Attachments
Introduction
Overview
Every day hundreds of humanitarian staff, from frontline workers to senior leaders, must engage with people in positions of power. They do so to negotiate the safe and rapid delivery of humanitarian aid. These people range from soldiers and warlords to donors and state authorities. Negotiating with everyone who controls or has influence over the provision of aid, services and assistance is a key part of humanitarian work. Without a doubt, it is also challenging:
During these negotiations, staff can face pressures to make compromises to the humanitarian principles. For example, they may be told to accept interference in their programmes, take armed escorts, handover sensitive data or pay bribes if they want approvals to operate. Requests can be reasonable and based on real concerns, for example authorities might be concerned that aid is being misused or of poor quality. Other requests may be attempts to delay or redirect humanitarian assistance for political, financial or military purposes. These requests may lead to additional costs, inefficiencies or liabilities for the organisation, which means less resources for aid. More importantly, for people in need, interference may cause delays and unnecessary suffering.
To have successful negotiations, staff need to have clarity on organisational positions. They need to know what they can agree to, what they need to escalate to their leadership, and what requests they need to walk away from. If staff do not have clarity they may make compromises that undermine principled and effective humanitarian action, or they may escalate all decisions to management.
ICVA surveys have found that few organisations currently have guidance on what principled humanitarian action means in their operations, meaning often staff are left to make decisions about how to approach a request themselves, and may make compromises that have negative consequences.