Lecture 1

PART I: CONTEXT, CONCEPTS AND STRATEGY

Monday, 30 September 2019, 10:00 – 11:30: “Set-up of our Course”

1. Relationship with other courses and semesters within the NOHA Program. What is a “Complex Humanitarian Emergency”
or a “Crisis”? Origin and evolution of the definitions. Related concepts. Difference between man-made and natural
disasters.
2. Who are the players? Brief description of the “system” of local, national and international actors.

Required Reading:

Hanlon, J., H. Yanacopulos, ‘Introduction,’ pp. 7-16, in Yanacopulos and Hanlon, Civil War, Civil Peace.

In the introduction of Civil War, Civil Peace, Hanlon and Yanacopulos anchors the notion of this book is that outside
intervention can be peacebuilding, which is not simply rebuilding but working with local people at all levels to support change.
This work can never be more than ‘enabling’. It is also a book to discuss ‘civil wars’ and their roots and participants. H and Y
emphasize that since every war is different, peacebuilding need to be contextualized and try to keep a balance between
independence and gaining trust from the local. For the word ‘conflict’, this book offers an interesting insight, indicating that
conflicts are normal and nature in human society and it only goes wrong, which means, violent, when the social contract
breaks down or when there is a perceived group inequality. In this sense, the goal of international intervention is promoting a
just and stable peace by helping to end the war and creating the conditions that reduce the like hood of the war starting again
– which in the book refers as ‘work on war’, focus on war prevention and conflict management and resolution.

Hanlon, J. Chapter 1: ‘200 Wars and the Humanitarian Response,’ pp. 18-47, in Yanacopulos and Hanlon, Civil War, Civil Peace.

There were more than 200 wars in the end of 20th century, and most of them are civil war. The word ‘war’ thus has many
different definition, leading to the Humpy Dumpy problem of words being defined in arbitrary and contradictory ways. In the
book, Hanlon defines ‘war’ as ‘collective killing by collective purpose’; and civil war as ‘mainly within one country and where the
fighting is primarily between people of the country’. The word ‘conflict’ refers to any struggle between groups or individuals
over resources or power, it is an inevitable part of change and development. Peacebuilding is defined as ‘promoting a just and
stable peace by helping to end the war ad by helping to create the conditions that reduce the likehood of the war starting again.’

Humanitarian intervention starts with Red Cross, with the legal framework of Geneva conventions, was seemed as impartial,
neutral and independent. However, humanitarian work is nearly no longer seen as neutral in recent years, and hence it has
caused serious security problems for humanitarian workers. (e.g. kidnap and killing for Humanitarian workers) The other issue
is Nightingale’s risk, the danger that aid can do more harm than good, and might actually promote or prolong war. For example,
after the Rwanda genocide, the process of development and the international aid given to promote it interacted with the force
of exclusion, inequality, pauperization, racism, and oppression that laid the groundwork for the genocide, and benefited elites
instead of the poor. This issue led to the concept of ‘do no harm’ and a discussion of two kinds of ethics: absolute morality or
duty, where an individual feels duty bounded to provide help to the suffering. The other is utilitarian ethics that consider
immediate reduction of suffering may cause more suffering in the longer term.





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James, E. Managing Humanitarian Relief: An Operational Guide for NGOs, pp. 1-24.

The chapter ‘understanding emergencies and disaster-affected populations’ defines several terms:

An emergency is a situation where the members of population are suffering or threatened to a point that exceeds the local
capacity to respond or cope, and recover. It take on a humanitarian dimension when many lives are affected by hazards
(natural disasters or men-made hazard, which stem from a complex of underlying social factors) and immediate need are
alleviated.

The mechanism of emergency:

A ‘crisis’ is a serious or dangerous event or series of events faced by an organization which requires significant resources to
resolve, such as economic collapse.

Humanitarian aims to save lives and reduce suffering in a short term. It focus on survival and it is different from political
and development. aid must be provided shortly, multiple tasks at once, relief takes place within a set of international law.

Conflict occurs where two or more patties perceive their needs, interests or concerns are threatened. It becomes a
humanitarian concern when violence threatens a population and leads to risks requiring outside intervention.

• Low intensity conflict: characterized by asymmetric and guerrilla warfare, insurgent and terrorist activity, and
violent revolution.
• high intensity conflict: involves social mobilization to field militaries that engage in conventional warfare
• modern conflict follows a pattern where civilians are the center of political and military objectives.
• ‘negative peace’: there is an absence of direct violence
• ‘positive peace’: absence of structure violence as well as the presence of sustainable peace.

Vulnerability has 3 factors: Proximity, exclusion, and marginalization. It also means lack of resilience.

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Formula: vulnerability x hazard = risk

Poverty is an inability to provide for essential needs, it encompasses a number of social dynamics such as reduced physical
status (poor health), lack of assets and powerlessness, as well as material insecurity. It is also a consequence of emergencies.

The humanitarian community and the role of NGOs

The actors in humanitarian work are NGOs and international organizations, research and academic institutions, donors of
various sorts, private voluntary and community-based organizations. The NGOs work in several ways: in grassroots level,
directly implement activities; INGOs facilitating community-based organizations (CBOs) and local NGOs (LNGOs); and multi-
sectoral programmes (multi-mandate).

Humanitarian principles

The key principles are humanity, impartiality, and independence. The author argue that neutrality presents more of a
dilemma, and independence can also be seen as controversial due to the source of fund.

Classical humanitarian: based on a deontological ethical position, arguing that there are universal moral obligations that
exist regardless of the circumstance.

Neo-humanitarianism (Wilsonian or maximalist): stresses humanity over neutrality, based on consequentialist ethics,
arguing that a positive outcome following a particular course of action determines if it is ethically correct. There is a ‘right
to intervene’.

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Solidarist approach: a clear partisanship with those being served. Their support may integrate an outspoken position about
humanitarian and political issues with their advocacy and assistance activists. They tend to assist particular groups or causes,
such as independence or rebel movement.

Problems and dilemmas of the international humanitarian system

1. Relief causing harm

2. Competition (between NGOs)
3. Flawed programme design
4. Accountability
5. Lack of creativity (using same sets of tools and programmes)
6. Lack of clarity
7. Humanitarian access
8. Using aid instead of take political action
9. Poor funding
10. Poor management
Standardized initiatives and approaches

Initiatives:

• Code of conduct: maintain the high standards of independence, effectiveness and impact
• The sphere project: a multi-organizational effort that developed the Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards
in which organizations commit to quality and accountability.
• Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC): established in 1992 following a UN resolution designed to improve inter-
agency coordination. The IASC meets regularly to develop policy, divide responsibilities, identify gaps in
humanitarian response and advocate.
• Core humanitarian standard: provides a set of commitments, criteria, actions amd responsibilities to guide
humanitarian response.
• Compas Qualite: the quality approch takes into account different stakeholders and the relationships between them,
and issues such as short-term projects dealing with long term problems.
• Do no harm
Approaches:

• Participation: involving stakeholders, particularly beneficiaries, in planning, carrying out and evaluating a project or
programme. Traditionally marginalized groups such as women, children, and elderly’s view shall be included.
• Livelihoods and economic recovery: livehood are the capacities, resources and activities that generate an income.
o Tool: emergency marketing mapping analysis (EMMA)
o Not all emergencies are suitable to economic interventions
o Technology is playing an increased role
• Peace building
o Has to be added depends on the context
o Training and education is important
o Women and children are often targeted for such training to help break the cycle of violence from one
generation to the next
• Right-based approaches: for the human right beneficiary, emphasizing on the moral and legal rights of beneficiaries
through humanitarian principles and the analysis and addressing of root causes.
• Development relief:
basic operating features:
o Participation
o Accountability
o Decentralized control
o Demonstrating concern for sustaining livelihoods
o Basing strategies on the reality of disaster

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 o Identifying the needs and capacities of diverse disaster survivors
o Building on survivors’ capacity
o Building on local institutions
o Setting sustanible standards for services

***PTT & NOTES ***

What is a “Complex Humanitarian Emergency” or a “Crisis”? Origin and evolution of the definitions.

Definitions

- What is a Complex Humanitarian Emergency?

o There is actually not a clear definition
o Complex medical emergency: who is the main actor?
o “Humanitarian” is an “essentially contested concept” and due to its positive connotation it is often
politically instrumentalized.
- An epidemiological definition of CHE (Complex humanitarian emergency)
o Relatively acute situations affecting large populations,
o caused by a combination of factors,
o generally including civil strife and war,
o exacerbated often by food shortages and population displacements, and
o resulting in significant excess mortality
- but when we think deeper on the definitions:
o Complex means that there is a large man-made component and that it is long lasting
o Generally, disasters are not nature. There are always manmade causes.
o Humanitarian? Which actors?
o humanitarian were separated from development by its principles and its tension in saving lives, however,
humanitarian also needs to think about the future.
o Emergency: the problem is that some of today’s crisis are long standing or chronic, does it still count as
emergency?
o Complex Political Emergencies?
o Or just Civil War or Civil Conflict? Humanitarian Crisis?
- To a large extent 5 common characteristics of CHE:
o Deterioration or complete collapse of both central government authority and (parts of) civil society.
o Armed conflict, often of an ethnic and religious nature, and widespread human rights abuses
o Episodic food insecurity, frequently deteriorating into mass starvation.
o Macro-economic collapse involving hyper-inflation, massive unemployment, and net decreases in Gross
National Product.
o Mass population movements of displaced people and refugees escaping conflict or searching for food.
o -> However, we still need to think what is underneath of these 5 characteristics. E.g. what’s the indicator?

Origen of definition and evolution

• Type of Conflict
o Before the end of the Cold War, conflicts were generally defined as Inter-state, of which the main actor as
professional armies, and with a strong respect on the principle of state Sovereignty.
o Now:
§ Intra-state
§ Unprecedented civil suffering 90 %
§ Elimination or Ethnic Cleansing
§ Many IDPs and refugees (1 out of 125)
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 § Brew of identity and economy & other causes (old roots);
§ Self-perpetuating political economy of war;
§ International community is overwhelmed & neglects & doesn’t know how to react & ambitious
interventionism;
§ Development processes totally disturbed, yet long-term rebuilding is necessary. This course takes
a l.t. perspective
§ More complex interventions: more NGOs, more tasks, more military action, more actors overall
• The distinctions between several concepts were broke down:
o War and Peace
o Identity, Ethnicity, and Religion
o State, Crime, Army, and Civilians
o Private and Public
o Natural vs man-made disasters
o Sovereignty of State (vs. Security of People)
o Security, Relief, Rehabilitation, and Development
o Complex Political Emergencies: what is political
o New distinctions? We ‘re thinking: no experts: your experience matters
o The role/absence of the states is an important theme in the background
• Types of Actors
o Local Population
o Refugees & IDPs
o Local, departmental, and national governments
o Warring factions (often thugs)
o Local NGOs
o International NGOs
o Bilateral Donors & Agencies
o ICRC & UN system
o Military
o Churches, Media, etc.

The International Relief System

Compare to the past, there has been a proliferation of actors. Today, we can observe an incoherent ad-hoc
system of humanitarian organizations.

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• Conclusion
o No proper definition
o No proper conceptual distinctions
o Only an ad hoc inter-organizational system
o What about the internal management and humanitarian orgs in general?
o Next classes
o What do we know
o Internal and external interaction
o L.t. perspective
o Main issues, debates, information sources

Lecture 2

Monday, 07 October 2019, 10:00-11:30: “Humanitarian Mandates: Practical and Conceptual Problems”
1. Uncertainty on how and when to intervene (accompanied by a lack of preparedness).
2. The difficulties in linking relief, rehabilitation, and development.
3. Declining resources and disparities in allocation.
4. The roles and management of the organizations involved, in particular inter-organizational coordination and
competition, as well as tension between organizational control and local participation.

Required Reading:

Hanlon, J. Chapter 2: ‘Intervention,’ pp. 49-70, in Yanacopulos and Hanlon, Civil War, Civil Peace.

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this chapter looks at “the changing role of the intervener in the context of the changing nature of sovereignty and the increasing
importance of civil wars”. It stresses that most intervention is postwar peace support by agreement of the warring parties and
local people. In part, this is a recognition of national sovereignty, under which a state and its government have supreme
authority over their territory.

When the Cold War ended, the United Nations was given a much larger role in peacekeeping and peace support, responding to
the regulation of UN Charter (Art.1, Art.6,7,8). However, UN peacekeeping operations were mostly failed due to the reluctance
to distinguish victim from aggressor (Rwanda and Yugislavia), leading to the 2000 Brahimi Report calling for the UN to do more
to distinguish victim from aggressor and to protect civilians. This, in turn, led the UN to choose sides more actively

The concept of state sovereignty and whether interventions should be carried out without state consent was challenged. There
are 3 factors has led to this challenged:
1. The growth of civil war, that is to say, ‘domestic war’. A belief developed in a humanitarian tight to intervene in weak
states, independent of sovereignty.
2. The end of cold war: sovereignty meant that East and West would prevent the other side from intervening without an
invitation, leading to a tendency to support dictators and autocratic governments who would invite them in.
3. The debt crisis: Aid during the Cold War had often been in the form of loans, and in the 1980s Western lenders
presented the bill; the debt crisis gave lenders a new form
of leverage, just when the end of the Cold War meant developing countries had relatively less power.

Sovereignty was also increasingly breached, first by humanitarian agencies who want to help war victims even if they are not
invited, second by military interventions in support of humanitarian goals, and third by the international financial institutions
which, after the debt crisis and fall in aid of the 1980s, gained the power to impose conditions on previously sovereign
governments. Questions are raised about the appropriateness of these conditions in postwar countries.

Forcible humanitarian intervention was increasingly proposed as being necessary to save lives. This was opposed because it was
often arbitrary, politically motivated, and harmful. This, in turn, led to the proposal that instead of a right to intervene, there
should be a responsibility to protect. It argues that a right to intervene is 'unhelpful' because it focuses on the rights and claims
of the intervening state rather than the potential beneficiaries of the action. It also entailed a 'responsibility to prevent' and a
'responsibility to rebuild', and a criteria for military intervention:
1. Right authority
2. Just cause (large scale loss of life and large scale ethic cleaning prevetion)
3. Right intention
4. Last resort
5. Proportional means
6. Reasonable prospects


Harmer, A., Macrae, J. (eds)(2004) Beyond The Continuum: The Changing Role of Aid Policy in Protracted Crises, HPG Report
18, Humanitarian Policy Group, Overseas Development Institute, London, Chapter 1: “Beyond the Continuum: An Overview
of The Changing Role of Aid Policy in Protracted Crises” pp. 1-11. (See http://www.odi.org.uk/hpg/papers).

This introduction first defines 'protracted crisis’ as, ‘those environments in which a significant proportion of the population
is acutely vulnerable to death, disease and disruption of their livelihoods over a prolonged period of time.’

It first provides a brief background to the ‘first generation' of discussion on aid in protracted crises, which links to relief—
development 'continuun’. This concept addresses the good development aid would help to reduce communities'
vulnerability to the effects of natural hazards, providing Investment, (for example, for water conservation or flood control
measures). It will also enable populations to build up assets on which they could draw in the event of crisis; relief should be
seen not just as a palliative but also as a springboard for recovery, and the development of more resilient and more

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profitable livelihoods. In this sense, the continuum embodied the 'progressive' ethos of development. Under this framework,
new types of programmatic work and new approaches to engaging with local authorities, and participation and capacity-
building were developed and documented in codes of conduct.

'second generation’ provides a more convincing shared Framework for dialogue and closer working relations between the
humanitarian and development Community. A number of new factors emerged to shape the aid agenda in situations of
protracted crisis, and to inform a number of important innovations in the design of policy and programmes. These included:

- a changing focus from linking relief and development to linking aid and security (after 911)
- a concern among development aid actors to re-engage in countries potentially excluded from aid.
- a steady internationalization of responsibility for human security and welfare
- a growing convergence between the conceptual frameworks of the development and humanitarian arenas

and there are three core elements of the human security agenda:

- its concern with the security of people, rather than states

- international and multi-disciplinary effort
- the state remains the predominant vehicle for ensuring human security, but respect for sovereignty is conditional,
not absolute.

reviews the evidence that the scale of development aid financing is expanding in situations of protracted crisis, and attempts
to determine the nature and scope of this spend and the geographic and sectoral priorities.

examines the tactical and strategic differences that remain between the development and humanitarian communities.

Linking relief and development: the first generation of debate

• relief—development 'continuun’
o identify complementary objectives and strategies in relief and development aid.
o good development aid would help to reduce communities' vulnerability to the
effects of natural hazards, providing Investment, (for example, for water conservation or flood control
measures.)
o also enable populations to build up assets on which they could draw in the event of crisis.
o used sensibly, relief aid could protect assets and provide the basis for future development work.
• relief should be seen not just as a palliative but also as a springboard for recovery, and the development of more
resilient and more profitable livelihoods. In this sense, the continuum embodied the 'progressive' ethos of
development.
• the origins of conflict could be located in part in underdevelopment
• aid (particularly development aid) could be used to prevent conflict, by addressing grievances and reducing
economic instability
• 'continuum' model: crises, particularly conflict-related ones, were essentially transitory phenomena, short
interruptions to an otherwise progressive, state-led process of development. Historically, the development (and
relief) architecture had been designed to enable war-affected countries to restore their capacities to function as
states.
• The end of cold war: Experiences of 'post-conflict rehabilitation' were pivotal in debates regarding how to better
link relief-rehabilitation and development aid effort.
• Most of work around bringing developmental approaches into relief, was driven by multimandated UN agencies
and NGOs. Humanitarian budget lines were uncomfortably stretched to encompass more developmental
approaches in situations where donor governments, for political reasons, restricted funding to 'lifesaving' response.
• New types of programmatic work and new approaches to engaging with local authorities, and participation and
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 capacity-building were developed and documented in codes of conduct.
• However, little progress was made. Reasons:
o this debate was driven largely by humanitarian policy actors, who remained relatively marginal on the
international aid stage. The debate was also acutely constrained by the bifurcated architecture of the aid
System.
o they had not kept pace with changes in the levels and types of vulnerability in protracted crises
o despite an apparent increase in emergency aid budgets, the volume of aid actually delivered in these
environments remained relatively low. . Overall, aid flows to 'poor performers' varied more widely over
time than with middle-income and low-income countries.
o Finally, the distinction between relief and development aid was not managerial, but political. Relief aid was
deployed in many protracted crises because donor governments wished to avoid engaging with states that
were perceived to be repressive or undemocratic, that were belligerents in active conflicts, or that were
subject to massive corruption.

Aid in protracted crises: the second generation of debate

Linking relief, development... and security

• From the late 1990s, a number of new factors emerged to shape the aid agenda in situations of protracted crisis,
and to inform a number of important innovations in the design of policy and programmes. These included:
o a changing focus from linking relief and development to linking aid and security (after 911)
o a concern among development aid actors to re-engage in countries potentially excluded from aid.
o a steady internationalisation of responsibility for human security and welfare
o a growing convergence between the conceptual frameworks of the development and humanitarian arenas
• three core elements of the human security agenda:
o its concern with the security of people, rather than states
o international and multi-disciplinary effort
o the state remains the predominant vehicle for ensuring human security, but respect for sovereignty is
conditional, not absolute.
• an appeal to the potential links between migration, refugees and security has seen increasingly restrictive
international refugee policy, and the containment of large refugee movement
• In the aid arena more specifically, the objectives of aid have been focused on security. It identifies violent conflict
and widespread public insecurity and fear as one of the primary causes of poverty
• However, the allocation of such resources will be in line with the strategic priorities of donor countries, and these
do not necessarily correlate with relative levels of need.

Security, selectivity and 'poorly performing' countries

• the idea of concentrating aid on countries that were performing 'well' was seen as a means of enhancing aid
effectiveness
• initiative is designed to encourage governments to deepen their commitment to pro-poor development and human
rights, and to tackle corruption in the management of public funds (including aid funds)
• they reflect a concern to maximize the effectiveness of aid by concentrating spending where it is most likely to
produce returns.
• However, it risks excluding those populations who are most vulnerable and in greatest need of support
• E.g.: In the case of the international financial institutions, there was also a recognition that excluding 'poorly
performing' and conflict-affected countries from partnerships with the World Bank.
• differences relate to the changing dimensions of second generation aid debates:
o Dep. Actors design the instruments to engage in 'poorly performing' countries seek to promote political
transformation.
o the 'poorly performing' countries agenda is not premised on the rapid resumption of a 'normal'

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 development trajectory. Rather, what is at issue is how to sustain engagement in difficult environments,
possibly over long periods of time.
o the problem of 'poorly performing' countries is largely one of state formation and functioning. E.g. What
differentiates Tanzania, Mozambique and Ghana from Zimbabwe and Somalia is not their poor
development outcomes, but the behaviour and quality of their state institutions (or lack thereof).
o For international NGOs, engagement may not necessarily have been state-reliant, but it was dependent on
donor government support, and thus partner agencies developed responses that involved 'stretching'
humanitarian resources into more developmental strategies.

Development beyond the state: testing the limits of sovereignty

• how to shift from strategies that are state-avoiding (relief) towards more developmental strategies that rely on the
state as a partner?
• the idea of doing development in a context of authority crisis is inherently contradictory.
• Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) :
• How aid actors manage the potential tensions between being both partners and critics of governments?
• Dilemma: On what basis, according to what principles and under whose authority, are decisions made about the
prioritisation of need and the allocation of resources? To whom are international decision-makers accountable?

Engaging in crisis: trends in development aid spending in protracted crises

• The release of new aid funds is often linked with peace processe
• the increase in the volume of aid can have a potentially significant impact on the political economies of these
countries, and on the relative power of different political groups and authorities.

Old wine, new bottles?

• principles and Standards of humanitarian action are necessarily distinct from those of development
• Recent thinking within the development and humanitarian communities has shown increasing signs of convergence
around the concepts of social protection and welfare safety nets
• Economic growth and poverty eradication remain at the centre of the development agenda. humanitarian action:
to avoid and reduce excess morbidity and mortality

Conclusions and implications

• diverse forms of protracted crisis, politics of aid decision-making:

o Suitable analytical tools have been fully translated into new programming approaches
o weak understanding between the two communities with regard to their respective goals and operating
principle
o the lack of incentives for staff to work in these difficult environment
o appropriate skills required to work in these environment
o complex, fluid political frameworks make formalization of policy extremely difficult, and thus reduces the
predictability of response
• deeper engagement by the development Community in situations of protracted crisis is likely to continue
• obstacles to engagement in situations of ongoing conflict and chronic political/economic crisis
o how/whether to engage with national institutions?
o the lack of innovation in programming
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 o A variety of non-state actors (NGOs, INGOs, private contractors and local authorities) has emerged
o issues of public debt will remain difficult to manage and aid will remain highly projectised, rather than
programmatic
• variation in what is feasible. The parameters of aid engagement are influenced by a range of bureaucratic and
procedural issues, as well as by 'higher' politic.
o how security issues, and international responses to insecurity, are likely to shape aid
o How humanitarian actors seek to engage with their developmental colleagues in responding both to the
securitisation of aid, and in providing aid in high-risk environments
o The opportunities:
§ welfare needs of populations living in these difficult environments, who have historically not
received a proportionate level of aid resources
§ Humanitarian and development can learn from each other
o The challenge:
o Development has always implied buttressing the sovereignty of the recipient regime, as well as reflecting
the strategic priorities of donor governments. This is in contrast to classical humanitarianism, which has
sought to maintain a position of neutrality with regard to the legitimacy or otherwise of all parties (including
the regime), and with regard to geopolitics.
• Conclusion: Humanitarian actors can ill-afford to ignore the major changes going on in the development Community
changes which are likely to bring into play significant new resources and players. In particular, they need to
communicate more clearly and fully the distinctiveness of their modus operandi and experience in these
environments, and work with development actors to explore common ground.

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***PPT & NOTES***

Uncertainty on how and when to intervene (accompanied by a lack of preparedness).

The World Humanitarian Submit has introduced the concept of ‘humanitarian eco-system’ to replace ‘humanitarian
system’.

WHEN AND HOW TO INTERVENE?

• A STRATEGIC QUESTION
• HUM. ORGS HAVE A MANDATE OR A MISSION, WHICH FORMULATES THEIR MAIN GOALS AND ACTIVITIES
• ORIGINALLY, PUBLIC ORGS HAD A MANDATE AND PRIVATE ONES, INCLUDING NGOs, A MISSION. NOWADAYS, IT IS
TRENDY TO HAVE A MISSION.
• In order to have a mandate, there must be an emergency: WHEN IS IT AN EMERGENCY?
o CRUDE MORTALITY RATE (CMR) OF 1 DEATH PER 10,000 A DAY
o MALNUTRITION > 10%
o GENOCIDE
o -> IT IS AN EDUCATED GUESS.

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• SHOULD ONE HELP?
o “AM I MY BROTHER’S KEEPER?”
§ (common) HUMANITY -> how much pure humanitarian do we do?
§ HUMANITARIAN IMPULSE : reasoned intervention which is conscious of its consequence
§ HUMANITARIAN IMPERATIVE: intervene is necessity
o “RIPENESS” OF CONFLICT/HURTING STALEMATE
o DIFFERENT TRADITIONS & POWER POSITIONS
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 § Tradition: for e.g., Sweden and Norway have the tradition to help for peace
§ Power position: e.g. France usually intervene conflicts in Africa, which are its ex-colonies
• CONSEQUENCES OF HELP
there’s several problem of aid:
o TAKES AWAY DIGNITY (ESPECIALLY NON-RECIPROCAL HELP)
o CREATES DEPENDENCY
o REIGNITES CONFLICT
o NIGHTINGALE’S RISK
• DIFFERENCE INDIVIDUAL HELP & ORGANIZED AID
o AID DIFFERS FROM SOCIETAL LEVEL TO SOCIETAL LEVEL
• IF ONE HELPS: HOW MUCH? WHAT IS SUFFICIENT HELP?
o DEFINATION OF HA: BROAD OR NARROW?
§ Narrow: FOOD, WATER, SHELTER, MEDICINE OR MORE?
§ Broad: protection/ non-refoument
o Shall humanitarian action be a STOPGAP measure OR CONTAINMENT measure?
§ Containment measure: e.g. aid to turkey is also for the reason to stop Syrian refugees coming to
Europe – > aid can be politic, just to show ppl that they have done something
o NEW BEGINNING FOR THE NEEDY, I.E. LINKING RELIEF AND DEVELOPMENT
o REMAIN INDEPENDENT & NEUTRAL OR TAKE SIDES?
• WHAT IS THE LEGAL BASIS of intervention?
o THE SHIFT FROM SOVEREIGNTY TO SECURITY OF THE PEOPLE (e.g., R2P) , however, it IS INCOMPLETE
o The other base is SOLIDARITY (COMMON HUMANITY), that is also INCOMPLETE
• WHO INTERVENES:
o One actor is military, but there is a consequence of LEGAL ISSUES, such as USE OF FORCE
o SUPERPOWER, REGIONAL POWER, UN (e.g. UNHCR, UNICEF), ICRC and IFRC, NGOs
• CONCLUSION:
Interventions today are
§ MULTIPLICATION OF ACTORS (ACTOR MIX)
§ MANY ISSUES TO ADDRESS (ISSUE MIX)
§ DIFFERENT LEVELS OF SOCIETY (LEVEL MIX)
o BUT ALSO INCREASING INSTITUTIONALIZATION AND CODIFICATION OF HUMANITARIAN IDEALS (e.g., in
IHL, with the hum. principles and standards)
o MANDATE/MISSION AND STRATEGY ARE NECESSARY:
Having strategies is important so THE HUM. ORGs DO NOT HAVE TO ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS ON A
DAILY BASIS.
• STRATEGY FOR HUM. ORGs OFTEN MEANS SELECTING A SPECIALIZED AREA (FOOD OR HEALTH;
ETC) AND DETERMINING DIRECTION.
• PUT SIMPLY, IT IS ABOUT ANSWERING: WHERE ARE WE GOING & WHAT ARE WE DOING?
o SWOT Analysis : a simple tool to help formulating a strategy
§ An org. who wants to see how it will be in the future, should necessarily look at the environment
(opportunities and threats) and at itself (strengths and weakness)

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The difficulties in linking relief, rehabilitation, and development (LRRD)

PRACTICAL HISTORY: DIFFICULTIES IN LRRD

• DURING COLD WAR

o FIRST GENERATION PEACEKEEPING: aim at keeping seperate the conflict party

o HUMANITARIANS MAINLY WORKED IN SAFE AREAS OUTSIDE OF CONFLICT ZONES, IN PARTICULAR IN
REFUGEE CAMPS

• LRRD was based on the CONTINUUM IDEA:

o BASED ON NATURAL DISASTERS (ONE MAJOR CAUSE)
o ONE-TIME EVENTS (SHORT TERM)
o DIFFERENT SECURITY, DEVELOPMENT AND RELIEF ORGANIZATONS
o LIMITED SET OF ISSUES
o POLITICAL AND HUMANITARIAN ACTORS WERE THUS SEPARATED

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• Today,
• HOWEVER, CHARACTERISTICS OF CONFLICT CHANGED:
o EXPLOSION OF THE NUMBER OF CONFLICTS, SOMETIMES REGIONAL
o INTRASTATE/CIVIL WARFARE (POLITY BREAKDOWN)
o IDENTITY BASED and/ or fight for economic CONTROL
o CIVILIANS AS TARGET
o RAGTAG ARMIES (MILITIAS, WARRING FACTIONS, CIVILIANS, etc.)
o ABUNDANCE OF LIGHT WEAPONS AND LANDMINES
o WEAK STATE WITH LOW LEGITIMACY: RESOURCE EXPLOITATION AND CRIMINALIZATION OF THE STATE
(e.g. demands, drugs )
o DISILLUSIONS WITH PEACEKEEPING (e.g. Somalia)
o INEFFECTIVENESS OF HUMANITARIAN AID
• FROM FIRST GENERATION TO SECOND GENERATION PEACEKEEPING: (PEACE/REBUILDING) WITH A SECURITY
COMPONENT)
peace keepers need to be among conflict parties because the conflict lines between them are not clear in these
complex emergencies, which are often intra-state conflicts.
o There are more chances that they are involved in the conflict.
o Humanitarians are in the middle of conflict parties as well

o The second generation peacekeeping there is a huge security component
o THREE TRANSITIONS (against social exclusion for societal integration)
§ SECURITY (from violence to peaceful CR)
§ GOVERNANCE (participatory democratization)
§ SOCIO-ECONOMIC (opportunities)
o -> MANY ISSUES COMPETE FOR ATTENTION!
• MULTIDIMENSIONAL OPERATIONS:
o RELIEF
o DEMILITARIZATION
17
 o POLITICAL (RE)CONSTRUCTION
o SOCIAL (RE)INTEGRATION & (RE)CONCILIATION
o ECONOMIC (RE)BUILDING
o PSYCHOLOGICAL: TRAUMA
o -> NO STATUS QUO EX ANTE, NO CONTINUUM
• DIFFERENT MIXES
• ILL-PREPARED, REFLECT OLD INSTITUTIONAL SET-UP (SECURITY COUNCIL, DEV. ORGs, etc.)
• STILL EVOLVING (FADING DISTINCTIONS)

INCREASING RESOURCES

• DECLINE IN
o ODA AFTER COLD WAR; BUT THIS HAS BEEN REVERSED SINCE 9/11
o UN DECLINE HAS BEEN REVERSED, IN PARTICULAR SINCE THE 2005 HUM. REFORM (WHICH INTRODUCED
THE CLUSTER REFORM)
• LESSER DECLINE NGOs, RELIEF
• DISPARITIES IN ALLOCATION
• YET, ALSO LACK OF ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY
• QUESTIONS:
• IS CUSTOM TAILORED AID POSSIBLE?
• OR DO DONORS JUST WANT CONTAINMENT? (double agenda)

MANAGEMENT OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

• COMMON THEMES:
o NOT ENOUGH EMPIRICAL MATERIAL ON MANAGEMENT OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
o WE CAN LEARN FROM THEIR MANAGEMENT: COMPLEX ENDS & MEANS RELATIONSHIP
o INTERESTING INTERACTION WITH OTHER DISCIPLINES AND MANAGEMENT AREAS
• NEED FOR INTER-ORGANIZATIONAL COOPERATION, BUT
o FUNDRAISING COMPETITION
o DIFFERENT PROCEDURES, PROMOTION POLICIES, ETC.
o WIDE VARIETY OF ORGANIZATIONS
• INTRA-ORGANIZATIONAL ISSUES
o DUAL ACCOUNTABILITY/ INTERMEDIARY ROLE
o DECENTRALIZATION
o LOCAL PARTICIPATION? WHO CONTROLS? WHOSE EFFECTIVENESS?

FIELD RESEARCH

• MORE POSITIVE ABOUT THE POSSIBILITIES FOR REBUILDING (IN GUATEMALA AND DR CONGO)
• LINKING RELIEF, REHABILITATION AND DEVELOPMENT

WHEN AND HOW TO INTERVENE?

• Mandate/mission and strategy are necessary, so that hum. orgs do not have to answer the questions above on a
daily basis. Strategy for hum. Orgs OFTEN MEANS SELECTING A SPECIALIZED AREA (FOOD OR HEALTH, ETC) AND
DETERMINING THEIR OVERALL DIRECTION. Put simply, it is about answering: where are we going & what are we
18
 doing? In this sense, a mandate simplifies their organizational decision making. However, as crises are often
complex, always evolve, and humanitarian mandates focus on only one or a few sectors, humanitarian strategies
can rarely be followed perfectly and need to be updated every few years (normally 3-5 years)
• SWOT ANALYSIS IS THE SIMPLEST TOOL TO HELP FORMULATING A STRATEGY

Question about State

• Critique: Breakdown of state (Background theme):

o regime lacks (democratic) accountability to population;
o lacks internal & external monopoly on violence;
o Lack monopoly on monetary matters (tax, issuing money, national budget)

Lecture 3

Monday, 21 October 2019, 10:00-11:30: “Types of War and Interventions”

1. Warlord politics and the political economy of war
2. Types of intervention: military (peacekeeping) or civilian.
3. Prevention, Peace-making and Rebuilding.
4. When is it “right” and/or “legal” to intervene? When not to intervene? The Humanitarian Principles?
5. Strategy of humanitarian organizations: Understanding Context and (Un-)Principled Responses.

Required Reading:

Ballentine, K., and Sherman, J., “Introduction,” pp. 1-11, Cater, C., “The Political Economy of Conflict and UN Intervention:
Rethinking the Critical Cases of Africa,” pp. 19-42, in Ballentine, K., and Sherman, J. (eds.)(2003) The Political Economy of Armed
Conflict: Beyond Greed and Grievance, Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder.

Economic plays an important in conflicts. Obtaining a better control of resource and geography (for example, trading path) are
most likely the economic reason for war. Collier argues that greed and grievaty are the motives that make rebel. To understand
this, we can make a “stakeholder analysis” to see who is the key actor that is going to benefit from the conflict. However, this
hypothesis doesn’t explain the machanism of rebel economic. Moreover, its tendency of identifying a rebel group as a whole
has ignored the wide variety of rebellion individuals. Econonomic rationality can also hardly explain why some combatant fight
not for resource, but for ideology and belief.

Either this hypothesis has discussed the role of the state. Usually, the observation shows that weak and failing states, becasue
of their incomplete contral of territory and lack of functioning systems, has more risk to have conflicts.

In the other hand, the above theory was made mainly by the investigation in Africa, leaving the rest of the world unexplored.
The other regions, which have distinct history and cultural, may offer a better insight to this framework.

XXX

• This article look on the economic dimention of war, focusing on the self-financing nature of combatant activities in
intrastate wars
• difinition: "civil war economies" are distinguished by the militarization of economic life and the mobilization of
ecconomic assets and activity to finance the prosecution of war.
19
 • Natural resources are a major source of the war revenue
• Scholars has identified several features unique to the economies of civil war:
o Parasitic. dominated by rent-seeking and the extraction and trade of primary products, rather than by value-
adding economic activities;
o illicit, depend heavily on black and gray markets that operate outside and at the expense of legal and formal
economic activity of the state;
o predatory. they are based on the deliberate and systematic use of violence to acquire assets, control trade,
and exploit labor.
o highly dependent on external financial and commodity networks that provide access to the globalized
marketplace.
• the functions of violence in armed conflicts: violence expand its purpose and target. in the case of Angola and Sierra
Leone, violence is used to capture or protecting natural resource endowments, diverting humanitarian aid, and
controlling trade routes.

Greed and Grievance
• economic factors were more salient to the risk of civil war, and in ways that may appear counterintuitive.
• Collier:
o objective political grievances have no direct link to the onset of conflict
o where there are accessible natural resources and a mass of ill-educated youth, rebel movements have a
powerful incentive to use violence to aquire wealth and the oppotunity and means to do so
• "greed theory" of rebel-lion (Collier) :
o motives of rebel actors: greed or loot-seeking rather than grievance or justice-seeking was the key factor in the
onset of violent rebellion.
§ -> economic resources are not simply pursued
o opportunity for organized violence: the feasibility of rebellion, and the way that access to finances (especially
lucrative natural resources), diaspora net- works, and high levels of poorly educated youth contribute to this
oopoturnity, regardless of motivation.
o Tool: “stakeholder analysis” of civil war
o improving structural prevention:
§ design new tools and strategies
§ more effective resource management and equitable economic governance, both locally and globally
§ Correctly identifying those actors who are engaged in war for profit may also help to identify
opponents to and spoilers of peace settlement

Objective and design of the book
• use qualitative case studies to ascertain the causal impact on specific conflicts of economic factors relative to and in
combination with other potentially significant political, ideological, ethic, and security factors.
• examine the impact on conflict of prior economic conditions
o such as: low growth and socioeconomic inequality within and between groups, the economic policies of
national governments and international actors
• access to different forms and amounts of financial and material resources
• most of the influential studies of the economies of conflict
o focused exclusively on the predatory behavior of rebel or insurgent groups.
o treat rebel groups as unitary actors with a common interest in predation.
o -> Risk casting all insurgencies as an extreme form of common criminality, but effectively forecloses
examination of the conflict-promoting effects of corruption and rent-seeking on the part of state agents and
other important actor
o treating rebel groups as unitary actors falls to capture the ways that economic opportunities and incentives
may interact with a range of other motivations to shape the behavior of differently situated rebel actors and
their coramitment to the insurgency
o it is important to examine the internal dynamics of combatant groups, including the patterns of economic
redistribution within them
20
 • a historical perspective is indispensable.
• conflict dynamics are highly fluid
• Placing armed conflicts in their global and regional geographic context is also critical to understanding their dynamic
• a distinguishing feature of these war economies is their intimate connection to the increasingly decentralized nature of
global aid, trade, and finance
• the relative capacity of the state to perform core functions in economic dimentions of armed conflicts
o the provision of security
o effective governance throughout its territory
o the equitable distribution of public goods
o for example, in Africa, resource-driven rebellions may be more a function of weakened States
• however, the relevance of this framework for understanding conflicts in the rest of the world remains largely
unexplored.
o extending empirical investigations on the economic dimensions of conflicts in Europe, South and Hast Asia,
South America, and the Pacific may help to shed further light on the nature of these conflicts and their
resolution.
o On the other hand, because the historical, institutional, cultural, and economic endowments of these regions
are distinct from each other, they may offer new insights for our understanding of the economic dynamics of
armed conflict



Slim, H. (1997) Relief Agencies and Moral Standing in War: Principles of Humanity, Neutrality, Impartiality and Solidarity,
Development in Practice, 4, pp. 342-352.

The article explores the moral difficullies for international humanitarian workers operating as third parties in war zones. The
main part examines current usage of the terms 'humaniry'. 'neutraliry','impartiatity', and 'solidarity', as they are used in the
discourse of humanilarian operations. The article then considers the psychological implications for relief workers of operating
as non-combatans third panies in war. Finally, the article recognises that a range of different positions is both inevitable and
desirable in a given conflict, but concludes by emphasising the responsibility of any third-party relief rrganisation to be
transparent in its position and to preserve rather than distort traditional humanitarian principles and language. ll ends by
recommending concened support for international humanilarian Iaw and its possible reform as the best way to focus the current
debate about the place of humanitariardsm in war.
Standing for humanitarian value
• Many NGOs with wide differences in the ethical maturity and political sophistication are all competing to wotk in the
same emergency
• Meanwhile,the new NGO codes and pnnciples still lack the kind of clarity

Humanity,neutrality, and impartiality
Short explaination of origen of the principles, and their challanges

Humanity and its heresies
• ‘respect for the human being' is essential, because it extends the purview of humanitarianism to rights
• However, it restricting humanitarian concerns to relief commodities.
• humanitarian reductionists actually minimise the rights of those they seek to help
• 2 heresy:
o ‘the humanitarian imperative’ usually seems to relate only to 'humanitarian assistance' — the minimum
package of relief commodities which donor govemments are prepared to allow as emergency aid
o It offer humanitarian work a non-negotiable aspect, which is unrealistic, because negociate is always involved.
• ‘The humanitarian imperative’ displays some humanitarians ‘exaggerated sense of their own importance within a
people's vision of their own conflict
• it is also worth nothing what might be an inconsistency rather than a heresy in the current use of the principle of
humanicy and its new imperative
21

The temptation to abandon neutrality
• there is now a majority view that neutrality is
o undesirable, becausc it is equated with being unprincipled
o unachievable in practice, because relief aid is so frequently manipulated
• Being neutral means taking no part in military operations and no part in ideological battles
• Plattner:
o three key ingredients to a neutral position: abstention, Prevemion, impartiality
o "neutrality may therefore be understood as a duty to abstain from any act which, in a conflict situation, might
be interpreted as furthering the interests of one party to the conflict or jeopardising those of the other’
o ->‘Interpretation’ of actions and events could be truely dangerous in the extremely contested arena of war and
political emergencies
• many NGOs have rcjected the notion of neutrality because
o it often imposes an unacceptahle silence upon them in the face of grievous violations of human right
o abiding by neutrality’s commitment to prevention and abstention seems increasingiy unfeasible in the light of
what we now know about the manipulation of relief supplies, and the fact that combatants and civilians are
intrinsically mixed in today’s civil wars
• the majority of Orgs simply do not have the means to negociate and secure a rigorous position of neutraiity in their
relief
• Relief agencics need to decide if they are going to abide by it or not. If they are, they should ensore that they acquire
the appropriaie skilis. If they are not. they should not discredit the principle simply on the grounds that it is at odds with
their own mandate and capabilities

Embracing impartiaiity
• neutrality may stop an Organisation from taking sides (milirarily or ideologicaily) and protect it from public criticism. but
it does not prevent an Organisation from having a principled position, based on firm ideals
• ICRC: makes no discrimination as to nationality, race, religious beliefs, class or political opinions. It endeavours to relieve
the suffering of individuals, being guided solely by their needs, and to give priority to the most urgent cases of distress.
• For advocacy-driven NGOs and robust peace-keepers: justifying a strategy of spealdng out or shooting out while also
maintaining humanitarian values
• “active impartiality” (MSF) : not neutral and abstentionist. Impartiality to persons, but not to their actions.

Leaning towards solidaricy
• 'what solidarity operations have in common is a political goal shared with the people" (African Rights. 1994: 26. 27)
• The idea of solidaroty obviously involves taking sides
• a principie for those who backed long-established (and often non-violent) resistance movements
• 'innocencebased solidarity': the lowest common denominator of innocence is usually drawn along lines of sex and age.
o = vulnerable groups
o -> such a position is often simplistic and ill-informed.

Moral stance and personal moraie
• a clear sense of the moral positioning of third-pany organisations in war is important because it effects on staff morale.
o where their particular Organisation Stands
o what position it is taking as a third party
o Their own personal contribution must make sense as a moral and active one within the violence around them
Behind the words
• 3 main ideals to reframe humanitarian principles:
o A commitment to the principle of humanity — albeit it in a minimal form
o a desire to speak out (or shoot out) in the face of human-rights abuses
o a guarantee of third-pany immunity for humanitarian agencies

22
 • the challange is to clearify humanitarain terms and the principles to which they refer, so preserving their legitimacy and
effectiveness in war.


Hanlon, J. Chapter 6: ‘The Social Contract and Violent Conflict,’ pp. 137-160, in Yanacopulos and Hanlon, Civil War, Civil Peace.

this chapter examines the relative utility of competing explanations for the causal roles of economic factors in civil wars and
highlights their implications for policy and practice by the UN and other international actors.

‘politic-economic’ approaches: This conceptual framework not only examines the interrelationship between economic and
political causes, but also integrates complementary state-centric and rebel-centric theories regarding economic predation,
kleptocracy, political protest, and weak states.

This chapter is organized into the following sections: first, an overview of four theories on the causes of civil war; second, a brief
history of conflict in Angola, Sierra Leone, and the DRC; third, an evaluation of the literature with reference to the case studies;
fourth, an analysis of three relatively underemphasized dimensions of conflict within main-stream debate (regionalization,
privatization, and globalization); and finally, an examination of four types of UN Intervention (humanitarian assistance,
mediation, peacekeeping, and sanctions) in the three cases.

Economic and Political Causes of Civil War
Economic cause
• Theories:
o Collier
§ relatively little correlation between the incidence of armed conflict and factors such as inequality, lack
of democracy, and ethnic diversity. Rather, the most powerful risk factor is a high dependence upon
primary commodity exports
§ other significant positive correlations with the probability of conflict include large diaspora
populations, geographic dispersion, a prior history of war, low levels of education, high population
growth, low average income, and economic decline.

o William Reno
§ chronic diversion of state economic resources through patronage networks leads to the creation of a
"shadow state" and increases the risk of civil war
§ fragmentation of shadow states occurs when a ruler is no longer able to maintain control over these
channels of wealth accumulation and distribution
Political causes

• Theories
o Frances Stewart : "horizontal inequality"
§ Group identity may be constructed in terms of region, ethnicity, class, or religion.
§ four general sources of economic and political differentiation between groups: political participation,
economic assets, employment and incomes, and social access and Situation
§ private costs and benefits, state capacity, and the availability of resources are also relevant explanatory
variables
o Mohammed Ayoob
§ erosion of legitimate authority and a lack of capacity for effective governance offer the best
explanation for the cause of civil war in developing countries

Angola, Sierra Leone, and Zaire/DRC

• descript the wars in these 3 countries

23


State Failure, Insurgency, and Transformation

State Failure

• Reno’s Shadow state & Ayoob’s theory: the fundamental source of disorder in developing countries is structural: a lack
of legitimate authority, and internal conflict. This appears to be applicable in the cases of Angola, Sierra Leone, and the
DRC.

Insurgency

• The work of Frances Stewart provides a useful framework for discerning aspects of group mobilization for rebellion.
• In Zaire/DRC, identity was primarily constructed according to regional and ethnic criteria, although sources of
differentiation leading to rebel mobilization were probably factors, such as poverty and a lack of personal security.
Horizontal inequality also explains some aspects of the large-scale violence in Rwanda and Liberia that subsequently
served as a catalyst for the outbreak of conflict in Zaire and Sierra Leone.
• Collier is correct to suggest that all insurgencies require material resources, but his a priori assumption that all societies
have grievances and would therefore erupt into civil war if given the right mix of opportunities ignores a crucial variable:
governance.
• Jeffrey Herbst: the viability and form of a rebel movement can only be properly deter-mined in relation to the
capacity of the state it is challenging.

Transformation

• Empirical evidence suggests a high degree of market and state interdependence at the macro level, as well as a complex
mix of economic and political motivations at a micro level.
• Yet the political economy of civil wars also continually changes over time, yielding different functions of violence at
different points throughout the duration of the conflict
• it is also important to recognize that civil wars are neither unilinear nor teleological. In other words, conflicts do not
always proceed along the same trajectory, from one stage to another stage, toward a common predetermined
outcome.
• the armed conflicts examined herein cannot adequately be explained by the uniform logic implied by such shorthand
as "resource war."
• commercial collusion often coexists with ostensible military goals.
• economic and political motivations for armed conflict are not mutually exclusive. As for conflict duration, the
conventional wisdom appears to have proved correct for these three cases: natural resource exploitation by rebel,
government, and external forces did "fuel" these civil wars.

Regionalization, Privatization, and Globalization

• definition of a "civil war" :

o at least one year in length,
o with at least 1,000 combat-related deaths,
o where both state and rebel forces sustain casualties
o -> the 3 countries had civil wars
• However, explaining certain aspects of infernal conflict, including intensity and duration, also requires exploring
dynamics contingent upon linkages with external processes of regionalization, privatization, and globalization.

Regionalization

• Highly evident in these 3 cases

24


Privatization

• The personal pursuit of financial incentives by rebel groups and state elites can create situations where economic and
political collusion between supposed rivals can coexist with armed conflict
• violence is often directed at civilians to extort their labor and property, yielding a lengthy self-financing conflict with
high civilian casualties.
• Economic opportunities may also create command and control problems within state militaries and rebel groups,
making conflict resolution and peacekeeping efforts more difficult. The pursuit or protection of such activities may
contradict the aims of the combatant party as a whole, potentially undermining a group's cohesion.

Globalization

• The 3 countries has shown a high degree of Integration into the global economy. These ties may be increasing both the
intensity and the duration of violence.
• Mark Duffield: violent conflict in countries such as Angola, Sierra Leone, and the DRC is not the temporary result of a
"developmental malaise," but rather indicative of a "durable disorder" where insecurity and underdevelopment are
inseparable and cyclical aspects of globalization.
• one must not only concentrate on the supply of natural resources and the demand for arms among developing
countries, but also examine the demand for natural resources and the supply of arms among developed countries.
• David Keen: “‘Interventions' are not simply something that 'the West' or the 'international Community' does to remedy
humanitarian disasters once they occur; more often than not, interventions occur prior to the disaster, perhaps helping
to precipitate it."

UN intervention

• the organizational culture of the UN Secretariat often leads to defining conflicts according to the limited means available
for Intervention and pursuing expedient rather than durable Solutions to complex problems.

Humanitarian assistance

• David Shearer, both critics and proponents of international humanitarian assistance may have overstated their cases:
relief aid neither perpetuates war nor contributes to peacebuilding to the degree typically claimed
• In these conflicts, diamonds were a far more lucrative source of financing for continued military activity than the
appropriation of relief aid, implying the potential ineffectiveness of manipulating relief supplies as a lever for
peacebuilding where viable alternative resources exist
• humanitarian aid remains a necessary but insufficient form of Intervention—analogous to treating the symptoms rather
than the causes of civil war.

Conflict resolution and mediation

• contemporary civil wars with comparatively autonomous sources of financing, including natural resource extraction,
appear to be particularly resistant to the effects of outside mediation.
• The future management of natural resources is a core dilemma for conflict mediation in states dependent upon
commodity exports.

Peacekeeping

25
 • challenges for peace Implementation, including the presence of "three or more parties, of varying commitment to
peace, with divergent aims, with independent sources of income and arms, and with neighbors who are willing to buy,
sell, and transit illicit goods.”
• the regionalization, privatization, and globalization of these conflicts rendered them problematic for UN peacekeeping
operations

Sanction regimes

• often counterprocluctive or inefficient

• sanctions regimes targeting the flow of so-callecl conflict diamonds have only been somewhat effective for two basic
reasons: the inherent difficulties of supply-side interdiction, and a false premise that profit motivates insurgency and
that therefore the denial of resources will alter the incentive of rebel groups
• Sanctions regimes effectively criminalize rebel groups and end any pretense of impartiality— potentially eliminating
diplomatic channels for mediation.

Conclusion

• The cause of these intrastate conflicts

o state failure: a declining state capacity or desire to provide public goods (e.g., administration, economic
opportunity, and security) and an increasing erosion of legitimacy.
o Insurgency : the mobilization of both human and material
• The intensity and duration of internal wars :influenced not only by lootable resources, but also by linkages with external
processes of regionalization, privatization, and globalization.
• conflict analysis also needs to incorporate a wider range of public and private sector actors than typically considered
relevant: adjacent states, criminal networks, mercenary firms, resource extraction corporations, and powerful
industrialized states
• UN Intervention in African civil wars would need a mutually reinforcing combination of three components: structural
prevention, enhanced peacekeeping capacity, and supranational regulation
• "good governance"
o enhances state institutional capacity to manage resources and provide public goods.
o substantially improved UN peacekeeping capacity in African conflicts is necessary in order to facilitate the trust
required for mediation; enable the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of combatants; manage
challenges posed by a multiplicity of nonstate and regional actors; and provide an adequate deterrent against
those who may oppose peace processes.
o the Establishment of a comprehensive supra-national regime for the regulation of natural resource extraction
in conflict zones may be required to deal with the privatized and globalized aspects of war economies
• proposals for creating a comprehensive global regulatory regime for natural resource extraction in conflict zones face
a number of political hurdles, above all the Opposition of developing states concerned about the erosion of soveveignty
and developed states protecting corporate interests

James, E. Managing Humanitarian Relief. An Operational Guide for NGOs, pp. 131-156.

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss and provide some basic tools in deciding and preparing to launch a new programme.
It covers:

• Deciding to enter
• Government relations and registration
• Legal issues
• Levels of involvement
• Dealing with HQ

26
 • The emergency team
(see p.14 for the rest)

***PPT & NOTES***

Root Causes, Contributing Factors & Justifications: Breakdown of Societies

Course Set-up Reviewed

• Conceptual and Strategic Issues

o Introduction
§ No clear definitions
§ No clear concepts
§ No clear hum. System (ad hoc)
o Practical and Conceptual Problems (internal strategy)
§ When and how to intervene (SWOT Analysis)
§ Continuum debate (LRD)
§ Resources
§ Management (Inter- and intra-organizational)
o Economic and Political Breakdown of Societies (external strategy)
§ Sources & justifications of conflict
§ War Economy (Pol. ec. of war)
§ Continuation of war: Strategic Questions
o Types of Interventions (external strategy)
o Actors
§ Donors, UN, NGOs, Coordination
§ Military (recent changes)
§ Local population (& IDPs, Refugees)
• Programming in Guatemala
o Cross sectional Issues
§ LRRD
§ Human Resources Management
§ Debates: (some unfinished)
• Role(s) of the State
• Shortcomings of hum. orgs
• Linking Relief and Development
• Personal skills
• Good overview of debates, main managerial issues, actors, and authors.
• Mix of negative and positive aspects: critical approach
• To understand the context of conflict and how hum. Orgs interact with this context

Question about State

• If all states would function well, no humanitarian action would be needed. The breakdown of the state is a back-
ground issue in our course. Three main characteristics of a well-functioning state:
o regime has (democratic) accountability to population;
o Has internal & external monopoly on violence;
o Has monopoly on monetary matters (tax, issuing money, national budget)

Sources of Conflict

27
 • Structural Sources (e.g., North-South Problematic)
o demise of empire
o failed states/weak states
• Social and Psychological Sources of Identity
o ethnicity
o religion
• Environmental sources
• Economic sources
• Military Technology
• Individuals?
• Development Cooperation

NOTE

• No mono-causal pathway exists (unique situations)

• Different levels of analysis (remember:
o level mix, e.g.,
§ individual
§ (nation) state
§ international system
o issue mix, and
o actor mix
• Realist theories of state power are now less useful
• Societal level theories deserve more attention (historical, cultural, economic, psychological and so on)
Structural sources

• Collapsed empires (e.g., collapse of the Soviet Union & end of the Cold War)
o divide and rule from before the collapse!
o demise of central power => less restraint on rivalry
o split-up of territory (SU, Yugoslavia & Africa)
o conflict over (arbitrarily drawn) borders
o role of ethnicity & religion & desire for self-determination
o “new” elites are not necessarily more democratic => replicate old imperial order
• A need for new empires? Or UN as alternative?
• Failed/Weak States: (empirical statehood vs state sovereignty)
o non-democratic regimes
§ fear of democratization by (corrupt) elites
o weak state, authoritarianism, and corruption
§ state (public) power as access to resources
§ breakdown of two state-monopolies:
§ social exclusion & structural violence
• monetary (tax, monetary system => internal regulation)
• violence (policing internally, army externally)
• And lack of (democratic) accountability to population
o breakdown of civil society
o role of ethnicity & religion & desire for self-determination and/or participation
o tension between human rights & consolidation of state power?
o ill-conceived international support
o withdrawal of super power support
• Remember: state-building is always slow through modern state, educational system, media (promote 1 language
& homogeneous culture).Think of the Basks, Corsica, Quebec, Aborigines.

28
Social and Psychological Sources of Identity

• Ethnicity
o ethnopolitical trend started in the 60s, became visible in the 90s
o Cultural identity is a cross-class/gender/age basis for mobilization. It is a cultural bond not an
associational one.
o Redressing trauma or other grievances
o But ethnicity is malleable (clans in Somalia, rasta in the UK). Nations & ethnic groups are also imagined
communities: not everybody knows each other directly!
o Ethnicity can lead to internal inclusion and external exclusion (the other)
• Religion
o Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations”
o Dual nature:
§ emphasis on love and tolerance
§ absolute truths
o Roughly 4 different forms:
§ Violent intolerance (Ayodhya, kill the infidels)
§ Civic intolerance (ballots instead of bullets, but not more freedom for religious minorities)
§ Non-violent tolerance
• The Dalai Lama welcomes, rather than evades, his enemies—grateful for the threat and
conflict they represent— because their presence provides the occasion to practice the
self-restraint essential to final self conquest: “tolerance can be learned only from an
enemy: it cannot be learned from your guru.”
• Violence is in reality not militant enough. It simply does not effectively protect or secure
religious identity, but, on the contrary, destroys it.
§ Civic tolerance
• Compromise of other three: violence destroys religious identity, but force may be
necessary to establish system of law and governance that protects religious freedom

Environmental Sources

• Resource scarcity (and wealth at times: the so-called resource curse)

o fight for resources, such as oil, diamonds & water
o environmental degradation:
§ deforestation
§ rising sea levels
§ desertification and drought
§ decreasing biodiversity
• Population pressures
• Pollution
• Coping mechanisms, like migration and urbanization, can spell misery, but do not necessarily lead to conflict:
o hard to distinguish environmental and economic refugees
o help to victims
o individual suffering
o demise of native cultures (Amazon indians)
• Evidence is inconclusive:
o Threshold values; slow onset. Hard to determine when problem is intense enough
o Problem in short- or long term
o People first use alternatives, such as migration, seasonal labor, or split up families inside and outside the
refugee camp
o Closely related to economic factors
o The interaction with the socio-political system is crucial
29


Individual

• Two different types of theory:

o Human nature & instincts
§ “Homo homini lupus” brings a need for a social contract
o Leadership
§ age-old debate in history
§ Hitler & Germany?, Milosevic & Serbia?
§ An American President and the genocide on the native Americans?

Development Cooperation

• Aiding Violence: The Development Enterprise in Rwanda”

• Development cooperation is a political act, it is not just a technocratic, value-free exercise!
• Insufficient understanding of local context (structural violence and corruption)
• Insufficient attention to the consequences of aid:
o bad use of evaluation
o occupation of land
o forced cooperation
• closing eyes for mounting societal problems
o negative consequences of structural adjustment
o non-democratic civil society
o inciting hate
o did not protest colonial legacy (difference between hutus and tutsis)
o own ineffectiveness & contribution to societal problems

Military Technology

• Chicken-and-egg affair: what came first violent conflict or the use of arms?
o Pessimists: all new weapons have been used sooner or later
o Optimists: deterrence works
• However,
o if 5% of the population wants a war, there will be a war
o proliferation of cheap, small arms has fed cycles of conflict
o landmines have long-lasting effects (also after peace accords)
o terrorism is poor man’s war
• Especially important is the breakdown of the monopoly of violence by state or colonial power:
• if the environment is unstable & history of conflict, then new weaponry can be a catalyst for war, but in system of
peaceful dialogue & fear of casualties, new weapons can prevent conflict

Economic Sources/War Economy

• Asset transfer & resource exploitation: once asset transfer becomes systemic, it is possible to speak of the political
economy of conflict
• Development cooperation & humanitarian intervention often fail to address this asset transfer (winners & losers).
According to Duffield they (involuntarily) integrate into this political economy, e.g, through exchanging currency,
local transactions, and diversion of food aid.
• War is not to win anymore, but to exploit
o warring factions cooperate

30
 o so, these wars are not the continuation of politics by other means, but the continuation of economics by
other means
o resource appropriation of ethnic groups (they fall below the law).
• Top Down and Bottom Up
• More greed than grievance? Colier
• Role of international political economy
o hum. org, private enterprise, etc.
• War ec. undermines capacities for rebuilding and peace

Conclusions

• Hum. Orgs need to get much better at ec. analysis:

o Strategy: understanding the environment, determining direction and activities
o Programming: which activities, with which actors, which staff members to attract
o Security
• Root causes always have political element. Try to break political down into components: be specific about problems
and their root causes. (Don’t just speak about lack of political will)
o They continue and intensify during civil conflict
o Under which conditions does conflict arise?
§ Short-term and long-term differences
§ Direct and indirect effects
§ Possibility of alternative coping mechanisms & capacities of the local population
§ Interaction of several sources of conflict
§ Quality of the socio-political system is crucial
• Different Perspectives/value judgments on war and its root causes:
o Cold War model with two opposing sides
o Chaos & anarchy
o War’s negative consequences: war is bad/breakdown
o Understanding the war economy & political context (war as an end in itself)
• There are even more sources of conflict than mentioned in this lecture and more research is necessary, e.g.,
relationship between structural violence and social exclusion
• Root causes persist after peace agreement: need to link relief and development in a politically informed manner!
Also focus on ec. agendas! L.t. perspective

TYPES OF INTERVENTIONS (AND HOW TO POSITION ONESELF TOWARDS OTHER ACTORS?)

Set-up

• Types of War/Intervention (See also handout):

o War?
o Military: different types:
§ enforcement
§ without enforcement
§ first generation
o Civilian (different types)
§ UN led
§ NGO led
• Conclusion
31


32
 33
Common Themes

• legal
• moral
• differences between military and civilian interventions
• evolution of intervention
• positioning of intervening actors towards the actors in the field
• lots of debate; lack of clarity
• Next classes: distinguishing different types of actors and their roles (e.g., different types of NGOs, such as ICRC,
MSF, OXFAM)

War

• With 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq, it is playing again at center-stage

• Armed action to win war
• This was not expected at the end of the Cold War
• Discuss Hand-out
• We will discuss the role of the military in more detail in a later class on actors, but the “war on terror” has had a
big impact on humanitarian actors

34
 35


MILITARY INTERVENTION

• Double nature of the military: due to its power and technology, it is

o a decisive threat to life & order, and
o the instrument to protect both
• When to use force?
o Non-intervention is the norm:
§ non-intervention to prevent wars of religion;
§ non-intervention to protect self-determination and/or communal autonomy
§ non-intervention to prevent the sub-ordination of small states to large states
• Conclusion: non-intervention to contain powerful states and protect sovereignty
• One big exception (allow use of force):
o Genocide (but no force used to stop Rwandan genocide)
o Human Rights abuses?
o War on Terror?
o R2P
• Conclusion: the possibilities for intervention in case of human rights abuses/violations in (some) failed states
(little int. law on it, common art. 3) have broadened somewhat
• If one uses force, distinguish:
o jus ad bellum (defining the conditions under which force can be used)
o jus in bello (defining how force is to be legitimately employed) Practical problems will come in future class
on actors!)
• Normally, the Security Council decides, big exceptions (cases):
o NATO action in Serbia/Kosovo
o Iraq
• Different types of military intervention (UN Agenda for Peace):
o peacekeeping: the deployment of a UN presence in the field, hitherto with the consent of all parties
concerned … that expands the possibilities for both the prevention of conflict and the making of peace
(first and second generation)
o peace-building: efforts to identify and support structures which will tend to consolidate peace and
advance (development actors play a big role)
o peace-making: action to bring hostile parties to an agreement (diplomats play a big role)
o peace enforcement: emplacement of UN personnel in conflict situations without the parties’ consent
• Note increasing number of regional coalitions with UN approval, and now US & coalitions of the willing
• Cold War end, Somalia, Rwanda, Afghanistan: pendulum swinging back and forth from optimism to pessimism.
These swings will continue.
• In all but peace-enforcement, consent of the parties is crucial
• peace enforcement has rarely been successful in practice, e.g., compare Somalia and Sierra Leone
• Military often fail with protection & security tasks.
• Humanitarians do not want Mil. to do hum. tasks
• Mil. can do engineering, logistics and info tasks, exchange of prisoners
• problem of overlap (a different form of mission creep)
• importance of clear criteria for action
o mandates
o consent (political will, negotiations)
o impartiality
o the use (or threat of use) of force: can it be effective. In Bosnia mix up peacekeeping and peace-
enforcement
o selectivity (disparities in allocation)
• consent, impartiality, selectivity also important in other types of interventions
36


CIVILIAN INTERVENTION WITH UN SECRETARIAT

• Ideal once there is, or is a reasonable hope on a peace accord

• Focus is on rebuilding after peace
• Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) leads the UN institutional Network: Lead agency for the
whole country and/or specific agency

CIVILIAN INTERVENTION (WHO DECIDES? HOW?)

• Frequently, no peace accord

• No military
• No well-functioning government that provides its rules for outside actors
• These actors are poised to intervene, no such distinction as jus ad bellum and jus in bello
• What do the criteria in action become, in other words how does an organization position itself in conflict

Conclusion

• At least six different forms of partly overlapping forms of intervention

• Important for strategy of hum. Orgs.
• Next week Hugo Slim’s article classify different types of hum. organizations and their positions in class

Lecture 4

PART II: ACTORS AND ORGANIZATIONS

Monday, 28 October 2019, 10:00-11:30: “Outside Actors: Donors, UN, NGOs and Coordination Issues”
1. Donor Country Governments
2. NGOs
• Theoretical overview: what are they, why have they emerged, whose interests do they serve and why?
• Distinguishing between public service contractors, solidarity organizations, neutral organizations and impartial
organizations.
• North-South issues.
• Funding arrangements and the broader issue of donors and their policies.
3. UN System
• Roles, responsibilities and mandates.
• Execution of programs & examples of UN-led humanitarian interventions: political rationale, funding levels,
assignment for leadership and coordination.
4. Regional Organizations.
5. The Military
6. The aid chain and coordination.

Required Reading:

Cramer, C. Chapter 7: ‘Greed versus Grievance,’ pp. 164-183, in Yanacopulos and Hanlon, Civil War, Civil Peace.

37
(see p.4)

The debate between economists is characterised as greed versus grievance. Economists use 'utility' as a word encapsulating
what an individual wants. Orthodox neoclassical economists assume that people's behaviour is governed by rational choices
made so as to maximise individual_'utility' and thus that the key economic driver of civil war was the opportunity to exercise
individual 'greed'. The so-called heterodox economists responded that economic grievances rather than greed were the driving
force. The split was clearest over income inequality - orthodox economists said high income inequality did not increase the risk
of civil war, while heterodox economists said high income inequality was one of the strongest predictors of civil war.

Orthodox economists hoped their methods would be more objective, and that by applying modelling techniques to databases
on civil wars they could determine roots and even predict wars. But in trying to treat all civil wars in the same way, they faced
major difficulties with defining wars, as well as problems obtaining sufficient statistical information about civil war countries.
With no precise way of defining and measuring motives, economists were forced to use alternatives that could be measured –
so called proxies - to stand in, and there was debate about the validity of these choices. These studies gained international
prominence, particularly with the World Bank, but the methods proved unable to predict wars. The problem may be that far
from being objective, the choices of models, data sets and especially proxies became subjective.

But the entry of economists into the study of civil wars forced serious consideration of economic motivations and also of the
collective action problem - why do people choose to participate in civil wars, at potential great personal cost, rather than just
be free riders who take no risks but share the benefits of victory? A variety of answers may apply, even to different people in
the same war. For orthodox economists, the issue is maximising personal utility - people feel they have more to gain than to
lose by fighting. This applies both to pure greed and to lack of alternative opportunities. But, as has already been seen, there
are many examples of people fighting for altruistic and political motivations or out of group solidarity - they join the war because
they agree the group will gain through violence, even if they may lose personally

XX

7.1 An introduction to the neoclassical economic theory of violence and war
• the main sources of civil war lay in economic factors and the key economic driver of civil war was the
opportunity to exercise individual 'greed'.
• Neoclassical economists: people's behaviour is governed by rational choices made so as to maximise
individual 'utility'
• a simple dichotomy: between greed and grievance.

7.2 Analytical boundaries and false distinctions

• motivations for war: greed or grievance, or other?
• there was the 'craving for power which characterises the governing class in every nation’
• this political power hunger is 'often supported by the activities of another group
• Freud: 2 main types of instincts:
o conserve and unify ('love')
o aggressive, acquisitive and destructive ('hate')
o -> they cannot neatly be separated.
• One classification issue that matters greatly to the greed versus grievance debate and more generally to the
discussion of the causes of violent conflict is the question of how to define a civil war.
o 1. the borders around the set of civil wars might be artificial, porous, or fuzzy.
§ On the one hand, civil wars may shade into regional or international wars. (e.g. Spanish Civil
War)
§ On the other hand, civil wars may shade into non-war violence. ( e.g. the conflict in the 1980s
in South Africa between the African National Congress (ANC) and Inkatha)
38
 § However, there is the question of the role of the state: against the state, or none of them are
state?
o 2. Can we treat all those conflicts that qualify as civil wars equivalent?
§ Can a set of criteria included very varied experience?
o 3. 'Rwanda problem': The most widely used definition (for purposes of quantitative analysis) of civil
war relies on a particular 'battle death threshold’ of 1000 deaths per year
§ for civil wars often involve vast numbers of deaths by direct violence that does not take place
in classic battlefield confrontations.
§ a huge number of the casualties of such conflicts are killed by indirect violence

(TBC)

Krause, M., Chapter Four ‘The History of Humanitarian Authority and the Divisions of the Humanitarian Field’, pp. 92-125 (the
good project)

See p.12

Krause, M., Chapter Five “The Reform of Humanitarianism”, pp. 126-146. (the good project)

See p.17

James, E. Managing Humanitarian Relief. An Operational Guide for NGOs, pp. 365-380.

See p.15

Development Initiatives (2019) Global Humanitarian Assistance Report 2019, “Executive Summary, pp. 12-13, available at
devinit.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/GHA-report-2019.pdf.

• six countries accounted for 80.6 million people in need.

• Crises are frequently protracted. A third of the global population living in extreme poverty (on less than
$1.90 per day) are in countries with UN-coordinated appeals in 2018 and consecutively for at least one
preceding year.
• Crises are also often complex. Globally the numbers of forcibly displaced people grew for the seventh
consecutive year, to 70.8 million in 2018 (a 3% rise from 2017).
• International humanitarian assistance from governments and private donors continued to increase in
2018
• The three largest donors continue to be the US, Germany and the UK. (52% of all government
contributions)
• Substantial increases were made by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, providing an additional
US$1.7 billion (567% rise) and US$806 million (173% rise) in 2018
• domestic resources are significantly lower than in other developing countries (US$272 per person,
compared with almost US$1,000), while international flows per person are over 40% lower
• Developmental official development assistance (ODA less humanitarian assistance) and humanitarian
assistance are progressively being channelled to the same protracted crisis contexts.
• two thirds of direct government funding (64%, US$14.0 billion) went to multilateral organisations.
Meanwhile, most funding (85%, US$5.7 billion) from private donors was channelled to NGOs
• Unearmarked and multi-year funding allow for resources to be delivered predictably and flexibly

39
 • Cash-transfer programming can enable recipients of humanitarian assistance to choose how best to
meet their needs and offer potential gains in dignity

***PPT & NOTES ***

OUTSIDE ACTORS

Topics

• Hugo Slim’s article to classify and position humanitarian organizations NGOs

• From Part I Strategy into Part II Actors & Orgs:
o Media
o Donor Governments
o UN
o Coordination
o The Military
o Alternatives: For a specific crisis and global utopian solutions?
o Conclusions: Joint hum & mil. problems

CIVILIAN INTERVENTION (WHO DECIDES? HOW?)

• Hugo Slim’s article

o Why this article?
o An explosion of intervening actors (NGOs), who
o position themselves (morally) & function in a sloppy way, e.g., solidarity vs. neutrality without fully
understanding neutrality.
o Mental health/bystander insecurity of staff
o looks at four concepts: 1. Humanity; 2. Neutrality; 3. Impartiality; and 4. Solidarity.
o He describes the problems with each concept and how the discussions have evolved
• Humanity:
o reductionist: food, water, shelter, & medicine (what)
o ->(broader) respect & dignity of human beings need to be incorporated too, e.g., protection
o non-negotiable (how)
o however, humanitarian aid must negotiate its place in violence. (Humanitarian imperative vs. the claimed
right to wage war)
• Neutrality:
o it may stop an organization from taking sides (militarily or ideologically) and protect from public criticism,
but it does not prevent an organization from having a principled position based on firm ideals
(prevention, abstention, and impartiality)
o Many NGOs that reject neutrality embrace impartiality. However, impartiality as applying equal terms to
the warring parties is a part of neutrality.
• Impartiality:
o Active impartiality (MSF) “speaking out” (témoignage, witnessing) is not neutral. It is impartial towards
persons, but partial towards actions. So, there are forms of impartiality that are not neutral. This is
confusing in the article.
• Solidarity:
o This implies taking sides. Many religious NGOs do this habitually. Question: can you always separate
civilians from the armies? Right from wrong? Who is innocent?
• Hugo Slim’s conclusion

40
 o He acknowledges that a range of different positions is both inevitable and desirable, but all positions have
their problems. Hence, he concludes by emphasizing the responsibility of any outside relief organization
to be transparent in its position & to preserve rather than distort traditional humanitarian principles and
language. (Some NGOs understand neither humanitarian principles nor the practical problems in applying
them and then (wrongly) start looking for the next concept).

NGO Positioning

• Central problem with interventions: there is no state (good governance & lack of gvmt authority), the
question becomes: whose & which rules/principles do you follow?
• International law on (NGO) interventions could be worked out more.
• The (confusing) debate continues; a range of positions is possible, but actors should be transparent &
know traditional hum. principles. Training is necessary
• Intervening actors should do their homework; it looks like they are reinventing the wheel, e.g.,
neutrality. The main question becomes: how are the four principles used in practice?
• Neutrality, Impartiality, and Independence each focus on one central actors, respectively, the warring
factions, the people in need, and the donor governments (and to a lesser extent the general public and
private foundations)
• But principles help to understand the different positions of intervening actors better
• Discuss positioning of humanitarian organizations on mental map
• Classify & position different groups of NGOs (explain mental map)
Impartiality
Ø Your relationship with people in need
Ø Opposite: solidarity (political causes)
Ø Independent: independent from the donner (gov, general public)
Ø independent, impartiality People in need solidarity
ICRC NPA
MSF Religious NGOs

MDM Islamic Relief

Oxfam NRC?
SCF-UK (also very critical)
ACF WVI
Caritas UNICEF
SCF-US UNHCR
IRC WFP
CARE

Private NGOs/Companies

Sub-contracting

Ø ACF: food is expensive and you need to transport it. US has large food support to those NGOs, so if there’s
food programme, there’s US influence. The food org are in general less independent.
Ø NGOs with doctors is easier to be independent.
Ø Private NGOs: work a lot with the government

41
 Ø NPA: Norwegian people aid

• Criticism
o The concepts political and humanitarian are used too easily. What is meant by them in each
concrete case?
o With neutrality (relation w. warring factions), we could make a 3-dimensional map
o Absence of local perspectives: what are their coping mechanisms and capacities? Enunciating
principles does not mean understanding the local situation & political and economic root causes
better.
WHICH OUTSIDE ACTORS?

• Media
o Double Nature:
§ Media can show a lot, but
§ it does generally not show its own limitations (financial constraints, preferences, etc.)
o Paradoxically, we need the media to criticize the media.
• Donor Country Governments
o Donors: Reactions by Governments
§ -> Is there a CNN effect? (i.e. die to the attention of media, governments start to get
interested in crisis)
§ Does the media influence donors?
• Depends on the nature of the actor involved
o Often donor governments don’t act:
§ powerful actor involved, e.g., China in Tibet
§ negative interpretation
• Kaplan’s “Coming Anarchy”
• Rwanda after Somalia
• Bosnia as Quagmire (Consequence of Vietnam)
• What can we gain in Syria?
• compassion/donor fatigue just like the general public
o Govts allow humanitarian action as smoke-screen, but don’t address root causes or support
larger intervention: containment and change?
o They lack understanding, e.g., Somalia
o Finally (when it is often (too) late)
§ small groups (idealists & foreign policy wonks) can “shame” gvmt into action;
§ gvmts act when their legitimacy and (ir)responsibility are challenged
§ some gvmts (cultures) are more activist than others (e.g., Nordic Countries)
o It is important to come up with remedies that transcend the simplistic humanitarian/political
divide, that make addressing root causes & working with the local population feasible.
o Currently, integration of security, relief, rehabilitation, and development, but is it the right kind
of integration?
o Bosnia-Herzegovina (see chapter by Smilie and Evenson)
§ Funded beyond capacity for good management
§ Short-term funding & Delays in funding
§ Faddish nature; linear programming; not participatory; not building on local initiatives
§ No overhead, no recurrent costs
§ Heavy reporting requirements
§ Also legal problems & issues w. local governments!

42
 o L.t. capacity building or direct service delivery: chances for democratization were wasted.
o Even donor org. (e.g., UNHCR) that suffer themselves from these problems make the same
mistakes to other organizations
o Greener pastures; repeating mistakes?
• UN system
• NGOs and ICRC
• Military
• Regional Organizations
• Aid Chain and Coordination

Lecture 5

Monday, 4 November 2019, 10:00-11:30: “Military-Humanitarian Interaction in the Field”

1. History and background;
2. The Congo Case: MSF and MONUSCO in the eastern DRC.

Required Reading:

O’Neill, R. (2016) ‘Blurred Lines, Shrunken Space? Offensive Peacekeepers, Networked Humanitarians and the Performance of
Principle in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’, pp. 105-121, in Sezgin, Z. and Dijkzeul, D. (Eds) (2016) The New Humanitarian
Actors: Contested Principles, Emerging Practice, Routledge Humanitarian Studies Series, Routledge, Milton Park.

introduction
• three interlinked historical narratives of humanitarian action.
o the appropriate relationship between civilian and military actors.
o the shrinking of ‘humanitarian space’ under the political pressure of the war on terror.
o the increased danger faced by humanitarians now targeted by extremist groups
• Humanitarian space is a countermovement, an attempt to redefine what it means to be humanitarian in the
wake of armed humanitarianism in Somalia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq
• Study on the close relationship between humanitarian and military actors:
o Fassin (2010):
o humanitarian and military actors inhabit the same ‘time-space’, their presence in a country signalling
the more or less temporary suspension of state sovereignty.
o within this time-space, humanitarian and military actors share a set of norms and institutions separate
from those practised by either the local population or the government in question.
• humanitarian space must be viewed as a countervailing movement not only against the external
manipulation of aid, but, internal to humanitarianism itself.
• two interlinked arguments:
o 1. in the case of Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), humanitarian networking has helped
produce and legitimise new forms of hybrid peacekeeping more akin to global counterinsurgency
warfare.
§ This chapter describes the intimate relationship between humanitarians and MONUSCO
(United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission) in DRC, especially its new Force
Intervention Brigade (FIB).
o 2. it details the various types of resistance that have taken place in the DRC against this new form of
humanitarian war, in particular among international NGOs.
43
 § humanitarian space advocacy has taken the form of ‘Othering’, political exclusion meant to
shame ‘mainstream’ NGOs who maintain relations with military and political actors
• article structure: four sections:
o 1. it reviews the theoretical literature on NGOs as network actors, adding some pertinent insights
from the broader field of social theory.
o 2. it discusses the contribution of humanitarian actors to three top-down UN agendas – integration,
stabilisation, and protection of civilians – demonstrating how each has further militarised
peacekeeping practice, resulting in the present ‘neutralisation’ mandate in the DRC.
o 3. it details the reaction on the part of the NGO community to this latest development
o 4. it concludes by drawing broader observations as to the general challenges faced by NGOs seeking
to carve out an independent humanitarian space.

The Ties that Bind: Nodes, Norms and Networks

• Theories on the relation between NGOs and outside power:

o ‘functionalist’ theory of political economy
§ overlooks the diversity of NGO actions, turning a blind eye to those actions that do not serve
predefined systems’ needs.
o sociological institutionalists: ‘bridging’
§ creating vertical, horizontal and lateral networks so as to maximise their influence and
mitigate their financial dependency
• Three types of networks in humanitarianism:
o 1. most people understand by networks time-limited, single-issue, context-specific, advocacy
campaigns (Keck and Sikkink 1998).
o 2. It is possible to speak of humanitarianism itself as a single network internal to global civil society
(Leroi et al. 2004).
o 3. Humanitarian NGOs as themselves networked forms of association
• DeMars & Dijkzeul : ‘every NGO is itself a site for power-laced encounters, a nexus of several other
cooperating and competing actors’
• Pierre Bourdieu: ‘social field’ : a socially constructed professional space, the limits of which are defined by
conflicts between the actors themselves (Fassin 2010: 279).
• All the aforementioned narratives – ‘shrinking humanitarian space’, ‘blurring civ-mil lines’ or ‘humanitarians
under fire’ – can be usefully construed as normative ‘scripts’
o Scripts: help to build networks among NGOs in opposition to military and political actors and agendas
o These networks tend to be small, linking only those NGOs who identify themselves as single mandate
or ‘Dunantist’, and/or those multi-mandate NGOs who refuse to do development in the context of
war.

A Strange Case of FIB and DRC: Integration, Stabilisation and Protection of Civilians

• The mandate in the DRC : an agglomeration of at least three past UN initiatives

o 1. integration,
o 2. stabilisation
o 3. protection of civilians
o -> the initiatives seems top down, but actually represent years of networking between NGOs,
diplomats, military strategists and civil-society organisations
Integration Fever

44
 • After Rwanda genocide, UN reached the conclusion that peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance often
work together
o -> many NGOs argue that coordinating with political and military actors is jeopardising the neutrality,
impartiality and independence of humanitarians
o Humanitarians have taken the opportunities afforded them by UN integration in order to expand their
reach inside the UN, using the cluster system and other such venues in order to increase their
professional and personnel relations with military strategists and stabilisation planners
o while NGOs have sought to take advantage of UN integration so as to both increase their own profiles
and humanise peacekeeping policy, their actions have nevertheless reproduced problematic
assumptions about the origins of violence, the direction of political authority (e.g. topdown), and the
necessity of international intervention, assumptions which now guide both the FIB and the broader
practice of humanitarian war

Stabilisation: Mild, Medium and Full Bodied

• Stabilisation : a set of policies and practices aimed at enhancing the gaze of the state, allowing it to see and
know its subjects inside out.
o This includes anything from the use of drones to rapid response police forces and financial controls
on aid flows, for instance, those contained in Executive Order 13224 and the US Patriot Act (Minear
2012: 60).
• stabilisation in the DRC is not simply a top-down US agenda, as in Afghanistan and Somalia. It is in fact
implicitly, if not explicitly, supported by the NGO community. 4 reasons:
o 1. because the FARDC are perceived by the Congolese to be both the biggest threat to security and
the only option for the future, many NGOs have embraced the core tenants of counterinsurgency,
albeit indirectly, working to make both MONUSCO and FARDC better, meaning more ‘liberal’ warriors
o 2. successive mandates have strung together stabilisation and protection of civilians as if they were
one and the same thing
o 3. many communities now fall somewhere in between humanitarian emergencies and regular
development contexts, with many donors not wanting to fund longer-term projects out of fears of
future conflict
o 4. top-down approaches to peacekeeping alone will not bring an end to war, many mainstream
development NGOs have sought to expand their programming into the area of peace building
• -> an emerging consensus among SSU, peace-building organisations, and multi-mandate NGOs that conflict
is also a local matter and that peace must begin at the community level.
• while peace happens from the bottom up, war ends from the top down, in particular by enhancing state
visibility and eliminating foreign peace ‘spoilers’

The Perils of Protection

• 1990s protection of civilians (PoC)

o Humanitarians developed Sphere Minimum Standards to better regulate humanitarian practice.
o coalitions of NGOs lobbied diplomats to adopt a UN humanitarian ‘right of intervention’ to protect
populations in danger (Ferris 2011)
• in 2005, the General Assembly established PoC as a global responsibility to protect (R2P)
o -> when states fail to protect, they forfeit their right to sovereign equality, opening up the possibility
of lawful intervention
o However, How the UNSC determines when a state lives and when it fails is by no means clear

45
 • recent DPKO/DFS (UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations/Department of Field Support) training
module notes that:
o ‘necessary actions’ to protect civilians under imminent threat may include: ‘preventive, pre-emptive,
or responsive actions taken to avert, mitigate or respond to an identified threat’.
o a threat of violence against a civilian is considered imminent from the time it is identified as a threat,
until such a time that mission analysis (a combination of military intelligence, human rights and
humanitarian findings, and political analysis) can determine that the threat no longer exists.
From Protection to Neutralisation and Back: The FIB in the DRC

• the approach of NGOs towards the FIB has been that of cautious ‘internal’ critique, meaning that
humanitarians have sought to evaluate the performance of the FIB against what is contained in the mandate
• The problem : it assumes that UNSC mandates are humanitarian.
• However, by accepting the general framework of neutralisation, they have invariably sacrificed the pretence
of neutrality, to say nothing of independence and impartiality.

Cutting the Umbilical Cord: Counterinsurgency and Humanitarian Space

• MONUSCO drafted a concept note: ‘Islands of Stability’ (IoS).

o in line with the strategy of ‘clear, hold, build’ (now ‘shape, clear, hold, build’)
o ‘stabilise areas freed from armed groups’
o ‘create the conditions for improved governance and long-term development by addressing the root
causes of conflicts at the local level’
• However, it did make frequent reference to the integrated role of international NGOs, in particular in the
areas of ‘social cohesion’, ‘economic and agricultural recovery’, ‘mediation in land conflicts’ and, most
importantly, the ‘provision of basic services’
• In response, humanitarians began mobilising against IoS.
o humanitarians in question chose not to question the problematic relationship between development,
reconstruction and stabilisation, instead treating I4S as the legitimate framework for action.
• Dunantist V.S. Wilsonian:
o the distinction is performative (Butler 1997). By making such a distinction MSF has in essence sought
to mark the limits of the humanitarian field in order to bring pressure to bear on organisations which
it feels have grown too close to the Security Council.
• ‘naming and shaming’
o may at times effectively goad offending NGOs into shifting their behavior
o but it is just as likely to backfire, because the limits of humanitarian space are a given.
o many humanitarians in the DRC are now of the opinion that it is essential to mix mandates, that
strictly humanitarian NGOs are simply out of touch with the needs of Congolese citizens
o Defending humanitarian space requires more than simply naming and shaming. It requires both inter-
NGO debate and civilian-military negotiations over the ever-shifting limits, dangers and possibilities
of networked engagement.

Conclusion: Lessons Learned (the Hard Way)

• Three lessons :
o 1. humanitarian NGOs in the DRC have sought to take advantage of top-down UN reforms like
integration, stabilisation and PoC in order to increase their leverage over peacekeeping policy, in part
as a means of counterbalancing regional and Security Council demands for more aggressive action.

46
 o 2. while humanitarian NGOs have sought to expose the most overtly manipulative of MONUSCO’s
policies, such as IoS, they have also helped reinforce problematic assumptions about the nature of
armed conflict (e.g. the idea that war begins and ends with the absence or presence of soldiers).
§ This has both shaped their policy critique (which generally targets MONUSCO’s failure to live
up to its mandate, without questioning that mandate itself) and lent implicit support to the
present ‘neutralisation’ mandate of the FIB.
o 3. NGO engagement with MONUSCO has prompted some humanitarian organisations to reconsider
their relationships with both the UN and multi-mandate NGOs, deploying the concept of
humanitarian space as a means of shaming ‘mainstream’ NGOs for their betrayal of humanitarian
principles, while presenting themselves as the defenders of tradition.
§ Humanitarian space has thus emerged as a counter-principle, a means of severing civilian-
military networks and carving out an independent humanitarian space;
§ -> But humanitarian space is constantly shifting depending on the protagonists involved.
§ Humanitarian space is not simply a question of principle, but politics as well, the limits of the
humanitarian community being the product of networking, negotiation and alliance
formation.

O’Neill, R. (2016) ‘Rebels without Borders: Armed Groups as Humanitarian Actors’, pp. 126-140, in Sezgin, Z. and Dijkzeul,
D. (Eds) (2016) The New Humanitarian Actors: Contested Principles, Emerging Practice, Routledge Humanitarian Studies
Series, Routledge, Milton Park.
Introduction

• examining rebel–NGO relations and the adoption of humanitarian ideology by rebel factions.
• The argument:
o NGO–rebel relations have now returned to the agenda, this time as a means of counterbalancing
the increasingly partisan nature of UN peacekeeping operations.
o for many insurgent groups : working with NGOs holds the key to attaining international
recognition; some even being able to identify themselves as ‘humanitarian independence’ to
discredit their counterinsurgency operations.
o Humanitarian space is now saturated, making neutral, impartial, and independent humanitarian
action increasingly difficult.

Hidden Partners: NGO–Rebel Relations

• NGOs serve as nodes in broader funding and policy networks, crossing the threshold between civil
society, the state and international institutions
o it also means they contribute to the institutional multiplicity of recipient societies, implanting
foreign interests, norms and institutions (e.g. audit culture, liberal human rights, etc.) deep
within the socio-economic landscape of Third World states.
o their presence within multiple, overlapping funding and policy networks, including informal
distribution partnerships with insurgents – provides them with their own form of institutional
multiplicity
• UN Resolution 1514 : ‘right of independence’: not only conferred formal recognition upon a number of
rebel groups in Southern Africa, it also provided NGOs significant room to manoeuvre in terms of
support for these organisations.
• armed humanitarian intervention: three factors led to the gradual delegitimisation of large-scale,
formal, humanitarian–rebel relations.
o 1. SRRA in South Sudan :
47
 § the SPLA, through SSRA, ‘taxed’ food aid to feed soldiers (Maxwell 2012: 212),
§ used these same taxes to finance ‘visa’ departments dedicated to the seizure and control
of aid (Lavergne and Weissman 2004: 155)
§ directed NGOs to key strategic zones so as to deter government attacks (ibid.: 154).
§ -> The lesson learned in South Sudan, then, was that aid can help prolong war
o 2. Rwanda genocide
§ The international community launched a massive aid campaign to preserve the lives of
Hutu refugees, failing, however, to discriminate between civilians and armed combatants
and eventually fuelling a resurgence of war.
§ -> do no harm
o 3. NGOs have developed increasingly close relations with the UN, just as the UN has become
increasingly involved in counterinsurgency operations
o 4. 9/11 and the war on terror have resulted in the gradual shifting of aid flows away from
‘negotiated access’ to ‘post-conflict reconstruction’ (Duffield 2007: 133).
§ For many NGOs, this shift in funding has meant greater harmonisation with the
government and armed forces and an equivalent marginalisation of rebel groups
§ changes to both the political economy of rebellion and humanitarian action have reduced
African rebels to hidden partners.

Acting in Enemy Territory: The Aid-Insurgency Interface in the DRC

Focus on one particular lineage of Rwandan and Ugandan backed rebels, explain how each group has sought to court
international opinion by presenting itself as humanitarian, ultimately in order to win diplomatic support for its cause.

ADFL to RDC: The Primacy of the International

• from the case of Congo, the author argues that rebellion had long ceased to be an ideological
enterprise. Rather, the end goal of insurgency in Congo was now ‘recognition’, for in the post-Rwanda,
post-Apartheid world, international approval held the key to attaining a piece of the freshly baked
power-pie.

CNDP: The Humanitarian Mystique

• CNDP successfully used propaganda to manipulate internatioanl opinion, and won the election. The
propaganda includes: a sophisticated media strategy (website, radio station, interview with foreign
journalists), investing money in development projects (e.g. rebuild local schools and health centres,
paying teacher’s salaries and buying generators for a health centre ), and a parallel governance structure
including a Social Affairs Commission headed by Dr Alexis Kasanzu, who was wellknown among
humanitarians (Stearns 2012a: 65).

M23: Movement Without a Cause

• M23 did its best to facilitate easy access to displaced peoples and their host communities so as to
ensure good relations with NGOs, it also deployed humanitarian language and reasoning as part of an
ideological war against the UN. It sought to paint itself as a reliable humanitarian partner, while publicly
demonising the already demonic FARDC so as to dissuade the UN from partnering with the army.

48
The Humanitarian Response: NGO Perceptions of M23

• Even M23 is comparatively a ‘better‘ partner for HA workers, that doesn’t means that international
NGOs and/or individual humanitarians were sympathetic to M23’s cause. Most of the humanitarian
agree that M23 was/is a Rwandan rebel group the sole purpose of which was to exploit Congolese
mineral deposits both for personal gain and to the benefit of the Rwandan state. And while M23 was a
reasonably reliable administrative partner, its human-rights record negated its many attempts to
position itself as a humanitarian actor.

Stuck in the Middle with You: MONUSCO–NGO–M23 Relations

• In October 2013, the M23 fired at a UN helicopter with a UN humanitarian mission inside because they
could not distinguish between UN transport bringing aid, and UN transport bringing artillery.
• MONUSCO has sought to integrate humanitarian and military action, whether or not it has intentionally
sought to disguise combatants as humanitarians for strategic advantage, this nature run the risk of
blurring the lines between the preservation of humanitarian neutrality and independence and active
support for insurgents.

The Fallout: M23, MSF and the Campaign to Protect Humanitarian Space

• in arguing against the blurring of ‘civilian–military’ lines, NGOs like MSF indirectly advance the political
position of insurgents. Ironically, when MSF speaks out against humanitarian complicity in war, labelling
multi-mandate NGOs ‘Wilsonian’ and denouncing organisations who partake in post-war reconstruction,
they make the same point as Al-Shabaab, implicitly accusing these organisations of imperialism.
• some within MSF have sought to rethink humanitarian space advocacy, arguing that humanitarians must
keep their distance from all armed actors, whether the UN, the national army or insurgents
o -> however, Not only would this require NGOs to turn down reconstruction moneys at a time of
reduced humanitarian assistance, but, it would also mean refusing to work with rebel groups like
M23 who manipulate humanitarian sentiment, potentially sacrificing access to those in need.
• What is clear, however, is that NGOs need to change the terms of engagement with both rebels and the
UN.

Conclusion: A Crowded House!

• rebel–NGO relations are caught somewhere between all-out war and covert support.
• However, many African insurgents are now ‘hip to the game’, understanding that international
recognition holds the key to accessing state power, some having even created their own humanitarian
wings to serve this end.
• in many cases African rebels have abandoned their old rhetoric in favour of humanitarian reason,
including arguments pertaining to the blurring of civilian–military relations and humanitarian space.
Such rhetoric places humanitarians in an unenviable position of inadvertently supporting causes with
which they would not otherwise agree, if only to help counterbalance the power of the Security Council.

*** PPT& Notes ***

49
TOPICS

• Outside Actors II:

• The UN
• The Military and their relationship with humanitarian actors
• Alternatives: For a specific crisis and global utopian solutions?
• Conclusions: Joint hum & mil. Problems

United Nations

• Member states (i.e., donor govts) strongly influence on the UN by:

o Providing funding
o Determining policies
o Approving programs
o Selecting heads of UN organizations
• Different trends
o After WW II: mainly humanitarian (e.g., UNICEF)
o Then development
o In the 1990s more humanitarian funding, but
o UN had difficult time adapting, because its position is disputed among member states (e.g.,
US/China/Russia)
o UN was increasingly marginalized, but with the 2005 hum. reform UN played a more central role
again
• Main humanitarian UN Organizations:
o WFP (World Food Programme)
o UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees)
o UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund )
o OCHA (does not implement programs, but coordinates)
o UNOPS (United Nations Office for Project Services)
o Parts of other organizations: UNDP, UNOPS, WHO, World Bank, etc.
• UN Organizational Set-up
o 5 main bodies, such as General Assembly and Security Council
o UN Secr. Gen. is primus inter pares and heads the Secretariat, including
§ Its Department for Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO);
§ Its Department of Political Affairs (DPA); and
§ The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Its main tasks:
• INFORMATION EXCHANGE
• CONSOLIDATED APPEAL PROCESS (CAP)/HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE PLAN (HRP)
• COORDINATION
o CERF (Central Emergency Response Fund)
o Pooled Funding / Common Hum. Fund
o Cluster approach (= a sector-based approach)
o Autonomous bodies: Specialized Agencies like WHO and FAO
o FUNDS (e.g., UNICEF) AND PROGRAMMES (e.g., UNDP), who have their heads appointed by the
UN Secr. Gen.
§ Competition for funding among UN organizations

50


• The overall results of the 2005/2006 round of UN reform (CERF, Pooled Fund and Cluster Approach) are
positive. Improvements are still taking place. These are efforts to overcome the functional
decentralization of the UN System via financing and new cooperative bodies.
• UN plays a more central role. This is not easy for NGOs, who have now been appointed as co-heads of
some clusters.
• Much depends on the cluster leads. If they are good, the clusters can be successful.
• Local NGOs are rarely included in the cluster approach, they receive work (and money) from
international NGOs and UN organizations.
• 2011 another round of reforms
• 2016 WHS: localization, long-term funding

Conclusions on the UN

• The overall results of the 2005/2006 round of UN reform (CERF, Pooled Fund and Cluster Approach) are
positive. Improvements are still taking place. These are efforts to overcome the functional
decentralization of the UN System via financing and new cooperative bodies.
• UN plays a more central role. This is not easy for NGOs, who have now been appointed as co-heads of
some clusters.
• Much depends on the cluster leads. If they are good, the clusters can be successful.
51
 • Local NGOs are rarely included in the cluster approach, they receive work (and money) from
international NGOs and UN organizations.
• 2011 another round of reforms
• 2016 WHS: localization, long-term funding

MILITARY INTERVENTION

• Differentiate actual use of force from facilitating peace accords & protecting hum. relief!
• In all but peace-enforcement and outright war consent of the parties is crucial
• Peace enforcement has been the least successful in practice, e.g., Somalia. It can also compromise
impartiality/neutrality of humanitarian organizations: arms-length distance
• threat of force (deterrence) does not function as in inter-state conflict. It is more limited, because factions are
already fighting. After Somalia and Rwanda, most thugs don’t have a high opinion of peacekeeping forces.

TASKS (facilitation & protection)

• The release and transfer of prisoners (military can take care of security and logistics)
• Logistics and engineering (as with natural disasters, e.g., food transport, infrastructure (tents, bridges,
simple buildings, heavy equipment))
• Search for missing persons
• Mine awareness / Demining
• Civilian-Military Cooperation (CIMIC), e.g., information exchange, security meetings
• NGOs & military can train each other on operations, on rebuilding, on international humanitarian law,
etc.
• Security/Protection is a hot issue. Generally, NGOs like to remain independent.
• Humanitarians do not want the military to do humanitarian tasks, but they accept facilitation and
protection more easily
• ->In principle, this can all be done under civilian control, for example with a national government, or a
UN interim administration, which will help to maintain independence, neutrality, and impartiality
Implementation: Diversity in Mandates of the Military

• Under which Security Council resolution? What are the exact contents (tasks, enforcement,
duration)?
• Which countries contribute? What can they contribute (equipment, quality of manpower, etc.)
• Who leads the force?
• quality of the commander of the forces;
• quality of the Special Representative of the Secretary General & UN HQs’ support;
• Do donor countries support the SRSG and commander?
->(Do we need African operations led by Africans?)
• Countries in Crisis:
o Namibia/Angola
o Mozambique
o Iraq / Kuwait
o Somalia
o Rwanda
o DRC
o Former Yugoslavia

52
 o Sierra Leone/
Liberia/
Ivory Coast
o Kosovo
o East Timor
o Darfur
o Afghanistan (after 9/11 and now)
o Iraq (after 9/11 and now)
o Libya
o Syria
o Discussion of (parts of) this history in the coming few slides

Implementation: early 1990s

• End of Cold War caused optimism:

o International peace dividend;
o Role of the UN and the Kuwait/Gulf War.
• Yet, many intra-state wars broke out, and initially they were seen as ethnic or religious conflicts.
• International political reaction:
o The increase in intra-state conflicts led to a broader interpretation of security: aids,
underdevelopment, and epidemics were increasingly seen as int. security threats (human
security by BBG)
o Hum. Orgs tried to humanize the Sec. Agenda: They presented at SC, they carried out
advocacy in their own country, they interacted more with the military
o Since then, lots of problems w. the military

Implementation: Iraqi Kurdistan

• After the Kuwait war/Operation Desert Storm, Sadam Hussein attacked Shiites in southern Iraq and
Kurds in Northern Iraq
• Military contingents were late and they were not able to provide proper health care to fleeing Kurds in
Northern Iraq
• Turkey did not allow the refugees in. Other countries allowed this to happen. They wanted to placate an
important ally, so that political objectives of rich countries overode the humanitarian needs.
• The North (Iraqi Kurdistan) became a semi-indepedent state, which, after some internal Kurdish conflict,
did better than the rest of Iraq under Sadam Hussein

Implementation: Cooperation of the Military, Civilians (NGOs): Disadvantages in Somalia

• NGOs asked for protection! They were in the driver’s seat

• Wrong decision (famine in decline, BBG / Sahnoun)
• Protection (security of the NGOs) by the military in Somalia actually led to more violence. This highlights
some possible military shortcomings:
o mission creep (from protection role to political, enforcing role);
o Generally, weapons reinforce language of war;
o Military was not a democratic institution. This led to high visibility of cultural differences with
humanitarian NGOs:
53
 § not participatory
§ role of hierarchy/ centralization (vs. decentralization & field initiative in most NGOs)
§ different meaning of protection (security vs. int. refugee law)

Implementation: Rwanda

• Insufficient international military action to prevent or stop the genocide:

o After Somalia, no international interest
o Belgian soldiers killed (Somali example)
o UN forces present were powerless (General Dallaire)
o The later French-led „Operation Turquoise“ was originally to help the genocidaires
§ Through the organisation of French speaking states La Francophonie, Opération
Turquoise became a French-led military operation in the south east of Rwanda, set up
from June to August 1994. The immediate deployment numbered around 3000 French
and French-African troops with advanced military hardware including helicopters, fighter
jets and APCs. It is referred to in French military history as the moment that inspired the
formulation of ‘peace restoration’ strategy. Further analysis makes for more controversial
reading.

§ The case of Opération Turquoise is important because it points out that under the watch
of the UN, a single state was allowed to use its military might to carve out authority in a
foreign territory. The peoples in the territory would become subject to the previlaing
policy of that state, regardless of what international protocol dictates. The principle of
state-sovereignty, as mentioned previously, cannot account for transboundary crises.
France was able to fill the void with its neo-colonial ambitions.
o Later neglect of what happened inside of Rwanda (lack of support when the Kagame govt. still
looked okay)

Implementation: Goma

• International military did not separate genocidaires from the bona fide refugees. Allowed weapons in
the camps, so that they became bases for attacks and rearmement
• Bad water equipment (Oxfam story)
• Mil. did divert resources away from cheaper NGO options, they were not able to stem the sky-high
mortality
• Started the wars in the Congo (much higher mortality than Rwanda in absolute numbers)

Implementation Kosovo

• Humanitarian arguments in favour of War. (Repeated in Iraq and Afghanistan)

• Military bombing of Serbia was ineffective (89 days/low grade nuclear material)
• After the war:
o Military contingents for pol. purposes and PR
o Inappropriate mil. provision of hum. assistance (Trying to be popular: Bundeswehr)
o Still, constructive liaison at the field level
o Other crises received less attention: Sierra Leone, Liberia, etc.

54


Afghanistan

• Air Drops are generally bad instrument for dropping aid.

• High flying to avoid anti-aircraft gunfire:
o Food scattered over wide areas. Has improved over the yrs.
o Culturally inadequate food packets (pork, veggy, & peanut butter) Has improved over the yrs.
o No coordination with people (NGOs) on the ground:
§ Dangerous: no collection area: in 1991 Kurds killed by pellets, into mine fields
§ Who gets the food? Taliban, stronger people (w. transport and arms). Therefore it is not
based on distribution to the neediest.
o Other problems:
§ Medicine cannot be done through the air: you need PHC struct. (TB, ebola like illness)
§ Can HA reinforce ethnic strife: hamper rebuilding. Let the Afghans play a big role.
§ Endangers lives of aid workers.
o Than needed: Open borders (militarily inconceivable)& big effort
§ Ground access to lower prices, convoys & donkeys etc. Taliban did not allow that,
neighboring countries didn’t want refugees coming in.
§ Yet, refugees need to get out and be protected (also food & medicine).
• Fortunately, the actual land war ended soon and borders opened quickly
• But UN marginalized. It did get a large mission, but peacekeeping confined to Kabul
• Later insecurity remained a huge problem. Taliban and warlords are resurgent. Opium production
accounts for one third of Gross National Production. US armed some warlords. PRTs. Violence is
continuing
• Hum. orgs left.
• How long will the US and its allies continue to pay? How long will popular opinion allow for more killings
and other negative effects?

Implementation: Afghanistan

• Linking the military and humanitarian aid in Afghanistan?

• Harm of Blurring Humanitarian and Military Activities:
o Army as rescuer & aggressor
§ If truth is the first casualty of war, HA was a close second. HA used politically for US PR
(To win “Hearts and Minds” in the US, Islamic world & Afghanistan) in order to minimize
criticism and gain support: Is this truly HA? Then, HA was used to win the war (there is a
huge need, but I prefer the necessary distance & political neutrality).
§ In the l.t. this blurring of roles may hamper rebuilding, in the sense of LRRD with security
and nation building. Afghans are good at resenting outside interference! Nation building
will be hard. Humanitarian actors may become sidelined while the need is high.
§ At present, Taleban and druglords are resurgent. Islamic state is also active.
§ The foreign forces are unpopular and cannot defeat the enemy.
§ There are negotiations with parts of the Taleban. The current govt. is not very strong. IS
and Taleban also fight each other.
§ Pakistan is dangerously unstable
§ In sum, the military outcomes are very uncertain

55
Implementation: Iraq

• After first Gulf war sanctions regime:

o Difference with North and Center/South
o First decay in living standards, then gradual improvement, reall improvements after 2000 (not
noted in press, why?)
o War was faster & less disruptive then feared
o High military control of hum. assistance
o But inability to foster peace and security afterwards
o Did hum. orgs really have a role to play?

Iraq

• Pres. Bush declared “Mission accomplished”, but

• This war has dangerous long-term negative effects:
o Breeding ground for terrorists / IS
o Hum. orgs & workers specifically being targeted (the end of neutrality, impartiality)
o Hum. orgs leave just as in Afghanistan
o US bogged down in a guerilla war that does not allow attention to other hum. crises. Now its air
force and probably some special forces are active.
o Differences between Europe and US remain
o Human rights abuses by govts more accepted (US, Chechnya)
o Clash of civilization rhetoric becomes reality: effects outside of Iraq (Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo)
and IS
• Iraq is at best an unstable, ethnically divided, violent democracy. The US had to come back. Future of
Iraq is uncertain. Through the IS this is now linked with Syria.

Libya

• Part of the Arab Spring

• Militarily succesful NATO air support (and less visible ground support)
• Europeans (France, UK, etc.) needed US weapon support
• Khadaffi has been defeated.
• Will Libya become a western-style democracy, another Iran, or another Somalia?
• What military lessons will be drawn? No ground troups, but only air support? What about rebuilding or
stabilization?

Syria

• IS is partly a creation of former Baath officials (supporters of Sadam Hussein). In a sense, it is the worst
possible outcome of a military intervention
• Nobody knows how to deal with IS, or Assad for that matter.
• Russia, Hezbollah and Iran support Assad. US, Saudi Arabia and Turkey go their own way. Who
intervenes? Who works with whom?
• Syrian Kurdistan is also becoming more independent
• Humanitarian organizations cannot enter. No overview of what the local organizations are doing. Issue
of business continuity management and local networks of hum. orgs that outsiders do not understand

56
Implementation in the DRC

Background:

• Mobutu: corrupt dictator

• Rwandan genocide
• Hutus were forced to flee to the DRC by genocidaires
• Genocidaires were not disarmed
• Camps used to regroup, rearm and attack
• Rwandans started the ADFL led by Kabila
• Kabila not an improvement. He fell out with the Rwandans. Phase I: Opening: Rw. and Ug. entered, air
bridge (1997)
• Phase II: Checkmate. Kabila got support from Angola, Zimbabwe and Chad. Rwanda and Uganda get
stuck.
• Phase III: No Unity: 3 Parts, one of them run by the RDC
• Phase IV: Anarchy with economic exploitation. Population suffered, mortality rate went sky high. Most
deadly conflict
• Several African armies
• Since 1999 a UN Peacekeeping force: MONUC (now MONUSCO = Mission de l'Organisation des Nations
unies pour la stabilisation en République démocratique du Congo).
• Rwandan Hutu rebels (génocidaires, FDLR)
• Two (and more) Congolese Rebel movements (Uganda and Rw. supported)
• Mayi-Mayi (self-defence turned into bandits)
• Criminal gangs (rastas)
• Ethnic conflicts: Hema and Lendu in Ituri
• (European forces in Ituri and with the elections).
• MONUC integration: Triple Hat
• Phase V: Official peace agreement in 2003. Violence continues
o CNDP (National Congress for the Defence of the People)
§ The National Congress for the Defence of the People is a political armed militia
established by Laurent Nkunda in the Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of the
Congo in December 2006. The CNDP was engaged in the Kivu conflict, an armed conflict
against the military of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
o M23
§ The March 23 Movement (French: Mouvement du 23 mars), often abbreviated as M23
and also known as the Congolese Revolutionary Army (Armée révolutionnaire du Congo),
was a rebel military group based in eastern areas of the Democratic Republic of the
Congo (DRC), mainly operating in the province of North Kivu. The 2012 M23 rebellion
against the DRC government led to the displacement of large numbers of people. On 20
November 2012, M23 took control of Goma, a provincial capital with a population of one
million people, but was requested to evacuate it by the International Conference on the
Great Lakes Region because the DRC government had finally agreed to negotiate with
them. In late 2013 Congolese troops, along with UN troops, retook control of Goma and
M23 announced a ceasefire, saying it wanted to resume peace talks
o Stabilisation: MONUSCO in 2011 also starts enforcement (FIB)
o Protection
o Lack of positive results

57
 o Debates among humanitarians (MSF vs others in discussion on real humanitarianism & M23
taking over hum. work and arguments to position itself (e.g., vis-à-vis FARDC (Forces armées de
la république démocratique du Congo)).
• Phase IV B: Vulgarization or democratization of violence: 79-100 armed groups?
• Note: these discussions keep coming back. The Congolese state has not been strengthened

Alternatives: for the crisis country

There are such big problems associated with the use of force that we need to gauge the alternatives:

• Prevention
• Humanitarian action alone. Sometimes this has been more effective, sometimes this was an excuse for
international political inaction. Central question: are the root causes tackled?
• Development cooperation (same question)
• Sanctions (blunt instrument) & Conditionality
• Denunciations (Naming and Shaming)
• Denial of diplomatic privileges
• Let them fight it out
o the end of the war
o hurting stalemate/ripeness of conflict
o can imply genocide?

Alternatives: Global Utopian Solutions

• We need broader international economic policies, than sanctions and conditionalities:

o Abolish agricultural subsidies and import restrictions;
o More debt relief;
o Stem international weapon trade;
o Better resource control: blood diamonds, etc.;
o Different drug policies;
o More transparency / fighting corruption;
o More open international migration policies.
• All these alternative policies are too utopian at the moment, but they would create a more conducive
international political and economic environment.

Conclusions: Joint Problems

• Comparing the different types of intervention (and war), there are more civilian missions and NGO
activities than military interventions and war. Even peace enforcement remains limited only in rare
cases, but they get most attention.
• Military/UN/NGO relationship is here to stay, but it is often an uneasy relationship: military remain a
political tool & it can compromise humanitarian actors
• Different perception of mandates; how do Military perceive their mandate and how do NGOs perceive
their mandate? In principle, the mandates can be complementary with protection and facilitation.
Rarely do scholars or politicians want to abolish the use of force completely
• Cold War end, Somalia, Rwanda, Afghanistan: pendulum swinging back and forth from optimism to
pessimism. These swings will continue.

58
 • Shift towards war and unilateralism with Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq (now pendulum swings back)
• Hum. orgs went from active optimism in the early 1990s to a backseat role in int. politics.
• Peace enforcement has been the least successful in practice, e.g., Somalia
o Military not good at establishing security
o Military often unwilling to do protection work (in particular disarmament)
o Military not good at providing humanitarian assistance
• The general solution is to delineate the respective roles and tasks of humanitarian and military actors
better, but better communication: at arms length
• This was neglected in Afghanistan and Iraq
• Three possible scenarios in military-humanitarian relations:
o Back to mid 1990s: Greater Independence for hum. orgs
o With the War on Terror as a return to the Cold War with strong donor influence
o A feeling of insecurity: we don’t know how to exactly respond to specific crises, e.g., in Syria or
Yemen.
• Lost of hard work for hum. orgs to regain/retain their independence, neutrality and impartiality, as well
as operational effectiveness and political influence
• Obama’s Administration is an improvement in terms of humanitarian independence. Trump’s
administration is ill-structured.

Question in the background:

“Should mil. & hum. orgs work together, and if so, how?”

Lecture 6

Monday, 11 November 2019, 10:00-11:30: “Victims, Beneficiaries, or Participants? Local Population, Internally Displaced
People and Refugees”
1. Outcomes of actions: conflict resolution, refugee resettlement, social and political reconstruction. What goes right?
What goes wrong? Where do we go from here?
2. Coping mechanisms, capacities, capabilities, and vulnerabilities.
3. Participation.

Required Reading:

Thomas, A. Chapter 1: ‘Reflections on Development in a Context of War,’ pp. 185-204, in Yanacopulos and Hanlon. Civil War,
Civil Peace.

Chapter summary
The exhortation 'Don't just do something - stand there!' means not rushing into action, while at the same time not acquiescing
to human rights abuses or escalations of violence. Make it clear that outsiders are watching, and be clear of one's own position
and how to act within your own values.

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Development has been defined as good change, but it can often be disruptive. Sometimes war can bring about good change.
So one needs a better definition of development. It can be seen as a vision of a better society, an historic process of social
change, and as deliberate efforts at improvement. Development agencies frequently take only the third definition and use it to
describe what they do, but that is much too restrictive.

Two versions of the historic process are the neoliberal modernisation view, which sees the inexorable spread of growth through
markets and a dynamic capitalism, and the structuralist view which sees change occurring through political and economic
struggles between groups.

Three visions of development are presented: modern industrial society, which is particularly linked to the capitalist market
economy and sometimes to democracy; human-centred development, which is linked to realisation of human potential and has
more social and political content; and cleaning up the messes created by modern capitalist development, which includes dealing
with poverty and environmental problems. In the early twenty-first century, the deliberate efforts, neoliberal, cleaning up view
dominated. This narrow approach is characterised by the Millennium Development Goals.

Civil war can be triggered by a clash between alternative visions of development and alternative versions of the historic process.
Development need not wait for peace, and developmental interventions can be peacebuilding if they meet social goals and put
a greater stress on process and emphasising how tasks are done, rather than on simple efficiency in carrying out projects.
Development is not done by the state or an agency alone, but through broader public action.

(See p.4)

Krause, M., Chapter 2, ‘Beneficiaries as Commodity’, pp. 39-69.

• The author aims to explore what is the logic of practice in this field, and further, explain what does the shared practices
of the field mean for the role populations in need play in humanitarian relief.
• in the course of planning and delivering projects, two subtle shifts happen.
o 1. while the rhetoric evokes populations in need in general or in a whole area, practically speaking only a subset
of populations in need becomes relevant as potential or actual "beneficiaries"
o 2. while beneficiaries are an end of relief work, beneficiaries also become a means of delivering relief work :
they are part of a commodity being sold to donors in a quasi market.
• The concept of commodity: highlights the way projects are produced, paid for, and involve labor. The producers in this
market are not maximizing profits but, to the extent that they work with institutional donors, they produce with an
orientation to exchange relief projects for money.
• The value of the project:
o value is being extracted in the process of helping them -- value is partly economic and partly symbolic for relief
agencies (money from institutional donors and the public, authority to speak about suffering) and consists in
moral and political authority for donors.
• Instrumentalization of beneficiaries:
o the result of a market in beneficiaries that has been produced by states; aid agencies, and the media in
recent decades.

NGOs as Entirely the Same as. or Entirely Separate from Populations in Need

• 2 understanding of the role of populations in need:

o entirely the same as populations in need
o entirely separate from populations in need
• "global civil society":
o sometimes is used as though it in itself could stand in for populations across the globe.
o Manuel Castells: "the organized expression of the values and interests of society.'"

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 • sometimes populations in need are analyzed implicitly as entirely the same as" global civil society," some
other genres of academic research analyze them as entirely separate.
• Studies in this genre consider what populations are lacking, and disregard previous intervention.
• Studies of aid or relief : never analyze populations not served or needs not fulfilled as part of the actually
existing system of relief

The Debate about the Nonprofit Sector

• economics to an understanding of the logic of practice

o 1. Economists’ research has been shaped by problems arising from within economic theory rather
than from an engagement with empirical reality.
o 2. there has been a division between research on charitable giving and research on nonprofit firms.
§ Research on charities and giving has largely ignored the role of organizations;
§ research on nonprofit organizations has not fully examined the implications of the fact that
income comes from donations rather than from the selling of conventional goods or services
o Economists look at charity as a response to market failures
§ It Assume that most people would prefer to live in a society where there is some alleviation
of poverty, a-classic line of arguing is that some people will give "altruistically" to help provide
public goods.
o Donors are the consumers
• theory of the nonprofit firm
• Henry Hansmann: nonprofits arise in areas of contract failure, when public goods are at stake or the buyer is
not the receiver (“third-party buying”)
• There is no legal or contractual framework that links buyer and receiver. The donor does not just choose
between products but also between recipients.

The Project as a Product

• Institutional donors pay for specific projects with specific aims in specific fields of expertise and in specific
places based on what they think is important, usually tied to a specific area or crisis as a result of a specific
appeal
• Fund-raisers often do try to make the link between donation and beneficiary seem as direct as possible. The
classic example is child-sponsorship

Beneficiaries and the Project Cycle

• What is the practices of producing relief and what roles these practices entail for local populations?
• Populations are often identified by what they lack: their needs are emphasized, and their political aspirations
or conflicts are deemphasized.
• Relief work is commonly divided into "sectors" according to technical expertise. Professionals need to specify
who exactly they think will be benefiting from this intervention.
• During the implementation phase a specific subset of a population in need is then transformed into
‘beneficiaries' of an intervention.

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The Labor of Populations in Need

• If the project is produced and sold, beneficiaries are not just part of that product but also labor for it.
• In the process of humanitarian relief some local populations are defined as "beneficiaries", and all other
members of the local population become part of the "environment" of relief work.
• As part of the environment of relief, some members of the local population are defined as potential threats
to security (=security for agency staff and property in the field), though the same people can be assigned
both the role of beneficiary and the role of threat at the same time
• A key element of security : "acceptance." = the active role played by local populations before and beyond any
aid being received
• beneficiaries are asked to be familiar with the agency, trust it, and serve as a network of contacts and
intermediaries to facilitate communication and reception.
• How about use assessments to anchor the beneficiaries? -> though they have become part of the response
repertoire of humanitarian relief, but not all assessments lead to actual-relief projects. And in the end create
"assessment fatigue" to the locals. (not willing.to answer questions or to participate in surveys or group
meetings)

Partnership as Subcontracting

• some agencies work with local partner organizations to deliver the project. these local partner organizations
serve a triple role:
o 1. they are a partner agency, and the staff of the partner agency are fellow relief workers
o 2. the partner agencies are also an important element of the product of relief; they too are marketed
to donors as worthy beneficiaries that are being helped: "Capacity building"
o 3. for an agency the question of whether to work with partners or not is in part a labor question.
§ cheaper than delivering services directly to beneficiaries.
§ agencies are also able to delegate the responsibilities and risks regarding parts of their labor
force

Participation and Accountability as Labor

• In development work, donor agencies and aid organizations have long insisted on beneficiary "participation,"
especially sincethemid-1980s. these initiatives also increase the labor involved for beneficiaries.
• Discourse of accountability:
o Humanitarian Accountability Partnership (HAP)
o HAP introduces forms and mechanisms that require work from beneficiaries.
o As populations in need are transformed into beneficiaries, recipients have to be socialized into this
very specific role. They have to bridge the gap between their own needs and wishes, on the one hand,
and agency reality, on the other.

Relief as an Exchange

• relief as a form of production in terms of power not only among potential beneficiaries but between all the
actors involved in relief. It is not a one-way transfer of resources. Rather, itis an exchange, and more
specifically it is an exchange under conditions of competition and inequality.
• Marcel Mauss: the giver also benefits. He accumulates obligations owed to him. By seemingly wasting or
destroying material goods he accumulates symbolic credit. à recipient then owes the donor

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 • Karl Marx: unequal exchange. Workers need jobs because they have lost their means of production (land) so
they are under an unequal structure of exchange (exploitation).
• Agencies "source" beneficiaries within a pool of crises and need, package them, and sell them to donors. This
means that populations in need are put in a position where they are in competition against each other, rather
than against comparatively better-off groups, in their regions, countries, or globally.
• This way of distributing relief allows donors to accumulate status, and NGOs to accumulate money and status.
Populations in need lend authority to agencies and donors under circumstances over which they have very
little control.
• Donor agencies give money and receive the symbolic benefits of having helped. Relief agencies receive
money and the symbolic benefits of having helped. Beneficiaries, even-those who do not receive anything,
lend themselves as a source of authority for those who help.
• beneficiaries are in competition with each other: some of the poorest populations, and local organizations,
are pitched against each other in a race for resources.
Direct Domination and Indirect Domination

• Critics of humanitarian relief :

• evoke populations in need as subject to power
o Populations in need are understood to be dominated either directly by the aid worker or the relief
agency, or they are understood to be dominated by a system of which the aid agency is just another
arm. The system might be called "global capitalism," "imperialism," "{neo)-colonialism,"
"neoliberalism," or "empire.
o Tony Vaux: The Selfish Altruist. -> HA workers have an over-exaggerated power simply because they
are the ones who can decide to whom and how much one can receive the resource
• populations in need are also subject to a specific form of indirect domination, which is mediated by the
market for projects
• Jennifer Hyndman:
o argues that power is exercised through both coercive and disciplinary means.
o "The use of particular reporting practices by UNHCR and other agencies are reminiscent of colonial
practices that aim to standardize, control, and order the fields from which they were generated.'
• The author has a different notion:
o On one hand, Foucauldians too often overemphasize the coherence of governmentality
o governmentality is usually conceived of as a form of direct domination
o scholars in the governmentality tradition consider only the power imposed on those who are
intervened upon, not the power created by a mixture of intervention and neglect.
Eigensinn and Contradictions

• how people make themselves “people in need”, and then become “beneficiaries”?
• Difinition of Eigensinn
o (literally, "proper meaning"; also translated as "obstinacy") refers to the way subjects interpret their
own needs, the way they interpret the situation, the way they make decisions and act
o On the one hand, it has been interpreted as "having more will than necessary, or rational, or allowed"
by conservative interpreters or read as resistance by critical approaches:
o on the other hand, it simply means that the subject has a will of its own that cannot be reduced
• During implementation, recipients' Eigensinn can also get in the way of the smooth delivery of projected
outputs.
• Recipients also redistribute aid among themselves;
o For example, If malnourished children are targeted, I was told, people may keep their children
malnourished to obtain food rations to share with the-whole family.
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 • Populations can be "aid aware" : they have previous experience of NGOs and try to work with what they have
learned.

Conclusion

• Managers' relationship to beneficiaries is not only an instrumental one but it is also an instrumental one.
• In the case of international humanitarian relief, a project is produced for exchange in a market, where it is
compared to other projects from other producers on a global scale
• However good the content and design of a specific intervention, its form as a commodity in a global market
in beneficiaries shapes its overall effect. It is a product within a limited range of possible products, given
consumer preferences of-those with resources, and it pits those helped against those not helped.

*** PPT&NOTES ***

Question

• How helpful is humanitarian aid/relief for its target groups?

§ It can be ineffective
§ It can be degrading
§ It can worsen conflict
§ It can create dependency / It can hamper the transition to development
o Krause: Beneficiaries as commodity
§ Double nature of project management
§ Intermediary organizations
o It saves lives
• Should we then stop aid?
o Logical fallacy: that giving aid can cause serious problems does not mean that all aid is bad, or that no Aid
is good
o Moral fallacy: are we really doing all we can? Can we do it differently?

THE LOCAL POPULATION

• THEY ARE THE FIRST AND FOREMOST DETERMINANT OF THEIR OWN LIVES
• LOCAL ACTORS CAN BE:
o HIGHLY DIVERSE
o REFUGEES, IDPs
o LOCAL COMMUNITIES
o WARRING FACTIONS, REBELS,ETC.
• JUST HUMAN BEINGS: DON’T CONFORM TO STEREOTYPES AND INTERVENTION POLICIES
• THEIR PARTICIPATION IS CRUCIAL BUT RECEIVES INSUFFICIENT ATTENTION
• THEIR EXPERIENCE SHOULD RECEIVE MORE ATTENTION. ATTENTION IS GROWING, BUT IT IS NOT
ENOUGH YET
• IN ANY CASE, THEY WILL TAKE THEIR OWN INITIATIVES
• TRY TO UNDERSTAND:
o Power relations/Exclusion
o Decision-making bodies & procedures
o Coping Mechanisms/Capacities
o Vulnerabilities
o Language??
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 o What are the entry points/points of leverage?
o Etc.

Coping Mechanisms

• COPING DEFINITION:
o Managing the physical, political and social means (resources) of gaining a livelihood (in times of
adversity)
• People always use several, overlapping cop. Mech.
• TYPES OF COPING STRATEGIES (diverse!)
o PREVENTIVE STRATEGIES:
§ The role of the state is important for large scale activities;
§ avoiding dangerous activities
§ saving & storing
§ finding save locations (buildings, migration)
o PREVENTIVE & DURING
§ Impact Minimizing Strategies (minimize loss and facilitate recovery):
• access to food, shelter, and physical security;
• diversification (e.g., non-agricultural income sources in rural areas)
• strengthening or multiplying social support networks (e.g., family or clan ties)
§ Creation and maintenance of labor power
• get children (earn income & social security)
• Building up Stores of Food and Saleable Assets:
o storage of grain or other saleable assets (buffer)
o accumulation of small stock & animals, herd size variation
• Diversification of
o Production Strategy: variety of crops, activities & landholdings (e.g., altitudes);
o Income sources: migration & remittances, crafts, extractive enterprise (charcoal, honey),
hawking, “using” the relief system.
• Development of social support networks:
o rights & obligations (family roles, rich & poor, marriage)
§ Women, children, disabled people, chronically ill people and older people generally have
the hardest time
o moral economy (patrons & clients: noblesse oblige, alms, neighborly assistance)
o ->Many of these networks are in decline!
• POST-EVENT COPING STRATEGIES (in protracted conflict this becomes an ongoing strategy, it’s not just
economic, dignity & respect are also important):
o all of the above
o but especially:
§ reducing food consumption (e.g., selling seeds);
§ labor migration & becoming a refugee;
§ petty trading (hawking);
§ accumulation of debt;
§ gathering wild foodstuffs;
§ sale or pledging of assets (livestock, land, jewelry);
§ prostitution or becoming a combatant.

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Coping Conclusions

• Local people will do most of the work themselves

• There are efficiency problems and short term considerations become more important than long term
ones
• It is hard but necessary to assess & understand local coping mechanisms (regional differences, e.g.,
Sudan and Congo)
• Link capacities and coping mechanisms
• Don’t forget that macro factors also matter, e.g., in peace agreements (security, governance, economic
transitions, national reconciliation), building infrastucture (e.g., dikes).

Conclusions

• More attention to actual experiences of the local population & typical donor mistakes
• Caution: We did not differentiate between refugees and local/host communities. Their relationship can
be tense.
• Concepts such as empowerment and participation, are often used but very hard to implement
• Aid can undermine local coping mechanisms and create dependency
• We need to understand better the coping mechanisms & capacities, local decision making structures,
and cultural sensitivities

Forced Migration

• Definitions: 3 Types of Displacement

o Conflict Induced
§ Armed conflict including civil war; generalized violence; and persecution on the grounds
of nationality, race, religion, political opinion or social group
o Development Induced
§ Large-scale infrastructure projects such as dams, roads, ports, airports; urban clearance
initiatives; mining and deforestation; and the introduction of conservation parks/reserves
and biosphere projects.
o Disaster Induced
§ Natural disasters (floods, volcanoes, landslides, earthquakes), environmental change
(deforestation, desertification, land degradation, global warming) and human-made
disasters (industrial accidents, radioactivity).

Types of forced migrants

• Refugees
o Protected under the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees
• Asylum seekers
o Moved across an international border in search of protection under the 1951 Refugee
Convention, but whose claim for refugee status has not yet been determined
• Internally Displaced Persons

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 o Remain in their country of origin, guaranteed certain basic rights under international
humanitarian law (the Geneva Conventions)
• Development displacees
o Forced or involuntary resettlement
• Environmental and disaster displacees
o Natural disasters, environmental change and human-made disasters
• Smuggled people
o Moved illegally for profit. Partners, however unequal, in a commercial transaction
• Trafficked people
o Moved by deception or coercion for the purposes of exploitation. The profit in trafficking people
comes not from their movement, but from the sale of their sexual services or labour in the
country of destination

Legal Aspects (Protection)

• The numbers of refugees and IDPs in now higher than ever before!
• There is far less international law on IDPs than on refugees.
• Refugee system was made for refugees for communism. The few refugees who flew from communist
eastern Europe, were generally welcomed warmly. Currently, the refugee system is under great strain,
due to the great numbers.

The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement vs. The UN Convention Related to the Status of Refugees

Protection gaps for disaster-induced cross border displacement I

• Every year, millions of people are forcibly displaced by floods, storms, earthquakes, droughts and other
natural disasters.
o Many find refuge within their own country but some have to go abroad.
o In the context of global warming, such movements are likely to increase.
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 • National and international responses to this challenge are insufficient and protection for affected people
remains inadequate.
o While people displaced within their own countries are covered by national laws, international
human rights law, the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and a few regional
instruments, a serious legal gap exists with regard to disaster-induced cross-border movements.
o These people are in most cases not refugees under international refugee law, and human rights
law does not address critical issues such as their admission, stay and basic rights.
• Criteria to distinguish between forced and voluntary movements induced by natural disasters have not
yet been elaborated.

Protection gaps for disaster-induced cross border displacement II

• With the adoption of paragraph 14 (f) of the Cancún Climate Change Conference Outcome Agreement in
December 2010, states recognized climate change-induced migration, displacement and relocation as an
adaptation challenge, and agreed to enhance their understanding and cooperation in this respect:
o Undertaking: “Measures to enhance understanding, coordination and cooperation with regard to
climate change induced displacement, migration and planned relocation, where appropriate, at
the national, regional and international levels”.
• Based on the outcome of the Nansen Conference on Climate Change and Displacement in Oslo (June
2011), Norway and Switzerland pledged at the UNHCR Ministerial Conference in December 2011 to
address the need for a more coherent approach to the protection of people displaced across borders in
the context of natural disasters.

The Nansen Initiative

• the Nansen Initiative is a state-led, bottom-up consultative process intended to build consensus on the
development of a protection agenda addressing the needs of people displaced across international
borders by natural disasters, including the effects of climate change.
o Members of the Steering Group are: Australia, Bangladesh, Costa Rica, Germany, Kenya, Norway,
Mexico, Philippines, Switzerland.
o UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) are Standing Invitees
• Five (sub-)regional consultations are planned to take place in the regions most affected by natural
disasters and climate change (2013-2014).
o They will bring together representatives from states, international organizations, NGOs, civil
society, think tanks and others key actors working on issues related to displacement and natural
disasters, including climate change.
• The outcomes of the consultations will be compiled for a global consultative meeting (2015)
• state representatives and experts from around the world will discuss the envisaged protection agenda for
cross-border displacement in the context of natural disasters and climate change.
• The Initiative does not aim to create new legal standards but its outcomes may. Where appropriate, it will
facilitate the elaboration of such standards at domestic, regional and global levels at a later stage.

Thomas, A. (2005): Reflections on Development in a Context of War, pp. 185-204, in Yanacopulos and Hanlon. Civil War,
Civil Peace

• Defining development (also as an alternative on hum. action)

o “good change” as a description is not sufficient

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 1. Vision of a better society
– Modern industrial society (capitalism and democracy; Fukuyama “The end of history”)

– Human centered development (realization of human potential)

– Cleaning up the messes created by capitalism (dealing with poverty and environment, e.g.
MDGs; goal of a modern industrialized society)
2. Historic process of social change
– Neoliberal modernization view (capitalism spreads globally)

– Structuralist view (change through group struggles)

3. Deliberate effort at improvement
– Often used by development agencies linked to a neoliberal cleaning up view

A definition problem

• Agencies often define the meaning of the word development

o but often too restrictive (e.g., GNP)
o Expression of power relations

(Thomas, A. (2005): Reflections on Development in a Context of War, p. 6)
• Development is an all-encompassing change, it is continuous, takes place in an individual level and at the
level of society, not always seen positively, can entail positive and negative features (p. 8)

Conclusions

Don’t just do something– stand there

• Analyze the consequences of actions

• Let your presence be known
• Be clear about your values and your position
• Be reflective, learn from experience and observations
• Analyze the context of your actions
o There will be winners and losers of interventions
o The “general good” is perceived differently
o Development (and hum. action) can also create conflict over resources
• Main lessons learnt?
o Diversity of actors, coping mechanisms and approaches
o Always unfinished business: it depends on execution
o How not to get disappointed?

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Lecture 7

Monday, 25 November 2019, 10:00-11:30: New Actors: Private Military and Security Companies and Local Actors: What
about the Humanitarian Principles?
1. New Donors
2. Local Actors
3. Alternative Principles?

Required Reading:

Joachim, J. and A. Schneiker (2016) ‘Humanitarian Action for Sale: Private Military and Security Companies in the Humanitarian
Space,’ pp. 192-209, in Sezgin, Z. and Dijkzeul, D. (Eds) (2016) The New Humanitarian Actors: Contested Principles, Emerging
Practice, Routledge Humanitarian Studies Series, Routledge, Milton Park.

introduction
• New humanitarian agents: police or security services ranging from logistics, training and consultancy to intelligence and
border control to physical protection in armed conflicts, these companies have also started to specialise in providing
humanitarian and development services themselves
• the meaning of humanitarianism
o not fixed
o contingent, ‘socially negotiated and acquiring meaning in practice’ through a variety of actors who have
different understandings of what constitutes humanitarian action
• PMSCS: not only do they purport to provide services to those in need, they also claim to have similar altruistic
motivations. Moreover, these companies regard themselves as an integral part of the peace-building or, as their
industry representatives put it, ‘stability operations’ industry
• in practice
o it becomes difficult for outsiders and those affected by crises to distinguish between PMSCs and traditional
humanitarian actors
o the boundaries between the different types of actors, tasks and sectors are becoming blurred
o non-state actors not only contribute to the delivery of humanitarian assistance and other resources but also
transform our understanding of these resources with regard to who should deliver them in what ways to which
actors.

A Characterisation of PMSCs’ Identities

• definitions by international relations (IR) scholars

o Peter W. Singer: ‘tip of the spear’ typology
§ classifies PMSCs based on their proximity to the battlefield
o Abrahamsen and Williams (2007) and Percy (2009)
§ distinguish between private security and private military companies depending on whether they
operate in an offensive or defensive way.
o more recent studies have shed light on their shortcomings.
• these studies fail to consider ideational aspects and the discursive power of PMSCs, which play an increasingly
important role in commercial transactions in a competitive market
• PMSCs ‘combine the worlds of the military, the business world, and the humanitarian NGO in unfamiliar ways’ (Carmola
2010: 28)
• PMSCs construct an image to which their potential clients by discursively drawing on values of the nonprofit
humanitarian sector and by claiming to have capabilities generally associated with it
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 • Social identities
o constructed through historically contingent interactions
o They are distinguished by
§ (1) rules of membership that decide who is and is not a member of the category;
§ (2) content, that is, sets of characteristics … thought to be typical of members of the category,
or behaviours expected or obliged of members in certain situations (roles)’ (Fearon and Laitin
2000: 848).
o Discourses plays an important role:
§ Discourses enable PMSCs to speak to and sell services to different constituencies using
language and symbols which resonate with the ideas, needs and self-perception of their
clients.
• 2 strategies PMSCs use:
o offer services to traditional humanitarian actors such as NGOs
o claim to provide humanitarian services themselves

Conceptualising Humanitarian Space

• ‘humanitarian space’,
o traditionally defined as ‘an environment where humanitarians can work without hindrance and follow
the humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality and humanity’ (Spearin 2001: 22).
o However, this situation is changing as new actors such as state militaries and PMSCs are entering the
space
o These developments must be understood in the context of the changing crises in which
humanitarians work and in that of the changes within the humanitarian system
The context

• humanitarian NGOs have started to show signs of commercialisation and to base their decisions as to where
to provide humanitarian assistance on financial considerations rather than on considerations of need. This
trend is further reinforced by the ‘philanthropic capitalism’ in which business companies increasingly engage
(Hopgood 2008)
• ‘comprehensive peace-building’ approach ensure respect for human rights and to contribute more generally
to economic development, democracy and rule of law in a particular state (Barnett and Snyder 2008: 150),
which increasingly regard themselves and are increasingly regarded by others, as political agents (Terry
2002).
• These changes within the humanitarian sector are occurring in light of, and in response to, growing insecurity
in the field (Stoddard et al. 2009b).

PMSCs Intruding into the Humanitarian Space

Service Provision for Humanitarians

• Not only do a growing number of them offer services to humanitarian NGOs, provide humanitarian services
themselves, or both, PMSCs also appropriate discursive elements of humanitarian NGOs such as their
language, images and symbols. By referring to themselves as an integral part of peace-building efforts, PMSCs
try to legitimise their existence in the field, and to redraw the boundaries between who does and who does
not belong to the category of humanitarian actors and to the humanitarian space.

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 • local companies are usually hired by NGOs to provide unarmed guards, while transnational PMSCs are
contracted primarily to provide security training for staff, security management consulting, risk
assessment/threat analysis and physical security for premises (Cockayne 2006: 8; Stoddard et al. 2008: 10).
• NGOs attribute the need to hire PMSCs not only to lack of capacities (Stoddard et al. 2009a) but also ‘to real
and perceived growth in insecurity’
• PMSCs present the provision of their services to humanitarian NGOs as helping those in need.

Service Provision for Victims

• PMSCs construct their role as service providers in different ways, namely by delivering material goods and,
discursively, by evoking principles, symbols and imagery associated with the field, thereby presenting
themselves as ‘the New Humanitarian Agent[s]’ (James Fennell, of ArmorGroup, cited in Vaux et al. 2001: 14,
note 12) and as an integral part of the peace-building – or ‘stability operations’ – industry.
o The strategy of identification also extends to assertions related to their actions, which sound almost
exactly like those of humanitarian NGOs (e.g. World Vision: ‘[b]uilding a better world for children’(WV
2013) / AECOM, ‘[b]uilding a better world’ (AECOM 2012).)
o the imagery PMSCs use on their websites is almost identical to that of humanitarian NGOs

Humanitarianism as we Know it? PMSC–NGO Interactions and Implications

• discourses play an important role and are strategically deployed

• When PMSCs work for humanitarian NGOs on the ground, or when they provide humanitarian services
themselves, it becomes very difficult for local populations to distinguish between military and civilian
activities and actors ‘because commercial providers have multiple associations and affiliations’ s’ (Cockayne
2006: 13).
• The multiple faces of PMSCs, especially their humanitarian identity, not only make it increasingly difficult for
NGOs to find acceptance among locals but also make them likely targets of attack (Cockayne 2006).
Conclusion

• The PMSCS’s statement is an ongoing institutionalised process of privatisation, commercialisation and

securitisation in the humanitarian organisational field.
• it is not appropriate to characterise this space as apolitical; rather, who is a humanitarian actor and what
actually constitutes humanitarian action is increasingly a matter of (re)negotiation.
• The strategic use of humanitarian discourses by non-traditional humanitarian actors also draws attention to
an aspect of the institutionalisation of the humanitarian organisational field
• more attention must be given to the similarities between the actors involved in governance processes and to
the sources related to them

Vaux, T. (2016) ‘Traditional and Non-Traditional Humanitarian Actors in Disaster Response in India’, pp. 318-337, in Sezgin,
Z. and Dijkzeul, D. (Eds) (2016) The New Humanitarian Actors: Contested Principles, Emerging Practice, Routledge
Humanitarian Studies Series, Routledge, Milton Park.

See p.17

*** PPT & NOTES***

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New Actors

• The term New Actors is often used, but is not really appropriate, bc. many of these new actors have a
long history. However, they are more visible now and are entering the humanitarian mainstream (and
arena). They interact far more often with the „traditional“ humanitarian organizations. Other terms of
„new“ are unconventional or non-traditional actors (and see Tony Vaux for criticism on „traditional“ as a
concept).

About the authors

• Jutta Joachim was a PhD student from Michael Barnett. Andrea Schneiker is her PhD student
• Tony Vaux was with Peter Walker co-author of the Code of Conduct

Private actors

• Two very different actors:

o Powerful transnational PMSC; Int. hum. orgs are relatively weak.
o Local NGOs; Int. hum. orgs are strong.
• Laws of supply and demand, but also the underlying politics: Hum. arena, not just hum. space.

Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs)

• Literature: arena, not just space (negotiations & politics)

• transnational companies
• offer military, police and security services such as logistics, training, consultancy, intelligence, border
control, physical protection
• the global security services market: annual sales of approximately USD 90 billion
• expected industry growth: about 7 % annually

A Changing Security Environment

• humanitarian assistance increasingly takes place within the context of armed conflicts
• it is often claimed that the working environment for humanitarians is becoming more and more insecure
• 1997-2008: the absolute number of violent incidents affecting aid workers increased about fivefold and
the relative number of aid worker victims doubled
• 2011: 308 aid workers were victims of major attacks = „the highest yearly number yet recorded“
(Humanitarian Outcomes 2012)
• not all regions are equally dangerous; working in Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, South-Sudan, Pakistan,
Syria and Sri Lanka is particular dangerous
• Still, MSF issued the report „Where is everyone.“

PMSCs Providing Services for Humanitarians

• „over the last five years, humanitarian organizations have increased their contracting of security and
security-related services from commercial companies“ (Stoddard et al. 2009: 1)
• no comprehensive data nor systematic analysis exist as of yet, but
o local companies are mostly hired to provide unarmed guards

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 o transnational PMSCs are mainly contracted to carry out security training for staff, security
management consulting, risk assessment/threat analysis and physical security for premises
• reasons: lacking capacities of humanitarian actors, real and perceived growth in insecurity
• decisions to hire a PMSCs are often made ad hoc by local offices of humanitarian NGOs -> no systematic
knowledge, no best practices on how to deal with PMSCs

Example: PMSCs as Humanitarian Actors

• PMSCs offer humanitarian services themselves

o DynCorp claims to have „the capability to respond to all types of natural disasters, including
earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, cyclones, floods, drougths, fires …“ (DynCorp 2012)

Similarities

• „make the world […] a better place“ (KBR 2012) (PMSC)

• „building a better world for children“ (WorldVision 2013) (NGO)

Private Logistics Company NGO

Potential Effects on Humanitarians I

• The engagement of PMSCs in humanitarian work might

o legitimize private security and contribute to the normalization of privatized/private security
o contribute to the militarization of humanitarian aid
o lead to the blurring of the lines between humanitarian and security or military actors
§ -> humanitarian aid risks being associated with the military and, hence, might be
perceived as biased
§ -> this might challenge the neutrality, impartiality, independence of humanitarian NGOs
§ -> this might increase insecurity for humanitarians and people in need

Potential Effects on Humanitarians II

• PMSCs may redefine what humanitarianism means

• PMSCs have a wide definition of humanitarian assistance including addressing the root causes of
conflicts
• PMSCs claim to deliver military and humanitarian services all at the same time and place -> confusion of
principles
• „By delivering international law enforcement and security training and advisory services […] SOSi
strengthens counter-insurgency, counter-narcotics, institution-building and humanitarian assistance
efforts around the globe“ (SOSi 2011 - PMSC)

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Local NGOs: SEWA

• Self-employed women‘s association: appropriate name: Member decide

o Ghandian ideals of self-reliance (livelihoods), community (democracy by members and religious
unity)
• What is traditional?
• 3 Disasters:
o Morvi floods; SEWA did not play a role
o Gujarat earthquake:
§ Livelihoods: embroidery
§ Banks
§ Insurance
§ „Learning from disasters“
§ More women in leadership positions
o Gujarat Communal (= Religious and economic) violence (Slumdog millionaire):
§ How to deal with an inactive state government (with links to Hindu extremism)
§ Unity through livelihoods: bank, insurance, housing, risk-taking by its agaawans (activists)
§ Economic activities across religious divides (sewing machines)
§ Not speaking out (témoignage) but security for its members, yet tensions Hindu-Muslim
(e.g., comments by husbands)
§ Behind the scenes: high-level political contacts
§ SEWA Academy: Published reports on rootcauses of the violence
§ Growth in membership

Comparison Western vs. Local NGOs

• Supply vs demand. SEWA likes the hum. principles, but ist members‘ priorities center on livelihoods
• Principles vs. Contextualized approaches
• See p. 334 for a comparison

75

• What to do for partnership? Better balance between top-down supply-driven and demand driven
approaches. Long-term investment to understand each other better.

So what about the principles?

• What about the principles? Humanity can be linked with many supporting principles (pp. 345-349), not
just with impartiality, neutrality and independence, but also Ghandian self-reliance, for-profit, etc.

76


77


78

• There are therefore more humanitarianisms, not just the traditional Dunantist “red cross/MSF”
humanitarianism
• There are only a handful of Dunantist organizations, but they have been able to set the agenda, but this
may work less well in the future

Lecture 8

PART III: CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES: GETTING THINGS DONE

Monday, 2 December 2019, 10:00-11:30: Local Negotiations

1. Negotiations on the ground

Required Reading:

Three chapters from Magone, C., M. Neuman, and F. Weissman (Eds) (2011) Humanitarian Negotiations Revealed: The MSF
Experience, Médicins Sans Frontières, Columbia University Press, New York, namely:

Allié, M-P. (2011) ‘Introduction: Acting at Any Price?’, pp. 1-11.

See p.19

Crombré, X. (2011) ‘Afghanistan: Regaining Leverage’, pp. 49-66.

See p.21

Weissman, F. (2011) ‘Silence Heals … From Cold War to the War on Terror: MSF Speaks out: A Brief History’, pp. 177-197.

See p.20

79


*** PPT & NOTES ***

TOPICS THIS WEEK

• We have finished the first two blocks:

o Context, Concepts and Strategy, about the broad environment of hum. organizations
o Actors and Organizations
• We are now entering the next block:
o Cross-cutting themes, which are relevant to all actors.
• Today: Humanitarian Negotiations
o MSF Publication
o The humanitarian principles reviewed
o Humanitarian space or arena?

INTRODUCTION TO OUR THEME

• Negotiations with MSF

o What did you think of the three chapters?
o What do you think about the principles?
• Hugo Slim:
o Humanitarian principles always need to be negotiated
o Clarity of their position:
§ Growth in numbers
§ Understanding/Diversity
§ Bystander insecurity/anxiety
• Humanitarian Diplomacy
• MSF
o Book series
o Tsunami fundraising

Introduction: Acting at any Price?

• No “Golden Age”
• Space was always shrinking
o p. 2: however, there is a space for negotiation, power games and interest-seeking between AID
ACTORS and authorities
o The hum org. scope depends largely on the org.’s ambitions, the diplomatic and political support
and the interests of those in power
o Arguments/Interests: p. 3-4
§ They change over time

Lessons Learned

• Everything is open to negotiations

o The principles?
• Judge for yourself

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 o P. 5 aims, but danger of support for tormentors (Nightingale‘s risk)
o But lack of clarity: to be sure of its decisions and observations
• Keep silent
o Active impartiality/freedom of speech? MSF influencing the course of conflict?
• Know our Place
o Be modest, adjust
o But know the impact
o Be Humanitarian (not regime change, or something else)
• Justifying its choices
o Justify compromises (to itself)
o Don‘t become part of the politics of domination
• Antagonisms
o Shared interest in the way a population is being governed offers space for cooperation and
conflict
• MSF is permeable to outside influences and ideologies
o Not total freedom of action, but choose alliances acc. to its own objectives
o MSF says we `re an unreliable partner:
o Ongoing work: network of actors!
• Now: how do the principles function in practice?
o Tension between normative and causal claims;
o Humanitarian space and arena: you need both

What do these principles officialy do?

• They help ensure that organizations become recognized as „humanitarian“

• They create humanitarian space (to safeguard access and security of humanitarian workers and people
in need)
• They make (the possibility of) aid universal

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What do the principles hide

Their normative contents

• are useful for the justification of humanitarian action and humanitarian space
• but focus on a vertical aid chain from donors to the „field“ („international top“ to „local bottom“ of
humanitarian action)
• and hide or leave out the role and interests of other actors in aid. You need to understand these in order
to understand IMPACT!
• Pls notice that the principles are an a-political, political game. Put differently, it is a political game to not
be political

Lecture 9

Thursday, 12 December 2019, 10:00-11:30: “Rebuilding Reconsidered: Linking Relief and Development”
1. Importance of a long-term perspective: lives and livelihood, access and security. Positive and negative linkages among
political aspects, development, human rights, and participation. Three areas:
• security: a transition from war to peace and non-violent ways of conflict resolution;
• politics: a transition from an authoritarian or totalitarian system to an open, participatory system of governance
(including civil society building); and
• economy: a transition to (re-)building economic capacities, often with a higher degree of equity.

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2. Accountability and evaluation.
3. What happens if the spotlight is turned off?

Required Reading:

El-Bushra, J. Chapter 10: ‘Transforming Power Relations: Peacebuilding and Institutions,’ pp. 233-257, in Yanacopulos and
Hanlon, Civil War, Civil Peace.

See p.5
Goodhand, J. Chapter 11: ‘Preparing to Intervene,’ pp. 259-278, in Yanacopulos and Hanlon, Civil War, Civil Peace.

See p.6

Hilhorst, D (2018) ‘Classical Humanitarianism and Resilience Humanitarianism: Making Sense of Two Brands of Humanitarian
Action’. Journal of International Humanitarian Action, pp. 3:15, 1-12. available at https://doi.org/10.1186/s41018-018-0043-6 .

Abstract
Humanitarian aid has long been dominated by a classical, Dunantist paradigm that was based on the ethics of the humanitarian
principles and centred on international humanitarian United Nations agencies and non-governmental organizations. While in
previous decades alternative paradigms and humanitarianisms evolved, this classical paradigm remained the central narrative
of humanitarianism. In recent years, however, this paradigm has been paralleled by a resilience paradigm that is focused on
local people and institutions as the first responders to crises. Whereas classical humanitarianism is rooted in the notion of
exceptionalism, resilience humanitarianism starts from the idea of crisis as the new normality. This paper discusses the two
paradigms and the incongruent images they evoke about crises, local institutions and the recipients of aid. The article puts
forward the case for studying the ways in which these contrasting aid paradigms shape practices, dealing with the importance
of discourse, the social life of policy, the multiplicity of interests, the power relations and the crucial importance of
understanding the lifeworld and agency of aid workers and crisis-affected communities. The article demonstrates how the
stories that humanitarians tell about themselves are based on highly selective views of reality and do not include the role they
themselves play in the reordering and representation of realities in humanitarian crises.

introduction

• when large development agencies started to engage in humanitarian crises, the adage of linking relief to rehabilitation
to development (LRRD) was gaining importance.
o Background: War on Terror in 2001
o much aid started refocusing on its life-saving core
• ‘resilience humanitarianism’ (‘New humanitarianism’) : ‘where humanitarian assistance became more aligned with
Western liberal peace agendas’ (Gordon and Donini 2015:87).
• The article analyses the two paradigms and discusses how aid is shaped in practice
o aid provision is seen as an arena, where aid is shaped through social negotiation of actors in and around
the aid chain (Hilhorst and Jansen 2010; Hilhorst and Serrano 2010).
o This ‘arena perspective’ focuses on the everyday practices of policy and implementation and highlights how
different actors develop their own understanding and strategies around shared vocabularies, ambitions
and realities of aid, and how this leads to frictions and contradictions in aid delivery
o practices of aid are also shaped by the mandates of agencies, the way they give meaning to their work and
the assumptions they have about the local context and the population they serve.

Paradigms
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 • Paradigms stand for a particular way of understanding crisis
• Policies and principles are formulated, understood and altered in the everyday practice of humanitarian
action on the ground. Humanitarian principles are interpreted differently by different actors and are more
contextual than universal (Leader 2002; Minear 1999). They only become real through the way in which
service providers interpret and use them (Hilhorst and Schmiemann 2002).
• When we view policies as processes (Mosse 2005) or emergent properties, it is important to invest in their
‘social life’: their history, genesis, meaning and ‘real’ objectives.
• Similarly, paradigms, policies and other ordering principles are never singular in driving practice
o E.g. the instrumentalization of aid (Donini 2012), whereby aid is seen as the playball of politics
o humanitarian action has little to do with its principles but is instrumentalized by competing and
interested actors, including donors, national governments and rebel movements.
• Studying aid from an arena perspective means keeping an open mind about the multiple interests and
drivers of aid and how these work out in everyday practice.
• While paradigms can be seen as a way in which powerful actors impose their understanding of reality, this
does not mean that aid comes about in a top-down manner alone
• On close observation, power needs to be enacted to be effective, and this happens through social
negotiation and by the interference of a large number of actors each of whom have a certain power to
jointly shape the outcomes.
• Aid paradigms can be powerful, but practices of aid come about in more complex ways and by a
multiplicity of actors.

Classic Dunantist humanitarianism

• decisions to help must not be driven by political motives or by discrimination of any kind
• since first Geneva Conventions and the foundation of the RCRC movement
• legal documents:
o United Nations resolution 46/182 about the response to humanitarian crises in 1991;
o the NGO Code of Conduct of 1994
o the Good Humanitarian Donorship initiative
o the preamble of the Core Humanitarian Standard
o the key documents of the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016.
• Exceptionalism is at the heart of this classic paradigm, perhaps even more than the principles.
o A strict separation between crisis and normality
o Humanitarian aid clearly belongs in the realm of crisis and exceptionality, serving as a temporary
stop-gap for needs triggered by a specific crisis (Calhoun 2010).
• the space paradigm has been very dominant in humanitarian discussions
• criticism
o aid deviated from its self-declared norms
o ‘empire’ of humanitarian aid: the importance of local responders, and then continued to focus on
the core of international humanitarians of the Global North
• humanitarian aid as a system
o UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) at the top
o second layer consisting of UN agencies, INGOs and the Red Cross/Red Crescent movement
o A third layer might be added representing national-level aid providers
o The foundation of the system : humanitarian principles.
§ humanitarian principles as a means of gaining secure access to people in need.

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 § strict neutrality, isolation and the highly protective measures associated with fortified aid
compounds (Duffield 2010) are necessary.
o quality mechanisms:
§ ALNAP
§ Sphere
§ HAP
§ People in Aid
• National authorities and other local institutions are rendered invisible in classical humanitarianism. Where
they enter into the analysis, they are treated with mistrust or with a preconceived idea that they require
capacity building
• since the 1990s: humanitarian international system started to engage with local institutions in the
framework of capacity building.
o Capacity building : a terrible term. conveys a non-agentive infrastructure that gets built up by
outside forces.
o it always seems to depict local responders for what they are missing, rather than recognizing their
specific strengths, thus reinforcing existing power relations in the process
o it’s just for creating administratively and financially sound partners that can abide by required
reporting mechanisms (Stephen 2017).
o Finally, the term capacity building misses out on the possibilities of mutuality or capacity sharing
where different partners learn from each other’s strengths.
• In classic humanitarianism, the recipients of aid are typically depicted as victims. In everyday practice,
however, they are often seen as potential cheats.
• Aid is delivered on the basis of mistrust of the society in which it operates and the local providers of aid
and the aid recipients must be kept under close surveillance.

Resilience humanitarianism

• The resilience paradigm rests on the notion that people, communities and societies (can) have the capacity to adapt
to or spring back from tragic life events and disasters.
• Resilience humanitarianism began in the realm of disaster relief, whereby the resilience of local people and
communities and the importance of local response mechanisms became the core of the Hyogo Framework for
Action in 2004.
• resilience reflects changing insights and the growing national capacity for responding to disaster. -> international
community foresees cannot continue to intervene in the rapidly growing number of disasters caused by climate
change
• resilience humanitarianism has spilled over to conflict areas and refugees.
• ‘the resilience-dividend’: crisis response is much more effective and cost-efficient when it takes into account
people’s capacity to respond, adapt and bounce back (Rodin 2014).
• Today’s ‘policy speak’ builds on continuity between crisis and normality
o Crisis as the new normality -> climate change and other factors have resulted in semi-permanent crises
• 2016 World Humanitarian Summit: proclaimed the need to bridge humanitarian action to development and to
peacebuilding and the resolution of crisis (Ban 2016). Similarly, Global Compact on Refugees of June 2018 (final
draft) can be seen as a game changer in the shift from classic to resilience humanitarianism
• The role of state:
o A renewed appreciation of state control of humanitarian responses
o a renewed respect for the role of the state in relation to the humanitarian endeavor
o Host governments of refugee flows play more visible roles
o In cases of open conflict, the role of the state continues to be highly problematic

85
 o Resilience humanitarianism fits within this complexity of (neoliberal) forms of governance that decentralize
the state’s governance functions in favour of non-state or private actors. However, the consequence of this
is that the responsibility of the state to protect its citizens gets increasingly blurred and backgrounded
• The perception of crisis-affected populations is also changing
o ‘beneficiary’ à ‘survivor,’ ‘first responder’ or even ‘client

How can two humanitarianisms operate alongside each other?

• To some extent, the paradigms may be seen to apply to different conditions of crises. Dunantist approaches are
especially visible in high-intensity conflict scenarios, whereas resilience approaches increasingly take over
humanitarianism in refugee care, fragile settings and disasters triggered by natural hazards

Crises as continuity and discontinuity

• conflicts and disasters are breakpoints of social order, but they are also marked by processes of continuity
and reordering, or the creation of new institutions and linkages
• Conflict does not operate according to a single logic, and its drivers, interests and practices are redefined
by actors creating their own localized and largely unintended conflict dynamics of varying intensity
(Kalyvas 2006).
• Crises are the outcome of conditions that build up over long periods of time, and the transition to
normality is also often marked by long periods of ‘no war no peace’ situations (Richards 2005). Violence
and predatory behaviour may continue long after war is formally over (Keen 2001).
• The tendency of aid and international relations more generally to seek boundaries between normality and
exceptionalism has partly been challenged by the resilience paradigm

Institutions as changing and multifaceted

• Current insights reveal that (protracted) conflict situations are often characterized by multiple normative systems
and hybrid institutions. . Many of these institutions are multifaceted, and their contributions to conflict and to
peace are often entangled.
• The entangled, multifaceted nature of institutions is also obvious in the economy.
o the economies of survival during crises: People hold on to normality as much as they can and continue
planting their fields and trading their products. War and survive
o economies are deeply intertwined, and most activities are multifaceted, creating new forms of economic
life
o classic humanitarianism would focus on the linkages between the economy and the conflict—seeking to
deliver aid without reinforcing these institutions.
o Resilience humanitarianism tends to build on the survival economy and people’s resilience, but may be
blind to the economic logics of the conflict, and risks of exploitation and abuse of people’s vulnerability
o What both paradigms have in common is that aid agencies have the tendency to place themselves outside
of the complex institutional realities in the area of intervention
• Aid interlocks with social, economic and political processes in society, co-shaping local institutions and institutional
transformation processes by working through, competing with or reinforcing them (Serrano 2012)

Aid provision as relational action

• Humanitarian politics concern diplomacy and advocacy to convince parties to respect international
humanitarian law and to grant humanitarian actors unrestricted access to people in need.

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 • Humanitarian aid is also subject to geopolitics and the politics of parties that instrumentalize aid to
advance their interests
• NGOs are deeply involved in politics of legitimation
o Finding legitimation as an NGO is a complex endeavour that involves the successful delivery of four
sequential key messages:
§ 1. there is an emergency that requires urgent action
§ 2. the affected communities cannot cope with the emergency by themselves
§ 3. the NGO has the required capability to deal with the crisis for the sake of the
immediately affected.
§ 4. the NGO has no self-interest in this endeavour.
• victimcy and ignorancy in aid arena:
o a tactical convolution where both parties are equally interested in representing the recipients as
needy.
o crisis-affected people use their tactical agency to navigate their environment and figure out what
makes them eligible for receiving aid
o aid providers have a similar interest in foregrounding the victimized properties of the people they
work for
o The victimcy of aid seekers is thus coupled to what may be called the ignorancy of aid providers
(Hilhorst 2016), creating a legitimate and comforting image of guardian angels coming to the
rescue of people in distress.
Conclusion

• The strict exceptionalism of classical humanitarianism has given way to a breakthrough of the binary
between exception and normality in resilience humanitarianism.
o In this paradigm, humanitarian agencies are no longer the sole centre of the humanitarian universe
o local institutions and crisis-affected populations have flipped from invisibility to visibility and from
depreciation to appreciation
• Paradigms of aid can be seen to provide a logic to aid that recombines selective understandings of reality
in more or less coherent stories that aid tells about itself.
• humanitarianism as an arena in which actors socially negotiate policies and practices of aid
• resilience paradigm
o more compatible with the social realities of crisis
o focus on the continuum between crisis and normality, and its portrayal of the humanitarian system
as an ecosystem
o However, the resilience paradigm is as much based on selective understandings, foregrounding
particular properties of social realities, while ignoring others. Equally, it consists of a set of ill-
tested assumptions that seem to reduce the multiplicity of social reality to a singular discourse.
• Crises are marked by continuity and discontinuity, and aid needs to grapple with these multiple faces of
crises. Instead, classical and resilience paradigms have the tendency to overly focus on one of the faces
of crises: classical humanitarianism focuses on the discontinuities, disruption and the need for outside
assistance, whereas resilience humanitarianism seeks continuity in rendering affected populations
primarily responsible for their own survival
• classical and resilience humanitarianism both have the tendency to underestimate the relational and
negotiated nature of aid. they fail to see the humanitarian’s own role in shaping the realities in which they
operate
• ‘victimcy’ and ‘ignorancy’: the article shows how representations of victims as passive recipients of aid is
an essential part of the aid game and a display of tactical agency on the sides of recipients and aid
providers to ensure the perpetuation of the aid relation.
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Mosel, I. and Levine, S. (2014). Remaking the case for linking relief, rehabilitation and development. How LRRD can
become a practically useful concept for assistance in difficult places. HPG-ODI, available at
https://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/8882.pdf.

See p.22

*** PPT & NOTES***

Topics Today

• REBUILDING RECONSIDERED: Linking Relief and development: as part of the cross sectional issues.
• Today
o Refoundational Times
o Peace agreements / Peacebuilding
o Many tasks: Many actors need to support each other on a continuous basis
o LRRD
o Resilience (as the new name for LRRD)
o PRODERE program in Guatemala as practical example

Rebuilding Reconsidered

• (Re-)Foundational Times (Wilson): Rebuilding a society & social contract (Rousseau, but also Alex de
Waal’s political contract to prevent famine, see also chapters in Yanocoupoulos) & actually establish laws
• Infinite Challenges & Different stages
• Each challenge in fact deserves a separate study or class. Examples:
o Moral reconstruction and trauma (can take generations to rebuild)
o Sanctions (before & after)
o Arms transfer (also higher crime rates)
o Aids (also weakened health system, Congo)
o Economic reconstruction
o Political democracy
o Infrastructure
o Etc. (see below)
• Question remains: where can outsiders (intervenors) help most effectively?
• Osler Hampson discusses the elements of the terms of settlement (e.g., all parties need to be involved,
power-sharing), as well as tasks & dilemmas for third parties:
o demobilization, restructuring
o (self-)enforcement (benefits of peace),
o continued mediation and re-negotiation,
o establishing norms (armed forces, police, judiciary and legal system) However, do justice and
peace go hand in hand?
o Proxy governance (transitional government or interim administration)
• By sustaining a process of mediation, negotiation, and assistance with the subsequent implementation of
the peace settlement, third parties can help bring an end to military conflict and lay the basis for a durable
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 settlement that advance the process of national reconciliation in divided societies. The challenge is to
cultivate ripeness. Third parties can help sustain the commitment and cooperation of the disputing parties
in the overall peacemaking and peace-building process.
• Settlements that fail have generally been “orphaned,” because third parties either failed to remain fully
engaged in implementing the settlement or were unable to muster the requisite level of resources, both
economic and political, to build the foundations for a secure settlement.
• This often happens when the international “spotlight is turned off”.
• Third parties need other third parties if they are to work efficiently and effectively in nurturing the
conditions for peace. No single third party has the resources or leverage to make the peace process work.
Great powers need the local support of a country’s neighbors. Regional actors and groups need the
assistance of sub-regional groups. Governments and international organizations also require the active
assistance and involvement of NGOS and agencies, particularly during implementation of the agreement.
• Pos. role of outsiders (process factors):
o Peacebuilding & dev. need to go together
o Take a long time frame for rebuilding
o Division of labor between actors (joint strategy)
o Informal policy dialogue & formal performance criteria
o National reconciliation
§ Solve specific problems to prevent “domination”
§ Increase opportunities for participation by civil society
• However, both El Bushra and Goodhand
o still have an outsiders perspective
o insufficiently tell how actual implementation (e.g., priority setting) takes place
o Don’t tell enough about participation
o First steps, to study a situation where all individual topics require more attention simultaneously.

Linking Relief and Development: ongoing challenges

What is relief?

• Objective: saving lives & alleviating human suffering (& sometimes human dignity is also included)
• Principles: humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence

What is development?

89
The gap

Clashing discourses?

• There are two very distinct sets of languages, that separate development and emergency. So if you make a
development proposal, everything is brilliant [...] we talk about the strengths of communities,their ability to
cope, their ability to manage, the opportunity that working together will bring [...] If you read an emergency
proposal, the community is weak and vulnerable (NGO country director, April 2013)

Ethiopia

• "[E]ven if there is rain they would still need humanitarian assistance [...] The area needs more of a sustainable
response than just one year or very short-term response. They have critical water shortages, which is also a
problem for the pasture [...] Most of them, about 70%, are pastoralists, so completely dependent on water”.
(Humanitarian NGO programme assistant)
• “If you're working with the community and [they] say 'You know, this water point development is all good,
but do you know that the crops just failed?', [you can't just answer] 'Yes but we only do development,
so...sorry'.”(Development NGO country director, April 2013)

Resilience

• Nowadays, LRRD as a concept is slowly being replaced by resilience, which is an even broader concept,
because it also includes preparedness.
• The concept of resilience is old, it already recéived attention in ecology and psychoogy,
• It especially came to the fore with int. climate change policy:
o Hyogo Protocoll
o Kyoto Framework for action on climate change
o Sendai Framework for action on climate change
• The 2016 WHS also promoted resilience for war-torn societies

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Guatemala example

• Somewhat paradoxicially, there are programs that linked dev. and relief succesfully, e.g.,
o The UNOPS „Prodere Program in Guatemala:
§ Central American Peace-agreement(s) and cooperation
§ Role of Italy (christian democrats) w. fin. support
§ Enough money, long term, sound methodology (combination of hard relief good and „soft“
development bodies (e.g., with local Human Rights (passport, land titles, ec. activities, and
health)
§ UNDP failed in follow-up strategy development, bc. it did not want to support UNOPS

Lecture 10

Thursday, 12 December 2019, 11:45-13:15 “Needs Assessment”

1. How to set up a needs analysis
2. Relationship of needs analysis with other forms of evaluation/assessment

Required Reading:
The Assessment Capacities Project and Emergency Capacity Building Project (2014) “Humanitarian Needs Assessment:
The Good Enough Guide, Practical Action Publishing Ltd, Bourton on Dunsmore, available at:
http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/h-humanitarian-needs-assessment-the-good-enough-guide.pdf

Needs assessment is essential for programme planning, monitoring and evaluation, and accountability. They help
organizations to identify and measure the humanitarian needs of a disaster-affected community, and answer the question:
‘What assistance do disaster-affected communities need?’, than enable the organization to make good decisions about how
to allocate resources and gather more resources to meet the needs of the disaster-affected community.

In this regard, The Good Enough Guide was written for for field staff carrying out assessments in the early days and weeks
following a disaster. It is especially aimed at national project managers and their teams. The name ‘good enough’ means
choosing a simple solution, because in an emergency response, a quick and simple approach to needs assessment may be
the only practical possibility.

A need assessment contains following stages:

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• Basic principles of needs assessment
o Make the scope of the assessment reflect the size and nature of the crisis
o Produce timely and relevant analysis
o Collect usable data
o Use valid and transparent methods
o Be accountable
o Coordinate with others and share findings
o Make sure you can get enough resources
o Assess local capacities
o Manage community expectations
o Remember that assessment is not just a one-off event: Continue assessment throughout the
emergency.
• STEPS TO A GOOD ENOUGH NEEDS ASSESSMENT
o Step 1: Preparing for an assessment
§ Before the emergency
• Make sure your organization has assessment procedures that fit with its
contingency plans and programme planning
• check and be ready to mobilize the staff and other resources that you will need to
implement the assessment
• Make sure you know how to get an assessment started in your organization
§ During and after the emergency
• define your assessment through four questions:
• 1. Should your organization intervene, and what value will it add to the response?
• 2. What should the nature, scale and details of your intervention be?
• 3. How should you prioritize and allocate resources strategically?
• 4. What practical actions should the programme design and planning involve?
o Step 2: Designing your assessment
§ Get the basic facts
• 1. Where: locations
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 • 2. Who: groups most in need of humanitarian assistance and/or most vulnerable.
• 3. What: sectors that require immediate action and/ or ongoing attention.
§ Engage stakeholders
§ Support specific decisions

§ Be realistic
§ Review secondary data
§ Collect primary data if necessary
§ Keep the process going
o Step 3: Implementing your assessment
• remain flexible and be ready to update the assessment to suit new circumstances
• your assessment does not have to be perfect to be useful.
• Use a standardized, transparent and clearly documented process; follow
recognized data collection methods; use widely accepted terms from the
humanitarian sector; and apply relevant technical standards and indicators.
§ Consultation and accountability
• Carrying out a stakeholder analysis: identify and make an overview of all the
stakeholders or interest groups associated with this assessment and how they may
be influenced by the outcome.
• Engage these stakeholders as early as possible, and communicate with them
frequently throughout the process
• The assessment should try to represent all groups of the affected population,
especially those who may be vulnerable.
§ Who is vulnerable?
• consult host communities

•
§ The assessment team

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 • Choose team members who have the skills and experience you require to respond
to this particular disaster
• If possible, team members should be staff recruited specifically for the assessment,
or existing staff who are seconded to the team.
• Based on the assessment plan, you should agree on standard operating procedures
(SOPs) with key stakeholders.
§ Collecting data
• A secondary data review is the first step
• collect primary data only if necessary
o Step 4: Analysing your data
• Analysis should start as soon as you begin to receive data (secondary or primary)
and continue as long as you are receiving new data
• your analysis should contribute to a shared picture of the situation that can be used
by all humanitarian actors
• your analysis should also identify gaps in capacity: human resources, aid materials,
logistics capabilities, coping strategies, etc.
§ Checking your findings
• Validation

•
o Step 5: Sharing your findings
§ Make your findings available to:
• colleagues (within your organization);
• peers (in other organizations); • coordinators (government, cluster or other);
• local and national authorities; and
• affected communities.
§ Writing your report
• The report must include three major components:
o 1. findings (including background context);
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 o 2. analysis of those findings to explain what is happening; and
o 3. methodology for how you collected your data and carried out your
analysis.
• Be user-friendly. Write as little as possible, but as much as you need to
communicate your findings
• You should share your methodology in your report, and state your level of
confidence in your findings.
§ Presenting your findings
• meets the expectations and requirements of the target audience
• use the sharing process to start discussions with key stakeholders.
• be aware of security and safety concerns
§ Helping with decision-making
• Answer the questions that decision-makers will have, such as:
o How are pre-crisis vulnerabilities likely to be affected by the disaster?
o What is known about the impact of similar disasters or crises in the region
in the past?
o What does this tell us about the potential evolution of the disaster?
o What coping strategies are in place and how can these be supported?
o What factors or drivers could contribute to worsening conditions?
o Is there a need for external assistance, and what are the appropriate
responses?
o What are the potential transition and/or exit strategies?

James, E. Managing Humanitarian Relief. An Operational Guide for NGOs, pp. 119-130.

This chapter provide an overview of how assessments can be used in emergencies. It looks at assessments on two levels,
general and programme-specific, as well as presenting different methods that are available.

Gaining background knowledge of a disaster zone

Elements of a successful assessment

1. Need for an assessment

2. Decide on the consumers of the assessment information
3. Plan information and resources needs
4. Consider the place and time
5. Qualified staff
6. Make use of local knowledge
7. Coordinate with other organizations
8. Decide on the format and how the assessment will be presented
o A format and style should be easily and quickly understood
9. Balance needs and vulnerabilities with capacities and asset
10. Distinguish between types of need
o chronic needs or emergency needs
11. Build in triangulation
o Triangulation is obtaining information from several sources or perspectives to prevent bias and
distortion
12. Test methods in the local context
13. Maintain flexibility
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Assessment planning

Step 1 Analyse initial sources of information such as local staff, beneficiaries, local government, other NGOs, the UN donors,
Journals, books and reports, maps and photos.

Step 2 If further assessment is needed, decide on methods and make preparations.

Step 3 Carry out assessment and analyse findings.

Step 4 Present findings for review and decision making.

Step S If needed take action, including writing a proposal implementing a project.

Quantitative methods

• Questionnaires
• Knowledge attitudes and practices surveys

Qualitative methods

• An important element of qualitative methods is participation among the different stakeholders involved
in the assessment
• Semi-structured interviews
• Focus group discussions (FGOs)
• Observation
• Auto-diagnosis
o involves a four-stage process:
§ identification of the problem,
§ planning together,
§ implementing
§ evaluating the results
• Group activities
• Participatory methods
o Participatory rural appraisal (PRA)
§ focus on nontraditional roles (e.g. women).
§ main PRA techniques include:
• Direct observation
• Semi-structured interviews, FGD and conversations
• People being asked to give an oral history of a place or situation ranking and scoring
(preference, pair-wise or direct scoring)
• Diagram and map making
§ not realistic to do (take 6-12 months)
o participatory learning and action (PLA)

Interviewing people affected by disasters

*** PPT & NOTES***

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This Week

• Needs Assessement
o The good enough guides
• Video from the Assessment Capacities Project (ACAPS): https://www.acaps.org/resources/elearning/5
• Uganda Research
• DR Congo Study on Local Perceptions of hum. Organizations

The Good Enough Guides

• Very useful for practitioners, good people

• Not a difficult methodology discussion, yet the methodology is both practical and well done.
• If perfection in a crisis is not possible, what can we do as good as possible. „Simple solution“
o Tool and Background (Basic, not complex)
• But you also need:
o Practice / Experience
o Sphere (e.g., indicators)
o Experts in specific areas
o Specific manuals for each areas
• Not popular with donors: „just good enough?“
• Read the „Accountability and Impact Assessment“ guide too

Needs Assessment (NA)

• Is hum. aid provided according to need?

• In Preface NA is used for
o Program planning
o M&E (MEAL)
o Accountability
• Understanding what the population needs is essential! This should be more than just basic needs,
understanding context is also crucial)
• Distinguish (they partly overlap):
o Emergency Indicators
o Sectoral Indicators
• Definition on p. 1 (be careful with an assistance-centered view, there may be other alternatives from train
tickets to strengthening coping mechanisms)
• Why (in Ch. 1, slightly different from preface)?
o Goals
o Technical Progr.
o Fundraising
o Advocacy
o Later Assessement (Baseline is not always possible or necessary)
• Compare T1 (situation in period 1) with T2 ( in period 2)
• Compare regions, etc.
• Seeing and comparing fit together. Humans are good at seeing differences, but they rarely think about
them in a structured manner
• Now we need to see/compare „Needs“ in a structured manner
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 o How structured can it be?
• Notice that there are many types of evaluation
o Difference Evaluation (What changed) and monitoring (how it changed)

Preparing

• Joint Assessment or Individual one

• See p. 12
• See p. 13 for four important questions that should be answered

Designing

• Secondary and primary data

• Always start with looking for secondary data. This is data that has already been collected, but often for
another purpose. Examples include Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, & International Crisis
Group reports, former evaluations from the same region, population census, government documents,
World Bank, UNHCR & OCHA documents
• Primary data is more difficult to collect, and not always necessary
• Another example of secondary data is the List of PSN (Persons with Special Needs) in a camp, which you
can obtain from UNHCR (and in Uganda from OPM (Ugandan Office of the Prime Minister). Once a year,
all organizations work together to formulate and update the list of PSN (in this case it is primary data).
• Primary data
o For studying behavorial change you often need primary data
o Data collection methods include for example FGD, Participant observation, expert interviews,
surveyQuestionnaire (lot of time, also during implementation)

Implementing

• p. 18
• You will need to improvise, but the more structured you work and the better your knowledge of Needs
Assessment (and M& E in general), the better/more structured you can improvise. (This could have been
higlighted more in the „Needs Assessment“ Good Enough Guide).

Analysing

• Comparing, see p. 25.

• Compare empirical findings with theory (e.g., in your MA-Paper)

Sharing

• Get feedback
o Peer reviews
o Participant feedback
o Paymasters
• Publication/Sharing: Flexibly adjust to the information and decision-making needs of your audience
• Start again: use the last evaluation(s) in a new evaluation cycle

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Shortcomings

• Lack of resources
• Politics & Impact
• Use common sense, while improvising continuously (therefore you need good planning). This should have
been indicated in more detail.

Conclusions

• Other assessment tools (see again Ch. 11 „Preparing to intervene“

o Comparison
o Know when to use them
• Overview of the main themes
• We demystified Needs Assessment
• We did not get to watch the ACAPS video, but I send you the link

Lecture 11

Monday, 16 December 2019, 09:00-10:30: “Human Resources in Crisis”

1. Human Resources Management

Required Reading:

CHS Alliance (Ed.) (2014) Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability, available at
https://corehumanitarianstandard.org/files/files/CHS%20in%20English%20-%20book%20for%20printing.pdf.

See p.30

James, E. Managing Humanitarian Relief. An Operational Guide for NGOs, pp. 173-195.

this chapter is to outline ways to effectively manage human resources at the field level.

HRM systems

Basic needs

• Maslow (1987): each human has basic needs

o Self-actualization: a need to set and achieve personal goals
o Esteem: a need for appreciation, recognition and a feeling of value
o Belonging: a need to be part of a group or team
o Safety: a need to have a sense of security and freedom from harm
o Physiological: a need for life-sustaining objects such as food, water and shelter
• A good job shall fulfill these needs as well:
o staff need adequate and sheltered work space
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 o They need time off to take care of their personal issues and breaks to eat and drink.
o staff need a secure and safe place to work, without occupational hazards (e.g. everything from
safe construction sites to ergonomic office equipment) and security incidents
o Staff also need to feel that they belong to the NGO and the team in which they work -> Equity
and fair treatment
o staff must feel the value of their contribution -> managers must show interest and support for
their work
o staff must set and achieve personal goals -> Management can help reach self-actualization 111
their staff by creating an environment where staff development and equitable promotions take
place.
• Key challenge:
o Planning: Abrupt programme changes can be mitigated by having basic standards and systems in
place and then trying to be flexible to rapid change
o Capacity
o Equity
o Culture

Planning

Policy and procedures

• Record-keeping
• Staff policy manuals
o Only in rare cases can a manual from the NGO's HQ be applied to field programmes, because of
different laws, cultures and local conditions
• Government regulations
o Vacancy notices, record-keeping, taxation, work hours, holiday leave and benefits are just some
of the things that might be regulated by law

Types of staff

• Volunteers
• National employees (local staff): should not be hired on the basis of language skills alone
• International employees ( expatriate staff)
o three types of relief workers: missionaries, mercenaries and madmen.
o 3 phrase of career development of relief workers:
§ Altruistic: naive, phase, usually during the first years
§ brash and driven but also possibly dysfunctional and political
§ caring and have a fuller understanding of the constraints and reality of the work they do
§

*** PPT & NOTES***

TODAY

• Personal frustration with human resource management (HRM) in Humanitarian Organizations:

o Bukavu:
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 § Summer 2001: 4 years different people
§ 20 somethings manage people twice their age & leave after about a year:
• Do not have institutional memory
• Always learning on the job
• Do not know local culture, institutions,
traditional leaders, political context, civil society

Humanitarian HRM is hard

• Organization is at its heart a collection of people: function optimally in org. context

• Public service is not a popular career choice: Is HA??
o Misfits, marxists, mystics, morons
• HRM in hum. action has changed a lot since 1989:
o From volunteers to professionals
o From short-term to long-term work (ideally)
o From technical execution of relief to incorporation of developmental tasks
o Greater importance of understanding local context and hum. principles
o New types of war: political economy of war
o New parties, such as private enterprise, the military, extremists: Security Threats
• Mission (mandate) and contents of the work can be a prime motivator (incentive), more than just money
• You can never achieve success alone, you ‘ll have to enroll, register, sell, participate, etc.

How do you hire a person?

• Assess Staffing Needs

o focus on the real work
o create a matrix of current work:
§ Accomplishments (at this moment)
§ contributions
• Developing a recruitment network
o in PS insufficient campus recruitment
o formal and informal network
o enlightened self-interest: help others
o Internships and professional opportunities
o Internships: Malteser, International Alert, Medical Mission, ECHO
• Get the word out (Publicize)
o formal job posting, advertisement, social media, personal and staff contacts
o If you wanna get a job or internship: keep going!
• Encourage good people to apply
o direct: you or staff members do it
o indirect: outsiders do it
o In any case, make sure that people know you as an excellent organization
• Make sure you do your homework before:
o do you have the money (allocation, ceiling, fte)
o is your org. balanced, e.g., not top heavy, which positions are essential (org. structure)
o are you able to offer the right salary (for candidate and his colleagues)
o does the person have the qualifications for the job
o post, advertise the job for free/open competition
• Judging applications
If you did the preceding steps well, you ‘ve got a great pool of candidates
o Seven criteria (p. 50)
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 o My own criteria: trust, psychologically stable, vulnerability is OK in some cultures
o Get feedback from other people
o You may have to move people around in your organization for best fit
o You can get stuck with the wrong person for a long time
o You may have to deal with a political appointee, especially in the UN System.
• What do you do after identification?
o Know the civil service rules
§ get the person or you don’t
o If you get a job:
§ Check your contract
§ List tasks: Cultural interpretations

Alternatives to hiring

• Temporary staff
o temps can be more entrepreneurial
o temps are less socialized into the org (pos/neg)
• Contractors (form of privatization)
o issues of having good contracts (princ/agent)
o can be used as downsizing: growth outside the books, but whether it enhances capacity is something else
o mission contracting (DOE example), see p. 56
• Borrowing people (danger of dumping)
o task force
o detailing
o ask other (part of the) org, e.g., staff offices

How to reward & keep good people

• Using incentives (Chester Barnard)

o material incentives, e.g., money
o non-material inducement: prestige, power
o working conditions
o pleasant social env./shared purpose
o participation in org. decision-making
• Give guidance, instead of ordering
• Promote entrepreneurial, innovative behavior
o encourage questioning, experimenting,
o don’t just punish
• Create positive sum games around incentives
How to keep a good person from leaving

• Allow them to leave

• Communicate and understand their personalities and needs
• Avoid rapid turnover (then something is wrong)
o How is the hum. sector doing?

How to get rid of inadequate staff

• Identify poor performance

o can be genuinely bad (poor competence)
o can be a mismatch (poor fit)
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 o can be a result of bad communication
• Encourage improved performance
o firing is difficult (especially with unionization)
o encouraging improvement tends to be cheaper
§ better communication
§ different position
§ more support
§ training, etc.

How to work around incompetent staff

• Turkey farm (isolation ward)

• Detailing staff
• Developing an unimportant special assignment
• Using physical space
o separate good performers from weak
o negative signal

Know the Civil Service Rules

• They normally entail:

o a formal position description (assignment & supervisory relationship)
o the criteria for assessing applicants for each job or title
o a formal process for advertising vacancies
o a process for reviewing & judging applicants
o a formal procedure for selecting the winning applicant
• organizations also have unwritten, informal rules (dressing code, hair cuts, racism)
• often orgs use selection panels

Know when to give up on a person

• See page 69 (typical C&E)

• Don’t avoid, be straightforward
• Dealing with inadequate staff
o often a problem of fit: move do not remove (UNICEF)
o Talk w. the person
§ be honest, don’t sugarcoat
§ judge the job, not the person
§ if it is a problem of fit, offer help
• A formal firing process takes along time and needs to be well prepared (paper trail) and you don’t know the
outcome for sure!

HRM Department/ Personnel Section

• Which Human Resources manage the Human Resources?

• It is horrible when HRM is slow, or badly managed:
o You ‘ll get bad new staff, demoralization, delays
o You cannot work around, remove, or adapt rules

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 o increase in power struggles
• We have not talked about new performance systems such as 160 degree feedback. More people from different
levels evaluate each other

People in Aid

• Reaction on Rwanda (multi-donor evaluation)

o Flow: Principles logically follow
o Implementation support, kitemarks, indicators
o Very useful, but basic
o but does not treat the negative stuff, e.g., inadequate staff, that we discussed earlier.

IMPROVEMENT INITIATIVES?

• Discuss relationships and common short-comings with other improvement tools: SPHERE, ALNAP, HAP, People in
Aid, GHD
• Commonalities:
o After Rwanda
o Transparency/Understanding processes/Progr. Mgmt
o Cooperative endeavors
o Differ in their enforcement
o Useful in assessment/design and evaluation (Mary Anderson’s Do no Harm is also sometimes called a
needs assessment / design tool)

People in Aid

• People in Aid is one of several inter-agency initiatives which came into being in the 1990ties
• These initiatives provide the sector with tools to improve quality, accountability, performance and active learning
• Code of good practice
• (Another form of needs assessment)
• Precursor of the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS)

What is People in Aid?

• People in Aid is an international network of relief and development agencies. It provides support to agencies
committed to improving their human resource management by providing tools such as the People in Aid Code of
Good Practice
• „One of the central factors in the success of humanitarian action has been the dedication of staff - ordinary people
doing extraordinary things, despite working in disenabling bureaucracies“
(Annual review 2003: Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarioan Action,
ALNAP)

Why a code of good practice?

• People in Aid code is an initiative to ensure quality in the management of personnel working in aid organizations
• Support and management of staff is critical success factor in delivering a proper mission
• It is an important part to improve human resource management in the relief and development sector
• It is a quality tool which aims to ensure accountability to various stakeholders
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 • It is a framework to assess and improve human resource management

Background

• People in Aid encourages improvements in the way staff (national and international) are managed and supported
• People in Aid consists of seven principles
• Accountability to stakeholders (donors and beneficiaries) should also include the accountability towards staff and
volunteers
• The Code was drawn between 1995 and 1997 for Irish and British NGOs
• Then: in the UN-familiy and continental Europe
• Nowadays: CHS

Principle 1: Human resource strategy

• Human resources should be an integral part of strategic and operational plans

• Indicators
o Strategy explicitly values staff for their contribution
o Strategy should allocate sufficient human and financial resources to achieve objectives of the human
resource strategy
o Operational plan and budget should reflect the responsibility for support, development and well-being
o Strategy should reflect and promote inclusiveness and diversity

Principle 2: Staff policies and practices

• Human resource policies should aim to be effective, fair and transparent

• Indicators
o Policies and practices should be coherent in their application to all staff (legal provisions and cultural
norms!)
o Staff should be familiarized with policies and practices that affect them
o Guidance should be provided to managers to ensure that they can implement policies properly
o Rewards and benefits should be clearly identified (fair and consistent!)
o Policies and practices are monitored constantly

Principle 3: Managing People

• Good support, management and leadership should ensure effectiveness

• Staff has the right to expect proper management to be best prepared for a mission
• Indicators:
o Relevant training, support and resources should be provided to managers to fulfil responsibilities
(Leadership!)
o Staff should have clear work objectives and performance standards (e.g. to whom to report)
o In assessing performance managers should adhere to organisation‘s procedure and values
o Staff should be aware of grievance and disciplinary procedures

Principle 4: Consultation and Communication

• Dialogue with staff should lead to enhancement of quality and effectiveness

• Indicators:
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 o Staff should be informed and consulted for development or review of human resource policies and
practices that affect them
o Managers and staff should understand the scope of consultation and how to participate, individually and
collectively

Principle 5: Recruitment and Selection

• Policies and practices should aim to attract and select diverse workforce
• Why? Because it has significantly influence on effectiveness in the fulfilment of objectives
• Indicators:
o Policies and procedures should outline how staff should be recruited and selected
o Recruitment should aim to pool suitable and qualified personnel
o Selection process should be fair and transparent
o Appropriate documentation should be maintained regarding the selection process
o Effectiveness and fairness of the recruitment process should be monitored

Principle 6: Learning, training and development

• Learning, training and staff development should be promoted throughout an organisation

• Indicators:
o Adequate induction and briefing to staff
o Policies on learning, training and development opportunities should be available
o Plans and budget should be explicit about training provision. Training should be provided to all staff
o Appropriate training and development should be linked to external qualifications
o Monitoring of effectiveness of training

Principle 7: Health, safety and security

• Security, good health and safety of staff should be a prime responsibility of an organisation
• Indicators:
o Written policies should be available to staff on security, individual health, care and support, health and
safety
o Assessment on security, travel and health risks specific to mission should be reviewed constantly
o Staff clearance before assignment (incl. briefing)
o Security plans should be provided
o Records should be maintained of work-related injuries, sickness and accidents (to reduce future risk to
staff)
o Workplans should not require more hours work than set out in the contract
o De-briefing and / or exit interviews at the end of contract

Implementing the People in Aid code

• It is a process through which any organisation can thoroughly review their human resource management
• Recognition of (staff) efforts for improvement and support of personnel
• Donors might see evidence for commitment to strengthening international capacity and systems to improve
quality of aid delivery
• Support of management structures can lead to more effective programme work
• Beneficiaries will have the assurance that an organisation is monitoring the impact and delivery of any
programme

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 • It is a framework for analysis: Code provides comprehensive overview of human resources issues affecting
agencies
• Tries to identify gaps during implantation (in relation to policies and practices)
• Categorisation of 7 principles (according to key issues)
• Stakeholder participation: staff will be involved in the process

What does People in Aid do?

• Handbooks on essential policy areas (health, risks, safety and security)

• Guideline policies on key areas such security, codes of conduct, rest and relaxation
• Training on Human Resources (e.g. distance management, people development)
• Research
• Supervision and development of staff
• Support during the implementation of the code
• Resource center and information network

Quality and accountability

• ALNAP: Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action is a unique active-
learning network for improving quality and accountability of H.A.
• HAP: Humanitarian Accountablity Partnership International set up in 2003 to develop, implement and monitor
accountability principles, and ensure compliance through collective self regulation
• People in Aid promotes good practice in human resource management
• The Sphere Project: works to improve the quality, effectiveness and accountability of disaster response through
the understanding and use of the Humanitarian Charter, Minimum Standards and key indicators

Lecture 12

Monday, 16 December 2019, 10:45-12:15 “Final Session”

1. Final Question and Answer Session

Required Reading:

Goodhand, J. Chapter 12: ‘Working ‘in’ and ‘on’ War,’ pp. 280-311, in Yanacopulos and Hanlon, Civil War, Civil Peace.
See p.10

Hanlon, J., H. Yanacopulos ‘Conclusion: Understanding as a Guide to Action’ pp. 314-320, in Yanacopulos and Hanlon, Civil War,
Civil Peace.

See p.12

Krause, M. (2014) Conclusion, pp.168-176. The good project

See p.19

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*** PPT & NOTES***

Jonathan Goodhand (2005) “Working ‘in’ and ‘on’ war”, p. 280-313, in Yanacopulos and Hanlon. Civil War, Civil Peace

• Areas and modalities of intervention

• Add cash-based aid to relief (food, watsan, shelter, medicine)
• No hierarchy
• Categories merge into one another; their balance and focus shifts over time

Addressing conflict and peace dynamics

• Conflict proofing and ‘do no harm’ are two sides of the same coin
• Conflict proofing: question of security for the ‘internal’ environment
• ‘Do no harm’ is concerned with the ‘external environment’

Conflict Proofing Questions

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‘Do no harm’ (working in war)

• Your position is the result of the interplay between your proclaimed position and how others perceive you.
• There is no such thing as a non-impact
• Bring a sense of responsibility and a sense of proportion
o Recognize the potential for an intervention to do harm and to do good
• Conduct a thorough conflict assessment
• Develop the skills to predict, categorize and quantify the kinds of harms that might be caused
o Impact can happen on the individual, institutional and structural level
o Be sensitive to the potential of ‘negative externalities’

Questions about ‘minimising harm’

• Relief aid and possible negative effects:
o Humanitarian aid can be ‘taxed’ by warring parties
o Aid can free up domestic resources for war making
o Relief can instil a false sense of security among the victims of war
o Aid relief operations can serve as a smokescreen for inaction on other fronts by donor government

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Peacebuilding (‘working on war`)

• Your are building probabilities rather than uncertainties
• Government-led peace processes important for civil society
• Combine bottom-up and top-down approaches
• Structural and institutional change takes time
• Be aware of windows of opportunity
• Recognize tensions and trade-offs involved in juggling multiple objectives
• Building capacities through peacebuilding projects = giving up a position of neutrality towards one of solidarity ?
• Advocacy and media involvement to reach more people and influence important people

Organizational Challenges

• Organizations should be self-conscious

o Keep ‘alive’ common values, principles and ethical frameworks (remember Slim)
• Shift from absolute morality and duty-based ethics to utilitarian and consequentialist ethics
o One is held accountable for the consequence of one’s actions
• Promote staff continuity: develop regional expertise
o promotion of national staff often fails due to the ‘glass ceiling’
• Apply reforms (e.g. Log-frame analysis)
o In the midst of uncertainty the attempt to create certainty, but flexibility is also important
• Keep in mind the human factors, individuals are important for an organization also for the relation-building
challenges
o Lack of time devoted to relationships in the field
o Reassess your relationships, try to maintain an independent humanitarian space

Hanlon/Yanacopulos (2005) “Conclusion”, p. 314-20 in Yanacopulos and Hanlon. Civil War, Civil Peace

• Don’t just do something stand there

• There are no right answers, only better or worse ones
• Mistakes can be reduced through analysis and understanding
o especially of the relations of power and access to resources that underlay the war to change them
• Outside interveners present an alternative power structure with much influence
o Avoid rushed decisions
o Who will be harmed, disadvantaged, not helped?
• Your cannot have non-governmental organizations without a government (back to the unresolved issue of the
role of the state…..)

Future Crises and Politicization

• Future crises (more chronic):

o Politicization/Militarization/Securitization/local manipulation of humanitarian action won‘t stop
o Larger crises, growing vulnerability, and many different actors also imply growing politicization

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 o Climate change & environmental decline
o Population growth
o ABC (Atomic, Biological and Chemical) weapon threat has not disappeared
o See humanitarian futures paper and the ODI „Time to Let Go“ paper (recommended literature)

IMPROVEMENT INITIATIVES?

• Discuss relationships and common short-comings with other improvement tools: SPHERE, ALNAP, HAP,
People in Aid, GHDI, and CHS
• Commonalities:
o Originally after Rwanda
o Transparency/Understanding processes/Progr. Mgmt
o Cooperative endeavors
o Differ in their enforcement
o Useful in assessment/design and evaluation (Mary Anderson’s Do no Harm is also sometimes
called an assessment/design tool)
• 2005 UN Reform
o Cluster Approach;
o Central Emergency Response Fund;
o Common Humanitarian Fund/Pooled Fund at the country level;
• 2011 “L3” Disasters
• Overall improvement, but hum. organizations mainly exchange information, “They don’t explain what is
happening in their black box”.
• Recently, CHS and WHS (e.g., localization, cash.based assistance, resilience)

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Remember first class?

• Lack of clear definition of Complex humanitarian emergency / Complex political emergency

• Conceptual distinction not clear/changing
• Ad Hoc Interorganizational system
• Political Economy of War/Role of the State (ill understood)
• -> But what can we learn?
o Can we ask the right questions?
o What are the practical experiences (and improvements)?
o Long-term perspective?

Conclusions: Breakdown of Distinctions? Broader issues

• Peace and War

• State, Crime, Army, and Civilians
• Private and Public
• Natural vs man-made disasters
• Sovereignty of State (vs. Security of People)
• Security, Relief, Rehabilitation, and Development
• New distinctions: Political vs Humanitarian?

CONCLUSIONS FOR ACTION

• Hum. System has changed considerable and will continue to do so.

• Overall system is not geared towards success. Our job!
• Themes in the Background: Weak State/International structural factors
• There are many managerial problems and you can be an expert in a substantive area and still miss the bigger
picture.
• Not one best approach or quick fixes or one tool “and your problems will be solved.”
• “lost innocence”: lack of success, neutrality is problematic, etc.
• need for better assessment (SPHERE, understanding root causes [humanitarian vs. political], war economy,
accountability, etc.)
• big inter-organizational problems (coordination, competition, bad set up of humanitarian system)
• Need for respect and participation of culture and population, e.g, coping mechanisms and participation. Difficult
balance in this respect: don’t do too much, don’t do too little.
• Need for integration: relief, rehabilitation & development, different functional sectors, different population
groups, but also for hand-over and exit strategies.
• ODA has begun to increase again, HA is increasing.
• There is no overall poverty approach. The Millennium Development Goals came close. Now the SDGs.
• Practical tools: Program Management, HRM guidelines (People in Aid), SPHERE, Strategic questions we asked in
the beginning.
• Room for many different organizations: from traditional to those that LRRD, those that work w. the military, etc.

CONCLUSIONS FOR THINKING

• Humanitarian Action/Assistance is changing rapidly:

• Tension between
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 o Deontological ethic based on humanitarian principles
o Consequentialist ethic based on goals & effects: should hum. orgs contribute to conflict resolution and
development?
• It is a North/South, Rich/Poor, and Powerful/Weak Problematic: silent & loud emergencies:
• Theme in the background, weak state, cannot be solved by humanitarian organizations alone. This leads to other
issues such as
o LRRD, including continuum debate
o Role of Donors (and their military)
• Relation political and operational in criticism: how can hum. assistance be improved, but also how is it misused by
government/int. pol. comm. Critique on humanitarian assistance is often a critique of its side-effects (e.g., Alex de
Waal)
• Our knowledge is incomplete. Notice that social change/social engineering, like the great society or the European
welfare state has always been a quandary
• Complex emergencies require rethinking of regular development and international relations theory. Old
distinctions break down. Many intensive debates. You, students, will have to contribute to finding new concepts
(language) and practical solutions during your work…
• I hope that this class has shown you that:
o a lot can go wrong; but there are alternatives. It is work in progress
o improving humanitarian aid is one of the most demanding intellectual and practical activities of
our time. It plays at least at five levels:
§ Know thyself
• Enchanted life
• Mental growth: Why do you want do this work? Be careful with idealism
• Intrinsic motivation
§ Field Office / Program Level
§ Organizations
§ Nat. govt/weak states
§ Donors/Int. geo-politics

Conclusion for you personally

• Techniques that I often use:

o learn basic skills (be a good manager & learn about a substantive field);
o Check your own motivation! You can work on yourself more easily than on the other levels (p. 259).
o look at the programs, the organization’s management, and the local population;
o integration of different disciplines;
o be truthful, I hope I haven’t made you negative;
o continue learning
o let’s stay in touch (course next year, or from the field)

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