Humanitarian NGOs, (In)Security and Identity

Epistemic Communities and Security Governance

Andrea Schneiker

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317119524
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Pace e sviluppo globale

Increasingly humanitarian NGOs operate in the context of armed conflicts where the security risks are higher than in contexts of natural disaster. Working in Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Pakistan and Sri Lanka is particularly dangerous for humanitarians. This existential threat affects the physical existence of aid workers and the implementation of humanitarian programs, and the core beliefs of humanitarians and the underlying principles of humanitarian action. For NGOs it is difficult to accept that they are attacked despite their good intentions, sometimes even by the very communities they seek to help. For these reasons, humanitarian NGOs have to change their approaches to security by not only adapting their policies, procedures and structures to the changing environment, but also reviewing the underlying principles of their work. This book contributes to debates by demonstrating how issues of (in)security affect humanitarian NGOs and the humanitarian identity, situating the structural changes within the humanitarian NGO community in the context of conflict aid governance and explains how non-state actors establish their own governance structures, independent from state-sponsored solutions, and contributes to the emerging literature on the redefinition of the concept of epistemic communities.

Chapter 1
Introduction

After the earthquake that struck Haiti in January 2010, killing over 220,000 people and resulting in 1.5 million internally displaced persons (ECHO 2014), the total humanitarian funding for Haiti increased from USD 18 million in 2009 to USD 3,592 million in 2010 (Tulane University n.d., 9). In response, a large number of different actors sought to deliver humanitarian assistance, also referred to as emergency or relief aid, including not only traditional ones such as various agencies of the United Nations (UN), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and international and national non-governmental organizations (NGOs), but also international military forces and private contractors (OSE 2011; Patrick 2011, 6). The majority of humanitarian assistance was channelled through NGOs and as a result the number of NGOs in Haiti increased to not fewer than 400 (Hedlund 2011, 4). They and other actors provided, amongst other things, shelter and non-food items, food aid, nutrition, healthcare, education, protection, water and sanitation (ECHO 2014, 3; Tulane University n.d.) and in doing so faced significant difficulties because of the ‘severe underlying vulnerabilities that existed in Haiti including systemic poverty, fragile governance, insecurity and a continual threat of natural disasters’ (Patrick 2011, 2). Against this backdrop humanitarians not only provided a ‘bed for the night’ (Rieff 2002), but they also carried out ‘disaster preparedness and disaster management projects’ (ECHO 2014, 4), seeking ‘to increase the resilience of the population towards future extreme natural hazards’ (ECHO 2014, 4). Nevertheless the actions by the different humanitarian actors were often only ‘poorly-coordinated and poorly-integrated’ (Patrick 2011, 5) with, for example, a lot of NGOs ‘pulling in different directions, unaware of the efforts of others’ (Patrick 2011, 7). This ineffective provision of humanitarian assistance can be explained by diverging mandates and philosophies among humanitarian NGOs and the competition for funding between them. ‘The post-quake situation in Haiti highlighted one of the normative contradictions of the humanitarian regime – the notion that humanitarian relief service providers needed to simultaneously compete and collaborate’ (Cunningham 2012, 120). While in the field humanitarian NGOs are encouraged to cooperate in order to increase the effectiveness of relief efforts, they at the same time compete for limited funds available from the donors (Cunningham 2012, 120).

This example shows not only that nowadays ‘[h]umanitarian action is a substantial and complex endeavour’ (Harvey et al. 2010, 13), but it also alludes to the changing working environment for humanitarians and the changing nature of humanitarianism, and to some of the challenges that humanitarians face in the context of these changes, which have been discussed among academics and practitioners for more than a decade (for example, Macrae 2002; Barnett and Weiss 2008b).

Puzzle and Research Question

Never before have there been so many actors engaged in humanitarian assistance than today and funding for humanitarian programmes ‘has skyrocketed’ (Barnett and Weiss 2011, 2). The competition for funding among NGOs leads to a ‘marketization’ (Cooley and Ron 2002) of their activities. ‘Thus, like entrepreneurs, humanitarian agencies are concerned with image and marketing strategies in an expanding global business’ (Weiss 2013, 3). Statements such as that by the former US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, who has called humanitarian NGOs ‘force multipliers’ for the US military in Iraq and considered them ‘an important part of our combat team’ (cited in Slim 2004, 43), and practices such as the delivery of humanitarian services by military actors, for example in the context of so-called Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in Afghanistan, have furthered vivid debates about the politicization and the militarization of aid, that is on the inclusion of humanitarian assistance in political and military operations and/or the delivery of humanitarian services by political and military actors. Often connected to these debates is another central issue and major challenge for humanitarians: the security conditions under which aid is delivered (for example, Stoddard et al. 2006; 2009b). While overall health and safety issues, which in the case of humanitarians generally include ‘accidents, illness or natural disasters’ (Allison 2005, 3), have always been a concern for humanitarian NGOs, they nowadays face severe security challenges understood as ‘threats from a hostile or aggressive human source directed, intentionally or not, at an organization, its personnel, programme and/or its assets’ (Allison 2005, 3).¹

Lethal attacks such as that on the UN headquarters in Baghdad in August 2003 that killed the organization’s Special Representative and at least 14 other UN staff (UN 2003) and that on the headquarters of the ICRC two months later (The Guardian 2003) made clear that aid workers are intentionally targeted by armed actors. Ever since, headlines such as ‘Foreign Aid Worker Is Killed and Colleague Is Wounded in Somali Capital’ (Ibrahim 2011) or ‘4 Kidnapped While Aiding Afghanistan’ (Rubin 2012) have given the impression that humanitarians nowadays are ‘[p]roviding aid in insecure environments’ (Stoddard et al. 2009b). Between 1997 and 2008, for example, the absolute number of violent incidents affecting aid workers increased about fivefold and the relative number of aid worker victims doubled (Stoddard et al. 2009b, 2–3). Hence a report commissioned by the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) stated in 2011 that ‘[t]he last ten years represent one of the worst decades ever in terms of attacks on humanitarian workers and lack of humanitarian access’ (Egeland 2011, vii). In 2013 ‘251 separate attacks affecting 460 aid workers’ (Stoddard et al. 2014) were recorded. These figures are ‘a new record for violence against civilian aid operations’ (Stoddard et al. 2014). Even though not all humanitarian settings are equally dangerous and high levels of violence against aid workers are limited to a few countries such as Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Syria (Stoddard et al. 2011, 3; Stoddard et al. 2014; Humanitarian Outcomes 2012), it is argued that the whole ‘humanitarian system’ in general and the ‘humanitarian NGO community’² in particular are affected by the changing security environment.

While different definitions of the ‘humanitarian system’ exist – and ‘some indeed deny … its very existence’ (Taylor et al. 2012, 15) – this analysis looks at the ‘formal’ international humanitarian system, which ‘has been a largely Western endeavour’ (Harvey et al. 2010, 13), consisting of donor governments, the UN and its agencies,³ the Red Cross Movement⁴ and international NGOs (Slim 2006, 18–21; Bernard 2011, 891). These actors can be considered to form a system, because they are ‘“a group of interacting, interrelated, or interdependent elements forming a complex whole” directed at broadly shared objectives’ (Taylor et al. 2012, 15).

The main objective of humanitarian assistance ‘is to save lives, alleviate suffering and enable those suffering to maintain (or retain) their human dignity during and in the aftermath of natural disasters and man-made crises’ (Riddell 2008, 311). But actors have different opinions on how to achieve these objectives. Furthermore, the range of services considered ‘humanitarian’ has expanded over the last years. Hence humanitarianism is a broad concept that ‘could encompass any actions to save lives and alleviate suffering in the face of disasters’ (Harvey et al. 2010, 13). The understanding of humanitarianism and the resulting expectations depend on the perspective from which it is conceived, for example whether it is looked at from the perspective of beneficiaries or of donors (Slim 2006). As Antonio Donini, former Director of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance to Afghanistan, states: ‘“humanitarian action” can mean very different things to the aid worker in her big white vehicle and to the “helpless recipient” or to the extremist who negates the value of humanitarian action. What “we” experience is not what “they” experience’ (Donini 2014). Similarly, security means different things to different people. While for aid agencies security generally means the ability to protect their staff and assets from physical harm in order to be able to carry out their programmes, local populations might have a broader understanding of security, including for example political participation (Donini et al. 2005, v).

The current analysis is focused on international humanitarian NGOs, defined as not-for-profit non-governmental organizations working transnationally, that is across borders, and delivering humanitarian assistance, and on the governance structures they have established in response to insecurity. Even though focused on international NGOs, the acronym NGO(s) – rather than INGO(s) – is used throughout the analysis, because it is more inclusive and allows taking into account that national NGOs, albeit not primarily concerned with and affected by the processes and changes discussed, are not always excluded from them.

Humanitarian NGOs are of particular interest, because the insecurity presents an existential threat to them in at least two ways. On the one hand it threatens the physical existence of aid workers and the implementation of humanitarian programmes. A report on humanitarian assistance in Iraq between 2003 and 2006, for example, states that ‘[i]nsecurity in Iraq has taken its toll on the international NGO community. From about 170–200 agencies in July 2003, their presence has steadily decreased to about 60’ (Carle and Chkam 2006, 3). On the other hand, insecurity affects the core beliefs of humanitarians and the underlying principles of humanitarian action and thereby challenges the humanitarian NGOs’ identity (Renouf 2011; Vaughn 2009). Humanitarians traditionally consider themselves to be protected by their adherence to the humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence, assuming that assisting those in need will automatically ensure acceptance of their work by the local populations and conflict parties (Fast and O’Neill 2010, 4–6) and, consequently, guarantee security for aid workers. This however is no longer the case, since nowadays humanitarians are deliberately targeted. For humanitarians who often have ‘[t]he taken-for-granted assumption … that [humanitarian] organisations are doing good’ (Gross Stein 2008, 138), it is difficult to accept that they are attacked not only despite their good intentions, but sometimes even ‘because they are humanitarians’ (Fontaine 2004, 168, emphasis in original; see also Hammond 2008). In this context one observer states that ‘[t]argeted attacks challenge the deeply-held assumption of the “inviolability” of aid workers, an assumption that, for some, goes together with an image of themselves as altruistic “white knights”’ (Van Brabant 2010, 7).⁵ In line with this assumption, an executive director of the NGO Action Against Hunger, for example, declared that ‘[t]he murders of Action Against Hunger’s team members in Sri Lanka … violated the “sacred” space that a humanitarian office represents’ (Skoula, cited in InterAction 2006, 7).

Therefore the insecurity places humanitarian NGOs in a dilemma. In order to be able to deal with the changing security environment they have (1) to formulate security policies that provide their staff with guidelines on, for example, how to behave in insecure regions, (2) to establish standardized procedures on, for instance, how and with whom to share information about security incidents and they (3) might also have to implement structures to, for example, train their staff for working in violent settings. But establishing such a security management system implies that humanitarian NGOs have to review the underlying principles of their work, because they need to accept that they have to actively deal with security issues, given that passively relying on being automatically protected if they adhere to the humanitarian principles does not guarantee them security (anymore). Consequently, any discussion of an NGO’s security is a difficult endeavour and sometimes even a painful process, all the more so given that for the last few years humanitarianism in general has been questioned due to processes such as politicization and militarization (Barnett and Weiss 2008b; Barnett and Weiss 2011). Furthermore humanitarian NGOs traditionally do not have the organizational capacity for security management. Usually they did not have staff dedicated to, for example, carrying out risk analysis and developing security plans, nor the scope to provide security training for their staff.

The insecurity makes apparent that humanitarian NGOs work in an environment which is characterized by what can be called ‘security interdependency’ (Van Brabant 2010, 5; see also Humanitarian Practice Network 2010b, 17; Micheni 2006, 365; Stoddard et al. 2006). Based on Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, interdependence can be defined as situations characterized by ‘reciprocal (although not necessarily symmetrical) costly effects’ among different actors (Keohane and Nye 1977, 8–9). In the case discussed here, the overall behaviour of one NGO might affect the security of other NGOs, because outsiders have difficulty distinguishing between different NGOs. As one interviewee explained:

[NGO A] is very different [to] [NGO B]. But for the other stakeholders, government, media, general public, civil society, more or less, they are considered as one. … the action or inaction of one organization does impact [upon] the action or inaction of the other and also [on] the risk profile of the whole sector. There have been some incidents when one NGO was intimidated or attacked [because it was] confused with another NGO. And the work profile of [the two] NGOs was totally different, but … this is how they are viewed, as a … collective entity.⁶

In particular, the security strategies that an NGO adopts are not only consequential for the NGO itself, but might also affect the security of other NGOs. In this sense, a handbook for humanitarians states that ‘[i]f a number of agencies operate in a district and the majority of them decide to adopt armed guards, this will increase the vulnerability of the remainder, who have now become a comparatively “soft” target’ (Humanitarian Practice Network 2010b, 17). Hence in order to deal with the changing security environment humanitarian NGOs not only have to change their internal security governance, they also have to reflect on and maybe even change how they conceive of and interact with each other.

Given the security interdependence, security cooperation among humanitarian NGOs makes it possible to reduce costs for dealing with security. For instance, instead of each NGO doing its own security training, joint training reduces costs, and instead of each NGO doing its own risk assessment for a particular working environment, pooling resources for a joint risk assessment may be beneficial to all NGOs. In order to get funding for security measures NGOs might have to lobby their donors, which may be easier when the NGOs work together and formulate a common position, speak with one voice or even write a common proposal. Last but not least, a particular NGO might have important information about the security situation in a specific area that other NGOs do not have, which is why sharing security-relevant information is essential.

However, such cooperative behaviour is not self-evident. On the contrary, ‘there is a tendency to approach security issues with insularity and a reluctance to share information’ (Stoddard et al. 2012, 9) among humanitarian NGOs. This can be explained by various factors. From a functional perspective, competition over scarce resources, the desire to remain autonomous and high costs for setting up and maintaining cooperative structures (Bollettino 2008; Cooley and Ron 2002) are considered to impede cooperation. From an ideational perspective, diverging mandates, different organizational cultures and philosophies, as well as distrust among the organizations (Bollettino 2008; Van Brabant 2010), are said to hinder cooperation.⁷

While a review of NGO security policies carried out at the Center for Refugee and Disaster Response at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2009 states that ‘[l]ess than 10 years ago many humanitarian organizations did not have dedicated security staff or written security documents’ (Rowley et al. 2013, 241), ‘[t]he past decade has seen impressive growth in investment and advances in operational security management by and for international aid agencies’ (Van Brabant 2010, 4; see also Kingston and Behn 2010, 3). Humanitarian NGOs have begun to change their security governance on both the internal organizational and the inter-organizational level. With respect to the former, many humanitarian NGOs have begun to alter their approaches to security, which sometimes includes a revision of the underlying principles of their work, leading to profound institutional changes and resulting in new (security) policies, structures, procedures and practices (Schneiker 2013; 2015). The NGOs, however, differ with respect to how they take account of the changing security environment. While, for instance, some have established a separate security department led by a security manager – who might also be called security adviser, security director or security focal point⁸ – others have added responsibility for security to the portfolio of a country or programme manager. Also, while some humanitarian NGOs accept protection of their staff by the military, others reject any cooperation with military actors.

On the inter-organizational level they have established platforms for cooperation, especially for exchanging security-relevant information, that can be conceived of in terms of networks. Despite the costs for setting up these networks humanitarian NGOs have established their own security networks rather than relying on security structures set up by other actors such as the UN (Micheni and Kuhanendran 2010, 4–7), governments or commercial actors (Renouf 2011, 154). Regarding the ‘Saving Lives Together’ (SLT) framework, for example, which is intended to organize the security cooperation between the UN and NGOs, the participation rate of NGO staff in UN security meetings is reported to be lower than in NGO security forum meetings (Micheni and Kuhanendran 2010, 6–7). This may be also due to the ‘distrust at field level between the UN and NGOs’.⁹

How can we explain such far-reaching changes in a sector that is, on the one hand, generally proud of and adhering to its principles and traditions and, on the other, characterized by a high level of competition and distrust? The literature so far does not provide us with a comprehensive explanation for the observed institutional changes within the humanitarian NGO community. Theoretical approaches that suggest some kind of standardization of organizations’ behaviour, such as organizational isomorphism (Powell and DiMaggio 1991), norm diffusion (Keck and Sikkink 1998) or world culture (Boli and Thomas 1997), for example, cannot fully explain the internal organizational ch...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures and Table
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Chapter 1 Introduction
• Chapter 2 Humanitarian NGOs and their Identity(ies) in the Light of Recent and Ongoing Changes
• Chapter 3 Humanitarian NGOs’ Responses to Insecurity
• Chapter 4 Epistemic Communities and the Institutionalization, Professionalization and Standardization of Humanitarian NGO Security Management
• Chapter 5 From Experience-Based Trust to Identity-Based Trust
• Chapter 6 Conclusion
• References
• Index