people around a table, decisions coalesce fromwhat is necessarily a gut reaction to a situation. Somequestions, however, remain unanswerable. How do wemeasure the value of advocacy to a population? If publicdenunciation of their plight helps restore some dignity tovictims of violence, what value do we assign to this? Whatdoes it mean to people that our public report forms ahistorical record that breaks a silence or counters futuredenials? Do we understand the importance of victimshaving their suffering ‘validated’? Given the inability toquantify these results, our faith in the benefits ofadvocacy may falter in the face of What good will it do?

cynicism.

From the process standpoint, discussion and development ofadvocacy take place at all levels, from projects to the desksmanaging the various geographic portfolios. The operational‘line’ makes the final call, led by the Head of Mission andOperational Manager. Because humanitarian advocacy by onesection of MSF may have consequences for others, othersections operating in the same country are notified, and theirviews taken into consideration. The draft report is then circu-lated internally.

The fallacy of oppositionThe logic underpinning the opposition between humanitarianadvocacy and humanitarian aid betrays an incomplete concep-tualisation of the nature of humanitarian action itself. Exceptfor theoretical purposes, the idea of protection cannot beseparated from aid, as if delivering blankets were the sine qua

non of the humanitarian actor and protection work were anoptional activity, to be jettisoned at the first hint of trouble.Hence, the aid versus advocacy discussion is rooted in theincorrect perception that we can deliver technical assistancewith our eyes, ears, mouths or hearts shut.

Burdening advocacy with the weight of this tension ismanifestly unfair, a bias left over from the days when

operations were equated with the delivery of assistance. Infact, this tension inheres in humanitarian action itself. Onceprotection work becomes an integral component of human-itarian action, the positing of one against the other loses itsrigidity. It is impossible to deliver aid during crisis andconflict without incurring palpable risk. And yet we distin-guish advocacy from aid when we think about risk. It wouldbe odd to say, for instance, ‘If we treat malaria in thatvillage we may get attacked’ in such a way as to suggestthat treating malaria endangers security. Yet we accept thelogic of warnings like ‘If we publish X we may get kicked outof the country’. Moreover, the readiness of organisations toconceive of advocacy as a threat to access belies thereverse causal relationship: it is often because of andthrough advocacy that we gain and maintain access.4 Isthere any doubt that considerable and high-level advocacyis responsible for the relative bureaucratic ease with whichhumanitarian NGOs can enter Darfur?

The notion of advocacy versus aid seems to conceive ofadvocacy as an all-or-nothing proposition, one governedby a binary yes/no decision. In MSF, we often get boggeddown in discussions of whether or not to bear witness,instead of the more relevant question of how to bearwitness given certain risks and opportunities. Of coursethere should be hand-wringing – these are difficult deci-sions, with serious potential consequences for the organi-sation, its staff and even beneficiaries. Yet for all theanguish we invest in examining the possible harm posedby speaking out, there is seemingly zero interest in simi-larly analysing the consequences of our silence.

ConclusionHumanitarian action comprises more than the steriledelivery of assistance. Stemming from a direct engage-ment with people in crisis, humanitarian organisationsmust bring aid to meet needs, while at the same timeprotesting against the man-made causes of those needs.MSF views this témoignage as part of humanitarianaction, part of its identity. To minimise any threat ofbacklash and improve the likelihood of positive results,advocacy initiatives are developed and implemented withregard to the three axes of defensibility (content, strategyand process/method).

The nature of MSF’s témoignage, whereby messagesemerge from within the framework of the organisation’smedical activities, provides a first layer of protectionagainst hostile reactions. The practices encompassed bythe concept of defensibility provide another layer ofprotection: gaining acceptance for advocacy, preventingpotential harm from negative responses, and counter-acting direct backlash. In an arena without monitors andwhere there is little accountability, humanitarian agenciesmust struggle to formulate public messages with equalparts punch and fairness (accuracy). The standard is high:we must be able to defend every word. In the end, though,it is perhaps not the hostile reaction of governments orwarring parties that presents the greatest obstacle to

each organisation has its own

internal structure or protocol for

making decisions about their

advocacy

4 And it is the silent who are often more likely to disappear than thosecapable of speaking out with both force and credibility.

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humanitarian advocacy, but our own tendency to discon-nect advocacy from the core of humanitarian action, andto focus solely upon its risks.

Marc DuBois works as a Humanitarian Affairs Advisor forMSF-Holland. He can be reached at: marc.dubois@

amsterdam.msf.org. The views expressed in this articleare the author’s own, and are not intended to speak forthe entire MSF movement. Moreover, this article createsan impression of clarity, coherence and orderly imple-mentation that idealises what is usually a far messierprocess.

Encroachment and efficiency: armed actors in the relief market place

Richard Luff, independent

This article examines the increasedpresence and expanded role beyondsecurity of state armed forces in crisissituations. In particular, there seemsto be a trend towards armed forcesundertaking relief and recovery workin armed conflict and natural disas-ters. The role of military forces inproviding assistance is most contro-versial in armed conflicts, where theyare or may become parties to theconflict. In these circumstances,humanitarian agencies recommendthat assistance should primarily beleft to civilians, to avoid blurring theline between humanitarian actors andarmed actors, eroding humanitarianprinciples and exposing humanitarianagencies to greater security risks. Inhigh-profile armed conflicts such asAfghanistan, there is much debateabout whether humanitarianism isbeing sacrificed in the name ofpolitics and peace-building.

A more crowded and complex environmentTo contextualise the debate it is helpful to summarise thefactors that have contributed to the greater presence ofstate armed forces in disaster zones.

First, peace support/enforcement operations haveincreased significantly. In 1998, the UN deployed 14,000peacekeepers worldwide; by 2006, there were over90,000, plus major deployments by NATO and otherregional forces. NATO forces in particular have also been

mobilised in response to major natural disasters, such asthe Indian Ocean tsunami and the Pakistan earthquake.

In many current peace support/enforcement operations,the prevailing political thinking within NATO and the UN isthat integrating political, military and assistance interven-tions will maximise the effectiveness of peace-buildingefforts, resulting in durable stability and democracy infailed or damaged states. However, UN integratedmissions often make the humanitarian aspects of the UNsubservient to the political and military aspects of theorganisation. Humanitarian agencies have raisedconcerns over this, and have provided guidance on main-taining the separation of humanitarian and political/military functions. Furthermore, the UN resolution on theResponsibility to Protect (RTP) may mean greater deploy-ment of international armed forces in crisis situations inwhich humanitarian agencies are present. At the sametime, some humanitarian agencies have actively called formilitary action to protect civilians. Some of the veryhumanitarian agencies that have called for state armedforces to be deployed will have to be increasingly sophis-

US soldiers distribute relief supplies to tsunami victims in Banda Aceh,

Indonesia, January 2005

©Reuters/Yuriko N

akao, courtesy ww

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in 1998, the UN deployed 14,000

peacekeepers worldwide; by

2006, there were over 90,000,

plus major deployments by NATO

and other regional forces

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ticated and clear about the way they manage perceptionsof association with them.

Alongside the increased presence of government armedforces in crises, the role of private security companies hasalso grown, notably in highly insecure and politicallyimportant environments such as Afghanistan and Iraq. Inrecent years, these companies have taken on a variety ofassistance activities. While relatively little work has beendone on the trends in this area, a glance at the websites ofprivate security firms indicates the breadth of their activi-ties, which include assistance and governance, undoubt-edly driven by good business opportunities in these newareas. Donors are making funds available to privatesecurity companies to undertake assistance activities,without uniforms, often with guns and relatively unregu-lated. This is a major concern both for state armed forcesand for humanitarian agencies.

Second, there has been a recognition of the importance ofa more comprehensive approach to disaster management,and a consequent increase in the use of national armedforces in response to major natural disasters. For coun-tries that have reasonably well-equipped national armedforces, this is often a logical choice given the material andpersonnel resources armed forces possess. However,natural disasters often occur in areas where there isunderlying armed conflict, such as northern Sri Lanka andAceh in Indonesia. In these cases, the armed forces mayhave until recently been, or may still be, parties to theconflict. Thus, the deployment of these forces in naturaldisasters may not be as benign as it appears.

Third, alongside the increased presence of national andinternational armed actors and their expanded roles,there has been a significant growth in NGO activities.According to one report, some 26,000 NGOs globallyemploy 19 million people, spending $1 trillion. As humani-tarian agencies play more prominent roles, so they aremore likely to encounter state armed forces.

Finally, humanitarian agencies by their nature are veryvulnerable and will quickly retreat when exposed to inse-curity, as is well understood by those who may wish tocurtail their presence. As the HPG report Providing Aid in

Insecure Environments notes: a ‘major violent incident’can cause ‘some to pull back and the overall aid effort tofalter’. This report provides clear data and analysis thatpolitical motivations play a large and growing role intargeted attacks. The significant investments in securitymanagement by all larger humanitarian agencies over thepast ten years have almost certainly prevented a greaterincrease in injuries and fatalities. Clearly, then, for

security reasons, and to maintain independence, agenciesneed to manage perceptions of association with politicalactors, including, but not limited to, state armed forces.

Humanitarian principles in the crisis market placeThe case for preserving humanitarian principles andprotecting the inherently fragile construct of humanitari-anism is at the heart of the so-called ‘humanitarian space’debate. However, the principles are often not understoodby state armed forces, are sometimes dismissed by politi-cians seeking to co-opt agency capacity and may be inter-preted as a bid by humanitarian agencies to monopolisethe delivery of assistance. The last point – that agenciesdo not have a monopoly on assistance provision – hasbeen used to advocate for a more open market approach,undervaluing the importance of impartiality and indepen-dence in humanitarian action.

The principles debate has become somewhat sterilerecently, and a fresh look is needed to break throughwhat often appears to be an impasse. When humani-tarian agencies talk about humanitarian space, theyoften actually mean humanitarian agency space, andspecifically physical access for their work. One majoragency has defined this as a space in which ‘we are freeto evaluate needs, free to monitor the distribution anduse of relief goods and free to have dialogue with thepeople’. Conceptually, this definition may create theimpression that humanitarian agencies want to hold onto some form of monopoly. For this reason, it is impor-tant to use a broader definition of humanitarian space,along the lines: ‘the space for populations affected bycrisis, particularly conflict, to access or receive assis-tance and protection in line with their rights and needs,i.e. on an impartial basis’. This definition acknowledgesthe reality that affected populations have their owncapacity, but that they should also be able to receiveassistance in line with their needs, regardless of who isproviding it. This picks up on an important point high-lighted in the Mapping the Security Environment projectcommissioned by the UK NGO Military Contact Group(NMCG), namely that ‘local communities were moreconcerned that aid was delivered and less concernedabout who delivered it’.

If the supply of aid potentially comes from an increasingrange of actors, including armed actors and commercialcompanies, then traditional humanitarian agencies aregoing to have to argue their case more comprehensively,or else be undermined by those that would use anargument of realism against principles. This argumentfor a more realistic approach will draw in those whoadvocate for a more market-based approach to thesupply of assistance. Situating the provision of assis-tance to address human loss and suffering within theconcept of a market is problematic, not least because itundermines the hard-fought-for belief in rights, but itmight help humanitarian agencies to recognise someparallels that exist with supply and demand in themarket place. It may be more helpful and appropriate forus to consider what investments are being made toP

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provide assistance and protection to those in need, andwhether the criteria for these investments are the rightones.

Assistance provision by armed forces: questionable investments? There has perhaps been a more widespread acceptance ofthe role of military actors in delivering some types ofassistance, but the nature and appropriateness of thisassistance need to be examined more closely in light ofwhether investments are sound. Critically, this shouldoblige donors to consider more transparently why they aremaking money available to their armed forces to under-take assistance, and what they are paying private securitycompanies to do. Closed and non-competitive agreementsfor the disbursement of funding are clearly far removedfrom the market practices that some may espouse. Thelocal communities researched in the Mapping the SecurityEnvironment project would be very concerned about whodelivered assistance if they were not able to access itbecause deliverers were partial about whom they workedwith, or if it did not meet their needs in an appropriateway. In addition, if assistance was unavailable in onecommunity because its provision by armed forces in aneighbouring province was very expensive and had usedup limited budgets, communities would be outraged anddeprived.

To reinforce their case, there is an urgent need for humani-tarian agencies to examine the appropriateness and cost-effectiveness of the assistance activities they undertake.(It is also worth noting that, if agencies can demonstraterelative value in their work over military and commercialactors, they will also be doing much to demonstrate theiraccountability, both to donors and to affected communi-ties.) Of course, how we measure value-added and whomeasures it is key before comparisons can be madebetween humanitarian agencies, state armed forces andcommercial firms. Although this is reductionist, we canlook at basic costs as a first measure, though this will notfully take account of other critical factors, such as appro-priateness, sustainability and impartiality.

Oxfam commissioned a research project in 2006 entitledEncroachment and Efficiency: Are Military Forces Really

Undertaking More Assistance Activities and How Efficient

Are They When They Do So?. This states: ‘Finding figureson the military spend on assistance activities is extremelydifficult, and most researchers have experienced signifi-cant barriers to accessing this information. A former NATO

Afghanistan PRT head suggested that there was a lack oftransparency by military forces in revealing spends onassistance activities’. Invariably, information is classifiedfor security reasons, and obtaining it has proved very diffi-cult. Nonetheless, the scattered and incomplete informa-tion that is available points to significant expenditure anddrastically higher costs for state armed forces ascompared to humanitarian agencies. Evaluations by theTsunami Evaluation Commission (TEC) and the DisastersEmergency Committee (DEC) indicate much higher costsfor using military assets for assistance. According toUSAID, ‘international food drops, earthquake relief, andmedicine deliveries have been counted since 1991, andthese totaled $2.3 billion through 2000’. Between 1990and 1996 the United States deployed military assets andsupplies in 34 instances in response to earthquakes,typhoons, famines and floods. A key budgeting/chargingconsideration concerns whether armed forces separateout core operating costs from an ‘aid contribution’, whopays for each element and whether it counts as officialgovernment assistance. Even if aid contributions alone arecharged to aid budgets, someone, somewhere still has topay for core operating costs.

Beyond security, the biggest potential benefit that armedforces can bring is logistics and work on infrastructure,and this has long been recognised by humanitarianagencies. This is where militaries can most efficientlybring to bear their significant personnel and logisticalcapacity and equipment. However, a report by the UNOffice of Internal Oversight Services on military involve-ment in civil assistance in peacekeeping operations listeda range of projects implemented by contingents in directsupport of local communities, including medical assis-tance and the distribution of food, water, clothing andsupplies. While there may be obligations under interna-tional humanitarian law to provide such assistance, doingso to satisfy political objectives and gain public profile isalways a risk. Who foots the bill for this, and how effectivewill this expenditure have been? Furthermore, there is nopolitical will to independently evaluate these activities, soit is difficult to assess their weaknesses and strengths.

Over the past few years, military doctrine has been furtherdeveloped to cover assistance, but this is not particularlyhelpful as it varies from force to force, can be interpreteddifferently according to the commander in place at thetime and can be used to camouflage real motives. InAfghanistan, the range of activities undertaken by thevarious NATO PRTs clearly demonstrates the incoherenceof NATO doctrine. The bottom line from a donor and publicperspective is what money is being spent by whom, andwhat can be achieved with these investments, not howcomprehensive the doctrine is.

ConclusionGovernments will continue to invest in independent andimpartial action undertaken by humanitarian agencies.But they will also invest in assistance undertaken by theirown armed forces and by private security companies.Therefore, humanitarian agencies will increasingly findthemselves working in close proximity to militaries and

there is an urgent need for

humanitarian agencies to

examine the appropriateness

and cost-effectiveness of the

assistance activities they

undertake

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private security firms, especially if major donors allocategreater proportions of their budgets to these armedactors. Some of their activities may resemble work thathumanitarian agencies usually undertook, causing confu-sion about the identity and motives of those providingassistance. This means that humanitarian agencies mustmanage perceptions of association with these actors. Inthis changed context, humanitarian principles are neces-sary but not sufficient to preserve humanitarianism.Clarity about the benefits of making investments inhumanitarian agencies is also required, in what increas-ingly looks like a marketplace. Agencies must advocate

for increased transparency in government funding ofassistance undertaken by state armed forces and privatesecurity forces. Finally, there should be political will toindependently evaluate and learn from the assistanceactivities undertaken by state armed forces and privatesecurity companies, to provide a more objective basis onwhich to allocate funds.

Richard Luff is an independent consultant. Previously, heworked for Oxfam (GB) as member of the UK NGO MilitaryContact Group. His email address is: [email protected].

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Richard Luff, The Pressures on ‘Humanitarian Space’ within the New Security Agenda, Oxfam internal paper,September 2004.

SCHR, Humanitarian–Military Relations in the Provision of Humanitarian Assistance, Position paper, 18 October 2004.

IASC, Civil–Military Relationship in Complex Emergencies, IASC Reference Paper, 28 June 2004.

Center on International Cooperation, An Annual Review of Global Peace Operations 2006.

Richard Luff, Proposal for Benchmarks To Preserve Impartiality of Humanitarian Assistance, Oxfam internal paper,September 2005.

Abby Stoddard, Adele Harmer and Katharine Haver, Providing Aid in Insecure Environments, HPG Report 23, 2006.

Victoria Wheeler and Adele Harmer (eds), Resetting the Rules of Engagement: Trends and Issues in Military–

Humanitarian Relations, HPG Report 21, 2006.

Antonio Donini, Mapping the Security Environment, Feinstein International Famine Centre, 2005.

Rosa Wilson-Garwood, Encroachment and Efficiency: Are Military Forces Really Undertaking More Assistance

Activities and How Efficient Are They When They Do So?, internal Oxfam paper, November 2006.

Comparing DDR and durable solutions: some lessons from EthiopiaRobert Muggah, Small Arms Survey, the Graduate Institute of International Studies, University of Geneva, and Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford

An increasingly important area of focus for relief anddevelopment agencies relates to the demobilisation andreintegration of fighters and support for displacedpeople to return home or resettle elsewhere. Bothgroups – ex-combatants and forced migrants – are regu-larly implicated in war and post-conflict situations asperpetrators, victims and survivors of violence. They arewidely considered to have become ‘dislocated’ from themainstream, constitute potential ‘spoilers’ and arefrequently targeted by comprehensive programmesdesigned to promote their sustainable ‘reintegration’ intosociety. But despite these and other similarities, there iscomparatively little exchange between those workingwith soldiers and those working with forced migrants.

This article considers a number of lessons emerging froman innovative demobilisation and reintegration pro-gramme (DRP) involving more than 148,000 Ethiopianveterans. While launched specifically on behalf of

veterans and not refugees or internally displaced people,the DRP offers potentially important insights for policy-makers and practitioners working to promote ‘durablesolutions’ for the displaced. While the discourses andlexicons may differ, the challenges associated with ‘rein-tegrating’ soldiers and forced migrants ‘back’ into theirformer lives are broadly comparable.

A critical lesson learned is that, while reintegration isinevitably context-specific, it should nevertheless beconceived broadly. Genuinely sustainable reintegrationhas economic, social and political dimensions, each ofwhich is interconnected. Another lesson is the need forhumility on the part of DRP donors and planners. In thecase of Ethiopia’s DRP, successful reintegration was inlarge part a function of the (relative) absorptive capacityof areas of return, the endowment sets of former soldiersand only lastly the quality and quantity of ‘benefits’ onoffer. In other words, interventions on behalf of veterans

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and displaced people should accommodate all three‘tiers’ and recognise the role of targeted assistance inrelation to the whole.

Comparing DDR and durable solutionsWhat, if anything, do former combatants and forcedmigrants have in common? For one, they are frequentlyexposed to a bewildering array of interventions adminis-tered by a disparate collection of humanitarian, develop-ment and security agencies. Often coordinated by the UNDepartment for Peace-Keeping Operations (DPKO), the UNDevelopment Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank,disarmament, demobilisation, reinsertion and reintegra-tion programmes (DDR or DDRR) are expected to transformsoldiers into productive civilians. Likewise, the UN HighCommissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and a number of UNand non-governmental agencies often assist refugees andinternally displaced people to achieve a ‘durable solution’such as repatriation, resettlement or return, and to ensurethat they are adequately ‘protected’ and self-reliant.

While those agencies administering DDR and durablesolutions often work autonomously from one another,there are a few instances where they actively collaborate.Their cooperation is motivated more by necessity than bydesign. For example, throughout Africa and the Balkans,DPKO, UNDP, UNHCR, the International Organisation forMigration (IOM) and the World Bank often collaborate(with governments) to ensure that ‘foreign’ ex-combatantsresiding outside of their countries of origin are separatedfrom genuine refugee or IDP populations, and are ‘repatri-ated’ back home. Such activities are frequently intenselypolitical and may entail criminal proceedings. Predictably,there is comparatively less focus on their sustainable‘reintegration’ into civilian life.

Regardless of whether there is (inter-agency) cooperationor not, both DDR and durable solutions ultimately seek toenhance the wellbeing of potentially vulnerable popula-tions. DDR and durable solutions generally only proceedin ‘post-conflict’ contexts. They are designed to facilitate along-term process – often with a host government actingas the coordinating authority – integrating sequencedassistance (e.g. rations, seeds, tools and training) withpredictable linkages to mainstream development. Bothsets of activities often involve a complex assortment ofactors with varying mandates and competencies.

In some cases, a ‘natural’ ordering of responsibilities anddivision of labour emerges. In the case of DDR, DPKO andto a lesser extent UNDP are frequently involved in disar-mament. Owing to their comparative advantage, but alsomandate constraints, the World Bank and others are often

more engaged in demobilisation, reinsertion and reinte-gration. In the case of durable solutions, a ‘clusterapproach’ recently emerged, in which different agenciesassume responsibility for a range of pre-assigned priori-ties. UNDP, for example, often takes a key role in ‘earlyrecovery’, while UNHCR is responsible for overseeing‘protection’ and camp management.

Neither DDR nor durable solutions have been assuccessful as expected or envisioned by their proponents.For a host of reasons, ranging from the extremely complexenvironments in which they are established to thedilemmas associated with unpredictable assistance andcollection problems between agencies, they only occasion-ally yield sustainable outcomes. It is doubly important,then, to learn from potentially ‘successful’ cases of DDR ordurable solutions. The rest of this article reflects on theoutcomes of a World Bank-supported demobilisation andreintegration programme (DRP) undertaken in Ethiopiafollowing an 18-month war with Eritrea (1998–2000).Administered rapidly over a three-year period, the DRPstands apart as a rare success story.

Ethiopia’s reintegration experienceThe scale and scope of the Ethiopian demobilisation andreintegration programme was breathtaking. Between2000 and 2003, more than 148,000 veterans – includingmore than 17,000 disabled soldiers – were disarmed anddemobilised by the Ministry of Defence and provided withcash and non-monetary reinsertion and reintegrationassistance via the Ministry of Labour and Social Services.The process was carried out efficiently and according todeclared principles of transparency and equity.1

The vast majority of these former soldiers consisted of so-called ‘new regulars’ and ‘militia’, who were rapidly recruitedfrom predominantly rural areas by the armed forces shortlybefore the war. The only other DRPs that remotely compareinclude the demobilisation of more than 350,000 Ethiopiansoldiers (and rebels) following the collapse of the Derg in1991, and activities supported by the Multi-CountryDemobilization and Reintegration Programme (MDRP) innine countries of the Great Lakes of Africa.

The political, security and economic context in whichdemobilisation and reintegration occur invariably influ-ences the outcomes. A few key characteristics of theEthiopian DRP stand out:

• It was undertaken following a vicious cross-border warwith Ethiopia’s avowed enemy (and former ally),Eritrea.

• The demobilisation entailed a controlled ‘reduction inforce’ of a standing national army and disarmamentwas not contested.

• Most returning veterans were at first treated as heroesby public authorities and Ethiopian civilians.

• With the exception of a few border regions, communi-ties of return were not devastated by years of conflict.

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both DDR and durable solutions

ultimately seek to enhance the

wellbeing of potentially

vulnerable populations

1 The total cost of the EDRP was approximately $174 million, with lessthan $3.1m provided by the Ethiopian government and over $170msupplied by an IDA credit.

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• The war was comparatively short, so recruits were notaway from their homes and fields for prolongedperiods.

Taken together, these characteristics stand in contrast toother post-conflict situations in Africa, which tend to bemarked by protracted civil wars and lingering political andcriminal violence in their aftermath.

One recent assessment found that, while generally apositive intervention, the Ethiopian DRP yielded differenti-ated reintegration outcomes. The participatory benefi-ciary assessment adopted a proportional size samplingstrategy among 15 woredas in Tigray, Amhara, Oromia andSNNP. Overall, the study revealed that, while income andasset holdings partially deteriorated four years after thedemobilisation process, many veterans considered them-selves to be empowered and accepted by their familiesand communities, and not unduly discriminated againstby political authorities. Whilst the proportion of rural andurban veterans slipping into lower income quintilesincreased overall, there is comparatively little evidence ofsocial pathologies or dysfunction.

It should be recalled that the absorptive capacities ofareas of return were heavily influenced by a combinationof macro-economic and environmental factors. Althoughmeasures were adopted by government officials and theWorld Bank to minimise the stresses of reintegration –including the phased provision of monetised assistance toveterans to avoid distortions to the local economy – overallnational inflation rose during the period of the DRP. Whileit is likely that certain inputs stimulated local-levelcommercial activity, no evidence of this was found duringthe assessment. Ethiopia was also affected by a severedrought from 2001 to 2003, which disrupted cereal andpulse crops and intensified food insecurity in certain areas,including those in which veterans sought to integrate.

The origins of veterans and their endowment sets alsoshaped reintegration outcomes. The assessment foundthat there were pronounced differences in reintegrationbetween veterans from rural areas and those from urbanareas: more than 80% of all participants heralded fromthe hinterland. While there is ethnic and cultural varia-tion between Ethiopia’s regions, there is also a signifi-cant level of ethnic homogeneity in predominantlyagricultural and pastoral areas, from where most recruitsoriginated and reintegrated.2 Endogenous factors suchas kinship networks and respect for authority played adecisive role in facilitating reintegration outcomes. Also,because rural veterans were often away for only shortperiods, social capital remained largely intact. This wasless the case for those originally recruited from urbanareas characterised by more ethnic heterogeneity, lessvisible solidarity and higher labour inflexibility and stan-dards of living.

With respect to DRP benefits, the assessment found thatthe predictability of assistance was almost as importantas the amount received. Veterans were promised a host ofentitlements by the Ethiopian government in the wake ofthe conflict – contributing to rising expectations. In someinstances veterans borrowed from local money-lendersagainst the promise of future income and earnings. But asignificant proportion of rural and urban veterans spenttheir initial cash assistance – the so-called transitionalsubsistence support – on consumer goods and debtrepayment, rather than on ‘productive’ assets as antici-pated by programme planners. This constitutes a form ofmoral hazard. When promised assistance failed to materi-alise in a consistent or regular fashion, veterans foundtheir financial situation deteriorated.3 Meanwhile, whentraining in financial management or enterprise develop-ment was provided ‘after’ they had spent their entitle-ments, they had little incentive to continue the coursewithout the means to invest.

ConclusionsThe DRP in Ethiopia was broadly successful whencompared to other countries in Africa. The country did notrelapse into conflict following the programme – althoughthe recent Ethiopian-led intervention in Somalia isarguably a continuation of the previous conflict withEritrea by proxy. Equally, the process was accompanied bycomparatively little social unrest, and there is no evidencethat criminality increased in areas of integration. Acompelling feature of the DRP was its ‘reintegration’strategy – an approach that consciously adopted interna-tional and domestic best practice and borrowed fromcontemporary development thinking. While the reintegra-tion outcomes were mixed, they nevertheless yield impor-tant lessons for forced migration specialists.

First, the EDRP reminds us that reintegration has economic,social and political aspects. Genuinely successful reintegra-tion requires improvements in all three areas and not exclu-sively in relation to economic livelihoods. Moreover, thereare important linkages between various elements of reinte-gration. For example, real and relative declines in incomeand asset distribution can lead to changes in social statusand relative acceptance at the family and community levels.It is therefore important to stress both ‘economic’ and‘social’ aspects of the reintegration process – and the rela-tionships between them.

Second, the absorptive capacity in areas of return invari-ably influences reintegration outcomes. The macro-economic climate – inflation, commodity prices and the

2 This is especially the case in Tigray: more than 40% of all regularveterans, ‘new regulars’ and ‘militia’ participating in the EDRP werefrom this region. Amhara and Oromia are less ethnically homoge-neous, followed by Addis and SNNP, where there is a high level ofethnic heterogeneity.

3 A household survey administered by an evaluation team (AGEG)found that 56% of respondents answered negatively to the question‘do you believe your reintegration into civil society has beensuccessful?’.

the predictability of assistance

was almost as important as the

amount received

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8 Targeting the Poor in Northern Iraq: The Role of Formal and Informal Research Methods in Relief Operations by P.Ward and M. Rimmer (1995)

9 Development in Conflict: the Experience of ACORD in Uganda, Sudan, Mali and Angola by ACORD (1995)

10 Room for Improvement: the Management and Support of Relief Workers by R. Macnair (1995)

11 Cash-for-Work and Food Insecurity in Koisha, Southern Ethiopia by P. Jenden (1995)

12 Dilemmas of ‘Post’-Conflict Transition: Lessons from the Health Sector by J. Macrae (1995)

13 Getting On-Line in Emergencies: A Guide and Directory to the Internet for Agencies involved in Relief and

Rehabilitation by L. Aris, P. Gee and M. Perkins (1996)

14 The Impact of War and Atrocity on Civilian Populations: Basic Principles for NGO Interventions and a Critique of

Psychosocial Trauma Projects by D. Summerfield (1996)

15 Cost-effectiveness Analysis: A Useful Tool for the Assessment and Evaluation of Relief Operations? by A. Hallam (1996)

16 The Joint Evaluation of Emergency Assistance to Rwanda: Study III ed. J. Borton (1996)

17 Monetisation: Linkages to Food Security? by J. Cekan, A. MacNeil and S. Loegering (1996)

18 Beyond Working in Conflict: Understanding Conflict and Building Peace (The CODEP Workshop Report), by J. Bennett and M. Kayitesi Blewitt (1996)

19 Human Rights and International Legal Standards: what relief workers need to know by J. Darcy (1997)

20 People in Aid Code of Best Practice in the Management and Support of Aid Personnel ed. S. Davidson (1997)

21 Humanitarian Principles: The Southern Sudan Experience by I. Levine (1997)

22 The War Economy in Liberia: A Political Analysis by P. Atkinson (1997)

23 The Coordination of Humanitarian Action: the case of Sri Lanka by K. Van Brabant (1997)

24 Reproductive Health for Displaced Populations by C. Palmer (1998)

25 Humanitarian Action in Protracted Crises: the new relief ‘agenda’ and its limits by D. Hendrickson (1998)

26 The Food Economy Approach: a framework for understanding rural livelihoods by T. Boudreau (1998)

27 Between Relief and Development: targeting food aid for disaster prevention in Ethiopia by K. Sharp (1998)

28 North Korea: The Politics of Food Aid by J. Bennett (1999)

29 Participatory Review in Chronic Instability: The Experience of the IKAFE Refugee Settlement Programme, Uganda

by K. Neefjes (1999)

30 Protection in Practice: Field Level Strategies for Protecting Civilians from Deliberate Harm by D. Paul (1999)

31 The Impact of Economic Sanctions on Health and Well-being by R. Garfield (1999)

32 Humanitarian Mine Action: The First Decade of a New Sector in Humanitarian Aid by C. Horwood (2000)

33 The Political Economy of War: What Relief Agencies Need to Know by P. Le Billon (2000)

34 NGO Responses to Hurricane Mitch: Evaluations for Accountability and Learning by F. Grunewald, V. de Geoffroy & S. Lister (2000)

35 Cash Transfers in Emergencies: Evaluating Benefits and Assessing Risks by D. Peppiatt, J. Mitchell and P. Holzmann (2001)

36 Food-security Assessments in Emergencies: A Livelihoods Approach by H. Young, S. Jaspars, R. Brown, J. Frizeand H. Khogali (2001)

37 A Bridge Too Far: Aid Agencies and the Military in Humanitarian Response by J. Barry with A. Jefferys (2002)

38 HIV/AIDS and Emergencies: Analysis and Recommendations for Practice by A. Smith (2002)

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40 Drought, Livestock and Livelihoods: Lessons from the 1999-2001 Emergency Response in the Pastoral Sector in

Kenya by Yacob Aklilu and Mike Wekesa (2002)

41 Politically Informed Humanitarian Programming: Using a Political Economy Approach by Sarah Collinson (2002)

42 The Role of Education in Protecting Children in Conflict by Susan Nicolai and Carl Triplehorn (2003)

43 Housing Reconstruction after Conflict and Disaster by Sultan Barakat and Rebecca Roberts (2003)

Network PapersNetwork Papers provide longer treatments of particular areas of humanitarianconcern. We publish four a year.

HE39 crc 9/7/08 12:40 pm Page b

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44 Livelihoods and Protection: Displacement and Vulnerable Communities in Kismaayo, Southern Somalia by SimonNarbeth and Calum McLean (2003)

45 Reproductive health for conflict-affected people: policies, research and Programmes by Therese McGinn, SaraCasey, Susan Purdin and Mendy Marsh (2004)

46 Humanitarian futures: practical policy perspectives by Randolph Kent (2004)

47 Missing the point: an analysis of food security interventions in the Great Lakes by Simon Levine and Claire Chastre(2004)

48 Community-based therapeutic care: a new paradigm for selective feeding in nutritional crises by Steve Collins (2004)

49 Disaster preparedness programmes in India: a cost benefit analysis by Courtenay Cabot Venton and Paul Venton (2004)

50 Cash relief in a contested area: lessons from Somalia by Degan Ali, Fanta Toure, Tilleke Kiewied (2005)

51 Humanitarian engagement with non-state armed actors: the parameters of negotiated armed access by MaxGlaser (2005)

52 Interpreting and using mortaility data in humanitarian emergencies: a primer by Francesco Checchi and LesRoberts (2005)

53 Protecting and assisting older people in emergencies by Jo Wells (2005)54 Housing reconstruction in post-earthquake Gujarat: a comparative analysis by Jennifer Duyne Barenstein (2006)55 Understanding and addressing staff turnover in humanitarian agencies by David Loquercio, Mark Hammersley

and Ben Emmens (2006)56 The meaning and measurement of acute malnutrition in emergencies: a primer for decision-makers by Helen

Young and Susanne Jaspars (2006)57 Standards put to the test: implementing the INEE Minimum Standards for Education in Emergencies, Chronic

Crisis and Early Reconstruction by Allison Anderson et al. (2006)58 Concerning the accountability of humanitarian action by Austen Davis (2007)59 Contingency planning and humanitarian action: a review of practice by Richard Choularton (2007)60 Mobile Health Units in emergency operation: a methodological approach by Stéphane Du Mortier and Rudi Coninx

(2007)61 Public health in crisis-affected populations: A practical guide for decision-makers by Francesco Checchi, Michelle

Gayer, Rebecca Freeman Grais and Edward J. Mills (2007)

Good Practice ReviewsGood Practice Reviews are major, peer-reviewed contributions to humanitarianpractice. They are produced periodically.1 Water and Sanitation in Emergencies by A. Chalinder (1994)2 Emergency Supplementary Feeding Programmes by J. Shoham (1994)3 General Food Distribution in Emergencies: from Nutritional Needs to Political Priorities by S. Jaspars and H. Young

(1996)4 Seed Provision During and After Emergencies by the ODI Seeds and Biodiversity Programme (1996)5 Counting and Identification of Beneficiary Populations in Emergency Operations: Registration and its Alternatives

by J. Telford (1997)6 Temporary Human Settlement Planning for Displaced Populations in Emergencies by A. Chalinder (1998)7 The Evaluation of Humanitarian Assistance Programmes in Complex Emergencies by A. Hallam (1998)8 Operational Security Management in Violent Environments by K. Van Brabant (2000)9 Disaster Risk Reduction: Mitigation and Preparedness in Development and Emergency Programming by John

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like – will invariably influence the behaviour and decisionstaken by returning veterans. But other factors at themicro-level also matter fundamentally. For example, inrural areas there were comparatively more robust socialand market networks, and the economy was less affectedby labour migration, housing pressure and unemploymentthan was the case in urban areas. Sustainable reintegra-tion thus requires a concerted focus on enhancing/strengthening the absorptive capacity of areas of return.

Third, the endowment set matters. The majority of partici-pating veterans came from income-poor households andhad comparatively low levels of employment, educationand marketable skills prior to their recruitment into thearmed forces. While most ‘new’ soldiers were originallyrecruited from jobs as farmers and agricultural labourers,urban recruits frequently ‘self-selected’ and often had fewalternatives to joining the army. In other words, theendowment sets of most participating veterans werecomparatively low well before the DRP was initiated. Theexpectations of donors and government planners of whatcan realistically be achieved in such contexts must becommensurate with the capacities and endowments ofthe target group.

Finally, if reintegration entitlements are to be made moreeffective, it is important to ensure the proper sequencingof financial benefits in line with training and vocationalsupport. In many cases, cash assistance was provided toveterans before enrolment in training/vocational courses.Many veterans complained that they spent these funds‘improperly’. Few had any experience of managingfinances on the scale provided, or expertise in makinglong-term investment decisions. The risks and trade-offsassociated with providing lump sum payments to veteranswithout sufficient financial management skills are wellknown. Indeed, it is expected that the provision of assis-tance in phases allows for learning from mistakes.

Robert Muggah, Small Arms Survey, the GraduateInstitute of International Studies, University of Geneva,

and Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford. Robert’semail address is: [email protected]. Thanks to theEthiopian Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour and theAddis Ababa World Bank office for their inputs.

References

A. Baaré, ‘An Analysis of Transitional EconomicReintegration’, Swedish Initiative for Disarmament,

Demobilisation and Reintegration (SIDDR), 2004.

J. Bennett and R. Muggah, Making a Difference? A

Beneficiary Impact Assessment of Ethiopia’s

Demobilization and Reintegration Program (AddisAbaba: EDRP and World Bank, 2007).

N. Colletta, M. Kostner and I. Wiederhofer, Case Studies

in War-to-Peace Transition: The Demobilization and

Reintegration of Ex-Combatants in Ethiopia, Namibia

and Uganda (Washington DC: World Bank, 1996).

DSA, EDRP: Mid-Term Evaluation (Addis Ababa:Development Studies Associates, 2003).

M. Knight and A. Ozerdem, ‘Guns, Camps and Cash:Disarmament, Demobilization and Reinsertion ofFormer Combatants in Transitions from War to Peace’,Journal of Peace Research, vol. 41, no. 4, 2004.

R. Muggah, ‘No Magic Bullet: A Critical Perspective onDisarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR)and Weapons Reduction in Post-Conflict Contexts’,International Journal of Commonwealth Affairs, vol. 94,no. 379, 2006.

R. Muggah, ‘The Death-knell of “4R”: RethinkingDurable Solutions for Displaced People’, Humanitarian

Exchange, no. 36, 2006.

World Bank, ‘Demobilisation and Reintegration ofMilitary Personnel in Africa: The Evidence from SevenCountry Studies’, World Bank Discussion Paper, no.130, 1993.

Write for HPN

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The conflict in Darfur has greatly accelerated theprocesses of environmental degradation that have beenundermining subsistence livelihoods in the area overrecent decades. The implication of this is that environ-mental drivers of conflict have worsened as a result of thecurrent crisis. An understanding of the physical and socialprocesses involved must inform humanitarian program-ming, recovery planning and peace processes at local andnational level so that this accelerated environmentaldegradation may be slowed and its impacts mitigated.

The debate over the environment in Darfur illustrates thecomplexity of a conflict that has numerous levels. Thelowest level of conflict, between neighbouring tribes andvillages, displays the environmental aspect of the conflictmost acutely, as different livelihood groups seek to adapttheir ways of life to increasing resource scarcity. This ishappening in a context where traditional rules of environ-mental management have been weakened, and in placesrejected altogether. However, even the conflict betweendifferent tribes has both local dimensions, over control ofresources, and higher-level political dimensions. The localconflicts over resources have become a dimension of thewider conflict between Darfur and central Sudan, relatingto long-term issues of political and economic marginalisa-tion, amid regional tensions relating particularly to Chad.Ethnicity complicates the conflict at all levels. The interac-tion of these different levels of conflict is one of thedefining complexities of the Darfur crisis. Thus, whileresource scarcity is not solely responsible for conflict atthe tribal level, it is a major driver, and must be seen in thecontext of wider political and economic marginalisation.

Darfur lies on the edge of a desert in an area that suffersboth from an overall paucity of resources and a highdegree of variability in the availability of resources. Thisscarcity and variability have required a high level ofcommunity management, given that different groups useresources in different ways for their livelihoods. The envi-ronmental aspect of the conflict therefore must beanalysed with reference to governance and livelihoods.

Water resources and vegetationDarfur has low and variable rainfall, ranging from less

than 50mm in the northern desert to approximately200mm around El Fasher, 300–500mm in Geneina andNyala and up to 800mm or more in the south and in JebalMara. Figure 1 shows the rainfall records for El Fasher from1917 to 2007. Rainfall has been lower in recent decadesthan previously, and dry years have become morefrequent.

Rain normally falls in four months of the year, so thereis a large variation in the availability of water betweenthe wet and dry seasons. This is exacerbated by thelimited storage provided by the Basement Complexgeology that underlies most of the more populous partsof Darfur. The Basement Complex rocks are dissected bywadi valleys with alluvial deposits that are compara-tively water-rich. Typical well yields in BasementComplex geology are 0.1 to 1.0 litres per second, asagainst 1–20 litres per second for alluvial areas.1 Thismakes the wadi areas good for agriculture, in contrastto the wide rangeland on higher ground, which lies onBasement Complex.

During the dry season, livestock migrates off the range-land to the wadi areas for shade and to feed on cropresidues. A variety of longer-distance migrations also takeplace, including from the wet season rangelands in thenorth to the less arid south for the dry season. Thissystem requires a high degree of cooperation betweenpastoralist and farming communities to negotiate accessfor transhumant herders and to safeguard farmers’ cropsfrom grazing animals. A wide range of traditional rulesexist, for the management of long-distance routes, accessto water sources at wadis through vegetable gardens, forthe timing of different shepherding rules and for disputeresolution.

In arid and semi-arid areas, rainfall is the most significantdeterminant of the amount of vegetation, so the vari-ability in rainfall and the poor storage of groundwater arereflected in the variability in vegetation both spatially andtemporally in Darfur. Whilst this is most pronouncedbetween the wet season and the dry, considerable varia-tion exists between one year and the next. This makesDarfur’s subsistence livelihoods additionally uncertain.

Long-term processes of environmentaldegradation and increasing scarcityDarfur has experienced significant growth in populationover recent decades, from just over 1m people in the mid-1950s to around 6.5m in the early 2000s (see Table 1).

The marked increase in population density since the mid-1970s has put pressure on both sedentary and pastoralist

an understanding of physical and

social processes must inform

humanitarian programming,

recovery planning and peace

processes

1 Tearfund, Darfur: Water Supply in a Vulnerable Environment, 2007, p. 5.

Environmental degradation and conflict in Darfur: implications forpeace and recovery

Brendan Bromwich, UNEP

HE39 crc 9/7/08 12:40 pm Page 22

livelihood systems. The UN University of Peace confer-ence ‘Environmental Degradation as a Cause of Conflict inDarfur’, held in Khartoum in December 2004, describesthe following links between the environment andconflict:2

1. The increase in population density intensifies croppingand grazing.

2. This means shorter fallow periods for fields and over-grazed rangeland.

3. These processes cause a deterioration in yields andcarrying capacities.

4. Larger areas are needed to support the same yieldsand herds, but demands and herds are increasing.

5. Herders and farmers compete for access to resources,leading to conflict.

These long-term processes are also evident in the loss offorestry in the last three decades. The UN EnvironmentProgramme (UNEP)’s Post Conflict EnvironmentalAssessment of Sudan estimates that deforestation inDarfur is in excess of 1% per annum.3 The change in landuse from 1973 to 2006 for the Kass area is shown in Figure2 (page 24), where the proportion of land covered by forestfell from 51% to 36%. Forestry is of particular economicsignificance, not just because of its value for timber andfuel but also because of its role in protecting land quality.

The effects of these processes on the availability of fuelwood are stark, with significant scarcity across large partsof Darfur. In addition to the local demands, UNEP esti-mates that within five to ten years the northern states willbe dependent on the south and Darfur for charcoal, exac-erbating local conflict over control of natural resources.4

Analysis of forestry in Sudan must therefore be made atthe national rather than regional level.

Climate changeRainfall records from El Fasher show a marked drop begin-ning with drought in 1972. Although there were a numberof wet years in the 1990s, climate change models differ onwhether recovery will continue, or whether the overall


Year Population

1956 1,080,000

1973 1,340,000

1983 3,500,000

1993 5,600,000

2003 6,480,000

Table 1: Population in Darfur

Source: University of Peace, Environmental Degradation as a Cause of Conflict inDarfur, December 2004, p. 35.

2 The report of the conference proceedings is available at: www.stein-ergraphics.com/pdf/darfur_screen.pdf.

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3 UNEP, Sudan Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment, June 2007, p. 205, at http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications.php?prog=sudan.4 Sudan Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment, p. 213.5 Changes in Extreme Weather in Africa under Global Warming, RoyalNetherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI),www.knmi.nl/africa_scenarios/West_Africa/region8.

Figure 1: El Fasher annual rainfall 1917–2007 and ten-year average trend line

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trend will be further drying.5 More significantly, droughtshave become more frequent: 16 of the 20 driest yearsrecorded have occurred since 1972. Climate change modelsalso predict a reduction in the length of the growing period:Figure 3 (page 25) shows the reduction in the length of thegrowing period from 2000 to 2020 and 2000 to 2050. Partsof North Darfur will see a reduction of more than 20%between 2000 and 2020, with similar reductions acrossnearly all of Darfur by 2050. This will have a considerableimpact on livelihoods and food security.

Chronic conflict and political changeTraditional governance in Darfur has been weakened.6 Thetribal leadership had legal authority under the NativeAdministration system until 1971, when the system wasabolished. In 1986 it was renewed but its role has variedaccording to wider political and religious dynamics.7

Profound changes, such as the redrawing of state bound-aries breaking up tribal homelands, have altered thetribal-political map, but issues such as the marginalisa-tion of tribes without land persist. Inconsistent and weaktribal administration have undermined traditional environ-mental management.

The abolition of the Native Administration system in 1971preceded the 1972–73 drought, which meant that therewas reduced governance capacity to address theproblems of migration and conflict that occurred at thetime. The most severe drought, in 1984, triggered majormigrations and changes in livelihoods, again in theabsence of tribal governance ahead of the reconstitutionof the Native Administration in 1986. At the same time thenumber of weapons in Darfur was beginning to increaseand regional ethnic tension was growing. This led to oneof Darfur’s more significant tribal wars between Fur andArab tribes from 1987 to 1989. According to the contentsof the Truce Committee’s report,8 the war related to bothpolitical and environmental issues. The agreement alsolamented the weak governance at the time. This pattern ofpolitical and environmental conflict coinciding along tribaldivides is reflected in the current conflict. This war wasnot an isolated event: UNEP’s Post Conflict Environmental

Assessment lists 27 conflicts in Darfur since 1975 in whichenvironment and livelihoods have been a component.9

Darfur has also suffered from under-investment in infras-tructure and services, a reflection of the political andeconomic marginalisation at the root of the conflictbetween Darfur and Khartoum. Lack of education andhealth services and constrained access to markets restrictthe diversification of livelihood opportunities as a meansof adapting to the problems caused by environmentaldegradation.

Darfur cannot be reduced to a discussion over resourcescarcity leading to conflict alone, but this scarcity, which isa major driver in conflict at the tribal level, must beaddressed in the context of poor governance and under-development.

The impacts of the current conflictThe chronic processes of environmental degradation andthe loss of traditional environmental governance have beengreatly accelerated during the current crisis, both by theeffects of massive displacement and by the fighting itself.

The unprecedented concentrations of population in Darfurare causing localised resource depletion. In Abu Shoukand Al Salaam camps, 12–15 boreholes of the 66 drilledhave run dry.10 IDP camps are generally located on theoutskirts of market towns, resulting in the destruction ofshelter belts, forestry and farmland. In addition todisplacement, the following processes are causing severeenvironmental degradation:

• Uncontrolled deforestation is taking place, in thecontext of a breakdown of governance, driven by therole of timber and fuel wood in the war and crisiseconomy.

• Natural and physical assets are being destroyed as afeature of the war – farmers’ crops are grazed bypastoralists’ livestock, rangeland is burnt to preventgrazing and handpumps are destroyed.

• Crisis livelihood strategies have short-term horizons,undermining the natural resource base.

• Migration routes are blocked, leading to overgrazing inareas where livestock are concentrated.

Implications for recovery and developmentThe vulnerability of livelihoods in Darfur is characteristicof the rest of the Sahel, which also suffers from environ-mental degradation, population growth, poor governance,conflict, climate change, under-investment, dependencyon natural resources and lack of opportunities for diversi-fication. Many of these challenges – such as populationgrowth and the increased frequency of droughts – aregrowing.

Since Darfur’s economy is founded on natural resources,equitable and sustainable environmental governance at9 UNEP, Sudan Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment, p. 82.10 Darfur: Water Supply in a Vulnerable Environment.

6 Helen Young et al., Darfur – Livelihoods Under Siege (Medford, MA:Feinstein International Famine Center, Tufts University, 2005).7 Alex de Waal (ed.), War in Darfur and the Search for Peace

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), pp. 49–52.8 Report of the Popular Committee for Salvation on the Conference to

Secure the Tribal Peace Agreement, quoted in James Moreton, Conflict

in Darfur: A Different Perspective, June 2004.

UNEP’s Post Conflict Environmental

Assessment lists 27 conflicts in

Darfur since 1975 in which

environment and livelihoods have

been a component

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village and tribal level needs to be restored as a founda-tion for economic development. This must be done in amanner that can manage the recurring impacts of droughtand crop failure. This will need numerous agreementsbetween tribal groups and communities over access toand management of resources, in addition to resolution atthe higher political level.

Efforts to support development in Darfur must learn fromthe experiences of the western Sahel, and vice versa. Alonger-term holistic approach to supporting the region isrequired. Assistance must integrate development with theinevitable need for recurring humanitarian assistance,disaster risk reduction and adaptation to the impacts ofclimate change. These activities must provide a founda-tion of support for economic development in the absenceof a reliable resource base.

The Sahel Working Group’s report Beyond Any Drought,addressing vulnerability in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso,makes the following recommendations, which apply wellto Darfur:

• Plan for drought.• Plan to improve capacity to resist and recover.• Integrate humanitarian and development work.• Support pastoralism – a livelihood adapted to the vari-

ability of resources in the Sahel.• Understand the detail.• Increase long-term assistance.11

Climate change, drought cycle management, disaster riskreduction and mitigation of the environmental impacts ofthe current crisis in Darfur all call for sustainable resourcemanagement, good governance and support to liveli-hoods – which are all needed as part of the humanitarianresponse in Darfur.

Tearfund’s report Darfur: Relief in a Vulnerable Environ-

ment12 provides an analysis of the environmental contextand makes recommendations for integrating sustainableresource management into relief programming in order tomaintain the resources needed for the humanitarianresponse, as well as for preparation for recovery. Thefollow-up report, Darfur: Water Supply in a Vulnerable

Environment13 highlights the need to anticipate dry years

in the humanitarian context. Drought preparedness is anurgent priority for the water sector given the unprece-dented concentrations of population drawing on Darfur’spoor aquifers and the variability of rainfall. Oxfam andUNICEF’s introduction of groundwater monitoring in IDPcamps addresses this issue. The Tufts University DarfurLivelihood Workshops provided livelihood analysis thatdemonstrates the role of environment and conflict, andprovides further recommendations for appropriate reliefand recovery programming.14

It is striking to compare the categories of adaptation toclimate change presented in the Stern report with theimpacts of the current crisis in Darfur (Table 2, page 28).The conflict has had a devastating impact on efforts toadapt to the impacts of climate change. However, twovital opportunities exist as a result of the large reliefprogramme: to introduce new technologies, such as newbuilding, energy or water management methods; and tobuild the capacity of individuals and organisations inlivelihoods and environmental programming.

The process of adaptation to climate change would be amajor challenge for Darfur in peacetime. However, boththe major loss of natural resources and the underminingof traditional environmental governance make the chal-lenge far greater. While uncertainties exist in themodelling of the predicted extent of climate change, themeasures needed to adapt to its impacts are often thesame as those needed to promote water and energysecurity in humanitarian assistance in the current contextin Darfur.

Conclusions and recommendationsDarfur lies on the edge of a desert, in an area thatsuffers both from an overall paucity of resources andfrom a high degree of variability in the availability ofresources. As a result of population growth, climatechange, poor governance and conflict, it faces immenseenvironmental challenges. Given the role of environ-mental degradation and the failure of environmentalgovernance in undermining Darfur’s livelihoods, theseissues must be addressed under the humanitarianprogramme and as the focal points of a subsequentlonger-term programme of support to Darfur.Humanitarian and early recovery programming must beundertaken in a manner that builds capacity to respondto these challenges. In sum, the massive overarchingenvironmental narrative of the Darfur crisis calls for anew approach to environmentally sensitive relief andrecovery programming and peace-building.

On this basis, the following recommendations are made:

1. The peace process must address the environmental/livelihood conflict at the local or tribal level, inaddition to higher-level political issues. Relationshipsbetween communities need to be knitted together

27

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http://fic.tufts.edu/downloads/DarfurLivelihoods.pdf.

11 See http://www.iied.org/mediaroom/docs/Beyond%20Any%20Drought.pdf. 12 See http://www.tearfund.org/darfurenvironment. 13 See http://www.tearfund.org/darfurenvironment; andhttp://www.tearfund.org/darfurwatervulnerability.

equitable and sustainable

environmental governance at

village and tribal level needs to

be restored

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village by village in the context of numerous tribalagreements. Support to livelihoods is an importantentry point for peace initiatives at the tribal levelbecause different livelihood groups need to collabo-rate over access to natural resources.

2. Rural environmental governance needs to be rebuilt inDarfur in a manner that is sufficiently inclusive to with-stand the challenges of severe droughts in comingyears and the accompanying risks of further conflict.

3. Proposed support for economic development in Darfurneeds to acknowledge that the resource base requiredas a foundation for sustainable development faceschronic degradation, which has been greatly exacer-bated by the impacts of the conflict. Therefore,sustainable resource management, adaptation to theimpacts of climate change, disaster risk reduction,drought cycle management, livelihood programmingand rebuilding rural environmental governance will becore activities in restoring the foundation upon whichDarfur’s economy is built.

4. Drought and harvest failure must be planned for asnormal occurrences; recovery and developmentplanning must include a flexible relief component, on ademand-led basis.

5. Similarly, humanitarian programming must adapt itselfto Darfur’s considerable environmental vulnerability.Progress has been made in introducing environmentalissues in relief programmes, despite increasingly diffi-

cult operating conditions, but this needs significantexpansion in terms of introducing timberless construc-tion and improved energy programming such asplanting woodlots to provide energy for camps.Environmental management needs to be integrated incamp planning in a strategic and systematic way. Theopportunities for long-term benefits in technologytransfer, capacity-building and mainstreaming envi-ronmental practice should be realised. Droughtpreparedness is a priority.

6. Analysis in humanitarian programming in Darfur needsto make stronger linkages between conflict, protec-tion, livelihoods and environment. Impact assess-ments in each area need to refer to the others.

7. A major programme to reverse the rate of deforesta-tion in Sudan is needed at a national level. This mustinclude the increased use of alternative constructionand energy technologies in order to slow deforestationin Darfur and other marginal areas.

Brendan Bromwich manages UNEP’s programmes onenvironmental coordination and water resource manage-ment in Darfur. He was a contributor to UNEP’s Sudan

Post Conflict Environmental Assessment and co-author ofDarfur: Relief in a Vulnerable Environment, Darfur: Water

Supply in a Vulnerable Environment and Sharpening the

Strategic Focus of Livelihoods Programming in the Darfur

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Stern’s categories of adaptation to impacts of climate change Impact of conflict in Darfur – and opportunities for interventions

Technology transfer: water management, combating

desertification, agricultural technology, etc.

Limited access or funding for infrastructure development;

however, a unique opportunity exists to introduce new

technologies on a wide scale through relief and later recovery

programming.

Human capital: health and education to empower communities to

respond to the new environmental context.

One-third of the population displaced, other segments such as

Aballa Arabs increasingly marginalised, with little opportunity to

develop human capital. However, opportunities exist for learning

through experience in relief programming.

Physical capital: appropriate infrastructure, e.g. sand dams,

appropriate land zoning.

Villages destroyed, little development, land management

impeded by lack of access.

Social capital: security, environmental management, good

governance, traditional and kinship relationships that promote

peace.

Violence between livelihood groups on a huge scale, as a

component of, or fault-line in, the wider conflict. Massive loss in

capacity for cooperation over environmental management.

However, civil society could benefit from capacity-building under

relief programming.

Natural capital: shelter belts, protected forestry, well-managed

rangeland.

Massive asset-stripping, IDP camps in or near shelter belts,

massive deforestation, rangeland management suffering as

migration is disrupted. However, more forestry could be

undertaken.

Table 2: Adaptation to climate change and the impacts of conflict

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Understanding surge capacity within international agenciesBen Emmens, People In Aid, and Rachel Houghton, consultant

Sudden-onset humanitarian emergencies are, by definition,difficult to predict and plan for. Although much can be doneby way of preparing and strengthening an organisation’scapacity to respond at both international and local level,emergencies still present organisations with many chal-lenges. This article looks at how agencies might overcomesome of these challenges through developing variouscapacities which, combined, constitute their surge capacity.1

Surge capacity definedMajor emergencies require international organisations torapidly and effectively increase their resources – ofpeople, money and materials – in the countries affectedby an emergency. This ability to scale operations up (anddown) swiftly, smoothly and productively – ie ‘surgecapacity’ – is vital for fulfilling the humanitarian mandateand ensuring scarce resources are used efficiently andwith maximum impact.

People In Aid’s research has found that effective surgecapacity is a pre-requisite for effective emergencyresponse. Developing this capacity requires many differentparts of an organisation (programmes, human resources,logistics, fundraising, communications, finance) to workcollaboratively, coherently and consistently together,without losing focus on quality, accountability and longer-term impact. This is complex, and necessitates a clearstrategic vision of how it can be achieved.

The need for a clear strategic vision cannot be underplayed.One of the key findings of People In Aid’s research is thatsurge capacity is not just an organisation’s ability tomobilise an emergency response or rapidly deploy staff.Rather, it is the result of a continual process, frompreparedness planning through to response, and on totransition/recovery programming. Consequently, it requiresa holistic or ‘whole organisation’ approach, one in whichagency mandate, structure, culture and leadership are justas crucial as protocols, processes and systems.

Analysing surge capacitySurge capacity requires a collaborative, coherent andconsistent combination of many inter-related compo-nents. During the course of its research, People In Aididentified ten critical ‘enablers’ of surge capacity:

1 This article is the first in a series of three shorter pieces based onPeople in Aid’s research ‘Surge Capacity in the Humanitarian Relief andDevelopment Sector’. This can be downloaded from the People in Aidwebsite: http://www.peopleinaid.org/pool/files/publications/surge-final.pdf. The research was initiated by, and carried out in partnershipwith, the Inter-Agency Working Group, under the auspices of theEmergency Capacity Building Project. For more information go to:www.ecbproject.org.

People In Aid’s research has

found that effective surge

capacity is a pre-requisite for

effective emergency response

Box 1: Defining surge capacity

In the humanitarian context, surge capacity can be definedas the ‘ability of an organisation to rapidly and effectively

increase [the sum of ] its available resources in a specific

geographic location’, in order to meet increased demand tostabilise or alleviate suffering in any given population.Source: People In Aid, 2008.


UNEP, Sudan Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment, June 2007, see http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications.php?prog=sudan.

Tearfund, Darfur: Relief in a Vulnerable Environment, March 2007, www.tearfund.org.

Tearfund, Darfur: Water Supply in a Vulnerable Environment, October 2007, www.tearfund.org.

Helen Young et al., Sharpening the Strategic Focus of Livelihoods Programming in the Darfur Region: A Report of Four

Livelihoods Workshops, Feinstein International Center, 12 September 2007, http://fic.tufts.edu/downloads/DarfurLivelihoods.pdf.

Environmental Degradation as a Cause of Conflict in Darfur: Conference Proceedings, University for Peace, Khartoum,December 2007.

Alex de Waal (ed.), War in Darfur and the Search for Peace (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007).

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1. The adoption of a ‘whole organisation approach’ todeveloping surge capacity. If this does not happen,capacity to respond is compromised.

2. Matching capacity to mandate and structure, withinthe context of a wider strategic vision. This has signifi-cant implications for the quality of an agency’sprogramming as well as its accountability to affectedpopulations.

3. Pre-positioning of funds. This is critical, and emer-gency units need to find ways to leverage greateramounts of unrestricted and other funds so that theycan scale-up when required, respond to less visibleemergencies, as well as build, and maintain, capacitybetween emergencies.

4. Investment in HR as a strategic function and not justan administrative one. This is necessary not only at HQbut also at regional and country level.

5. Well-trained and experienced staff, in particular strongand competent leadership. There needs to be long-term investment in staff development, including incareer development. Focusing on behavioural as wellas technical competencies is important.

6. Recruitment for second-wave and longer-term deploy-ments needs, starting at the beginning of an emer-gency. If an emergency response is to be sustainablebeyond the initial surge, counterparting betweeninternational and national staff at this stage in aresponse is vital.

7. Development of surge capacity at country and regionallevel, as well as at HQ. Strategic integration of aspectsof emergency and development programming willhelp, as will the mainstreaming of disaster risk reduc-tion (DRR) across relief, recovery and developmentprogrammes.

8. Investment in rosters (and registers). More investmentis required if rosters are to remain the preferred modelfor rapid deployment. If agencies opt to develop thesetools, it is imperative they invest in adequate HRcapacity to make them effective.

9. Development of standard operating procedures govern-ing all aspects of an immediate response. This is espe-cially important as being able to rapidly deploy willinevitably compromise ordinary agency policies andprocedures.

10. The adoption of more systematised learning practices.This is vital in order to avoid making the samemistakes year on year.

Clearly, none of these ten elements just ‘happens’, hencethe conclusion that developing surge capacity is in fact acontinuous process which will require agency-wideplanning, the matching of capacity with an agency’smandate, integration into its wider ways of working, andongoing learning and performance improvement.Typically, surge capacity has been related to the point ofemergency response, but People In Aid’s researchsuggests it should be a consideration at every point of anagency’s intervention, as depicted in Figure 1.

Yet even if an agency has each of these ten criticalelements in place, evidence suggests that the challengeof bringing these different capacities ‘to scale’, inparallel, remains. Furthermore, the research found thatdeveloping surge capacity is also about collaborationbetween organisations, and that agencies are morelikely to achieve certain goals more quickly and effec-tively if they work together. This is returned to in thesecond article of this series, and is explained in further

30

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Figure 1: Surge capacity: the case for integrated interventions

Prevention Mitigation Preparedness Response Recovery

. . .but this research suggests that surge capacity should be considered atevery stage of the emergency cycle.

The surge capacity debatehas tended to focus on theresponse phase alone. . .

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detail in the concluding chapter of People In Aid’s reporton surge capacity.

Resourcing surge capacityEffective surge capacity requires access to resources:human, financial and material. People and money areundisputedly the core elements, and the availability ofhuman resources for swift deployment is the anchor ofany response.

How much surge capacity is required?

Within the context of their particular mandate, manyorganisations use indicators to classify the scope andextent of an emergency and to determine how much surgecapacity is required. Larger agencies support theirregional and country offices to develop emergencypreparedness plans; some go beyond this, as in the caseof Oxfam GB, which uses Emergency Management Plansto identify the individual who will assume the leadershiprole for each of its three categories of emergencyresponse across its different regions. Oxfam considersleadership to be the vital component to the success of anyemergency response, a finding echoed by all agenciesinterviewed for this study.

Human resources

When deploying human resources as part of an emer-gency response, agencies typically draw on one or moresources of staff:

• specialist emergency staff, for example from an emer-gency unit or full-time standing team (such as WorldVision’s Global Rapid Response Team);

• general staff, with appropriate skills and experience;• externally sourced staff that are unknown to agency;• externally sourced staff that are known informally to

the agency.

Preparing and retaining emergency response staff is ofparamount importance, and agencies utilise a number ofdifferent staff development tools to do this, such asregular training and workshops for those deployed as wellas, for example, simulation training and performanceappraisal. All of these help to build staff capacity, as dotools specifically designed to enhance organisationallearning, such as Real Time Evaluations and post-response review workshops.

During People In Aid’s research, Save the Children UKemphasised that the ‘receptiveness of existingprogrammes for external surge’ is also crucial. Thus, anagency’s ability to respond quickly and effectively in timesof increased need is fundamentally about meaningfulnational capacity-building. This is borne out by theresearch findings, which note that emergency unitsamong the Inter-agency Working Group member agenciestypically have a dual function: (1) to serve as part of theorganisation’s emergency response team; and (2), toprovide capacity strengthening support to national officesin the development standard operating procedures(including emergency preparedness plans).

The type of human resources and the way in which theyare deployed is also critical. This as well as other researchby People In Aid suggests that certain behavioural andattitudinal competencies – such as flexibility, of systemsas well as people – are essential when it comes toenabling rapid response. Many agencies agreed that theirbest responses came when different tools, proceduresand practices worked in parallel, with the implicit need forstaff to accept non-linearity in times of crisis.

Financial resources

Having the financial means to initiate a response is acritical component of surge capacity, whether that bemoney in the bank, special relationships with key donorsor some other substantial source.

Each of the ECB member agencies has an emergencyresponse fund which they use to support, to varyingdegrees, both their capacity development between emer-gencies and their ability to deploy rapidly when required.The extent to which they do this is based on the amountsavailable at any given time, and the level of commitmentof the organisation. The funding arrangements work indifferent ways, with two models predominating – centralcoverage from unrestricted funds, and the use of fundingon a ‘revolving’ basis, with expenditure reimbursedthrough subsequent grant funding.

Surge capacity mechanismsA ‘surge capacity mechanism’ is invariably a complex systemof different but inter-related components. It includes notonly the different standing capacities described above – ie,people, money and materials – but also the tools, policies,procedures and resource configurations that an agencyadopts when mobilising that capacity.

How an agency develops and deploys its surge capacity isa topic in itself, but at the heart of any surge capacity

developing surge capacity is also

about collaboration between

organisations: agencies are more

likely to achieve goals more

quickly and effectively if they

work together

having the financial means to

initiate a response is a critical

component of surge capacity

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mechanism lies the need for preparedness and flexibility.Flexibility in particular is critical because enabling a‘surge’ often compromises existing ways of doing things.For the purpose of this article, surge capacity mechanismsare grouped into two categories: planning mechanismsand recruitment mechanisms.

Planning mechanisms

A credible surge response is usually preceded by someanticipation of staffing needs (workforce planning). Thisrequires a productive partnership with the HR function, andagencies that respond most successfully to emergencies aretypically those that have recognised the strategic impor-tance of human resource planning and management inemergencies. This is particularly important to the sustain-ability and judicious financial management of any response.

Planning is only meaningful if it is accompanied by anunderstanding of available staff capacity, from two perspec-tives: first, the size of the pool of skilled and experiencedpeople, be they at international, regional or local level (ie,the level of staff capacity); and second, the quality of staffcapacity, particularly personal and technical competencies,but also the extent to which they are trained or mentored.The research also found that deploying specialist HRpersonnel at the beginning of an emergency greatlyenhances the effectiveness of the response.

Successful and smooth deployment depends on clearpolicies, procedures and systems that allow staff to bemobilised and managed in the required timeframe. It alsorequires a vision for how international and national staffwill work together, which includes how an agency seeks topromote continuity in programming beyond the imme-diate rapid response.

Recruitment mechanisms

The foundation of most emergency responses consists ofpre-existing staff capacity at country level. A number ofagencies prefer to focus on building their country-levelcapacity as a way of mitigating the need for a large interna-tional response. However, the need for additional capacityis common and, as a result, recruitment mechanisms playa key part in enabling an effective surge response.

Recruitment mechanisms might be internal or external.Internal recruitment (or mobilisation) tends to involve eitheremploying dedicated emergency response staff on perma-nent contract (so called ‘standing teams’) or redeploying/seconding staff from one location to another (generallypeople named on internal registers or rosters). Externalrecruitment tends to involve either hiring people who areunknown to the agency or, commonly, recruiting peoplethrough an informal network of contacts, including registers.

Rosters and registers

Rosters and registers are, at their most basic, tools suchas spreadsheets or databases to manage information con-cerning deployable staff. For People In Aid, the key differ-ence between a roster and a register is that a rostercontains information about a person’s availability as wellas their qualifications and skills, while a register tends tocontain only the entry’s contact details and an overview oftheir skills and competencies.

Sourcing staff for internal rosters and registers requiresspecial attention, but external recruitment is equally, if notmore, challenging. Creativity in both respects is required toensure that staff of the highest calibre are deployed as partof an emergency response. Methods include maintaininglists of available staff, deploying promising staff into non-acute emergency settings, retention rosters and fellowshipand training schemes. In addition, the ability to truncateprocedures in an emergency context is desirable.

ConclusionSurge capacity represents an entire system of policies andprocedures; it is as much about an organisation’s philo-sophical approach as it is about any single mechanism,such as a roster or register.

Developing an effective surge capacity rests on anagency’s ability to make progress on many fronts, forexample staff quality and capacity, flexible pre-positioningof funds and equipment, the development of operationalmanagement tools and strengthening capacity in coun-tries and regions, as well as identifying the most usefulpartner organisations for development and incorporatingDRR into longer-term and recovery programming.

Finally, it is clear that single agency scale will, at somepoint, become finite. To meet the challenge of increasedneed and limited resources, developing surge capacity isabout leverage within organisations, and collaboration, asa form of leverage, between organisations. In workingtogether, agencies are likely to achieve their goals morequickly, and there are examples of successful collabora-tion that has achieved just that (such as the Inter-agencyWorking Group member agencies in Sumatra in early2007). Moreover, given signs that donors seem to bemoving towards pooled funding arrangements at countrylevel, this, together with pressure from policymakers andpractitioners, provides an additional imperative foragencies to collaborate.

However, the shared humanitarian imperative provides aneven more compelling case for collaboration: we knowthat the quality and outcomes of both relief and longer-term recovery and development are directly related tohow well agencies work together in the immediateresponse phase, so our record has to improve in thisrespect, for the sake of the individuals and communitieswith which we work.

Ben Emmens can be reached at [email protected] consultant Rachel Houghton’s email addressis: [email protected].

32

deploying specialist HR

personnel at the beginning of an

emergency greatly enhances the

effectiveness of the response

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The need for NGOs to be more accountable to thoseaffected by disaster has been noted repeatedly in majorevaluations, including the report of the TsunamiEvaluation Coalition on the international response to the2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.1 For World Vision in SriLanka, the tsunami response provided an opportunity toimplement an emergency programme in a more account-able manner and to work with the HumanitarianAccountability Partnership on a trial of their certificationprocedures. The overall results, particularly for the peoplewe work with, were very positive and generated a greatdeal of learning, which is gradually being applied to otherprogrammes. This article describes what was new, howWorld Vision’s work benefited and some of the key factorsin making this happen.

For World Vision, the major reason for greater account-ability is to help those affected by disaster realise theirrights and to improve the quality of the services providedto them. The general benefits of increased participationfor communities have been well documented elsewhere,and a participatory evaluation with communities foundthat they valued World Vision’s new approach in Sri Lankaas well.2 To complement this work, this article focuses onthe benefits of increased accountability to the imple-menting NGO, with a focus on staff perceptions of thebenefits of increased accountability to the implementingNGO. It is based on two weeks of interviews with fieldstaff on site in 2007. World Vision has greatly valuedlearning on accountability from others and welcomes theopportunity to contribute to the wider debate.

Humanitarian Accountability Team (HAT): an overviewWorld Vision has a long-term development presence in SriLanka, but following the 2004 tsunami a parallel emergencyresponse office was set up to manage relief and reconstruc-tion efforts, called the (Sri) Lanka Tsunami Response Team(LTRT). To promote accountability in LTRT’s programming, aHumanitarian Accountability Team (HAT) was set up toengage with communities to provide information, listen totheir concerns, liaise with other stakeholders and givepeople a greater voice in LTRT’s programming. HAT wasestablished as a separate sector reporting directly to theProgramme Director, and was empowered to representstakeholder (community) perspectives up to the level of theSenior Management Team. Management of technicalsectors such as shelter and child protection was donethrough an operations department, which focused on theimplementation and technical management of projects andactivities. HAT complemented this by focusing on commu-nity engagement, complaints, liaison with other parties(e.g. NGOs and the government) and monitoring the widercommunity context through tools like Local Capacities forPeace (LCP). This was implemented through a network ofStakeholder Representatives, based in each site office andworking closely with communities. District Liaison Officerswere also employed in site offices to serve as focal pointsfor inter-agency coordination.

33

‘Without HAT we are just a

company building houses’ –

Communications Manager, LTRT

Further reading

S. Braun, Report on Emergency Capacity: Analysis for the Interagency Working Group on Emergency Capacity (NewYork), 2004, www.ecbproject.org.

R. Choularton, Contingency Planning and Humanitarian Action, Network Paper 59 (London: HPN, 2007).

R. Houghton and B. Emmens, Understanding Surge Capacity in the Humanitarian Sector (London: People In Aid,2007).

D. Loquercio, M. Hammersley and B. Emmens, Understanding and Addressing Staff Turnover in Humanitarian

Agencies, Network Paper 55 (London: HPN, 2006).

A. Stoddard, ‘You Say You Want a Devolution: Prospects for Remodelling Humanitarian Assistance’, Journal of

Humanitarian Assistance, 2004, www.jha.ac/articles/a154.pdf.

S. Swords, Behaviours That Lead to Effective Performance in Humanitarian Response (London: People In Aid, 2007).

Improving efficiency and effectiveness through increasedaccountability to communities: a case study of World Vision’stsunami response in Sri LankaJulian Srodecki, World Vision

1 See Chapter 5 of the report. 2 Alexandra Levaditis, Humanitarian Accountability Team Lessons

Learned: Perspectives from Communities and Staff, World Vision LankaTsunami Response Team, September 2007.

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Ensuring that projects and staff are ‘fit forpurpose’The HAT helped to ensure that projects were ‘fit for (commu-nity) purpose’, as well as meeting technical standards.Effective projects need to combine both of these elements.For example, in construction it would be possible to build aschool that meets building regulations but cannot be useddue to other factors such as location, lack of teachers oraccess difficulties for children. In LTRT, technical sector staff,such as engineers in the shelter programme, dealt with tech-nical standards. Alongside this, HAT staff took the lead inworking with communities to ensure that projects were ‘fitfor purpose’, strengthening sustainability and increasinglevels of community satisfaction. This helped to speed upimplementation of the shelter programme as one teamcarried out technical preparations for implementation whilethe other worked with communities to lay the foundationsfor the project. Once projects were underway, this structureenlarged the options for community construction method-ologies, removing bottlenecks and freeing up technical staffto spend more time on implementation issues.

This split also enabled technical staff to focus on the tech-nical aspects of the project and on tasks that best suitedtheir skills. This improved productivity and enhanced overallproject effectiveness. Such an approach is valuable becausehiring good technical staff with community liaison skills canbe very difficult, particularly in large emergencies such asthe tsunami, where there was significant demand for staff.

Reduction in organisational riskHaving a function mandated to collect and representcommunity perspectives and complaints at all levels ofthe programme acted as a kind of internal nervous systemfor the programme, keeping decision-makers informedand reducing organisational risk. Senior managers valuedhaving a community-based information system because itimproved the information available to them and allowedthem to tackle issues as they arose. Across theprogramme, it was found that being able to listen tocommunities and act on their concerns helped to reducethe number of disputes that had to be dealt with by seniormanagement. As of September 2007, despite a largeoperation with over 700 staff at its peak and a budget of$112 million over three years, there were no court casesrelating to project implementation.

Quality saves moneyOver the course of the two years of operation, the HAThelped save over $5m by preventing unsuitable or unneces-sary construction. For example, in Hambantota, WorldVision was asked to build 400 apartments. Through itswork with communities, World Vision found that the accom-

modation was not needed and was inappropriate, and nobuilding took place. Savings were also made through bettercoordination with implementing agencies, which meantthat over 175 houses went unbuilt in areas where housingsupply was outstripping demand. Further savings weremade through more robust community processes to refinebeneficiary lists. In one example, World Vision was todonate a fishing boat to one family who had alreadyreceived a boat through other means. This only came tolight when other community members complained, andHAT staff were able to confirm that this was the case. Incases like this, the resources saved were reprogrammed inother areas or directed towards other beneficiaries.

Increased staff motivation andresponsiveness to community needsHaving a function mandated to represent community per-spectives within the programme helped busy staff to recon-nect with their original reasons for joining World Vision,strengthening their commitment to organisational values.Greater knowledge of community priorities and concernshelped expatriate engineers and technical specialists tocontextualise their work, and national staff deployed to newareas adapted to their new locations more effectively. Forexample, in field locations with a large Muslim population,cultural requirements for housing were different to otherareas of Sri Lanka. Having a HAT team enabled these issuesto be flagged up early, and led many District Managers tohire staff who were more representative of the locality.

Critical success factorsStaff in Sri Lanka learnt a great deal about what it takes tomake a humanitarian accountability function work at fieldlevel. Rather than an isolated tool or a stand-alonefunction, senior managers worked closely with the entireoffice to develop an overarching approach to account-ability that cut across teams, functions and departments.This approach required significant support from seniormanagement, an enabling structure and a change in theculture of the organisation.

Senior management support

A key factor in the impact of accountability in Sri Lanka wasthe decision of senior management to prioritise quality andaccountability. This took two forms: the allocation of signifi-cant resources to the HAT, and giving the team the time andspace to focus on quality. The HAT team cost about 3% ofthe total programme budget and had very capable staff.(Monitoring and evaluation costs connected to grantcompliance and output tracking are not included in thistotal.) Senior managers maximised the impact of thisinvestment by giving HAT a mandate to prioritise a singlehigh-risk, high-impact sector, rather than spreading theteam too thinly. Sectors involved in construction werechosen as the focus because they posed the highest organ-isational risk and potentially had the highest impact onbeneficiaries. This was because of the high unit costs forhousing and other types of construction and because indi-vidual families rather than whole communities wouldreceive them. This meant that beneficiary selectionprocesses needed to be fair and that any problems had tobe resolved before construction was completed.

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‘HAT is the conscience of the

programme – conscience with

clout’ – Stakeholder Capacity

Building Advisor, HAT

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Senior management support also enabled HAT to holdothers parts of the programme to account. This gave theHAT a clearly defined mandate to establish clear relation-ships with other teams and advocate internally on behalfof communities.

An empowering structure for accountability

HAT was separate from operational and grant compliancefunctions and reported directly to the Programme Director(see Figure 1).

Representation on the Senior Management Team (SMT)enabled the internal advocacy of community perspectives ina reasonably independent manner and made it easier forHAT to resolve community complaints. First, it facilitated acollaborative approach to resolving community complaintsas HAT could participate in the search for solutions. Second,it enabled HAT staff to take complaints to the top. Wherepossible, community concerns were addressed at the fieldlevel, but this structure facilitated a graduated response,first to the line manager, then to the Operations Director andfinally to the SMT/Programme Director.

A further benefit of this structure was that HAT staff at eachproject site were part of a management chain that insulatedthem from internal pressure to avoid raising or pursuingcommunity complaints. Having an expatriate team leadercan help to empower staff and encourage them to raiseissues in non-confrontational or highly relational cultures,where talking about problems is not the norm or wherethere is a fear that long-term relationships might be harmed.

An organisational culture that supported accountability

A key factor in HAT’s success was the development of anorganisational culture that promoted accountability. All staffworking in a field office were sensitised to the need forincreased accountability to beneficiaries, and learned to seecomplaints in a positive light, as a way of improving WorldVision’s work. This was important because accountabilityfield staff needed excellent relations with communities and

colleagues. This was achieved through a combination ofgood leadership and the adoption of a collaborativeapproach to handling complaints. The HAT team leader hadstrong influencing and coalition-building skills, and was ableto develop collaborative relations between departments,sectors and sites. Second, HAT worked alongside imple-menting staff to resolve problems, making it a helpful allyrather than an external critic. Having HAT staff in each fieldsite meant that problems could usually be resolved at sitelevel. HAT staff were able to raise community concerns,strengthening trust and building good relations withcommunity members. HAT staff were also able to offer prac-tical community engagement services, facilitating assess-ments, refining beneficiary lists, managing communitycomplaints and dealing with government liaison and coordi-nation issues, and as such were seen as a useful componentof the team rather than an external threat.

ConclusionDuring the tsunami response, World Vision invested in aHumanitarian Accountability Team at a level that was newfor the organisation. This enabled projects to be moreresponsive to community needs, but also yielded substan-tial benefits for the organisation. For busy field managers,under pressure to perform in difficult circumstances, theexperience of World Vision in Sri Lanka shows that invest-ment in accountability can make a substantial contributionto the internal running of NGOs, allowing them to workmore efficiently and effectively in large-scale emergencies.

Julian Srodecki is Associate Director, Humanitarian Account-ability Unit, World Vision International. For more informationthe following documents have been posted on www.hapin-ternational.org, or are available either from [email protected] or [email protected]: Julian Srodecki, Why Do

Accountability? A Business Case from Sri Lanka, WorldVision, April 2007; and Alexandra Levaditis, Humanitarian

Accountability Team Lessons Learned: Perspectives from

Communities and Staff, World Vision Lanka TsunamiResponse Team, September 2007.

35

Figure 1: The LTRT structure from an accountability perspective

Operations

• Child protection

• Economic Recovery

• Health and nutrition

• Infrastructure

• Shelter

• Water and sanitation

Humanitarian

Accountability Team

• Community

engagement

• NGO liaison

• Community-based

advocacy

• LCP and

peacebuilding

Program/DME

• Resource raising/

tracking

• Grant Compliance

• Reporting and

evaluation

Support functions

• Communications

• Finance and

administration

• Human resources

• Security

• Legal

Senior leadership

(Programme Director/ SMT)

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From July 2006 to July 2007, a Médecins sans Frontières(MSF) working group undertook a field-based study onthe UN’s humanitarian reforms.1 MSF has long beenconcerned about UN and donor policies of ‘coherence’,mission integration and the politicisation of aid incontexts such as Angola, the Democratic Republic ofCongo (DRC), Sierra Leone and Afghanistan.2 The UNhumanitarian reforms have generated renewed interest inhow coherence translates into field reality, prompting MSFto gain a field-based understanding of the reforms.

Our study reviewed the reforms through three interlinkedissues: 1) implementation; 2) impact on humanitarianresponse; and 3) influence on the humanitarian workingenvironment. To reflect a range of different contexts andtypes of humanitarian response, MSF teams conductedresearch in Darfur, South Sudan, the DRC, Haiti, Liberiaand Côte d’Ivoire, as well as carrying out interviews onissues relating to Iraq, Somalia and Uganda. This studyaimed to gain a field-based perspective across diversecontexts, and to draw practical conclusions about theimpact of the reforms.

Our findings suggest that the UN humanitarian reformsrepresent an extension of integrated UN missions, whosestructure and activities aim to align political, military andaid objectives. As such, the reforms foster an environmentconducive to the breaching of humanitarian principles ofindependence, impartiality and neutrality. As the reformsintroduce coordination and funding tools aimed atincreasing coherence, the imperative to arrive at jointanalysis and response stands in tension with the inherentdiversity and complementarity of humanitarian action,based on independence of analysis and intervention.Within integrated UN missions, the reinforced role of the Humanitarian/Resident Coordinator/Deputy Special

Representative of the Secretary General in both coordina-tion (clusters) and funding (the Central EmergencyResponse Fund (CERF)) risks further conflating politicaland humanitarian aims. In this highly politicised atmo-sphere, serious questions arise about how the reformsimpact on perception of humanitarians in the field, and ontheir ability to provide timely and appropriate assistanceto those most in need.

The reforms: an overviewLaunched in early 2006, the UN reforms consist of threeinterrelated measures aimed at improving humanitarianresponse:

• The introduction of nine thematic ‘clusters’ for coordi-nation at field and ‘global’ levels, with each field-levelcluster led by a UN agency functioning as ‘provider oflast resort’, and accountable to the UN HumanitarianCoordinator.

• The relaunch of the CERF as a financial instrument forrapid response and under-funded emergencies, followedup by the UN HC in-country, where priority-setting forresponse may occur through the clusters.

• Strengthening of the HC role as the hub for bothclusters and the CERF, often with a simultaneouslypolitical and humanitarian function.

Analysis of the reforms has raised significant concerns,including:

• Whether they have achieved their stated goals ofimproving humanitarian response, including effective-ness, timeliness and accountability. Both the clustersand the CERF have been criticised for increasing layersof coordination and funding, while lacking account-ability and consistent evaluation of their impact.Concurrently, cluster ‘accountability’ to the HC raisesthe question whether NGOs should be accountable tothe UN system.

• The extent to which the reforms address broaderproblems in humanitarian response, including the lackof skilled staff, gaps in analysis and failure to fund andoffer political support to humanitarian action. Clustersand the CERF are limited tools in addressing cross-cutting issues or long-term and transition contexts.

• The shape UN–NGO relations will assume. With UNagencies acting as cluster leads, or with direct access toCERF funding restricted to UN agencies, the UN wieldssignificant influence over NGOs through the reforms – instark contrast to the majority of aid capacity andactivity, which is provided by field-based NGOs.

Most analysis evaluates the reforms according to theirown logic, rather than examining the interconnectedobjectives of the different reforms and their impact onhumanitarians’ operational environment. Drawing onfield-based examples, this article examines the ongoing

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UN humanitarian reforms: a view from the fieldKatharine Derderian, Eric Stobbaerts, Iesha Singh, Simone Rocha and David Melody

UN humanitarian reforms

represent an extension of

integrated UN missions, whose

structure and activities aim to

align political, military and aid

objectives

1 Completed in December 2007, this article represents the results of afield-based study conducted by MSF sections in Belgium, Holland andthe UK, as well as the MSF-Brazil office. It does not aim to provide acomprehensive, global over-view of the reforms, or an institutionalMSF position on them. The authors would like to thank Nouria Brikci(MSF-UK) and Sarah Martin (MSF-Holland) for their input.2 See, for example, Penny Harrison, ‘The Strategic Framework andPrincipled Common Programming: A Challenge to HumanitarianAssistance’, Humanitarian Exchange, no. 19, September 2001; andMSF, Angolans Left To Die, October 2002.

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policies of coherence and integration as furthered by theUN reforms, and their impact on the humanitarian envi-ronment and the provision of assistance.

Implementation of the reformsThe humanitarian reforms represent a positive attempt toaddress gaps in assistance and to improve humanitarianresponse. They have not, however, achieved this, andhave only reluctantly been accepted, even within the UNsystem. Yet the clusters are becoming standard issue forUN missions, particularly in quick-onset crises.

The cluster approach has resulted in a proliferation ofcoordination platforms. In Liberia, for example, the WHO-led health cluster doubled up with the government’sHealth Services Coordinating Committee and an NGO-headed health forum, on top of disease-specific workinggroups and the general bi-weekly UN–NGO HumanitarianAid Coordination Committee. Belying the reforms’ aim ofincreased effectiveness, the UN clusters pre-emptedexisting government coordination bodies. Likewise, whilethe reforms’ development of a systemic UN response toIDP needs has been a positive step towards assigningclearer responsibilities among UN agencies, increasing(technical) coordination is no substitute for a lack of polit-ical will, responsiveness, effectiveness and/or account-ability in humanitarian aid. In Somalia, despite increasedcoordination meetings and a greater willingness to shareinformation, cluster output is negligible, and there are stilltoo few concrete interventions being implemented in-country for coordination to have any real meaning.

Within the clusters, political considerations enter intooperational exchanges through funding mechanismsimplicitly or explicitly linked to common operational policyor positioning, as well as through the ‘inclusive’ participa-tion of political, military and aid actors. In such a context,coordination tends towards collective positions, rather

than facilitating independentoperations, analysis and/oradvocacy. In Uganda, ECHOrequired ‘partners’ to fit theirproposals into existing clusterstrategies before grantingfunding. The British govern-ment is also focusing onfunding clusters rather thanindividual NGOs. In the DRC,the clusters channel significantamounts of humanitarianfunding from different multilat-eral mechanisms, including theCERF. Despite some checks andbalances (such as the PooledFund Board, on which NGOsand donors have a presence),UN cluster leads wield signifi-cant power in inviting partici-pants to meetings, submittingproposals and disbursing CERFfunding.

Despite its goal of supporting life-saving activitiesand/or responding to (under-funded) emergencies, ourstudy found that the CERF is often used in a politicisedmanner. Between March 2006 and November 2007,$574 million was committed: $376m for ‘rapidresponse’, and $198m for ‘under-funded emergencies’.Since the CERF covers emergencies under-funded by theUN Consolidated Appeal Process (CAP), it frequentlyrisks becoming an emergency sticking-plaster to coverchronic under-funding of often non-emergency UNprogrammes. CERF-funded activities have also oftenfocused on facilitating the eventual saving of livesand/or livelihoods, rather than direct emergency inter-ventions.

In several cases, assistance to specific regions or popula-tions served (inter)national political interests, instead ofprioritising immediate need. Thus, three-quarters of thethree CERF instalments for Haiti in 2006 focused on infras-tructure and rehabilitation projects in insecure areas ofPort-au-Prince which the UN mission MINUSTAH wastrying to control. Although Haiti was categorised as anunder-funded emergency, these were structural, longer-term and high-visibility projects that seemed to fulfil asecurity objective, more than a humanitarian one.Likewise, Côte d’Ivoire’s three CERF ‘tranches’ in 2006 allfocused in and around Guiglo, a town that saw anti-UNriots and widespread destruction of UN and NGO infras-tructure in January 2006. The CERF covered ‘emergency’needs in Guiglo, including ill-defined IDP ‘protection’activities ($950,000); the return of Liberian refugees torelieve strained assistance capacities ($1m); and vaguely-defined ‘life-saving’ activities in the region ($3m). CERF-funded activities included political, non-emergencyelements, such as ‘social events to improve inter-commu-nity relations and promote peace culture … bring[ing]together … all communities during the football worldchampionship’.

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Darfuri women walk through the ruins of Sirba village near el-Geneina.

The village was ransacked during a government offensive in February 2008

to retake the area from rebels

©Reuters/O

pheera McD

oom, w

ww

.alertnet.org

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In an integrated mission setting, the reforms’ reinforce-ment of the HC position simply strengthens the role of themany-hatted HC/RC/DSRSG, negotiating between globalUN objectives (peacekeeping, state-building, develop-ment) and the imperative of humanitarian action. Even ifUN agency heads are now supposed to be accountable tothe HC in-country, questions are already emerging aroundthe definition of humanitarian crisis and need for ‘lastresort’ action, prioritisation among different fields ofintervention, accessibility to CERF funds, the type andscope of operations and the imposition of restrictivesecurity rules. Although too early to be sure, the resultscould include delays in response and the further politici-sation of aid.

Finally, within the reforms and in integrated UN missions,the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs(OCHA) has been abolished altogether, left under-fundedor relegated to a diminished role of general coordinationand interfacing with NGOs, without any significant influ-ence to further humanitarian action within the UN system.

Impact on people in needOur study found some optimism about the reforms’potential to mobilise increased resources, but the resultshave been questionable. Extra layers of administrationand coordination provide cause for concern, while UNsecurity rules sometimes bar UN agencies and theirimplementing partners from accessing insecure areas.Thus, in the DRC the Pooled Fund and the CERF increasedfunding overall, but it is unclear how much actuallyreaches people in need. Security restrictions make it diffi-cult to assess, monitor and evaluate project quality, effec-tiveness or timeliness. Although the UN mission, MONUC,implements Quick Impact Projects (QIPs) through NGOs,these high-visibility projects seem to lack evaluation oftheir impact on the target population – let alone theirimplications for NGO neutrality and security. In Haiti, theresources poured into insecure areas of Port-au-Princerarely translated into proper assistance programmesbased on accurate needs assessments. Strict UN securityrules were said to hamper UN agencies’ capacity to assessneeds and respond to them.

Despite new reform initiatives, it appears that the safe,dignified return of IDPs to areas with sufficient securityand infrastructure is still secondary to the organisation oflogistics and the overall political objectives connectedwith return. In Côte d’Ivoire, for example, the protectioncluster planned to facilitate IDP return through support toinfrastructure and basic services in the west of thecountry, despite the fact that no UN agencies had apermanent presence inside the volatile buffer zone towhich IDPs were to return. Due to insecurity, MSF healthstructures were treating high levels of violent trauma inthe same region. Other plans developed under the protec-

tion cluster included vaguely defined activities such aspeace-building and peace education in schools, policetraining on IDP guidelines and programmes for womenand children. In conflict settings, such activities raisequestions about the UN definition of protection, andabout the effectiveness of such approaches in ensuringphysical security and the upholding of human rights andthe right to assistance.

Impact on the humanitarian workingenvironmentThe launch of the clusters and the CERF has raisedconcerns about increased NGO dependence on UNcontext analysis and security, and/or on UN or donorstrategies, such as linking IDP return with service provi-sion, or cost recovery for healthcare. Such conditionalitiespoliticise humanitarian assistance, risking negativeperceptions towards the UN and international NGOs,potentially impacting on NGO security and humanitarianaccess and so diminishing timely and appropriateresponse to people in need. In Côte d’Ivoire, for instance,there is general agreement that the riots in Guiglo in 2006were the result of the UN’s simultaneous involvement inboth the Ivorian political process and the provision of aid.After the African Union and the UN-led international moni-toring mission declined to extend the mandate of theNational Assembly, rioters besieged the UN Operation inCôte d’Ivoire (UNOCI) compound in Guiglo and the localradio station encouraged young people to destroy ‘all thesymbols of the UN, including humanitarian organizationspresent in the town’. UN and NGO offices were looted anddamaged, but MSF was unmolested, and MSF and theICRC restarted their activities the day after the unrest.

In the DRC, protection clusters have called for MONUCdeployments, launched human rights fact-findingmissions, written letters and physically followed up onbehalf of cluster members with the military and judicialauthorities in response to troop movements, indisciplineor impunity. It is unclear what is done with this highlysensitive information, and what might happen should thelocal authorities respond by seeking out those behind theresulting cluster initiatives.

Some access and security problems for humanitarianspredate and are not necessarily linked with the UNreforms. Still, perception is fragile, and crucial to humani-tarian access and security. Access and security for human-itarians and populations seeking assistance can declinewhere humanitarians are perceived as pursuing politicalgoals through politicised or regionally biased assistance.During 2007, for instance, OCHA spearheaded a jointhumanitarian plan of action for Iraq, with the participationof some Jordan-based international NGOs. For Iraqi actors,local NGOs and beneficiaries, this exercise risked rein-

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the CERF is often used in a

politicised manner

perception is fragile, and crucial

to humanitarian access and

security

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forcing the already negative perceptions of a pro-Westernagenda promoting reconstruction and democracy over theresponse to emergency needs.

Ultimately, if UN and/or international donors focus onparticular regions or populations, NGOs may find them-selves unable to intervene, even in response to indepen-dently identified needs, leaving populations in alreadymarginalised areas without vital assistance. By furtheradvancing the policies of coherence already present in UNintegrated missions, the reforms threaten the diversity,complementarity and independence of humanitarian action.

ConclusionsAlthough the reforms’ implementation is moving fast and indivergent ways, our study found that the logic of integra-tion is as strong as ever across the contexts reviewed. Todate, the tensions between the humanitarian and political-military arms of the UN, generated by different views ofoperations, funding and coordination roles, have notalways strengthened the humanitarian response. With thecontinued blurring of lines between political and humani-tarian objectives, the aid architecture established by theUN humanitarian reforms is simply not conducive toupholding humanitarian principles in practice. As an impar-tial and neutral response to the needs of the most vulner-able, humanitarians must remain vigilant or risk losingground in the UN and donors’ search for coherence. Thepresent reforms risk further reinforcing these tendencies,and seriously hampering humanitarians’ ability to sustainand defend independent, impartial humanitarian actionboth inside and outside the UN framework. Meanwhile, thepotential risks of negative perceptions and loss of securityfor both humanitarians and their beneficiaries persist.

While demonstrating a quantifiable causal correlationbetween the UN’s humanitarian reforms and a loss ofhumanitarian space remains challenging, it is clear that thereforms do impact indirectly on people in need through thefailure to increase resource mobilisation, further appro-priate, timely and effective responses and translate thesignificant time, energy and funding being channelled intothe reforms into an impartial and concrete response toneed. In the end, our study underlines the need for humani-tarians to continue to pursue independence and criticalengagement with the UN and other political actors in thefield. Humanitarian independence demands intensive

reflection about the concrete impact of ‘coherent’ policies,and above all an active engagement to preserve humani-tarian space, with the aim of serving those most in need.

39


Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, Politics and

Humanitarianism: Coherence in Crisis?. February 2003,http://www.hdcentre.org/datastore/files/pandh.pdf.

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Search for ‘Coherence’ Between Political and Humani-

tarian Responses to Complex Emergencies, HPG Report 8,August 2000, http://www.odi.org.uk/hpg/papers/hpgreport8.pdf.

Nicolas de Torrenté, ‘Humanitarianism Sacrificed:Integration’s False Promise’, Ethics & International

Affairs, 18(2), 2004, http://www.cceia.org.

Nicolas de Torrenté, ‘Humanitarian Action Under Attack:Reflections on the Iraq War’, Harvard Human Rights

Journal, 17, Spring 2004, http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/hrj/iss17/torrente.shtml.

Greg Hansen, ‘Taking Sides or Saving Lives: ExistentialChoices for the Humanitarian Enterprise in Iraq’, June2007, http://fic.tufts.edu/downloads/HA2015Iraq CountryStudy.pdf.

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Humanitarian Reforms?, December 2006, http://www.msf.org.

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and Disaster Relief Assistance of the United Nations,November 2005, http://www.icrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/united-nations-statement-141105.

IASC, Guidance Note on using the Cluster Approach toStrengthen Humanitarian Response, November 2006,http://ocha.unog.ch.

Dennis McNamara, ‘Humanitarian Reform and NewInstitutional Responses’, Forced Migration Review,December 2006, http://www.fmreview.org/FMRpdfs/BrookingsSpecial/ full.pdf.

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