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Published: September 8, 2016 | By Christina Wille

Christina Wille is Director of Insecurity Insight, an organisation dedicated to generating data on the impact of insecurity on people’s lives and wellbeing.

Many critics believe that humanitarianism is in crisis, and not just because security has deteriorated for aid workers. Some argue that humanitarian space has been shrinking and attribute this to a variety of causes that include an increase in asymmetric conflicts, blurring of boundaries between military and humanitarian action, dilemmas for humanitarian agencies about when to speak out and when to withdraw, and how to manage the growing number of humanitarian actors. Over the last decade, it has often been suggested that better integration of humanitarian work into human rights or development objectives may be what is needed.

This post discusses Larissa Fast’s book ‘Aid in Danger’ and how some of the ideas in the book can be applied to humanitarian security risk management. The book discusses the origins of humanitarian insecurity and suggests a renewed emphasis on humanitarian principles as the solution. The main focus of this blog is my interpretation of Larissa’s ideas of how the principle of humanity can be better reflected in humanitarian security risk management approaches.

This post primarily argues that the humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence are not a magic shield capable of protecting aid work because humanitarian agencies are actors within and not separate from the contexts in which they work. The second key point is that security incidents are not only the result of external factors affecting humanitarian agencies but that factors resulting from internal agency policy and staff behaviour also impact aid worker security. Good security risk management means taking into consideration internal factors as well as external ones.

Origins of humanitarianism in crisis: humanitarian exceptionalism and the search for the external reason

One of the primary ideas of the book, which I find particularly relevant for security risk management, is the dilemma caused by the humanitarian self-image of exceptionalism. To illustrate this self-image of exceptionalism, Larissa points out that the aid community views itself apart from the conflicts it operates in and the community it serves and believes that aid agencies should be immune from violence because they are neutral and impartial. Aid workers are seen as a special category of civilians deserving protection.

As agencies know, living this theoretical concept in the real world is difficult. Most humanitarian aid workers are local and it is difficult to draw a line between the ‘special status’ derived from the nature of their work and their personal lives within their families and communities. International staff, while often more easily perceived as separate from the communities they serve, also lead private lives outside of working hours and humanitarian work responsibilities. I believe that aid workers’ private spheres, which are often unrecognised, have implications for security risk management. These internal agency vulnerabilities are hidden and are often ignored because they are difficult to reconcile with the dominant humanitarian self-image.

The dominant conceptual framework of exceptionalism makes it difficult for the aid community to account for the full range of what causes insecurity among aid workers. The dominant public discourse describes security threats as external to the humanitarian aid worker who, in turn, is often described as targeted for ideological reasons. Several ‘terrorist’ style attacks on aid agencies support such an interpretation of new external threats that encroach on humanitarian space, take for example the attacks on UN buildings in Baghdad (2003) and Algiers (2007) as well as the attack on the World Vision office in Pakistan (2010) and many others. But as humanitarian agencies know, ‘terrorist’ style attacks are luckily the rare exception and that the constant trickle of less severe security events agencies struggle with on a daily basis have other origins.

A detrimental consequence of the external risk perception of security is that it leads to blaming rather than understanding. In the aftermath of a security incident, there is the desire to point the finger at someone for what has happened. Blame may be put on the bad intentions of the perpetrator, on the lack of a persuasive acceptance policy, inadequate security risk management, or the victims themselves. Moreover, security risk management that is only driven by a perception of external threats carries the risk of bunkerisation to protect from external threats.

Ideas for a self-critical security risk management approach inspired by the principle of humanity

What is the alternative to our dominant framework?

Larissa believes that the dominant narratives of external security concerns have eroded the relational core of humanitarianism. She argues that organisations ought to reclaim humanity as its guiding principle of action and reform by adopting relational approaches to security risk management. Good organisations accept that human failures are part of every endeavour, and therefore they seek to reduce the risk of human mistakes by focusing on learning from past failures and supporting people to achieve their best.

Larissa’s central argument is that aid delivery occurs within a complex web of relationships between aid workers themselves; aid workers and their host populations and beneficiaries; aid workers and local partners; and governments and aid agencies. Security has to be understood within these complex relationships. Good security assessments should look beyond the dominant discourse of externally driven threats and dynamics and protection through hardened security measures. Instead, it is essential to understand the importance of everyday practices, to be mindful of human fragility, organisational missteps and the constant possibility of failures in systems, a topic also discussed in a past EISF blog.

To help with the analysis, Larissa proposes a framework that recognises the dominant narratives but equally looks at often hidden narratives. These hidden factors are frequently related to personal circumstances, including behaviour, relationships, and sometimes dynamics unrelated to professional humanitarian work responsibilities. Hidden causes are also found in formally unexamined internal structures within organisations, including the responses to security incidents. The reputational cost of organisational shortcomings, such as corruption within agencies, violation of social norms, or deficiencies in organisational policies or decision-making is potentially severe. It is therefore in the agency’s interest to keep these factors hidden from public discourse. The emphasis on external factors is thus convenient.