Humanitarian Crises, Intervention and Security

A Framework for Evidence-Based Programming

Liesbet Heyse, Andrej Zwitter, Rafael Wittek, Joost Herman, Liesbet Heyse, Andrej Zwitter, Rafael Wittek, Joost Herman

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781138236622
• eBook ISBN: 9781134419098
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book presents a new framework of analysis to assess natural and man-made disasters and humanitarian crises, and the feasibility of interventions in these complex emergencies.

The past half-century has witnessed a dramatic increase in such crises - such as in Haiti, Iraq and Sudan - and this volume aims to pioneer a theory-based, interdisciplinary framework that can assist students and practitioners in the field to acquire the skills and expertise necessary for evidence-based decision-making and programming in humanitarian action. It has four major objectives:

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• To provide a tool for diagnosing and understanding complex emergencies, and build on the concepts of state security and human security to provide a 'Snap-Shot Analysis' of the status quo;

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• To provide a tool for analysing the causes of crises as well as the related stakeholder field;

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• To provide a frame to structure and analyse the information required to evaluate, monitor and/or design interventions for different actors on a project and/or programme level;

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• To combine concepts used in the humanitarian field with underlying theory in a practically relevant way.

The book will be of much interest to students of humanitarian intervention, human security, peacebuilding, development studies, peace studies and IR in general.

1 The need for evidence-based programming in humanitarian action

Liesbet Heyse, Andrej Zwitter, Rafael Wittek and Joost Herman

Ongoing challenges to provide impactful humanitarian aid

The field of humanitarian action continues to struggle with the challenge to conduct impactful humanitarian aid interventions. In part, this is because humanitarian action as a professional field cannot build on generalizable principles, large-scale datasets and case studies to provide one-size-fits-all intervention strategies. Rather, aid organizations have to design their interventions every time to fit the conditions and circumstances of an area with its cultural, political, economic, health and environmental specificities.

That these challenges persist, has been made painfully evident again with the Haiti earthquake. After the earthquake in 2010, Haiti experienced a massive influx of a variety of humanitarian and military actors. Due to the fact that the country’s infrastructure was almost totally destroyed, the logistical side of humanitarian aid provision presented a tremendous challenge to the sector. However, this was not the only problem faced by humanitarian actors. Evaluations of the Haiti aid operations pointed at recurrent ‘classic’ flaws in the aid activities (CARE/Save the Children 2010, Patrick 2011). For example, many emergency products such as bottled water and medicines were imported and freely distributed while they were locally available. The influx of free goods in the local economy resulted in local businesses having to shut down, thereby further weakening the already weak economic infrastructure of the country. Evaluators attributed this mistake to a lack of contextual understanding (CARE/Save the Children 2010: 30).

Also, information was lacking with regard to targeted food distributions; there was no documentation that outlined community information strategies or any orientation for staff involved (CARE/Save the Children 2010). In addition, the quality of targeting and level of coverage was criticized. This problem was deemed to be due to a lack of available data and regular profiling of the population (Patrick 2011). All in all, as an OECD synthesis of evaluation reports summarized:

Largely unfamiliar with humanitarian natural disasters in urban areas and compounded by poor contextual understanding of Haiti’s society and economy and of the capacity of key stakeholders, the humanitarian community’s reaction was a classical response: self contained, working outside government systems and reliant on imported material and personnel, supporting displaced individuals in internally displaced persons camps with food and non-food assistance.

(Patrick 2011: 4)

The Haiti earthquake showed that the humanitarian sector is confronted with a persistent challenge to provide impactful aid. One important explanation for the persistence of this challenge is, as suggested by the above evaluators, the lack of analysis of humanitarian crisis situations and the use of these analyses in humanitarian work. This lack of understanding of the context can also hamper the design of appropriate risk management measures in humanitarian projects. In addition, lack of analysis and correct use of information can lead to ‘classical mistakes’ which seriously affect the outcomes of humanitarian aid operations and can even lead to more harm than good, as not only the Haiti earthquake but other humanitarian crises have shown. For example, also after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, subsequent Tsunami evaluators stated that ineffective and inappropriate recovery programs were implemented due to a lack of awareness of the context at both the individual and institutional level (TEC 2006). This book focuses on ways to improve the use of information and analysis in humanitarian programming.

Humanitarian mission versus humanitarian reality

The core mission of humanitarian organizations is to save lives at risk and to relieve suffering of victims of ‘man-made’ or ‘natural disasters’ by providing high quality aid to those who need it most (Barnett and Weiss 2008). In its classic meaning, humanitarian aid is focused on the immediate aftermath of a crisis, conflict or disaster, which is then followed by phases of reconstruction, rehabilitation and development. However, given the increased acknowledgement of the structural causes of humanitarian crises – in terms of lack of preparedness, prevention and resilience (see also Chapter 2) – humanitarian aid projects also often have elements of prevention, risk reduction and ‘building back better’ (Fan 2013). In this book, we therefore adhere to this more extended interpretation of humanitarian aid.

Humanitarian aid requires the swift and correct identification and diagnosis of humanitarian problems and groups in need, next to decisions whether to start providing aid and, if so, whom to help, where, when and how. In addition, it requires a thorough risk assessment in order to assure that aid can be delivered safely. Once an aid project is started, it requires continuous monitoring of project activities, the context as well as the risk management strategies, in order to assure quality and safe access, and adapt activities when necessary. The humanitarian programming process in the sector is therefore often presented in terms of a project management cycle, referring to a step-wise process of identifying and formulating programming activities, planning and implementing activities, monitoring and evaluating them, as well as adapting activities when necessary (see for example, ECHO 2005 and ICRC 2011). These activities are employed with the aim – at the minimum – to prevent that no harm is done (Anderson 1999). The ambition of humanitarian aid providers is however much higher, namely to provide high quality aid that has impact, is appropriate, effective, sustainable and efficient, and meets all kinds of other quality criteria such as for example outlined in the Sphere standards.

In the past decades the sector has worked hard to get closer to meeting these ambitions. During and after the humanitarian operations in the 1990s (Rwanda, Somalia, Kosovo), the sector was criticized extensively for its lacking performance and the unintended, harmful consequences of its actions (Sommer 1994, Whitman and Pocock 1996). The sector was called to increase accountability and transparency, to professionalize its operations and to improve coordination (Edwards and Hulme 1996, Brown and Moore 2001, Choudhury and Ahmed 2002). This led to many initiatives, such as the Sphere project, the Cluster approach, the Good Humanitarian Donorship Initiative, the founding of ALNAP and ELHRA, and increased attention to Operational Security Management (HPN/ODI 2010). In addition, aid workers started to regularly follow training and obtained academic degrees in humanitarian action.¹ Furthermore, scholarly attention to the work and functioning of humanitarian organizations has grown tremendously.²

As a result of these initiatives, much has been learned about and done to improve the sector’s performance, with positive results (de Waal 2010). To name a few: there is now increased recognition of the importance of involving local actors and staff in humanitarian programming, implementation and evaluation (see, for example, ALNAP 2003, Barry and Barham 2012), next to increased awareness of the importance of applying coherent and comprehensive approaches to humanitarian crises (Cahill 2007), as represented in the UN cluster approach, or attention to disaster risk reduction and resilience (Twigg 2004) and the link between relief, rehabilitation and development (International Review of the Red Cross 2011). Also, systematic approaches to security risk management for maintaining access have become mainstream, such as reflected in the Saving Lives Together recommendations of the IASC Steering Group on Security (2011) and the UN To Stay and Deliver document (OCHA 2011).

Nevertheless, the humanitarian mission to relieve suffering by providing high quality aid in an effective, appropriate and impactful way remains an ongoing challenge. This is partly due to the context in which humanitarian organizations’ work is done, which is – maybe more than ever – characterized by complexity and constant and rapid change. This context presents humanitarian actors with multiple challenges in terms of access, security, political and cultural constraints, and issues of funding and staffing. For example, governmental donors increasingly view humanitarian assistance as part of a larger military strategy aimed at international stability and defense, which has created a complex relationship between humanitarian organizations and the military (ALNAP 2012a). Also, funding has become more dependent on these strategic interests. Furthermore, humanitarian aid workers continue to face risks of being wounded, murdered or taken hostage (see, for example, the Aid Worker Security Database at www.aid-workersecurity.org) whereas at the same time humanitarian organizations are frequently obstructed by political actors (ICRC 2012) or need to engage with a complex set of other actors, such as private development companies, security providers and infrastructure providers.

Nevertheless, the difficult context of aid provision is not the only cause for problematic aid provision. The organizations themselves also do not live up to the expectations at all times. As the Haiti example shows, humanitarian organizations make (repetitive) mistakes in their programming. These are partly deemed to be the result of standardized and supply-driven responses to humanitarian crisis and the lacking use of information and analysis (Bradt 2009, Darcy 2009). This has not only been the conclusion of evaluations of major humanitarian responses, such as after the Tsunami (2005) and the Haiti earthquake (2010), but is also subject of a steady stream of professional and academic publications (see, for example, Coyne 2013, Levine et al. 2011, Donahue and Tuohy 2007). The use of seeds and tools programs in humanitarian aid illustrates this point. Such programs can be a suitable response when targeted households do not have access to seeds and tools, when there is a lack of good quality seeds and tools, and this lack negatively impacts production (Maxwell et al. 2008). However, humanitarian seeds and tools programs are implemented in situations that do not meet these conditions (Levine and Chastre 2004), resulting in adverse effects, as has been painfully illustrated for the case of Caluquembe in Angola: seeds programs promoted maize and beans production, which resulted in a monoculture, inducing low prices on the market and heavy reliance on a single source of income, leaving households extremely vulnerable to shocks (Van Dijkhorst 2011). So, it is one problem if humanitarian aid is not as effective as one would hope it would be, but yet another if aid leads to harm and deterioration of people’s lives.

The humanitarian sector is thus facing a continuous challenge to improve its performance and reduce (repetitive) mistakes in an ever increasing complex environment. This challenge needs to be addressed as part of the sector’s duty to be accountable, not only to their donors and the general public, but also – and especially – to the aid recipients. This book aims to contribute to address this challenge by focusing on one particular aspect of humanitarian programming: tools and methods to improve information collection, processing and analysis in designing humanitarian aid projects in all phases of the project management cycle.

Using evidence in programming

Information collection, processing and analysis are key to successful and impactful humanitarian programming, but are often lacking in humanitarian programming (Maxwell et al. 2013a, Levine et al. 2011, Darcy 2009, Haan et al. 2005). Without information and the proper analysis of it, it is impossible to make informed decisions about humanitarian aid and how to deliver it safely. However, not all information is equally relevant. Particular types of information especially contribute to better humanitarian programming, as is nicely illustrated in the OECD Haiti evaluation synthesis:

Largely missing from these assessments … were contextual analyses (particularly on political and economic issues) and capacity assessments of Haitian stakeholders (most notably the Haitian government) which would have allowed the humanitarian community a greater understanding of Haitian social and political dynamics and of the capacities of their natural Haitian partners across government and civil society to engage with and even lead recovery. Compounding these gaps in analysis, valuable studies and assessments conducted by Haitians themselves were largely ignored.

(Patrick 2011: 3)

Hence, one way to address the persistent need for improved programming is by means of better, correct and increased use of relevant information in humanitarian planning and programming.

We specify the distinction between information and relevant ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of boxes
• List of contributors
• Preface
• 1 The need for evidence-based programming in humanitarian action
• 2 Existing frameworks for humanitarian crisis analysis
• 3 Context analysis and securitization
• 4 From theory to analysis: H-AID methodology
• 5 Conducting a Comprehensive Context Analysis (CCA)
• 6 The political context
• 7 The economic context
• 8 The social-cultural context
• 9 The health and food context
• 10 The environmental context
• 11 From context analysis to intervention design
• 12 Stakeholder analysis: towards feasible interventions
• 13 Monitoring, evaluation and learning in humanitarian organizations
• Conclusion
• References
• Index