• HUMANITARIAN AID: Providing Aid in Insecure Environments: Trends in Policy and Operations • MYANMAR: Myanmar: New Threats to Humanitarian Aid • SUDAN: The 'Protection Crisis': A Review of Field-Based Strategies for Humanitarian Protection • AFGHANISTAN: ACBAR Brief to United Nations Security Council on 'The Situation in Afghanistan' • ARMED CONFLICT: Civil-Military Relations in Armed Conflicts: A Humanitarian Perspective • CIVIL-MILITARY CO-OPERATION: Civil-Military Action in Afghanistan and Liberia • HUMANITARIAN AID : Military Incursions into Aid Work Anger Humanitarian Groups • CIVIL-MILITARY CO-OPERATION : Resetting the Rules of Engagement • HUMANITARIAN SPACE: Humanitarian Space in Insecure Environments: A Shifting Paradigm • POST-CONFLICT RECOVERY: Linking Humanitarian Action and Post-Conflict Recovery • RWANDA: Understanding Integration from Rwanda to Iraq • NEUTRALITY AND IMPARTIALITY: Humanitarian Inviolability in Crisis HUMANITARIAN AID Providing Aid in Insecure Environments: Trends in Policy and Operations Overseas Development Institute // Humanitarian Policy Group (Sept. 2006) This report presents findings from a two-year study examining aid in insecure environments. Drawing on the most comprehensive global dataset to date of major reported incidents of violence against aid workers from 1997 to 2005, it provides a quantitative analysis of the changing security environment for civilian aid operations. It then examines the related trends in policy and operations over the last decade, in particular how perceptions of increased risk to aid operations have affected the development of security measures. Lastly, it explores the way in which aid operations have adapted to working in highly insecure contexts through a growing reliance on national staff. Continue Reading MYANMAR Myanmar: New Threats to Humanitarian Aid Crisis Group (Dec. 2006) The delivery of humanitarian assistance in Burma/Myanmar is facing new threats. After a period in which humanitarian space expanded, aid agencies have come under renewed pressure, most seriously from the military government but also from pro-democracy activists overseas who seek to curtail or control assistance programs. Restrictions imposed by the military regime have worsened in parallel with its continued refusal to permit meaningful opposition political activity and its crackdown on the Karen. The decision of the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to withdraw from the country in 2005 was a serious setback, which put thousands of lives in jeopardy, although it has been partly reversed by the new Three Diseases Fund (3D Fund). There is a need to get beyond debates over the country’s highly repressive political system; failure to halt the slide towards a humanitarian crisis could shatter social stability and put solutions beyond the reach of whatever government is in power. Continue reading
SUDAN The 'Protection Crisis': A Review of Field-Based Strategies for Humanitarian Protection in Darfur Overseas Development Instiute (Dec. 2006) This report presents findings from a two-year study examining aid in insecure environments. Drawing on the most comprehensive global dataset to date of major reported incidents of violence against aid workers from 1997 to 2005, it provides a quantitative analysis of the changing security environment for civilian aid operations. It then examines the related trends in policy and operations over the last decade, in particular how perceptions of increased risk to aid operations have affected the development of security measures. Lastly, it explores the way in which aid operations have adapted to working in highly insecure contexts through a growing reliance on national staff. Continue reading AFGHANISTAN ACBAR Brief to United Nations Security Council on 'The Situation in Afghanistan' Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (Nov. 2006) The impact of insecurity severely affects peace, reconstruction and development processes in Afghanistan. Aid agencies are deeply concerned that if the insurgency continues at its current intensity, it could undermine the positive effects of government and international assistance over the past five years. Many aid agencies operating across the country have had to scale down their work due to insecurity. If this situation persists, then communities living in more remote areas will suffer significantly. Since the beginning of the year, many aid agencies have been forced to restrict their movements to insecure provinces. Across the country, a rise in attacks against government infrastructure and personnel including schools, clinics, teachers, and aid workers, is making longer-term development work extremely difficult. Continue reading ARMED CONFLICT Civil-Military Relations in Armed Conflicts: A Humanitarian Perspective United Nations // United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Nov.2006) In today’s changing security environment, the military are increasingly involved in the direct delivery of relief aid, while some humanitarian organisations have at times found themselves having no other choice but to rely on the military to ensure the safety and security of their staff and operations, and to enable access to populations in need. Whether or not this is a temporary phenomenon or a longer trend that is here to stay, the situation begs for a re-examination of civil-military relations in humanitarian crises. One such attempt was undertaken in 2003-2004 by the humanitarian community through the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC). The discussions led to the adoption of a Reference Paper endorsed by the IASC: “Civil-Military Relationship in Complex Emergencies”. This article examines the background that led to its conception, highlights key features, and considers its practical application. Continue reading
CIVIL-MILITARY CO-OPERATION Principles and Pragmatism: Civil-Military Action in Afghanistan and Liberia Cordaid (May 2006) This study looks into civil-military relations in conflict and post-conflict countries. In recent years, the issue has invoked a heated debate, which has occasionally lacked nuance and clarity. Some guidelines have emerged, but they are hardly sufficient for adequate positioning. This study focuses on Afghanistan and Liberia and is intended to assist policymakers and practitioners in developing adequate strategies by answering the following questions: What does cooperation between peacekeeping forces and aid agencies entail in practice? What are the strengths and weaknesses of peacekeeping forces in providing civilian aid? What are the risks and opportunities involved for NGOs when cooperating with peacekeeping forces? What opinion do civil society organisations in the countries concerned have about cooperation with peacekeeping forces? The study starts out by highlighting the changing nature of contemporary conflict and the concomitant changes in the humanitarian, military and development domains. Continue reading
HUMANITARIAN AID Military Incursions into Aid Work Anger Humanitarian Groups Lancet* (Apr. 2006) The article discusses efforts of the U.S. Department of Defense to coordinate humanitarian aid efforts with non-governmental organizations for the sake of countries ridden with conflict. In Afghanistan and Iraq, such efforts have taken the form of Provincial Reconstruction Teams which secure dangerous areas and carry out work projects, enabling humanitarian aide to follow. While some aid agencies are open to dialogue on the subject, others insist that their work must be free from any perception of political partisanship. Relief agency Oxfam America's Nathaniel Raymond argues that the objection to military integration is not merely ideological, but that the slight perception of political or military agenda can endanger the lives of aid workers. Continue reading
CIVIL-MILITARY CO-OPERATION Resetting the Rules of Engagement: Trends and Issues in Military-Humanitarian Relations Humanitarian Policy Group (Mar. 2006) Changes in the relationship between military forces and humanitarian organisations pose important questions for both communities. Constructive common ground and agreement on core issues of responsibility and competence is needed. This will call for strategic engagement between humanitarian organisations and defence establishments, to reinforce humanitarian principles, improve both communities’ understanding of each other’s comparative expertise, and seek agreement that the core objective of humanitarian action is to save lives and maintain basic human dignity in the face of widespread threats to human survival – regardless of a population’s strategic value. Continue reading
HUMANITARIAN SPACE Humanitarian Space in Insecure Environments: A Shifting Paradigm Center for Contemporary Conflict // Naval Postgraduate School (Nov. 2005) A paradigm shift is taking place in the world of humanitarians. It is evident in the numerous discussions taking place over a very basic concept of humanitarian space. As defined by the European Commission’s Directorate for Humanitarian Aid, “humanitarian space” means “the access and freedom for humanitarian organizations to assess and meet humanitarian needs.” International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) are examples of the many humanitarian organizations that operate in conflict zones today. Humanitarian actors are guided by a common set of principles. However, at least since agents of violence in African refugee camps exploited humanitarian impulses in the 1990s, challenges to these principles have increasingly arisen in humanitarian practice. Compromises to neutrality occur regardless of humanitarian intentions. Continue reading
POST-CONFLICT RECOVERY Room to Manoeuvre: Challenges of Linking Humanitarian Action and Post-Conflict Recovery in the New Global Security Environment United Nations // United Nations Development Programme // Human Development Report Office (Jan. 2005) Humanitarian providers play vital roles in countries undergoing and emerging from conflict, filling crucial needs and representing an important part of the international work toward stabilization and recovery. One set of challenges has to do with the uncertain role of humanitarian actors in transitional or post-conflict situations, and the more pointed debate over the erosion of neutral humanitarian space as a result of recent political and security developments. The US-led Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), situations of asymmetric warfare and counterinsurgency operations, and the increased blending of civil and military responses have created an environment in which humanitarians see their core neutrality principle increasingly compromised. And finally, at the most immediate level, humanitarian actors struggle also with the erosion of their physical security – most certainly in the cases of Afghanistan and Iraq, and possibly as a general trend. Continue reading
RWANDA Understanding Integration from Rwanda to Iraq Ethics & International Affairs* (Sept. 2004) The past decade has seen profound changes in the relationship between humanitarian and political action. The political determinants of humanitarian crises are now acknowledged, so too is their chronicity, and the limits of relief aid as a form of intervention are thus more fully understood. In 1994, in the refugee camps of Goma, Zaire, there was widespread manipulation of aid resources by armed groups implicated in the genocide in Rwanda. This experience highlighted a wider concern that, rather than doing good, emergency aid can fuel violence. The apparent consensus that humanitarian assistance can somehow stand outside politics gave way to calls for tighter linkage between aid and political responses to crises. This issue of 'Ethics & International Affairs' contains additional articles on integration of humanitarian assistance. Continue reading
NEUTRALITY AND IMPARTIALITY Humanitarian Inviolability in Crisis: The Meaning of Impartiality and Neutrality for U.N. and NGO Agencies Following the 2003–2004 Afghanistan and Iraq Conflicts Harvard Human Rights Journal* (Spring 2004) Humanitarian inviolability is the ability of humanitarian relief agencies, whether official agencies such as the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) or private organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), to act in situations of extreme human need and suffering, particularly in circumstances of armed conflict, with the assurance that their personnel, their property, and their activities will not be made the object of attack. It is a concept that is at the core of all humanitarian relief work, especially during war, when the cooperation of the belligerent parties is essential to the relief of suffering and privation. It rests upon two pillars: neutrality, which is the assurance given by humanitarian agencies that their efforts are not in military support of either side, and impartiality, which means such effort is rendered to the noncombatant population of each side without distinction and according to need. The noble concept of inviolability is now under attack and in crisis. Continue reading
Compiled by Barbora Farkasova and Robert Hartfiel Human Security Research is produced by the Human Security Centre at the Liu Institute for Global Issues at UBC. The Human Security Centre produces the annual Human Security Report and is funded by the governments of Canada, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. For more information on human security visit the Human Security Gateway, an online research and information database that contains a broad range of human security-related resources. To subscribe to Human Security Research , send an email to hsc.list@ubc.ca with 'subscribe HS Research' in the subject field or click here. To unsubscribe, please reply to this message with 'unsubscribe HS Research' in the subject heading. |
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