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Iraq: NCCI's Weekly Highlight - 29 May 2008

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Fearing for the Future of the Humanitarian Enterprise

The Humanitarian Agenda 2015: Principles, Power and Perceptions research project of the Feinstein International Center recently issued its final report. Since early 2006, a multi-disciplinary team from the Center canvassed perceptions of the work of humanitarian agencies from the bottom up - focusing on the perceptions of communities and individuals who benefit from or observe the functioning of, the humanitarian enterprise.

The State of the Humanitarian Enterprise, (Antonio Donini, et al), summarizes the findings of the research - the constraints, challenges and compromises affecting humanitarian action in conflict and crisis settings. The building blocks were 12 case studies of local perceptions conducted in 2006 and 2007 in Afghanistan, Burundi, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Liberia, Nepal, northern Uganda, the occupied Palestinian territory, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Sudan.

The approach was evidence-based. Findings were distilled through an inductive process involving interviews and focus group discussions at the community level aimed at eliciting local perceptions. Additional data was collected from aid staff and other observers at the country level. More than 2,000 people provided inputs into the research.

The findings are analyzed around four issues: the universality of humanitarianism; the impact of terrorism and counter-terrorism on humanitarian action; the thrust toward coherence between humanitarian and political agendas, and; the security of humanitarian personnel and the communities benefiting from humanitarian action.

The findings highlight a crisis of humanitarianism in the post 9/11 world. International action aimed at assisting and protecting the most vulnerable is, for the most part, inextricably linked to a northern security and political agenda. Nevertheless, principled humanitarian action, though battered at times, constitutes an essential safety net for people in extremis deserving of nurture and protection. Such action occupies a crucial but increasingly precarious position at the intersection of (a) international political / security agendas and (b) the coping strategies of people affected by crisis and conflict. It is instrumentalized and torn between principle and pragmatism as perhaps never before, particularly in high-profile crises.

Though the traditional values of humanitarianism still resonate among affected communities in all of the settings studied, the humanitarian enterprise itself is divided on the extent to which core principles should be respected, particularly in the more asymmetrical and intractable crises they have to confront. This disquiet affects the quality and the coherence of the assistance and protection provided.

To confirm that humanitarians need to be wary of politics, even as they do their work in highly politicized settings is nothing new. What is new in the post-Cold War and post-9/11 eras is that the stakes are much higher because the extent of need has proliferated, the awareness of need has become more instantaneous and more global, and humanitarian action has become a multi-billion dollar enterprise. When it occupied the margins of conflict - as, for example, in refugee camps outside conflict areas - humanitarian action was an activity of generally minor consequence to belligerence. Aid agencies were accepted or tolerated as beneficial, or at least non-threatening. Now humanitarian action is very often at the center of conflicts and of international concern. It influences, as well as reflects, public opinion and the views of governments at the national and global levels.

Moreover, politicization, militarization and privatization nowadays represents more of a challenge for those parts of a diverse enterprise striving for a modicum of fidelity to principle. Many mainstream agencies have been drawn implicitly or explicitly into the service of political agendas. Only a minority have exhibited the policy determination and financial wherewithal to resist. It thus remains debatable whether the assortment of agencies and individuals that comprise the humanitarian enterprise can - or should - maintain the fiction that they are all parts of the same movement, functioning as parts of a common apparatus.

The research data also confirms that the humanitarian enterprise has become much more institutionalized. Standards have gained currency, programs have become more contextualized, and professionalism has improved. Yet despite the rhetoric of downward accountability to beneficiaries, mainstream humanitarians continue to talk principally to the like-minded, shunning different or dissenting voices. Much that is local and non-western in humanitarian action goes unrecognized: the coping mechanisms of communities, the parallel life-saving universe that includes zakat, migration and remittances. These constitute the unrecorded assistance flows of groups and countries that are not part of the northern-drive humanitarian system.

The wider meaning. The HA2015 findings confirm the good news that humanitarian action remains an essential - and sometimes dominant - element in the international response to crisis and conflict. Increasingly, it is a factor in the undertakings and calculations of political and military players. However, the bad news is that humanitarianism's high profile status entails a constant risk of misunderstanding, false expectation, and delusions of grandeur. There is a persistent and worrying perception gap between outsiders and insiders - that is, between aid agencies and the communities they aim to help.

Despite examples of creative problem-solving, humanitarians have not acquitted themselves well in protecting the integrity of humanitarian interests and operations from recurrent infiltrations of political and military actors. As the authors conclude, 'Absent the cultivation of greater resourcefulness and resilience, therefore, we fear for the future of the humanitarian enterprise.'

The findings of the HA2015 country study on Iraq are summarized in an NCCI Focus on Operationality Briefing Paper at:http://www.ncciraq.org/IMG/pdf_NCCI__Focus_on_Operationality_6_-_Perceptions_of_Humanitarianism_in_Iraq.pdf

Salaam
NCCI Team