Kalehe, a territory in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)located just to the north of Bukavu, has witnessed an unprecedented humanitarian crisis triggered by heavy rains in May 2023, resulting in at least 513 deaths, 5 525 people missing, 2 046 houses destroyed, many schools and health centres destroyed However, it was possible to prevent some of the worst effects of the crisis if efforts of reforestation were undertaken beforehand to reduce risks to lives and livelihoods. The DRC Humanitarian Observatory (DRC HO) calls for more attention to prevent such crises sustainably in the future in the DRC and in other similar contexts in the world.A humanitarian crisis with multiple consequences
Kalehe is one of the territories in the province of South-Kivu located in the northern side of Bukavu city (capital city of South-Kivu province). It covers the Eastern littoral of the Kivu Lake in Eastern DRC. Decades ago, there was a large tree-planting effort to protect the environment. In recent years, however, Kalehe’s population has grown rapidly due to the presence of Internally Displaced People (IDPs) in the territory. As a result of this, Kalehe has experienced widescale and rapid deforestation and loss of grassland in the middle and high plateaux to produce wood and charcoal without planting other trees.
In the night of 4 May 2023, heavy rains caused water levels to rise,as well as flooding in some villages of the Bushushu groupement in the Buhavu chiefdom of this territory. The Lukungula River of Bushushu, and the Kamikonzi River in Nyamukubi went beyond their limits, resulting in flooding and spreading of mixture of water, large stones, and mud in four out of seven sub villages of the locality, particularly Bushushu, Kabuchungu, Nyamukubi and Musumba. The humanitarian consequences of this were dramatic and multiform: 5525 people missing, more than 513 bodies buried, more than 2046 houses totally destroyed, more than 562 families mourning, many schools and health centres destroyed, loss of household assets including tables, chairs, and loss of documents of value such as electoral cards. The DRC HO team conducted fieldwork from 29 through 30 June 2023 in the area to know more about the crisis. WFP’s emergency response to the Kalehe floods, South Kivu – Flash Report #2 (19 May 2023) – Democratic Republic of the Congo | ReliefWebKalehe crisis: challenges of the humanitarian assistance
During the fieldwork, the team identified several challenges associated with: (i) people’s (re-)location, (ii) deforestation, (iii) insufficient aid and, (iv) deficit of accountability while delivering assistance.
Challenges of relocation: four villages were totally devastated, people lacked where to reside in terms of on which land to construct houses, infrastructures such as water points, health centres, schools, churches, markets, fields for cultivation, etc.
Challenges of reforestation: people did fell trees without control; areas became entirely less grassy because of charcoal production and/or cultivable land. There was a clear link between lack of environmental protection and mud and landslides, which cause wide scale destruction
Challenges of insufficient aid: state actors (Government, First Lady) and non-state actors (churches, associations), international actors (ACTED, OXFAM, Caritas, World Vision, MIDEFEOPS, Mercy Corps), together with United Nations agencies (OCHA, PAM, HCR, UNICEF) mobilized themselves since the start of the crisis. Even though, needs remained huge in terms of food and non-food items (shelters, clothes, kitchen items, cover, mosquito nets), water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), education, health, agriculture, psychosocial support, dignity kits for women,among others.
Challenges of accountability while delivering assistance: Some mechanisms of accountability were operational on the ground. Even though, in the vast majority of cases, there were reporting about discrimination of true beneficiaries in the selection process, which worked in favour of those who were close relatives to local leaders, often leaving out victims. In other cases, corruption took the form of bribing assistance by some humanitarian actors and selection of beneficiaries who were not victims. They delivered assistance without necessarily involving affected people and without any intention to take into account their points of viewsnor did they think reporting to them. At the same time however, actors reported more to their donors than towards affected people.
Photo 1: survival of the Kalehe crisis waiting for assistance in front of a humanitarian actor office, photo of 30 June 2023, in KaleheContextual factors
Kalehe is located at 60 kilometres from Bukavu city; most of humanitarian actors have offices at in Bukavu. Local leaders created a local crisis committee in Kalehe. According to informants, it is at this stage that there were many cases of aid misappropriation in terms of weak coordination of interventions on the ground, resulting in double cases, omissions, embezzlements, falsifications of recipient lists by some humanitarian actors in complicity with some local authorities. There was not necessarily harmony between lists of genuine victims and those who benefited aid; as a result, some received aid more than three times, while others did not receive anything. The weak involvement of affected populations in needs’ identification contributed negatively. Some actors worked just with local leaders who, often less informed of categories of peoples’ specific needs. Community leaders, supposed to represent the population, hardly fed back information shared in meetings to their constituency; creating an information vacuum.
Two recommendations
During the DRC HO event of 15 September 2023, where they shared and discussed fieldwork findings, participants formulated two main recommendations in the sense of concrete actions to set in place:
Relocate affected people close to cultivable lands
During and after the crises in DRC, displaced people tended to settle in the Kalehe territory. Kalehe is a zone heavily occupied by plantations of wealthy people, and so the task to find an appropriate site for IDPs became a major challenge. This recommendation abides by the tripartite Congolese State-land owners-affected populations paradigm to ensure that people can live in peace. At the same time, reforestation efforts should be intensified, especially in hilly and affected and non-affected areas.
Concentration of humanitarian aid in favour of affected populations by working for and with them.
To maximize chances to assist the maximum of affected people, IDPs need to be at the heart of assistance interventions. Needs’ identification, lists of distribution and their approval, certification of right victims are all examples of true willingness to involve them in the all process of assistance. Taking into account all relevant sectors namely health, education, reconstruction, habitat, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), and socio-psychological support. The improvement of social accountability during aid delivery, in particular downward accountability rather than just upward accountability. These lessons should guide every assistance coordination similar to the Kalehe context in the DRC and across the globe.
[1] We wrote this blog from the discussion of the DRC-HO event of 15 September 2023; we recognize active participation of Denise Shukuru Manegabe, Samuella Lukenge, Moise Amisi Ezdra, Kamos Bishindo, Darcin Ajuaye Kagadju and Innocent Assumani.Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.
About the Authors:
Patrick Milabyo Kyamusugulwa is a Professor at the Bukavu High Institute of Medical Techniques, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). He is a member of the DRC Humanitarian Observatory and member of the Social Science Centre for African Development-KUTAFITI.
Delu Lusambya Mwenebyake is a PhD researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies (Erasmus University Rotterdam). Delu is working on humanitarian governance in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Community-driven, accountability, and advocacy in Humanitarian Actions.
Jules Amani Kamanyula is a member of both CERDHO of the Catholic University of Bukavu and the DRC Humanitarian Observatory.
Rachel Sifa Katembera is a member of civil society and active member of the DRC Humanitarian Observatory.
Léonie Aishe Saidi is a medical doctor, both member of Assist ASBL and the DRC Humanitarian Observatory.
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This blog is part of the Humanitarian Governance: Accountability, Advocacy, Alternatives’ project. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 884139
In this blog, Carla Vitantonio (and host of the ‘Living Decoloniality’ podcast), takes stock of the views of humanitarian practitioners and researchers at the recent Humanitarian Leadership Conference, held in Doha, Qatar. Throughout the conference, Carla interviewed various humanitarian practitioners and researchers for a special podcast series. She posed two questions, about challenges for humanitarians in a time of polycrisis, and about hope for the future. To listen to the podcast, check out the CHL website.
On April 6th, roughly 70 days after the cancellation of USAID and the earthquake that shook the humanitarian and development sector, about 200 people from 85 different countries met in Doha for the Humanitarian Leadership Conference. Roughly 200 more joined online.
The organization of the event had been uncertain until the very end, as organizers themselves have been deeply affected by the cuts and so had most of the participants. But at the end, thanks to the firm willingness and hard work of the organizers, all pieces fell together and people arrived from all over the world, with some of them crossing through zones affected by conflict and disasters, to attend the two days of conference and one extra day organized by the Pledge for Change, a movement that seeks to decolonize the sector. The title of the conference, “transformative leadership in times of polycrisis”, which only few months before had seemed to many a simple exercise of anticipation, proved to capture perfectly the feelings of many participants, who arrived in Doha looking for answers and solutions to an unprecedently complex web of problems.
The challenges faced by the humanitarian sector are both personal and professional
I am a humanitarian living and working in Cuba, one of the most unseen crisis in the world (some participants to the conference openly admitted that they did not know that since 2022 Cuba has been affected by 3 devastating hurricanes, a strong earthquake and a growing socioeconomic crisis that keeps every day the country in the darkness for several hours, and has brought more than one million people – one tenth of the total population – to flee). I had to travel almost 3 days to reach Qatar, and I found myself overwhelmed by the intensity, variety, depth of the content shared through the conference.
As I often do, I decided to use storytelling to create threads and a sort of order among this huge volume of information, and I invited 6 of the people who had impressed me the most to share their own story, guided by two questions:
In times of polycrisis, what is one challenge and one opportunity for you and your organization?
What is one thing from this conference that makes you hopeful for the future?
I had to arrange interviews in very different times of each day. Some speakers could make it very early in the morning, had to skip breakfast and so their voice was still a bit rusty. Others gave me their time after a long day of conference. Their voices sound tired. Some had to speak the day after. Their voices betray anxiety. Some were happy with the outcome of their session. Their voices sound hopeful.
They were all honest, generous, gentle to me, and their perspective helped me in finding my way through the conference.
One month after the conference, I feel I can draw some reflections:
Local leadership is now. As a coach told me once, a “beautiful, unique party is happening now”. Organizations need to decide if they are ready to join, or if they prefer to just keep discussing The transformation we have been talking about for long is already taking place. In the Emergency Response Rooms (ERR) in Sudan, through the courageous appeals of the Myanmar civil society, the actions of the White Helmets and of the many others that decided to take action and not to wait for those in power to give them permission.
Finally, the discourse on the coloniality entrenched in the system is gaining voice and space. The abstract need to “decolonize the sector” is slowly being transformed into a series of creative, profound attempts to analyse all our practices, to identify the coloniality that shapes them, and to transform them into something else. We need to work for change to happen at all levels. Advocacy and alliance at global level is paramount. Bringing philanthropy onboard and contributing to its own change is also very important, but we also need to look critically at the principles that move humanitarian assistance, and at our processes. Coloniality needs to be disentangled one piece after the other.
INGOs are struggling to follow the rhythm of this change. Some that signed the Pledge for Change in 2022 today face difficulties inchanging a system built on inequalities. But besides those initial 12 signatories of the Pledge for Change, and a few notable others the debate on the decolonization of practices and processes is virtually absent from the agenda of many, while others engage in aesthetic debates on the use of correct vocabulary.
In summary, the humanitarian leadership conference 2025 left many questions on how to leverage transformative leadership to bring about a new humanitarian sector.
However, something emerged clearly: the change we have been talking of happening before our eyes. Are we being this change, or are we rather standing aside? Each one will make their own choice. Meanwhile, enjoy the listening.
Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.
About the Author
Carla Vitantonio
Carla Vitantonio is a humanitarian practitioner and researcher who has worked across a number of contexts and organisations, including CARE (as country Director for Cuba), and Handicap International (including as country Director for North Korea). She contributes to academic research initiatives at institutes including the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, the European University Institute, and ODI. Carla hosts the podcast ‘Living Decoloniality’, and also serves on the Board of the International Humanitarian Studies Association, as well as regularly contributing blogs, think pieces and papers – in English, Spanish, and Italian.
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In this blog, Andrew Cunningham (Independent Humanitarian Practitioner and Board Member of the International Humanitarian Studies Association, IHSA) considers the principle of ‘humanity’ during conflict, and its interaction with other key humanitarian principles including neutrality, impartiality, and independence. He also looks at how humanitarians can integrate dignity into their work, and how these principles may develop in highly politicised and fast-moving times. This blog summarises a contribution to the roundtable that followed the inaugural IHSA Annual Lecture and is part of a series of blogs produced following the Lecture, which took place in Bergen in May 2024 under the theme of “War and Humanity”.
The principle of humanity is often overlooked when we talk about the humanitarian principles. Focus is normally placed on the ‘big three’ principles – impartiality, independence, and neutrality. The most important of these is impartiality, which is the promise of non-discrimination and lack of bias in aid provision. The idea is to help those most in need regardless of who they are. Impartiality is a central and required aspect of humanitarian’s identity.
Independence, which allows aid organisations to make their own choices outside political interference, is also a foundational principle and facilitates the adherence to impartiality. The promise made by independent humanitarian aid organisations to host governments and non-state actors is that they make their own decisions and are not political tools of foreign governments.
More problematic, and much debated, is the principle of neutrality, which at its core demands that aid organisations do not become involved in political controversies. But some organisations (for example MSF) view it as a limitation on witnessing, speaking-out, and public communications. Do aid organisation have the right, or even obligation, to affect the political situations which lead to humanitarian crises?
But at the top of the list is the principle of humanity. Humanity is the collection of humans, some have the ability to help others, and some are in need of help. For, humanitarian action is simply humans helping other humans in need. Humanity is also a term which denotes a set of characteristics which must be preserved, such as the dignity of the person and a whole set of ‘human’ rights. This may all seem self-evident, yet it is worth reflecting on this lest we stop grounding what we do in the basics.
Humanity, dignity, and solidarity
Dignity is a consequence of attending to the humanity of those caught in a crisis. We all want to be treated with dignity at all times, of course. But those caught up in conflict are even more starved of dignity as their isolation, sense of abandonment, and fear of violence grows.
Humanitarian action doesn’t always do the best job at attending to the dignity of the individual, as so often masses of people are affected by war and are engaged with by organisation as populations. One way in which people in danger can be afforded dignity is the proximity of aid workers to those being assisted. No one wants to ‘feel like a number’ and be just a recipient of material aid or a beneficiary.
A feeling of human solidarity is also important, as this example of my work in Chechnya shows: After several years working in Chechnya during the last war, I was checking-in with the staff at a hospital we had long been supporting. We had been providing a lot of medical supplies and I was asking about its usefulness. But the chief doctor stopped me at a certain point and said that yes, the material aid had been needed, and appreciated. But that was not the most crucial factor. In turns out that not being forgotten, being treated with dignity by people who cared, was the most important aspects of our intervention. Solidarity can be seen as a mix of caring enough to help and being willing to share a moral, if not always a physical, space, with those caught-up in a crisis.
Does digitalisation lack humanity?
One way in which humanitarian aid may be diverting from this idea is through the ‘digitalisation’ of aid delivery. No one wants to only deal with an app on their smart phone or be forever linked to a set of biometrics which defines one’s aid category. There is more to aid than this transactional way of providing it. Proximity to human aid workers is vital to reinforce a person’s sense of dignity. In the search for efficiency and greater outputs (as opposed to outcomes), have we gone too far? Is there still room for the proximity of humans helping other humans? And where is the locus of dignity in this version of aid?
Wars provide a difficult terrain to navigate. The threat of violence to aid actors as well as those living in the crisis makes being proximate hard. The chief doctor I mentioned above had not been visited for quite some time by anyone form my organisation due to the violence in the area. But yet he knew we were sill ‘there’.
Conclusion
Let us return to the principle of humanity which is the highest order principle from which everything else is derived. Impartiality helps guide our operational choices – who we help and why. And independence and neutrality are ways of working which help provide the space to work. Together these all help make state and non-state actors comfortable with our motivations.
At its essence, we should never forget that humanitarian aid is humans helping humans, which requires proximity, dignity and solidarity. We should all remind ourselves periodically of the importance of the principle of humanity as the foundational humanitarian principle.
Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.
About the author
Andrew Cunningham
Andrew has thirty years’ experience in the humanitarian sector, twenty-five years of which with MSF. Andrew has worked in a wide variety of contexts and geographical locations in Africa, the Former Soviet Union, and Asia. He has a PhD in War Studies from King’s College and has published a professional book in the Routledge Humanitarian Studies series on the topic of INGO-State relations. Andrew has served as a member of the Board of MSF International and is currently a board member of the International Humanitarian Studies Association. Andrew works as a researcher, strategic and operational evaluator, and governance advisor for various humanitarian organisations.
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The International Humanitarian Studies Association (IHSA), held its inaugural Annual Lecture on 23 May at the Literature House in Bergen, Norway. The lecture was given by Khaled Quzmar, General Director of Defence for Children International: Palestine (DCIP), and was held in collaboration with the Rafto Foundation and WAR-FUN project at the Chr Michelsen Institute in Bergen.
As the first part in a blog series to mark the lecture, IHSA Coordinator Tom Ansell has put together this blog in collaboration with Khaled Quzmar. It starts with an interview and is followed by the key points from Quzmar’s lecture.
How important is it that we see accountability for military crimes in the current Gaza war (especially in light of the indictment of the Israeli Prime Minister and Defense Minister for war crimes by the ICC)?
With ongoing atrocities in Gaza, there is likely to be a collective trauma amongst Palestinians. In your opinion, how might it be possible to re-humanize this conflict and the people in it once direct military action has ceased?
‘In my opinion, the civilian population in the Gaza Strip has been under a racist colonial military occupation since 1967, and the people have been refugees for 76 years. For the last 17 years they have lived under a strict military siege from land and sea, and under direct bombardment. Since the beginning of the Israeli military operation in 2024, they have cut off water, food, medicine and electricity, and destroyed homes and infrastructure. In this situation the civilian population do not expect justice, they just want the aggression and killing to stop.
‘The Israeli military and authorities need to treat people in Gaza as human beings that are part of society. People with the right, like other peoples of the world, to self-determination and to live in dignity, security and safety without occupation.
‘[After a ceasefire has been called] massive interventions will be required to provide all the necessities of life and to enable the population to enjoy human rights according to international law. Work will also be needed to help rid children of the psychological issues resulting from the aggression and deprivation of the last 230 days on top of the siege of the 17 years before that.’
In your role as Director of DCI-Palestine,you have direct experience of the importance of humanitarian organizations. What is their importance in the current conflict, and how can children’s rights in particular be safeguarded?
‘The work of human rights and humanitarian organizations is very important in order to help the victims and provide some services and assistance to them. But they also work to preserve hope for future generations, especially children. We are aware that the Israeli occupation wants to kill the hope of children and youth. Our work is to help victims build their capabilities in accordance with international law. Working as human rights defenders is to preserve hope and aspire to a better future and a just peace free of occupation and crime.’
The IHSA Annual Lecture 2024: ‘War and Humanity’
‘Human scientific efforts have been put towards generating ever-more deadly weapons, and conflicts are now most often settled militarily, rather than diplomatically; conflicts are no longer resolved through moral reason and law, nor through political negotiations, but through wars with well-organized armed forces.
‘The various legal and judicial efforts to enshrine the value of humanity in times of war have a number of shortfalls. Given that humanity is the opposite of war, human dignity requires the peaceful settlement of conflicts between and within societies. Individuals and groups should be treated in accordance with human rights standards. They have the right to live in peace and their human rights should be protected through legal systems and international human rights standards. Commitments within and between communities should be permanently respected.
There is a significant issue here with double standards, especially when we look at the refusal of Israel to follow decisions made by the International Court of Justice. If International Humanitarian Law is to be upheld, it must be upheld by everyone, regardless of their international alliances.
‘It is now time to activate the international accountability system by stopping the policy of impunity, eradicating hypocrisy and double standards, in order to reach a world free of wars, where justice and humanity prevail.
We cannot have a “two-level” system of international law and accountability. States and warring parties should not be free of their international obligations, especially around protecting civilians and the most vulnerable. If we fail to uphold standards within this war, we may find far-reaching repercussions in the future.’
The 2024 IHSA Annual Lecture was followed by a roundtable discussion on the theme of ‘War and Humanity’. The next blog in this series will include the contributions from expert panellists from that discussion.
Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.
About the Authors:
Khaled Quzmar
Khaled Quzmar has worked with Defence for Children International – Palestine (DCIP), since 1985. He is a lawyer by training and profession, and as part of his work with DCIP he has represented hundreds of children held in arbitrary detention, tortured and otherwise mistreated by the Israeli government.
DCIP as an organization works on documenting human rights abuses, advocacy and campaigning on the right to a childhood. The organization also works within the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including with the Palestinian Authority, on child protection, education and access to justice. For their work on protecting the rights of children, Khaled Quzmar and DCIP were awarded the 2023 Rafto Prize.
Tom Ansell is the Coordinator of the Humanitarian Studies Centre and International Humanitarian Studies Association.
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The Netherlands Enterprise Agency (Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland) has spearheaded several stakeholder consultations within the Dutch water sector to discuss social inclusivity in the Netherlands-funded international water management projects. In this blog article, ISS researchers Farhad Mukhtarov and Karen Vargas, together with colleagues from Deltares, TU Delft, and IHE-Delft, discuss a recent participatory session they organized that sought to better understand ‘social inclusivity’ in the water sector. A key takeaway was that self-reflection about power dynamics among senior decision-makers and other water professionals in international water projects is crucial for making the water sector more inclusive, given the many challenges facing contemporary development cooperation.
Partners for Water, a programme managed by the Netherlands State Enterprise Agency (Rijsksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland or RVO) to support governments around the world with subsidies and expertise on water management, organized an event titled ‘Social Inclusion in Water Climate Adaptation – Making a Transformation‘ (12 September 2023, Utrecht, the Netherlands). The departure point for this event was a broadly shared realisation that Dutch water sector parties have too often handled in a top-down fashion in international projects, displaying a condition that became known as on the pages of this blog as “polder arrogance” – a term coined by the project’s “Professor Poldergeist” (IHE-Delft, 2022). The workshop aimed to foster dialogue between academics and practitioners to promote social inclusivity in the designs and implementation of international water projects funded or delivered by the Dutch actors as an antidote to the abovementioned ‘arrogance’. As a group of long-term collaborators from Deltares, IHE Delft, and ISS/Erasmus University, we organised a session within the RVO event to discuss the transformative potential of the idea of ‘social inclusivity’ and what stands in the way of its materialisation. We aimed to create a safe space for open exchanges among diverse participants from government, advocacy groups, academia, and the private sector.
With this blog post, we aim to summarise the major topics of discussion from the workshop and offer our take-aways. We first revisit the session to invite a broader audience into the discussions about the transformative journey of the Dutch Water Sector (DWS), and then offer our reflections.
Reflexivity and humility require skills
During the RVO event, there were several plenaries, reflective exercises, and parallel sessions with panels on different subjects related to the activities of the Dutch water sector internationally. Some examples include a session on Dutch Water Authorities-operated “Blue Deal” programme on the “Valuing Water Initiative” spearheaded by RVO. In our session, we initiated a fishbowl discussion with Laura Caicedo, a recent MA graduate from the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS/EUR), who discussed her research of an ongoing Water as Leverage project in Cartagena, Colombia, and Kim van Nieuwaal, a Dutch expert on water and climate adaptation involved in Climate Adaptation Services (CAS). Water as Leverage (WaL), as represented on the RVO website, is a Dutch-founded public-private partnership mandated with tackling urban water-related challenges such as floods and declining water quality.
We chose them to start a conversation that gave clues of what inclusivity means in Water Projects. We began by exploring the meaning of transformation in the DWS and the current state of ongoing effort, then explored the key actors in the effort to transform the projects towards more socially inclusive and finished with a discussion of key challenges and ways of transcending them.
We were positively surprised to discover a reflective stance of all participants regarding the necessity to be aware of power relations, including one’s relative power, in achieving a genuine transformation in how projects run. This is especially pertinent in relationships with the recipients of the Dutch aid, technology, or governance expertise. This self-awareness marks the initial step in recognizing actors’ positionality – how parties are situated in projects often define what can be shared and what not, how discussions take shape, and who is included or excluded from decision-making venues. For example, Caicedo’s example of a less-than-fortunate choice of a venue for a meeting with stakeholders in Cartagena – a fancy water-front expo centre, demonstrated how thoughtless choices may have great adverse consequences. Caicedo’s research showed that informal settlers and members of fishing communities did not feel welcome in such a venue and did not show up.
Willingness to be conscious of power relationships, including awareness of own power, also implies the challenge to be aware of power dynamics within one’s own team, to utilise and communicate knowledge differently, with more empathy, and to acknowledge local wisdoms and knowledges in ways that foster trust. Many of these actions require more than an attitude – they require new skills to critically listen, be mindful of own responses, and to cultivate reflexivity and curiosity in working with others.
The discussion on how to build and train these skills will continue in two forthcoming events, which some of us will organise in June: a workshop at the International Institute of Social Studies devoted to the roles, skills, and attitudes of foreign policy-makers in water diplomacy to be held on 18 June, 2024, and a conference panel titled “Third-Party Engagement in Water Diplomacy and Governance: the Case of South Caucasus” at the Third International Conference on Environmental Peacebuilding in The Hague on 21 June 2024.
Photo credit: Farhad Mukhtarov. The fishbowl session was led by Jaap Evers and Leon Hermans and was chaired by Shahnoor Hasan and Farhad Mukhtarov.
On the transformation journey
This session builds on earlier dialogues and seminars on rethinking the modus operandi of the Dutch Water Sector internationally. Such discussions have been motivated by evidence and growing consensus among academics and practitioners alike that the DWS parties often work through a one-sided transfer of knowledge and technology from the Netherlands to “recipient countries” and suffers from the lack of a meaningful dialogue in such projects despite continuous claims of proper participation, demand-driven project designs, and efforts for the sustainability of projects across time.
In 2018, the Center for Sustainable Development Studies from the University of Amsterdam UvA), Both ENDS, a Dutch NGO and civic advocacy group, and the Water Governance Group of IHE Delft organized the conference “Critical Perspectives on Governance by Sustainable Development Goals: Water, Food and Climate”, where discussions on Delta Dynamics and Global Challenges took place. This event was the first to engage with the sensitive subject of unequal and non-inclusive features explicitly and directly in water projects funded through the Netherlands Development Cooperation Funds. In 2019, the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) organized a follow-up event with insightful discussions and a very good end report circulated to participants. In 2021, the Partners for Water program hosted the fourth edition of the WATERPROOF event, focusing on transforming development cooperation and making social impact with it. These events, well attended and taken notice of by decision-makers, marked an important shift in the discussions on the Dutch Water Sector and its record of transformation and social inclusivity.
Unfortunately, despite these widespread discussions and initiatives by and on the DWS, a tangible structural shift has not yet occurred. Our session highlighted that while there are certainly more efforts on the part of the DWS to identify diverse groups to work with and to be inclusive, practical changes on the ground are too slow. It seemed to us that scepticism persists regarding the actual impact of transformative practices, with a real concern that sociocultural and governance complexities in project contexts often get overlooked or underplayed to sustain a certain modus operandi of the DWS parties.
Translating instead of transferring
“Sometimes the Dutch water sector looks at itself in the wrong way, or maybe too late… it is important to make changes in the way … how others are involved…. How to break the barriers and break yourself to be aware of your own position? How to transfer power to others?”
Anonymous participant
Examining the Dutch intervention internationally, the discussion touched on the need for senior decision-makers in concerned projects to be self-conscious about the power dynamics and difficulties in correcting, or at least couching, asymmetric power relationships in projects. We agreed that the DWS parties would benefit from reflecting on their role, breaking the barriers to open and clear communication with their partners, and transferring some of their powers to others to the extent that is politically possible. This is easier said than done, but luckily there are some examples that offer a possible way forward, such as Reversing the Flow (RtF) initiative, a project that supports communities in vulnerable situations by strengthening their water security and contributing to more resilient communities. Especially remarkable is the funding mechanism within RtF allowing some of the RVO funding to be given to NGOs in recipient countries in a way that surpasses Dutch private sector actors. Whether this works needs to be studied carefully.
The self-reflective approach of RtF underscores the importance of understanding power dynamics before and during negotiations, fostering reflexive discussions on resource constraints, and acknowledging the limitations of asymmetrical negotiations and working relationships. Self-reflection first needs to take place internally, among various parties involved in projects, and only then should be extended to cover partners in other countries. Earlier projects and some of the events we mentioned earlier in this post (by Both ENDS, IHE Delft, and RVO) indicate at the possibility of such a shift in the paradigm of inclusiveness provided continued effort and faith.
As an example, Wageningen University through the Centre for Development Innovation (CDI) had created manuals packing the conversation on social inclusivity in a kind of serial editions for transformation on paper. The consultancy-driven organizations tend to focus on restructuring policies to act on becoming diverse and expanding their work profiles into thematic areas such as nature-based solutions and social inclusion. The audience in our room considered that there is a gap between the scholarly work on transformations toward social inclusion and such work in practice.
Addressing unresolved challenges, our discussion uncovered the following barriers to social inclusivity of the DWS’s operations. First, our focus shifted to project assessment terms that prioritise tangible outcomes over long-term and trust-based relationships with the partners, for instance a piece of embankment that is strengthened, a flood risk management report, or a technology transferred. More intangible but crucial elements such as capacity, trust, and joint development of problem diagnoses often deserve less attention. If project outcomes and outputs are pre-determined and the managerial logic of projects push participants to focus on these deliverables regardless the context on the ground, it is not surprising that one faces little participation and dialogue and achieves little social impact.
Second, we discussed gaps in socioeconomic class, especially among those who represent project beneficiaries on the ground in Indonesia, Bangladesh, or Colombia and the beneficiaries of the projects. Involving the beneficiaries, such as the slum dwellers, the urban poor, and the fishermen communities in the discussions requires special project design, suitable designs for deliberation, and settings suitable for such groups, as the case with the meeting venue in Cartagena illustrated.
Finally, and related to the previous two points, we discussed the time constraints of the projects that have to be delivered within a particular timeframe and to reflect a particular pre-determined “theory of change”. As an overarching theme, the critical discussion centred on the top-down approaches of the ongoing projects, urging a shift towards more bottom-up solutions and away from the mode of “transferring” knowledge, expertise, or technology. Instead, we need to foster open-ended dialogues based on respect, curiosity, and critical listening. Then transferring will become translating, and both the Netherlands and recipient countries could be seen as “co-authors” of such works – a true shift from transferring expertise to co-creating change.
Photo credit: Farhad Mukhtarov. The participants joined a fishbowl, which is a facilitative technique to encourage a discussion. We have begun by asking about what transformation means for the DWS. What is the current point of the discussion and in what direction are the efforts taking effect?
Despite intentions for inclusivity, practitioners keep facing challenges in translating discussions into practical strategies. The Dutch Water Sector’s role abroad demands adaptation to diverse contexts, acknowledging that one-size-fits-all solutions are inadequate. While the Dutch Water Sector is making strides in prioritizing social inclusion in international projects, not all organizations are homogenously transforming. Applauding these efforts, we remain curious about the implications and requirements of this transformation, and we hope to see this conversation moving forward.
About the authors: Farhad Mukhtarov, Karen Vargas, Shahnoor Hasan, Jaap Evers and Leon Hermans.
Farhad Mukhtarov is Assistant Professor of Governance and Public Policy at the International Institute of Social Sciences (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam and an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at National University Singapore. Mukhtarov’s research can be summarised in three broad themes: water governance, politics of knowledge, and theories of policy-making. Geographically, Farhad’s work has covered Western Europe, the larger Mediterranean, and Central and South-Eastern Asia. He currently develops research in the South Caucasus.
Karen Vargas is a researcher with working experience in Colombia and Mexico. She is a political scientist holding a Master’s degree in Development Studies from Erasmus University Rotterdam, with a professional focus on public policies and governance. She has experience collaborating with research institutes, communicating results to international cooperation agencies, and fostering conversations with grassroots communities.
Shahnoor Hasan is a senior researcher and advisor at the department of resilience and planning at Deltares. Her work deals with issues of production of policies and dynamics of development cooperation from a perspective of water governance. One of Shahnoor’s research works on the Dutch Delta Approach in Vietnam and Bangladesh have generated heated and constructive debate in the Dutch water sector. It has pushed practitioners to reflect critically on their methods of exchanging delta knowledge and expertise with international partners, contributing to further discussions about social inclusion in international cooperation. With her work, Shahnoor opens-up discussions on what ‘good’ policies and practices are and stimulates rethinking about how different knowledges and ‘knowers’ can relate to each other and come together for sustainable and just development.
Jaap Evers works at IHE Delft since 2011. Starting of as lecturer in River Basin Governance, he currently has the position of Senior lecturer in Water and Environmental Policy as a member of the Water Governance department. His main research interests revolve around the departments research line Policy and Organizations. Jaap’s research interests revolve around policy implementation, and more specifically policy mobility, policy learning, policy -implementation- practices, and implementation feasibility in planning in the water sector.
Leon Hermans is Head of the Land and Water Management Department at IHE Delft, with responsibility for the department’s integral management and academic leadership. As Associate Professor of Environmental Planning and Management, Leon is also responsible for the Specialization of Environmental Planning and Management within the IHE MSc programme on Environmental Science. Leon Hermans combines work at IHE Delft with a part-time appointment as Associate Professor at TU Delft’s Faculty of Technology, Policy & Management. Prior to joining IHE Delft, Leon worked fulltime at TU Delft, where he also obtained his PhD degree in policy analysis, and at FAO at its headquarters in Rome, Italy.
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The emergence of feminist analysis and advocacies within the humanitarian field offers opportunities to engage with and reflect on current practices. In this blog article, Gabriela Villacis Izquierdo & Kaira Zoe Cañete explore and consider the wide range of feminist approaches to humanitarian action presented during their panel at the International Humanitarian Studies Association Conference in 2023. They look into the multiple ways in which feminist approaches can lead to more equitable and desirable outcomes whilst also highlighting the potential of embracing these approaches to contribute to reforms within the sector.
“Are we trying to turn the humanitarian system into something that it could never become?”
This was a provocation laid down by one of the speakers in a panel that we (Gabriela and Kaira) organized at the 7thInternational Humanitarian Studies Association (IHSA) Conference held in Dhaka in November 2023. The panel, titled “Mapping Feminist Approaches to Humanitarian Action”, invited conceptual, empirical, methodological, and practice-based papers to discuss the significance of feminist approaches to humanitarian action.
As an initiative under the ERC-funded Humanitarian Governance Project, the panel asked: In what ways can humanitarian practices be considered ‘feminist’? How can feminist advocacies, approaches, and research methodologies help address the challenges in contemporary humanitarian practices and governance? This article reflects on the presentations from the panel, which includes our own collaborative work, and highlights emergent themes and opportunities for advancing feminist approaches in humanitarian research and practice.
Constructing instead of extracting knowledge
The panel featured diverse presentations that underscored feminist contributions to addressing the complexities of humanitarian crises, beginning with how feminist methodologies can be useful for constructing knowledge about experiences of crises (to read all abstracts, visit the IHSA website). Vani Bhardwaj for instance presented her work on Bangladesh and how environmental impacts of humanitarian response can have gendered consequences. She problematized how approaches of INGOs working in the field, with their reliance on “traditional” data collection tools, can create and perpetuate (colonial) hierarchies, such as the extraction of knowledge and the reinforcement of power relations between researcher and “subjects” or “beneficiaries”.
Situated designs for mobility justice
Similarly, Emmanuel Kodwo Mensah from social enterprise Includovate introduced a mobility mapping methodology he developed with Dr. Kristie Drucza while studying South Sudanese refugees in Uganda, where mobility justice seems to be a distant possibility, especially for women. Through this approach, they were able to focus on the lived experiences of refugee women and men, who are also dealing with the negative impacts of climate change and could unveil the intricate realities that are behind the categories of “refugee” and “migrant”. This contribution provokes us to explore ways in which humanitarian responses can adopt a more situated design towards the achievement of mobility justice. Moreover, the presenters’ reflections motivated us to further explore the notion of allyship and ‘positive masculinities’ within the feminist approaches inside and outside the humanitarian realm.
At different levels, we could identify with Vani’s and Emmanuel’s analysis, as our own presentation in the panel aimed to share our experiences of doing feminist research in humanitarian and disasters contexts. Based on two different case studies – the Philippines and Colombia – we argued that despite the challenges posed by doing research in settings of crisis, it is important and possible to meaningfully engage with research participants and embody feminist principles of research, such as collaborative knowledge construction, awareness of intersectional identities of participants and researchers, and research as a two-way and relational process. For us, feminist methodologies have the potential to centre the situated and lived experiences of people affected and involve them in processes of knowledge-building.
Alternative forms of humanitarian action
A second set of presentations delved into alternative forms of humanitarian action. Gabrielle Daoust and Synne Dyvik highlighted one of the current humanitarian crises in Europe: the Ukraine war. They focused on the notion of private humanitarian hospitality through the case of the “Homes for Ukraine” scheme in the United Kingdom. The presentation was an invitation for us to reflect on the privatization of humanitarian responses as marked by a virtual outsourcing of government responsibility to private individuals in dealing with refugees.
This type of humanitarian response and the associated shifting of the ‘humanitarian space’ into the private and domestic sphere is enabled by particular gendered and racialised conceptions of the home (especially in relation to traditional notions of care work) and of humanitarian hospitality more broadly. In this case, white women from Ukraine are welcomed in the private spaces of UK citizens due to their perceived “harmless” identities as mothers and caregivers. Such a case would be different for other racialised refugees, especially men.
A critical look at the survivor-centred approach (SCA)
Inspired by their own experiences working on gender-based violence (GBV) during crises, Ilaria Michelis, Jane Makepeace, and Chen Reis presented a critical discourse analysis of the survivor centred approach (SCA) within humanitarian responses. For the presenters, the SCA has moved away from its feminist roots and objectives to become a technocratic tool. Humanitarian actors and service providers retain control while survivors’ choices are limited by rigid models and external assessments of their safety. As feminist practitioners and researchers, Ilaria, Jane and Chen challenged these practices within the humanitarian system and advocated for locally and survivor-led initiatives. Their recently published paper can be found here.
Knowledge extraction and the creation of dependency relations
Finally, María González presented her research about the resistance of the Tal’3at movement in Palestine from a decolonial, feminist, and critical lens. During her collaborative research with members of the Tal’3at movement, they identified how women in Palestine faced three main roots of oppression: occupation, patriarchy, and “the NGOs”. In relation to the theme of the panel, María focused on the ways in which international NGOs in Palestine tended to co-opt resistance efforts of women in Palestine through knowledge extraction and creation of dependency. Importantly, María showed how the Tal’3at movement counteracted these “structures of oppression” through political and anti-colonial engagement to advance freedom of all Palestinians.
Feminist approaches: a big step toward more equitable ways of doing things
By summarizing the different contributions to the panel, we intend to demonstrate the richness and diversity of feminist thinking and initiatives in this space. Over the last few years, feminist organizations have articulated the need to transform the humanitarian system not least of all for its tendency to privilege certain (Northern-centric and patriarchal) values, approaches, and worldviews. They have sought to make humanitarian action more attentive to the gendered, racialized, and lived experiences of crises thereby making aid more accountable, responsive, and accessible to those most affected. The emergence of feminist analysis and advocacies within the humanitarian field offers opportunities to engage with and reflect on current practices.
However, the ideas emanating from this are rarely brought into direct conversation with other (mainstream and non-mainstream) strands of humanitarian research and practice. Attention to context and lived experiences of crises, gendered power relations in humanitarian settings, intersectionality, and forms of care that are vital for survival and recovery are some of the contributions that a feminist perspective can bring to discussions not only on how humanitarian response can be “effective” but also transformative.
Through this panel, we have attempted to highlight some of these opportunities for further thinking and action that would help us address some of the challenges that beset humanitarian practice at present. The themes that arose in the panel discussion are certainly far from exhaustive, but they indicate valuable insights that are enabled through an application of feminist perspectives, ethics, and methodologies.
Going back to our collective concern — are we trying to turn the humanitarian system into something that it could never become? — we are convinced that it is possible, when we see what people on the ground are doing in their everyday practices of humanitarian action. We hope to be able to move further with this initiative and explore if and how feminist approaches can make a difference in the ways we respond to crises.
Acknowledgements
We are deeply grateful to each one of the participants who share their knowledges and work during the panel.
Disclaimer
This blog article is part of the work of the Humanitarian Governance, accountability, advocacy, alternatives project funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 884139.
About the authors
Gabriela Villacis Izquierdo is a PhD researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her research focuses on the alternative forms of humanitarian governance in Colombia, with an emphasis on feminist approaches and the potential of collective action, advocacy, and care.
Kaira Zoe Alburo-Cañete is Senior Researcher at the Humanitarian Studies Centre, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her research interests include examining the everyday politics and ethics of living with, responding to, and recovering from disasters and other forms of crises.
Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.
The number of people unable to access food in Gaza continues to grow despite urgent calls for a ceasefire and the opening of borders to humanitarian aid organizations. In this blog article, Dorothea Hilhorst highlights the social and societal consequences of famine, showing why it is imperative to act immediately and concertedly. As people grow more desperate, social and societal order begins to break down — something that must urgently be acknowledged and prevented through an immediate ceasefire and the unrestricted opening of Gaza’s borders to aid. If we don’t, Gaza can shortly face acute famine, she writes.
Palestinian crowds struggle to buy bread from a bakery in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Sunday, Feb. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
The United Nations has declared that the north of Gaza is at immediate risk of famine. Vice-President of the European Commission Joseph Borrell along with many others holds Israel responsible for this development. Israel, meanwhile, has referred to the ‘chaotic’ scenes that surrounded previous aid deliveries as the cause of growing hunger. A more realistic reading of the situation is that the chaos is not a cause of acute hunger, but a direct consequence of it. We can all use our own imagination of what famine means for the health of people that experience it, yet famine is a multi-sided phenomenon that has both social and societal consequences. Understanding these consequences should only increase calls for an immediate ceasefire and the opening of Gaza’s borders to humanitarian aid organizations.
One step away from acute famine
Malnutrition and hunger is classified by the UN in five ‘phases’— with the first phase representing complete food security, and the second and third phases representing growing malnutrition. The fourth phase, which was declared in Gaza several weeks ago, is referred to as a ‘nutritional catastrophe’. The fifth phase is acute famine, whereby more than 20% of the general population are affected by acute hunger and/or 30% of children suffer the same, and/or two in 10.000 die every day as a direct result of hunger.
The phases are paired with social and societal symptoms. Usual social order is seen to continue in the second and third phases, where people generally still feel like they have a part to play in a society and feel part of a community. In this phase, a family might be prepared to share the contents of their food aid package with a vulnerable neighbour. Local government continues to function and can make sure that food is distributed effectively.
Social cohesion breaks down when food scarcity persists
The fourth phase changes all of this: when there is catastrophic food scarcity, people tend to narrow their social gaze and everything in their lives revolves around their own family, and especially their children. This effect of this is logical and rational: if a food aid truck comes to where you live (or are sheltering), you’ll try to do anything to access some of the limited supplies available. Whether it’s by pushing, shoving, or indeed fighting, people will do anything to make sure that their children can eat. In this situation, people might steal food from their neighbours rather than share it. Local government officials are also caught up in this need —if police officers for example need to feed their families, they will prioritize that over maintaining social order.
Indeed, we have witnessed these symptoms in Gaza too in the last weeks. When aid deliveries do make it through the border, they become scenes of chaos and fighting. At the societal level, the situation is exacerbated because fewer and fewer Gazan police officers are able to work due to the war. They are at high risk of being shot because whoever wears an official uniform in Gaza runs the risk of being identified as a Hamas militant. Several police officers have been shot dead due to this.
A lack of food aid will lead to more chaos, not less
A reaction to the chaos and fighting during aid deliveries has been to strangle off the amount of food aid that is allowed into Gaza and to seal shut the borders of the territory. In the last month, there have been even fewer (not more!) deliveries of food aid through the border despite the clear call by the International Court of Justice to admit more aid. This is exactly the wrong policy response: the fighting and chaos at distribution points is not a specific characteristic of Gazans but a logical consequence of the fourth phase of a food crisis — one where everyone is desperately focused on the immediate needs of their own family and children. Both you and I would likely react in the same way in similar circumstances. The only way to remedy this situation is to immediately distribute more food in order to move the food crisis back to a less dangerous phase.
This is not happening. What we’re seeing now is a move further away from this because Gaza is being further sealed off by Israel. The territory is sliding towards phase five — acute famine. From a societal angle, this will be paired with full social disruption and breakdown. I can already foresee comments of Gaza having become completely ‘uncontrollable’, as if this is some innate quality of the Gazans. In reality, though, this will be an unavoidable consequence of famine. The only effective strategy left to help Gazan people is an immediate ceasefire and the opening of borders to humanitarian aid.
Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.
About the author:
Dorothea Hilhorst is professor of Humanitarian Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University.
On 29 February 2024, I presented in a panel at the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam on “The right to healthcare under fire”. The event was organised by Artsen Voor Gaza (Doctors for Gaza) a Dutch group of physicians, medical students and medical researchers. Alongside compelling presentations from Dr. Loes de Kleijn, Dr. Kamal El Mokayad and Haya Al Farra, I spoke of the legal context of the ongoing, genocidal violence in Gaza and more importantly what can be done.
CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
The War in Gaza has a context
Since the attacks in Southern Israel and Israel’s operation in Gaza called “Iron Swords” from October 2023, Israel has destroyed the majority of Gaza’s infrastructure, including its medical infrastructure. As I wrote already on 12 October 2023, the war in Gaza has an important context. Unfortunately, as the Israeli Professor of History Ilan Pappe has observed, there is an active effort to de-historicize the conflict, which serves as a backing to Israel in its genocidal violence against Palestinians in Gaza.
Despite Israel’s withdrawal of settlements and redeployment of forces in 2005, Israel has continued to occupy the 365 km2 territory of Gaza, including mounting a siege that has severely restricted basic needs. The majority of Gazans are under the age of 20 and have never left the territory. Most are refugees (and their descendants), forcibly displaced from their homes in 1948, which are maintained by what a Palestinian Professor of History, Nur Masalha describes as a politics of denial.
From a humanitarian angle, most Gazans have been largely dependent on direct United Nations assistance ever since the ‘Nakba’ in 1948, and in particular the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). This makes it all the more concerning that states have been seeking to defund UNRWA, following (as yet unfounded) Israeli allegations that its staff were complicit in the October attacks, a move described as “reckless” by a senior, Washington-based analyst.
“I am so scared”
So often we hear Palestinians referred to as statistics. While this potentially enables people to process the horrors of what is happening, as the poet and commentator Ramsey Nasr reminds us, those who have been killed had names, and we must remember them.
Two names and stories of two Gazans among the more than 30.000 (at the time of writing) who have been killed since October 2023 were recalled during the Event at Erasmus Medical Centre. One who was remembered was Hind Rajab. She was 5 or 6 years old when her family car came under fire by Israeli soldiers in Gaza City on 29 January 2024, she made a phone call to the Palestinian Red Crescent. “I am so scared,” she said. “Call someone to come get me, please.” Sadly, after more than two weeks of frantic efforts to reach her, Hind’s body was recovered a few days later on 3 February, along with those of relatives and two Red Crescent rescue workers that had been sent to find her. Their family car was riddled with bullets.
The Functions of International Law in relation to Atrocity Crimes
The case brought by South Africa against Israel on genocide charges has raised the prospect of international law, and international legal institutions, finally serving to help end the bloodshed and longstanding impasse between Israel and the Palestinians. In this context, it is worthwhile to understand the functions of international law in seeking to prevent, protect against and seek accountability for atrocity crimes.
First, in its regulatory function, international law sets limits on military conduct, in particular to prevent the commission of atrocity crimes, including the crime of apartheid and the crime of genocide. Secondly, in its protection function, international law aims to protect civilians and humanitarian workers (and civilian and humanitarian infrastructure). Finally, and perhaps most importantly in the present context, international law has an accountability function; this comprises a collective obligation to investigate and prosecute individual violators, including war crimes directed against civilian medical personnel and the crime of genocide.
Accordingly, various, specific measures protect medical personnel and infrastructure, including Article 19 of the Geneva Conventions that they “may in no circumstances be attacked, but shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict”. Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court provides that individuals who are found to have been “intentionally directing attacks against buildings, material, medical units and transport, and personnel using the distinctive emblems of the Geneva Conventions in conformity with international law” have committed war crimes.
Preliminary Measures by the International Court of Justice
After two days of oral hearings on 11 and 12 January 2024 from legal teams representing South Africa and Israel, the ICJ came back on 26 January with a set of Provisional Measures, as requested by South Africa. Each of the Provisional Measures were separately voted upon, all of which received an overwhelming majority, including the following:
“The State of Israel shall take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”
In justifying these measures, the Court “took note” of several statements by United Nations officials, including a statement made by the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mr Martin Griffiths, on 5 January 2024:
“Gaza has become a place of death and despair… Medical facilities are under relentless attack. The few hospitals that are partially functional are overwhelmed with trauma cases, critically short of all supplies, and inundated by desperate people seeking safety. A public health disaster is unfolding. Infectious diseases are spreading in overcrowded shelters as sewers spill over. Some 180 Palestinian women are giving birth daily amidst this chaos… “the health-care system in Gaza is collapsing”.
So, what can be done, beyond the Courts?
It’s hard not to feel sceptical about the potential of the Courts to change Israel’s behaviour. Israel’s responses since the 26 January 2024 Preliminary Measures were issued suggest that the ICJ has little to no deterrent effect. In fact, Israel not only failed to comply with these preliminary measures, it actually stepped up its military campaign. 5-year old Hind died a mere 3 days after the ICJ issued its judgement.
But international law has relevance beyond the courts. As legal mobilization researchers argue, international law can be seen as not only an imperial project, as Erakat eloquently explains, but also as a legitimate source of disruption, resistance and liberation.
For example, international law represents a legitimate basis for boycotting corporations that are complicit in atrocity crimes, such as Israeli Universities and McDonalds, just as was done during the South African anti-apartheid movement.
Another form of legal mobilization, as Dr. Claudia Saba has argued, is the delivery of humanitarian aid, as the “Free Gaza” movement have been doing, using small civilian boats to try and alleviate the desperate circumstances caused by Israel’s decades-long siege of Gaza.
In other words, addressing violations of the right to health care through legal mobilization involves more than just “winning” in court. It takes on many different forms. These different forms of legal mobilization serves to galvanise social justice struggles.
Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.
About the author:
Dr. Jeff Handmaker is Associate Professor of Legal Sociology, based at the International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague.
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In this blog, Professor of Humanitarian Studies Dorothea Hilhorst assesses the situation in Gaza and the lack of humanitarian aid entering the territory. With various countries, including the US, now launching campaigns of air-dropping food aid, Hilhorst looks to the only durable solution to avert further loss of life: an immediate ceasefire. With Israel still enjoying the support of many Western countries, she calls for pressure to be put on by the Netherlands, telling Israel to lift its blockade or lose aid and support.
Food-drops are expensive, dangerous and make little difference. The amount of food is far too small and the first accident has already happened. People died as a result of a drop that crashed when the parachute did not open. Building an emergency port also costs time and money, and there is no guarantee that any food brought in would reach people unhindered (food from an emergency port would need trucks to distribute it). Air drops and a maritime route are false solutions that distract attention from the real problem: namely that Israel is not being held responsible for the hunger that the country causes among two million men, women, children and elderly Gaza people.
International Pressure is Needed
We are being told every day by Israel-friendly countries such as the Netherlands, the EU and the United States that are putting pressure on Israel to call a ceasefire and to open its borders for aid trucks. This is apparently not enough pressure, because Israel continuously refuses and is allowed to come up with new excuses every time. There has been a ruling by the International Court of Justice that Israel must facilitate humanitarian aid. Israel did not comply. Since that ruling, the number of trucks allowed to bring aid to Gaza has actually decreased, not increased.
Israel’s defence for the closure of the borders is that this is necessary for Israel’s security. Israel first did not want weapons to be smuggled into Gaza for use by Hamas – which is extremely unlikely as the control of aid supplies is by the United Nations and other organizations. Israel is now shifting the goals: no food is allowed to go to Hamas. It is pointing at the chaos surrounding the distribution of food, glossing over its own role in that chaos. Firstly, Gazan police cannot maintain order because Israeli troops fire on everybody with a uniform and secondly, the chaos results from the fact that people are hungry because the borders are closed. Most importantly, it is not allowed by international law, nor by any moral standard, to starve an entire population to withhold food from a limited number of enemy troops.
The basic principle of International Humanitarian Law is that warring parties must spare civilian lives. This refers to acts of war as much as to acts of commission or omission that result in the blocking of access to food or medical care. While this is the basic principle, Resolution 2417, unanimously adopted in 2018 explicitly forbids using hunger as a weapon of war. Israel’s responsibilities to protect civilians furthermore stem from its role as the occupying force in the Palestine Occupied Territories, putting the onus on the country to care for the occupied population.
The pattern I see is that the international community continually lets Israel get away with dodging these responsibilities. Israel keeps the border closed, and as a response the international community jumps to make every effort to reach the population. It is the international community that is dreaming up (impossible) solutions like air drops and an emergency harbour and is also picking up the bills for these efforts. In the first weeks of the war, Israel destroyed the port in Gaza. The Netherlands contributed 83 million Euros towards constructing that port in the past. Instead of sending an invoice to Israel in the framework of reparation of war-related destruction, the Netherlands has offered to help pay again for an emergency port that would not even be needed if Israel would open its borders for aid.
My conclusion is that the international community must break this pattern and stop finding bogus solutions. The time to politely request Israel to call a cease fire and to open its borders for aid is over. It is time for Israel to take responsibility as an occupier of Gaza and a warring party and pay the price. Israel is completely stuck in war rhetoric. Little can be expected from the United States in this election year. Therefore, the key lies with Europe and especially with the Netherlands, which claims to be one of the best friends of Israel. Issue an ultimatum: “A ceasefire and unhindered aid by tomorrow, and otherwise all ties will be cut: no trade, no weapons and no diplomatic support for a country that is willing to starve 2 million people for its war targets”.
Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.
About the Author:
Dorothea Hilhorst is professor of Humanitarian Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University.
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The bi-annual IHSA Conference featured a satellite conference in Tripoli, Libya. Some 55 practitioners from local CSOs shared their insights on humanitarian and development challenges they face in daily life. They spoke about possible solutions and cherished the recognition of the work of people from around the world. Sharing perspectives enriched discussions and provided new insights to participants. Participants were also able to share their insights with participants at the ‘main’ IHSA conference in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Image by Author
The 7th IHSA Conference took place in Dhaka, Bangladesh in November 2023, and this year for the first time, a satellite conference was held concurrently in Tripoli, Libya. I had the pleasure of working alongside the dedicated team in Libya to organize this event. The team in Libya consist of 5 Libyan nationals working out of Tripoli. The team is currently working on a larger project designing, organizing and facilitating a growing network of civil society activists in the country. The network consists of 55 members, some individual activists, others community groups and CSOs. All are working on advancing equitable governance and the rule of law in an EU-funded programme.
In Libya, the event planning followed the IHSA agenda with a three-day event. Due to the time zones, the IHSA afternoon sessions in Dhaka would be open to participants in Libya. With a locally-designed and convened programme for the afternoon and evening sessions. The satellite conference was the first large-scale international event that civil society groups participated and co-organized in recent years. Being able to take part in an international event was a welcome boost for participating people and organizations, following several years of work strengthening civil society in the country
Ten Libyans proposed papers of which 7 were accepted.. The acceptance of papers defined the planning for the different panels that could be attended. In two rooms in a hotel in Tripoli, 55 participants listened, presented and contributed to the (virtual) discussion in the different sessions.
Topics including the role of local CSO’s, Women’s Empowerment, and the WPS agenda
The papers addressed highly relevant topics. Saleh Ehtitah, a CSO leader from Sebha in Southern Libya, spoke on the role of local CSOs in bringing about democratic orientation, community awareness, and development in Libya since 2011. It highlighted the contributions to conflict resolution, promoting peace, and addressing human rights violations. On the second day, during a panel titled “Women’s Engagement & Protection in Conflict: Examining Displacement, Peace-making, and Empowerment.” Two female CSO leaders presented their papers. The first paper, by Hanin Bushosha from Benghazi, analyzed the active roles of Libyan women in peace and security issues, emphasizing their participation in preparatory meetings for national reconciliation and the importance of their inclusion in peace processes. The second paper by Awatef Alawine from Tripoli, explored women’s participation during the conflict in Libya, focusing on their involvement in resolving conflicts between cities and their participation in political dialogue forums. Meanwhile an activist from Sirte, In Room 2, Hanibal Alsagheer presented a paper on “Deforestation and weak urbanization as catalysts to flooding and fires In the Sirte Gulf”. The paper examined the effects of climate change on cities in the Gulf of Sirte region in Libya, highlighting issues such as desertification, population migration, and poor urban planning. It emphasized the need for government intervention, urban planning, and sustainable policies to mitigate climate change impacts. On the third day, both Rooms 1 and 2 hosted the same panel. Which included a paper from Mohamed Celini, leader of a CSO working to advance the rights of people with disabilities in Benghazi. He spoke on “Inclusion of persons with disabilities in humanitarian work, between the convention and reality.” The paper discussed the challenges faced by people with disabilities in the humanitarian field and focused on their integration into society during emergencies and crises, with a specific emphasis on the impact of recent floods in Derna.
Roundtables on everyday challenges and local organization
Next to the panel discussions, the Libyan team leader Fahmi Abusahmain facilitated a roundtable. The focus was on the gaps in the rule of law in daily Libyan life with special attention to the challenges encountered during the Derna flood. Malak Hanouchi, a CSO leader from Derna reported on her efforts made during the immediate rescue and recovery operations in her home town. She told how the people in Derna and the neighbouring areas had to face the challenges. This was further emphasized in the paper of Mousa Algunaidi from Misrata which could not be presented due to the time difference. His submitted paper analyzed the impact of the lack of rule of law during the Derna flood. His analysis shows that many lives could have been saved if Libya had basic systems in place, like weather warnings, effective and trusted government communication and data collection. The positive outcome of the flood was the undivided attention of Libyans and political adversaries to lenient the immediate needs.
I have noticed the huge impact the IHSA Conference and side event have had and this will be felt in Libya for some time. As Mohamed from Zeltin mentioned, he was pleased and honoured to be part of the conference. Most participants noted that the topics covered mattered to them, the discussion was highly appreciated and they gained new insights.
Participants were particularly impressed by the presence of the many organizations, which provided networking and collaboration opportunities. The event’s organizing team received praise for their responsiveness and efficiency. Suggestions for improvement included mainly technical and practical issues such as the quality of the virtual connection, translation and planning. Participants indicated the event has shown how they can change some of their ways of working, how important (project) preparation is, and most importantly, how networking and collaboration can fuel continuous learning. Libyans are enthusiastic about future events and committed to using new insights they gained to achieve positive changes. They have felt their work and presence matter. This strengthened confidence in the next steps they can take to advance their country. In that regard, Libyan communities deserve further support to expand their work as main contributors to peace and justice in their country. Including them in future programmes and conference will help them do this. Meanwhile international partners thus get the chance to develop their approach to partnerships and working together.
Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.
About the author:
Anne Brinkman (Amsterdam 1967) is a practitioner in (inter)national development and change, a lawyer and organizational scientist by training. Her work is shaped in practice in connection to people’s daily experiences, grounded in theory and informed by (innovative) empirical efforts. Anne designs and coordinates an EU-funded programme in Libya on Libyan-led dialogue and action. She combines her work with pursuing her PhD degree at the ISS in The Hague. Her research aims to develop insights into alternative human development efforts with a focus on the use of different perspectives to advance civic logic in conflict-affected societies.
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The Democratic Republic of Congo, particularly in its eastern side, has become a theatre of recurrent humanitarian cases of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse ‘SEA’. There have been reports of sexual violence and abuse from communities during the Ebola response and from internally displaced people as a result of waves of wars and conflicts. In a previous blogresulting from the discussions in the humanitarian observatory, Patrick Milabyo Kyamusugulwa and Delu Lusambya Mwenebyake argued that the fight against sexual abuse should be more embedded in the context of DRC. Here, they focus on how this could be achieved.Photo by Authors
On 15 May 2023, participants in the Humanitarian Observatory in the Democratic Republic of Congo (OH-DRC) met to shed light on how to adapt good conduct codes in humanitarian assistance, especially related to sexual conduct, to the local context of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This blog is the result of two group discussions on the topic. Reports have mentioned cases of abuse by local, international, and national staff operating on the ground, while delivering aid in areas dominated by different armed group operations and fighting, most recently in July 2023. There are different codes of conduct in the humanitarian sector, but the question is how they can become part of the lived realities of humanitarian actors and affected communities in the context.
These rules play out and are differently interpreted where women and girls are exposed to a range of sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) in Humanitarian actions in DRC. This blog argues that good conduct codes for humanitarian workers that prohibit all forms of sexual abuse, harassment and exploitation should be translated to local mechanisms and in ways that are appropriate to the social norms of the context.
Recognize the reality of a multilingual context:
Translate formal codes of conduct in different local and national languages: i.e., in Kiswahili in eastern DRC, in Tshiluba in the Kasai regions, in Lingala in the capital city Kinshasa, in Kikongo in western DRC and sometimes in local dialects; for instance in Kinande in the Beni and Butembo regions.
Involve different actors including state officials:
Allocate a budget line in each project dedicated to social mobilization for SEA prevention. Other activities could include organizing sketches and broadcasting programmes in local languages on radio and television about SEA and its consequences. Earlier involvement of state local actors (Mayors of cities, Territory Administrators, chiefdom representatives and alike) is needed in following up and acting severely against the abuse as specified in Congolese law. Justice actors such as public prosecutors need to be at maximum alert, while holding public audiences against documented sexual abuse cases. Civil society actors must denounce, advocate and lobby in favour of victims, be instrumental in promoting positive masculinity, and accompany victims in terms of socio-psycho-judiciary. At the same time, they must also reinforce the frame and space of influence and information sharing on sexual abuse, harassment, and rape for more reflection, follow up, advocacy and lobby, networking and connecting with local gender-based thematic groups. Finally, hotel managers should be involved in actions to prevent and combat any forms of sexual abuse, harassment and alike, and receive training on detecting and reporting signs of abuse.
Adapt humanitarian codes of conduct mechanisms to the context of the DRC
There are two possible solutions in this area. One is internal to each humanitarian agency that requires regular awareness-raising of staff members on the one hand, and a clear sanctioning system on the other. This should include different training sessions, suggestion boxes, regular follow-up and evaluation, and creating a space for internal talks on this. To fight abuses, there needs to be denunciation, judicial sanctions and termination of contracts. Another way to change behaviours is through external mechanisms of awareness raising that refer to existing laws with and for affected community members. Also, family education and Christian message education against rape and abuses along with women’s empowerment would be beneficial. Lastly, schooling and mentorship for children, as well as awareness raising on the topic towards girls at schools and universities by promoting positive masculinity. Here too, fighting abuses can go through denunciation, judicial accompaniment, and criminalizing perpetrators of sexual abuses.
Reinforce local and existing norms
There is a need to enforce the 2006 Law on sexual violence in DRC and the 2009 Law of children’s protection. Again, promoting women’s empowerment, children’s schooling and evangelization based on Christian beliefs to protect women and girls against any form of abuses, harassment and rape are all routes towards improving the situation. Applying all social norms that play on prevention, repression, discouragement, sanctioning any form of influence and structures of impunity; and instead promoting victim’s interest and damage repair. Value traditional and religious norms that prohibit and sanction sexual abuse, harassment and rape by promoting positive values of customs and religions. At the same time mobilizing influential church and traditional leaders along with creating a space of family education on the topic.
In addition, messaging on positive masculinity and Christian positive values need to target both youth, couples, and women. Consideration of sexual abuse and the like as a transgression of the Christian faith, and sufficient reason for excommunication and community sanctioning. Religious and traditional songs that promote local values on positive masculinity such as else’s woman is a poison.
Only locally driven actions have the potential to bring about changes when humanitarian codes of conduct are translated into long lasting and existing social norms. There is a need to allocate a budget line to social mobilization on the topic, strengthen capacities of local actors to the task and promote social norms based on formal laws, religious and traditional beliefs for positive masculinity.
Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator color=”custom” accent_color=”#a80000″ css=”.vc_custom_1594895181078{margin-top: -15px !important;margin-bottom: 10px !important;}”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1702372762559{margin-top: 0px !important;}”]About the authors:Patrick Milabyo Kyamusugulwa is Professor at the Institut Supérieur des Techniques Médicales de Bukavu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). He is member of the DRC Humanitrian Observatory and member of the Social Science Centre for African Development-KUTAFITI.
Delu Lusambya Mwenebyake is a PhD researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Delu is working on humanitarian governance in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Community-driven, accountability, and advocacy in Humanitarian Actions.
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This blog is part of the Humanitarian Governance: Accountability, Advocacy, Alternatives’ project. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 884139
In this blog, Paul Alexander, the founder of the Centre for Strategic Negotiations, dives into the various modes, contexts, and techniques that Humanitarian Actors can use in the course of their work. This blog has been written following a 3-day workshop where the Centre for Strategic Negotiations partners with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative.
Photo by huettenhoelscher
Frontline humanitarians often literally negotiate down the barrel of a gun, one with militaries, militias or proxies behind it. It’s a clear example of asymmetric negotiations – where one party appears to hold most power. An extreme, and often extremely high stakes, negotiation.
Such extreme examples were important to consider when designing course material for delivery at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. ‘What power do humanitarians really have, and can power be created?’ Not only passing AK47 checkpoints, but for complex multiple engagements.
Asymmetrical negotiations and power dynamics
Such was the case here: the Donbas, Ukraine, just prior to February 2022. Locked in a conflict since 2014 that affected over a million people, particularly vulnerable children and pensioners. Humanitarians were negotiating with senior commanders’ or their civilian proxies.
This was a problem: the counterpart was sophisticated, and likely to know their power. It was also an opportunity to speak to decision makers and to, over time, improve conditions. An opening to build a relationship, some understanding and possibly some leverage too.
When observing previous humanitarian negotiation training, there seemed an almost visceral resistance to fully engage with models that seek to explore counterparty’s interests. This was understandable. Who wants to deeply understand minds so often seemingly ruthless and self-serving?
I informed Harvard that the plan was to explore this gap, at the end of the first day, which might make them upset. Understandably they questioned why – “you do know that their job makes them upset anyway, without your help? Maybe give them a break.”
The course material was over three days, enough time to structure participants through a 3-stage process. One that can move from concept to application. Practice ingrains learning, but so too does evoking emotional experiences; the idea was to make it experiential.
Day 1: Power and ‘The Gap’
The starting point for humanitarians is often a moral case, caring for innocent people. If their counterparty doesn’t care, and sees no other interest from assistance, what then? In this context we explored power, and interest, and their complex inter-relatedness.
Each participant then picked a live negotiation to work on. They completed an exercise on their negotiation goals, explored if the order was right, and whether any goals had been collapsed with the means to achieve them. They then did the same for their counterparty. The contrast was stark.
Participants had little to say on their counterparty’s interests. Silence, then emotion, followed as they reflected on the cost – for past negotiations as well as present. It became a brief, collective, grieving process. A potential pivot point, often seen when turning around teams.
Day 2: Interests and Narratives
They returned ready to engage newly with interests. We started with deeper conceptual work on interests. Then applied it to live negotiations. One participant, ‘Anna’, faced a commander refusing to approve even a toilet for a basement bomb shelter used by a hundred children.
She repeatedly told him that every child has a right to a normal childhood. It was both her opinion and an emotional lever to move him – unsuccessfully. ‘Anna’ was rage-filled. Despite years of experience, she couldn’t comprehend such disinterest and callousness.
‘Anna’ had, during her unsuccessful attempts, observed him enough to note that he cared about one thing: losing his job. The greatest risk to that was bad publicity, so problems that escalate to being media news. We explored alternatives to ‘normal childhood’, ones fitting this concern.
‘Anna’ started with ‘normal conditions’ and the ‘safety of children’, moving on to ‘breathe normally’. All were powerful but still lacked that specific punch. She tried ‘potable water’ but that was too specific and lacking the emotive quality for a good headline.
She then arrived at ‘basic needs met’ – a narrative but also that unfavourable headline: children’s basic needs not met. It was still framed as a low level of ask, so both a low risk to permit and a big risk to deny. Yet still vague enough for ‘Anna’ to determine what it meant.
She replaced emotion not just with logic, but with the commander’s logic. However self-interested, depraved or even illogical. A key lesson for participants: ‘Listen for what they really care about; if it isn’t much that might even help. Engage to fulfil, influence, reshape their logic.’
Being external to a conflict, offering professional skills and crisis experience can all create leverage. However, interventions still need not to framed as not contrary to, or even supporting, commanders’ interests. Whilst avoiding further legitimising these commanders.
Day 3 Mandates as Narratives
Humanitarians often start with their mandate: their purpose and justification for being there. This can create both leverage, or resistance, if heard as Western interference. They also start by outlining their principles, or ways of working: neutrality, impartiality, independence.
On the surface they are similar but can mean different things dependent on the context. Could they be used more? Beyond descriptions of method, rather as narratives tailored for specific situations and interests? As ways to both counter any mandate resistance and create leverage.
We explored different ways to express these principles, focusing on the subtle but important difference between neutrality, impartiality and independence. The group were in less of a mood to consider principles as hallowed, and more interested in how they delivered leverage.
‘Erika’ saw that her default principle, neutrality, kept failing because it wasn’t believed. She came from one side of the conflict. How could she possibly be neutral? It would be more plausible, and useful, to say independent. If not neutral, you can still choose independence.
‘Anita’ saw how each principle can create different stories of their role. These stories might communicate differently to each listener and can be adjusted as the engagement develops. Impartiality was useful to hold back in case they found themselves as mediator in a dispute.
They were building negotiation strategies. Each tailored for a new situation, counterparty and stage. Their principles became strategic narratives, nuanced to fit the context and interests. Creating, and selecting, these narratives could convert others’ interests into your power.
This helped reframe their understanding of power, and negotiation power, through its association with interests. In asymmetric negotiations, faced with hard power, the soft power of narratives and process can create leverage. An opening to trade, both ethically and silently.
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Photo by huettenhoelscher — HANNOVER / GERMANY – JUNE 24, 2020: Paramedic of the German army with an emergency backpack stands at a military ambulance.
Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.
About the author:
Paul Alexander is founder of the Centre for Strategic Negotiations (CSN). CSN specialises in maximising the value of high stakes negotiations. It operates across the commercial, government and NGO sectors. http://www.centrefsn.com @centrefsn
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As global as needed, as local as possible: glocal is a buzzword both in the humanitarian and development fields. According to many, acting glocal is a possible response to the long debate on coloniality in aid, and the key for a new generation of international practices that are more aware, more equal, and more balanced. But recent practices show how also glocalization can be steeped into coloniality: who is deciding what is possible and what is needed? And which voices, among the many that are composing the so-called Global South are being heard?
Image by Author
Coloniality and the aid sector
The Peruvian Sociologist Anibal Quijano used the word Coloniality to identify patterns, structures, norms, customs and beliefs, based on the generally white, Christian and Eurocentric vision of the world, formerly directly imposed on colonized countries, that remained there even after the colonization ended.
Coloniality expresses itself in 4 realms: Coloniality of power – how power is shared and used in a way that resembles the old models of former colonizing states, Coloniality of being– how human beings are classified in a hierarchical fashion according to if they belong to the dominant group (or not), usually composed of white, European, Christian men, Coloniality of knowledge -how knowledge is categorized according to a Eurocentric perspective that juxtaposes the alleged “rationality” and “universality” of European knowledge, to any other kind of knowledge produced in other contexts, and Coloniality of gender, to refer to the imposition of European gender structures and categories over non European gender cultures and traditions.
The aid sector is directly linked to colonial history and it has been identified as embodying several forms of neocolonialism. Critics focus mainly on three factors:
Providing assistance is often a way to keep influencing the agenda of a self-governing entity, its decision making processes and allocation and use of resources located in former colonies;
The sector lives on the assumption that knowledge is produced in the “Global North” and magnanimously brought to the “South”, that civilization, wellbeing and individual rights as they are conceived in the “North” are concepts that need to be introduced into a generally primitive and otherwise wild “South”
In the mainstream narrative of the aid relation, the main character, the hero, the agent, is the person from the “North”, who is usually depicted as a white non-disabled man, while those who participate into actions and projects in the South are reduced to passive objects in need of help, often called “beneficiaries”.
There are several signs of momentum for decoloniality in the sector, and different initiatives have arisen to question the colonial foundations of the aid industry. Such initiatives look at narratives, logistics, human resources, visual communication, project cycle management and funding mechanisms. The most recent and visible move in this direction is the Pledge for Change, initiated by Degan Ali, Executive Director of the African non-governmental organization (NGO) Adeso, with support from the Centre for Humanitarian Leadership. Originally signed by five major NGOs, the pledge today has over twice that number of signatories. It identifies three streams of change: equitable partnership, authentic storytelling, and influencing wider change
In this landscape, one of the most vivid debates is around the role, space, position and power that communities, groups and organizations rooted in countries traditionally receiving aid have in shaping the relation with programs. Too often they are still considered passive beneficiaries of programs designed without their involvement, who should be grateful from whatever arrives from the white savior, even though what arrives is not adequate to the context and does not address needs and priorities.
Glocalization in aid
The concept of Glocalization was borrowed from marketing and introduced into the sector straight after the launch of the Agenda for Sustainable Development, as a key methodology for successful implementation of the agenda.
The meaning of the word Glocalization is usually summarized into “think global, act local”. It recognizes the need for a coexistence between global trends and dynamics and specific needs, priorities, knowledge, customs, and cultures.
From a decolonial perspective, the concept of Glocalization appears interesting at least for two reasons:
Values, knowledge, and epistemology: traditionally the whole aid industry assumes that valuable skills and knowledge arrive from former colonial powers. Aid workers bring “capacities” to those who allegedly don’t have any. A huge collection of local, indigenous, and traditional knowledge on which local systems are based is ignored, dismissed, and historically sidelines, or often intentionally destroyed. Glocalization encourages learning from the local and using local knowledge when it is the best fit to reach the intended outcome, without importing and imposing knowledge and practices from other contexts.
Agenda setting: who participates in decision making processes, who decides that something represents a problem, and that this needs to be urgently sorted with international support. The concept of glocalization includes and encourages agency from local actors and recognizes their power to shape global trends, while asking international actors to place themselves in a position of openness and active listening.
However, the use and ownership of the word “glocalization” has mirrored a still-very-unbalanced North-South relation. The first use can be seen in allegedly glocal actions and programs (including manuals that should support the practical implementation of glocalization), while the second simply accepted the term as a new buzzword that needs to be mentioned in project proposals in order to receive funds.
Looking at the use and application of allegedly glocal approaches, we are called to ask a difficult question: Who is deciding when local is possible and when global is needed? In other words, who has the power? Glocalization practices need to start at decision making level: no real glocalization can be possible if the agency of communities, civil societies and other actors located in countries traditionally receiving aid is not recognized and given space.
If we return to the concept of coloniality, we soon realize that for true glocalization, this practice needs to be deeply connected to a decolonial process. On the contrary, we are too often witnessing a sort of “glocal-washing”, where those who traditionally held power and resources keep doing so, through a seemingly different process. If existing power relations are not challenged, and if the process of knowledge production does not change, the usual suspects will decide how and when to ‘go glocal’.
Having difficult conversations
The word glocalization by itself suggests that there is no one-fits-all solution, and that every context needs to be interpreted, explored and listened to, in order to find adequate and unique solutions.
Each context requires a different balance between global and local, and this balance can emerge only if power relations are questioned, and if glocalization is approached from a decolonial perspective.
The first step are not the manuals produced in the so-called Global North. The first step is finding the way to have difficult conversations on power, knowledge, and resources, with the communities that will participate into aid programs.
Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.
About the author:
Carla Vitantonio is a Humanitarian and development professional, author, researcher. She is a member of the board of the International Humanitarian Studies Association. In 2022, she was awarded the honor of Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia by the President of the Republic of Italy, for her activity as a humanitarian and as an author.
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Sexual abuse is widespread in the humanitarian sector of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The observatory was set up to discuss, among others, crises that plague the humanitarian sector, including sexual abuse in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The Humanitarian Observatory (HO) is a suitable space for academics, civil society, international and state actors to discuss humanitarian governance challenges so to contribute in shedding light on how to go about them sustainably.A pervasive issue with devastating consequencesSexual abuse has become a significant problem in the DRC’s humanitarian sector. Incidents of sexual abuse by humanitarian actors are widespread, as humanitarian activity has sharply increased. Independent news agency the New Humanitarian is one of the platforms reporting on these developments — in September last year it highlighted the stories of 34 cases of alleged sexual abuse that resulted in pregnancy. The majority of the women reported abuse from employees of United Nations agencies, others from those working for international humanitarian agencies. More recently, that the number of women reporting sexual abuse by aid workers is still growing.
The reports of purported victims of sexual abuse indicate that sexual abuse in the DRC has two main faces: (i) the sexual exploitation of aid recipients — that is, trading aid for sex, and (ii) the sexual exploitation of job applicants or colleagues lower in rank — that is, trading sex for jobs, job security, or promotions. One of the women interviewed by the New Humanitarian related that she was only 15 years old when her boss started inviting her to a hotel for sexual relations, claiming that she was to have sex with him if she wanted to keep her job. A few months later, she became pregnant, and she is now in charge of raising her young daughter at her own expense.
A space for talking about sexual abuse
One year ago, in October 2022, a group of people in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) — humanitarians, academics, civil society actors and others — got together to form a Humanitarian Observatory.[1] The observatory, one of a handful set up in different countries as part of the
At the observatory event on 15 March this year, we chose to focus the discussion on sexual abuse in the humanitarian sector in the DRC. Sexual abuse scandals in the humanitarian sector have been widely reported, but occasions where we as Congolese can talk about such issues are few and far between. The launch of the observatory therefore served as a space for us to openly discuss the issue — something that has not truly been done to date — in particular how sexual abuse comes about and what needs to be done to address the problem, especially by those working on the ground in the DRC.
Photo 1: humanitarian observatory members in group’s discussion about sexual abuse in DRC, 15 March 2023, BukavuSome observations
The meeting of the Humanitarian Observatory where the issue was discussed had 18 participants comprised of 10 men and 8 women. Of the 18 participants, four were humanitarian aid workers, ten were researchers, and four were civil society actors. We could therefore have a balanced discussion in which different participants highlighted different dimensions of the issue and proposed several possible measures. Below, we highlight some of the main observations that were made at the meeting.
Shame and fear drive silence
First of all, it was noted that victims are ashamed of having been sexually abused and therefore many victims prefer not to speak out in view of cultural restrictions for women; this is even more so in the case of male victims of sexual abuse. People may also be afraid to speak out because they fear retaliation from the perpetrator.
Similarly, even though most of the participants of the discussion are active in the humanitarian sector, there seemed to be an informal agreement among victims about refraining from telling personal stories about or mentioning the names of people they knew to be perpetrators. Instead, in order to keep the discussion safe, participants spoke about sexual abuse as an external phenomenon rather than as practices they are involved in or have witnessed first-hand.
Here are some other observations that participants made:
The problem is widespread. Reflecting on the problem, the participants agreed that (forced or consensual) sexual relations are rampant in the humanitarian sector. Many humanitarian male actors have condoms in their offices or while traveling for fieldwork. Moreover, it is very common that victims are invited into hotel rooms. Women are deceived with flattering words of promises of marriage, or they are just being told they need to consent if they want to keep their jobs. This may also happen to young women in need that are exploited for promises of goods or other gains. It is also rather common that humanitarian workers seek sexual relations with women engaged in small trade activities around the humanitarian compounds or women engaged in small jobs for the agencies, such as cleaning or cooking.
Men at all levels are the perpetrators. The participants to the observatory found it important to note that accusations of sexual abuse concern men at all levels of the organization, from managers and office workers (such as human resources officers) to fieldwork staff, drivers, guards, and people with odd jobs working alongside women in cleaning and cooking. This is important because these latter groups are often not aware of codes of conduct and are not being involved in awareness-raising activities.
Several context-specific factors make sexual abuse possible. A first factor is formed by the misery, poverty, and vulnerability among community members, who rely mostly on humanitarian assistance. The second factor is formed by the long-term stay of humanitarian personnel and operations of humanitarian agencies in the area, with little control or accountability of international and national non-governmental organizations working in isolated or remote zones. In these conditions, many women seeking access to aid, funding, or employment have resigned themselves to the idea that sexual relations are a largely unescapable ‘part of the deal’ and that their protests will not be heard.
Patriarchal norms help normalize sexual abuse. And above all, it was recognized that sexual abuse is related to a dominant or hegemonic Congolese masculinity based on common and informal cultures, where men behave as if they are entitled to have sex in return for favours.
Two recommendations
Reflecting on this discussion, we can ask how we can prevent and fight against the phenomenon. At the end of the observatory meeting, the participants together formulated two main recommendations for actions that can be taken:
Rethinking norms of masculinity and combating toxic masculinity are crucial. Recognizing that the problem partly stems from cultural issues, it is a priority to promote positive masculinity through different means, including the news media and social media. It is important to combat predatory sexual behaviour and rethink masculinity norms. These should draw on alternative masculinity repertoires that can also be found in the DRC, such as the caring father or breadwinner forms of masculinity. In these, men are responsible providers for their family, including for their spouses, and at the same time provide space for women’s empowerment. It is a masculinity ideal where men considerably contribute to the household, both economically and socially.
All workers in the humanitarian sector need to be made aware of behavioural norms and codes of conduct that should guide their actions. To combat sexual abuse in the humanitarian sector, awareness raising is a priority, focusing on humanitarian staff, including drivers, guards, and other male staff that are less exposed to training on codes of conduct and principles of humanitarian assistance. In addition, state actors, civil society organisations, and community members should be involved in awareness raising and following up on reported cases. It must be ensured that perpetrators are sanctioned according to legal, religious, and traditional norms of the Congolese society.
The above-mentioned actions will need to be enduring — a single, once-off intervention is insufficient given that cultural norms strongly shape the present situation, in particular by normalizing sexual abuse and providing a space for its continued existence. The Eastern Congo has become a permanent site of humanitarian assistance, and this is not likely to end soon. This means that sexual abuse will also remain an issue. This is not only a matter for the humanitarian agencies. It is important that all stakeholders, including communities, civil society, and state agencies, take responsibility to fight against sexual abuse.
[1] We acknowledge active participation of members of the Humanitarian Observatory discussions in the event of 15 March 2023 from which the current blog is written, namely Claude Iguma, Odile Bulabula, Gentil Kavusa, Denise Siwatula, Bilubi Ulengabo, Christian Namegabe, Shukuru Manegabe, Sifa Katembera, Henri Kintuntu, Wabenga Lunanga, Samuel Kyamundu, Prosper Lufungula, and Veronique Saleh.
Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.About the authors:Patrick Milabyo Kyamusugulwa is Professor at the Institut Supérieur des Techniques Médicales de Bukavu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). He is member of the DRC Humanitrian Observatory and member of the Social Science Centre for African Development-KUTAFITI.
Delu Lusambya Mwenebyake is a PhD researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Delu is working on humanitarian governance in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Community-driven, accountability, and advocacy in Humanitarian Actions.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc
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This blog is part of the Humanitarian Governance: Accountability, Advocacy, Alternatives’ project. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 884139
[vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1592900783478{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;}”][vc_column css=”.vc_custom_1592900766479{margin-right: 10px !important;margin-left: -10px !important;}”][vc_column_text]The International Humanitarian Studies Association (IHSA), which is hosted at the Humanitarian Studies Centre at ISS, held its biennial conference at the beginning of November in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Held in collaboration with North-South University (NSU), and the Insights Network, the three-day conference featured a huge range of presentations and panel discussions on everything from migration, conflict, humanitarian education; and much more besides. The conference was also an opportunity to elect a new President and Board Members for the Association. [/vc_column_text][vc_separator color=”custom” accent_color=”#a80000″ css=”.vc_custom_1594895181078{margin-top: -15px !important;margin-bottom: 10px !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”25987″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][vc_separator color=”custom” accent_color=”#a80000″ css=”.vc_custom_1594895181078{margin-top: -15px !important;margin-bottom: 10px !important;}”][vc_column_text]The International Humanitarian Studies Association (IHSA), brings together both researchers and practitioners from across the Humanitarian Studies spectrum and its related ‘sister’ subjects: including conflict studies, migration studies, environmental sciences; and international relations. The Association was founded in 2009 by a group of researchers including Dorothea Hilhorst (ISS), who stood down as the third president at the conference. IHSA has plenty of activities and opportunities for members, including working groups and expertise databases, but one of its biggest activities is the biennial conference.
This time, the conference was held in Dhaka, Bangladesh, (and online!) and featured over 300 attendees. It highlighted over 60 different panels and roundtables held on a range of subjects including: “Filling the gap or filling the shoes? Civil society and political change in historical disasters”, “Who or what constitutes the Humanitarian?”, “Building locally led solidarities over shrinking space for civil society”, and “Humanitarian action in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC): Its governance and peculiarities in the region”. You can check out the full list and schedule here, while various recordings of the roundtables will be available on the IHSA YouTube channel in the near future.
New President and Board Members elected
Antonio De Lauri (Chr. Michelsen Institute, Oslo) was elected by the IHSA Members as the new IHSA President, and will lead the Association for the next four years.
In a commendation speech, the outgoing President, Dorothea Hilhorst (ISS) said: “I’m delighted that Antonio will be leading the International Humanitarian Studies Association for the next few years: he is an excellent academic – a formidable intellectual that has a strong track record in field research in humanitarian arenas. He is a great networker and I am convinced he will be a wonderful IHSA President. I look forward to him working with the new board to bring the Association to a broader audience and take the IHSA community to become yet more meaningful to its members.”
Dorothea Hilhorst – one of the founding members of IHSA in 2009 – was the third President of IHSA after Alex de Waal and Peter Walker whom she succeeded in 2016. IHSA will now be hosted at the Humanitarian Studies Centre in The Hague, and will benefit from two new staff members, increasing the capacity of the organization exponentially. An exciting programme of events and initiatives is planned for the coming years.
New Board Members
Members of the Association also voted for new Board members to join the 10-person board. Palash Kamruzzaman (University of South Wales), Carla Vitantonio (CARE), and Juan Ricardo Aparicio Cuervo (Universidade de Los Andes) were newly elected, whilst Rodrigo Mena (ISS) and Andrew Cunningham were both re-elected. Board members serve for four years, and the newly elected members now join existing members Susanne Jaspars (SOAS, University of London), Nazanin Zadeh-Cummings (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen), Patrick Milabyo Kyamusugulwa (ISTM-Bukavu), and Maryam Zarnegar Deloffre (George Washington University).
Mohamed Jelle (UCL) and Virginie Troit (Fondation Croix-Rouge) have left the board following the end of their terms; IHSA would like to thank them for their work and dedication over the last four years.
The International Humanitarian Studies Association welcomes new members: students, researchers, and practitioners from across the world of Humanitarian Studies. You can find out more about member benefits by visiting the IHSA website.
[/vc_column_text][vc_separator color=”custom” accent_color=”#a80000″ css=”.vc_custom_1594895181078{margin-top: -15px !important;margin-bottom: 10px !important;}”][vc_column_text]Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator color=”custom” accent_color=”#a80000″ css=”.vc_custom_1594895181078{margin-top: -15px !important;margin-bottom: 10px !important;}”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1700597250996{margin-top: 0px !important;}”]About the author:
Tom Ansell is the Coordinator of the Humanitarian Studies Centre and International Humanitarian Studies Association.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column css=”.vc_custom_1596795191151{margin-top: 5% !important;}”][vc_separator color=”custom” accent_color=”#a80000″ css=”.vc_custom_1594895181078{margin-top: -15px !important;margin-bottom: 10px !important;}”][vc_column_text]
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Humanitarian Studies has been defined by Professor Thea Hilhorstas the study of societies and vulnerable communities experiencing humanitarian crisis originating from disaster, conflict, refugee situations, and/ or political collapse. This definition stemmed from the recent launch of the Humanitarian Studies Centre (HSC) on 31 August, 2023 at the International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague. The HSC aims to build a network of researchers, practitioners, and policy makers to collaboratively impact the field of Humanitarian Studies.
The Humanitarian Studies Centre at ISS launched on August 31, with a full-day opening event to ‘take stock of Humanitarian Studies’. Guest speakers included Prof. Antonio De Lauri (Norwegian Centre for Humanitarian Studies), Dr Juan Ricardo Aparicio Cuervo (Universidade de Los Andes), Rob Schuurmans (Acting Director, International Affairs, Municipality of The Hague), and Mariëlle van Miltenberg (Head of Humanitarian Aid at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs). The day was intended to map humanitarian studies in the Netherlands and provide an opportunity for networking, with 36 presentations in different sessions showing the breadth and diversity of Humanitarian Studies.
The Humanitarian Studies Centre will also partner with and host several other organisations, including KUNO (Platform for Knowledge Exchange in the Netherlands), the SSRi (Safety and Security for Researchers Initiative), and the IHSA (International Humanitarian Studies Association). In her opening speech, Thea Hilhorst, who directs the Humanitarian Studies Centre, raised the question what humanitarian studies is.
What is Humanitarian Studies?
“I would like to start with a word of thanks, to the Netherlands government that endowed me with the Spinoza price that enabled setting up the Humanitarian Studies Centre. A first question, then, is of course: what are humanitarian studies?
The field was originally thought of as ‘the study of (international) humanitarian action’. However, perhaps because of my background in development studies, I have always carefully situated humanitarian action in society. Humanitarian action, in my mind, is an autonomous field embedded in society, as I elaborated with Bram Jansen in the idea of the humanitarian arena.
Even so, through time I felt it was needed to broaden the definition of humanitarian studies, away from a focus on international humanitarian action to take societies undergoing humanitarian crises as the starting point. Humanitarian studies, in my mind is:
The study of societies and vulnerable communities experiencing humanitarian crisis originating from disaster, conflict, refugee situations, and/ or political collapse. It studies the causes and impact of crisis; how people, communities and authorities respond to them, including efforts for prevention and preparedness; how humanitarian action and other external interventions are organized and affect the recovery from crises; and the institutional changes that crises and crisis response engender.
This definition implies that there are lots of people that contribute to Humanitarian Studies, without necessarily identifying with the label of ‘Humanitarian Studies’.”
A broad field, open to dialogue
“There is a large range of other academic fields that can interact with, influence, and be in conversation within Humanitarian Studies. We are like siblings in a large family, looking alike yet all with our distinctive features. These include conflict and peace studies, development studies, feminist and post-colonial studies, international relations, disaster studies, and refugee studies. It’s not just academic efforts that contribute to the field either; practitioners are also included – hence the hosting of KUNO at the HSC. The launch of the HSC is also a call to build a network of researchers, practitioners, and policy makers that build collaboratively to have the most positive effect in Humanitarian Studies.”
Not limited to the actions of Humanitarians
“Centering society within Humanitarian Studies means looking at what happens to society during moments of crisis, in contrast to previous approaches. Scholars were mainly interested in the exceptionality of crisis, the violence characterizing crisis, or assumed societies lost their organizing principles to become tabula rasa or institutional voids altogether during a crisis. Few people asked themselves how families managed to feed children, sent them to school, how babies were born, what happened to couples falling in love, who would help people with nothing to eat?
While a plethora of research and lived experience showed that people help each other during crisis (everybody would have died when they had to wait for international humanitarian actors), this largely escaped the eye of the academic world just as much as the aid community. Today, we almost see the opposite happening, with the aid sector celebrating the resilience of local communities, the self-reliance of people on the move and the everyday care they extend to one another.
Whilst it is important to celebrate peoples’ resilience during crisis, and solidarity within societies, this doesn’t mean that the field of Humanitarian Studies takes a rose-tinted view of what happens during crises. Nor can the field ignore the politicization of crisis situations. Lots of research has testified to the politics of crisis, and the ways in which actors reconfigure themselves to benefit from the crisis interventions or change the existing order according to their own interests and views. This happens at international as much as national and the local level, where for example chiefs may ask for sexual favours in exchange for assistance, or local traders may profit from crises by doubling their prices.”
Disaster and crisis as opportunity
“Optimistic people view disaster as a window of opportunity to build back better, and more pessimistic people predominantly see how elites make themselves stronger and richer in times of crisis. Where they agree is that moments of crisis also typically open space for change within society, with existing structures of governance often entirely upheaved, or unable to operate in the same manner. Some of the richest, layered and interesting studies humanitarian scholars have done is to see how institutional landscapes change in crisis situations, whether these changes are permanent, and whether these changes can be affected by carefully crafted interventions.”
A value-laden field
“What I love about humanitarian studies as the title of this domain of work is that it carries a value-laden property. Humanitarian studies is about dignity and it is about humanity. The father of modern humanitarianism, Henri Dunant, proposed that the key idea of humanitarianism is the desire to save lives and restore human dignity. He derived this notion from a tradition of Christian charity that did not seek to radically alter society. However, the notion of humanity has also inspired subsequent scholars. Last year I was in the beautiful city of Davos in Switzerland where a winter walkway is devoted to Thomas Mann, who wrote his ‘Zauberberg’ (the Magic Mountain) during a stay at Davos.
One of the quotes displayed on the walkway says: ‘What then, is humanism? It is the love of humanity, nothing else, and therefore it is political, and therefore it is a rebellion against everything that tarnishes and devalues humanity.’ That is for me the value that drives humanitarian studies.”
The Humanitarian Studies Centre aims to be a hive of activity around the field, with academic and applied research that will continue to centre both society and humanity in societies undergoing crisis or disaster. Along with Director Thea Hilhorst, Deputy Director Rodrigo Mena, and Senior Researcher Kaira Zoe Cañete, another Senior Researcher will also shortly be joining the team. Several PhD researchers are also affiliated to the centre. Non-academic staff include Coordinator Thomas Ansell, and Community Manager Gabriela Anderson Fernandez. An exciting programme of academic research, knowledge sharing, dialogue with practitioners, and much more is planned!
More information about the HSC is available on the ISS website. The HSC has been set up at ISS by Thea Hilhorst, following her Spinoza Prize in 2022.
Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.
About the author:
Dorothea Hilhorst is professor of Humanitarian Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University.
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In the past few months, several humanitarian observatories have been set up in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and South Asia as part of a project on humanitarian governance and advocacy. These observatories review humanitarian action in the countries they’re located in and aim to contribute to humanitarian reform from below. In this post, Dorothea Hilhorst introduces this exciting new development and the Bliss blog series that will show what’s happening at the different observatories.Launch DRC observatory 30 October 2022
Humanitarian governance is associated with many challenges related to the effectiveness of aid, accountability and trust, and the huge power imbalance between large humanitarian agencies and national aid providers, for example. Questions abound. How is the effectiveness of aid perceived by affected communities? How are funds allocated? Who are the people most in need? What is the role of the state in service provision? How is aid politicized, and whose interests are at stake? What is the role of national NGOs and civil society, and how are their voices heard?
Whereas many of these questions are addressed in international policies and debates, the influence of actors from the countries that are mostly affected by crisis – recipients of aid, national aid providers and others – on these policies and debates is wanting. As part of a humanitarian governance project hosted at the ISS, we have launched a series of humanitarian observatories for such actors to help monitor humanitarian governance processes in locales of humanitarian aid interventions with the aim of improving effectiveness and accountability. The project is briefly introduced below.
Creating networks, enhancing dialogue and collaboration
In an era of growing humanitarian needs, international advocacy has been focused on improving the effectiveness of aid, accountability, and the role of national actors. But these initiatives usually take place at the global level. We want to turn this around and reform humanitarianism by creating spaces for actors affected by aid interventions to monitor these in the places where they are enacted.
The project ‘Humanitarian governance. Accountability, advocacy, alternatives’ that seeks to do this is a five-year programme funded by the European Research Council. The programme is hosted at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague and is organized as a network with the following partners: the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia, Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, and KUTAFITI and the CREGED in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is a culmination of aspirations and activities of my previous work where I have always aimed to enhance dialogue and create networks of people across different parts of the humanitarian field, especially with people living through and working on humanitarian crises in their own setting.
The project hopes to create a space where people from those countries can meet and reflect on the challenges facing humanitarian governance in their country. For this reason, and following several exploratory discussions in the team, our partners have set up humanitarian observatories, which can be broadly defined as networks of a variety of actors that observe trends and processes in humanitarian governance and propose changes when needed. They can be imagined as spaces in which these actors keep an eye on how the humanitarian aid system functions in a specific context, providing an impression of the overall functioning of the system while also functioning amid all the humanitarian activities taking place. The observatories include representatives of affected communities, civil servants, members of civil society, and researchers from within and outside of academia.
Why focus on national or regional contexts?
There are several reasons why it is important to focus observatories on national or regional contexts:
National or regional observatories help observe humanitarian governance in its context. Due to reforms in the humanitarian sector, its organization is moving away from being centred on international actors and toward becoming more embedded in the countries of implementation. It is therefore important to observe humanitarian governance in its context, as it is affected by contextual issues such as the histories of governance development in a country, the relative strength of state and non-state institutions, and the level of economic development.
National or regional observatories amplify the voices of a variety of actors. International policy fora typically include voices of actors from different countries, but these are usually the same handful of humanitarian actors. By organizing the observatories locally, a larger range of actors can be involved and can make themselves heard, including actors from affected communities, researchers, and journalists.
National or regional observatories can become effective vehicles for promoting change on humanitarian governance in their context. Humanitarian advocacy can be defined as the activities of affected communities and their advocates to articulate, advance, and protect their rights (i.e. entitlements to assistance and citizenship rights more broadly), needs, views, and interests. This can be advocacy targeted at different actors and levels, including the humanitarian community. This works best when advocacy messages are context-specific, concrete, and implementable.
Spaces for learning and dialoguing
The observatories have further added value beyond monitoring the state of the humanitarian aid sector. For the members, they are a space for learning. Interestingly, the desire is also to learn beyond the context. The South Asia observatory, for example, is currently organizing a session about the situation in Sudan.
The observatories are aspace for exchange. In meetings of the observatory, members can exchange their experiences and insights and can learn from each other. This was for example paramount in the sessions held in the DRC about sexual abuse in the sector – participants shared their personal observations and ideas.
The observatories can also be a space for strategic thinking to consider what the changes are that people wish to see in humanitarian governance. With this purpose in mind, the Ethiopian observatory has had several sessions to review a new piece of legislation on internally displaced persons and make recommendations on how this can include more accountability to affected people.
And, finally, the observatories can be a space for action and influence. To some extent, this is built into the observatory, as participants can take the recommendations back to their own organizations. And the observatory meetings usually end in agreeing on points of action, such as entering into conversation with authorities on a certain topic or seeking exposure by writing a blog post.
From conceptualization to implementation
There are currently four observatories: in the DRC, Ethiopia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and South Asia. A fifth observatory will be launched in The Philippines coming September. Each of the current observatories has held initial meetings. The agenda of the meetings is determined by the participants; hence, they all have a different agenda that is relevant to the context. In the DRC, the observatory is currently dealing with the role of the state and the issue of sexual abuse in the humanitarian sector. In Latin America, the focus is on the role of civil society and affected communities, in Ethiopia on accountability towards Internally Displaced Persons, and in South Asia on heatwaves.
While activities are planned in the context, insights will also be shared internationally. They will, amongst others, be discussed at conferences and events of the International Humanitarian Studies Association, and they will be shared in this series of blog posts. The series will consist of blogs of members of the observatories about the issues of their concern and the reforms they wish to see. The observatories are a young initiative, and their development is open-ended. So far, the experiences have been very promising, and I very much look forward to seeing how the observatories evolve and what we will learn from them through the future contributions to BLISS.
The Humanitarian Governance project has received funding from the European Research council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 884139).
Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.
About the author:
Dorothea Hilhorst is professor of Humanitarian Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University.
Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.
This blog is part of the Humanitarian Governance: Accountability, Advocacy, Alternatives’ project. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 884139
Remittances are a lifeline for many people in low- and middle-income countries, playing a particularly important role during conflict-related humanitarian crises by helping those affected by conflict stay on their feet. However, laws countering money laundering and the financing of terrorism during such crises can prevent remittances from reaching those that need them. Using the case of Afghanistan, Mohamed Muse and Rodrigo Mena in this article discuss the links between remittances and such laws and propose a critical research agenda focused on remittances as an important part of humanitarian crisis responses.
Source: centralbanking.com
Humanitarian crises affect people’s lives in many ways, often leading to abrupt change that can shatter lives and livelihoods due to increased economic disruption, poverty, unemployment, and the reduced provision of services by the state resulting from them (see here, here, and here). In such situations, humanitarian aid is essential for supporting affected people. The assistance of relatives and friends is vital, especially when support networks and humanitarian agencies are not present in those places affected or where their support is limited in terms of coverage, access, or funds.
During crises, it is common to see diaspora mobilising to provide assistance to people living in crises by means of remittances – the transfer of money and other valuable resources to family or friends in crisis-affected contexts. However, laws that prevent money laundering and terrorism financing can prevent remittances from being used effectively as a response mechanism, particularly by forcing banks and other financial entities to stop money transfers to conflict-affected places.
Remittances are an important income for many. When viewing remittances as single transfers made from person to person, they might not seem to have much impact. By considering remittances in their totality, however, a completely different picture emerges. To begin with, they are an important financial inflow in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), second only to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).[1] According to the World Bank, total remittances to LMICs in 2021 surpassed USD 600 billion and the forecasted figure for 2023 is even higher. What’s more, these figures only reflect money sent through ‘formally’ regulated systems such as Western Union and MoneyGram. In fact, most remittances travel through informal and group-specific remittance systems such as Hawala,[2] the most known and researched informal remittance system used by Middle Eastern and African communities.
Remittances make a big difference. Remittance-based financial flows contribute to multiple social and economic practices, from national to household levels and processes. For example, through remittances, Somali diaspora have contributed to the “peace reconciliation process” in Somalia by financially supporting conflict resolution processes, for example peace dialogues among the conflicting parties. Remittances also help sustain the livelihoods of recipients in conflict- and crisis-affected regions and can positively improve health, education, and the housing situation of poor people who receive them. They also help “boost the economy” after periods of crisis.
Remittances play an important role before, during, and after humanitarian crises. Importantly, remittances play a crucial role in supporting responses to humanitarian crises in general, including pre-disaster preparedness and post-disaster recovery efforts. Yet despite their importance, multiple regulations and policies limit, constrain, and shape the extent to which remittances can be resorted to during crises.
Laws combatting money laundering and terrorist financing (AML/CTF) are meant to protect illicit financial flows. According to the Financial Action Task Force (FAFT),[3] countries and their financial entities are required to implement and strictly follow AML/CTF regulations. ‘Know your customer’ (KYC) and de-risking practices are two such regulations that directly impact diaspora and their remittances. KYC requires banks and other financial entities to know about their customers before engaging in any financial transactions with them.
De-risking is another approach that banks have to comply with as part of AML/CTF regulations. De-risking requires banks and other financial entities to not engage with ‘high risk and sanctioned destinations’. The former refers to places in which terrorist groups operate, the latter to entities that are subjected to sanctions mostly by the United States’ Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).[4]
Such regulations are curtailing remittances to Afghanistan. Here, they have created extra layers of challenges for Afghan diaspora and international humanitarian organizations. After the Taliban assumed power in Afghanistan in August 2021, it tumbled deeper into a financial and humanitarian crisis. With the ‘Fall of Kabul’, the country, which had already suffered a range of blows due to the conflict, poverty, and the COVID-19 pandemic, saw its reserves worth USD 7 billion being frozen by OFAC. Similarly, USD 400 million in Afghanistan emergency funds were blocked by the International Monetary Fund, which claimed that it could end up in the hands of Taliban.
Diaspora and their remittances came under global scrutiny as well. With an estimated number of 5.8 million Afghans living abroad, residents of the country received USD 788.9 million in remittances in 2020. This amount only accounts for money transferred via formally recorded channels like Western Union and excludes remittances sent to people in Afghanistan via trust-based channels like Hawala. After the Taliban takeover, many institutions followed a de-risking principle and AML/CTF policies, as a result of which both Western Union and MoneyGram suspended their operations in the country, which made remittances to Afghanistan through formal channels almost impossible. Thus, the trust-based Hawala system, already popular in the country before the current crisis, was increasingly used.[5]
However, Hawala and similar systems have been criticized and are feared to facilitate illicit streams of money, mostly because the transactions cannot be traced, and accountability practices are difficulty to have when the actors involved in the transactions cannot always be identified. Therefore, the enforcement of these global regulatory and supervisory frameworks seeks to protect such systems from harm. Because Afghanistan is on OFAC’s sanctioned countries list, remittances and other financial inflows have become impossible after the ‘Fall of Kabul’ because both humanitarian organizations and financial entities needed to adhere to AML/CTF regulations.
However, to limit and perhaps avoid any further catastrophic humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, OFAC started issuing General Licenses (GL). These licenses made possible humanitarian assistance (GL14) and inflows of personal remittances (GL 16). In this way, innocent Afghans have been able to get much-needed support from their family and friends abroad, as well as from international humanitarian organizations.
There is a need for a critical research agenda on remittances during humanitarian crises. As the case of Afghanistan shows, beyond the well-studied socio-economic role of remittances (see here, here, and here) and their (claimed) use for terrorism and crime, contribution to development, or as an obstacle to integration, they can also play an important role in responding to unfolding humanitarian crises. However, several important knowledge puzzles remain unaddressed and invite the development of a research agenda that can shed light on them, with possible research foci including:
The role and integration of remittances in formal humanitarian responses.
The impact of sanctions on societies affected by humanitarian crises and the challenges that these measures can create.
How remittances link with inequality, either reducing them, considering that not everyone has equal access to remittances or networks of people that has migrate and can send money, or their impact in local economies, from inflation or foster businesses.
How international humanitarian organizations navigate or address AML/CTF regulations when responding to different humanitarian crises.
How remittances are linked to or use cryptocurrencies or blockchain technology, and the implication of this, for example, in terms of the traceability of remittances, speed of the transfers.
[2] Hawala is an informal value transfer system that is commonly used in the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. This transfer system operates outside or in parallel with traditional banking systems and is based on “trust” between those who move value (hawaladars), since no money is involved. Simply put, the sender contacts the hawala agent or hawaladar (Hawaladar A); then, Hawaladar A contacts a local hawaladar agent at the location where the money is to be sent (Hawaladar B) and asks him/her to deliver money to the final recipient. Hawaladar A and B then settle their accounts.
[3] FAFT is inter-governmental agency established in 1898 by group of G7 countries that fights money laundering and terrorism financing through the creation of regulations.
[4] OFAC is part of Treasury Department of US Government. OFAC administers economic sanctions to entities and individuals that are seen to be national security threats.
[5] A report by think tank Samuel Hall for example quips, “Afghan diaspora has been using Hawala extensively for remittances since the first waves of immigration, as most Afghan migrants in Iran and Pakistan did not have access to the banking system”.
This blog post and research was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) Horizon 2020 programme [Advance grant number 884139].
Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.
About the authors:
Rodrigo Mena is an Assistant Professor of Disasters and Humanitarian Studies. He has studied and worked in humanitarian assistance/aid, disaster governance, and environmental sociology for almost twenty years, especially in conflict-affected and vulnerable settings. He lectures on humanitarian action, disaster risk reduction, methodology, and safety and security for in-situ/fieldwork research.
Mohamed Abdiaziz Muse is PhD Researcher at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, Leiden University. Mohamed’s research focuses on global remittance regulations and state-diaspora politics in Sub Sahara Africa. Mohamed’s other areas of focus include international humanitarian aid, diaspora humanitarianism and economic development in Middle East and Africa. Email: musegeelle@yahoo.com twitter: @musegeellejr
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The concept of humanitarian, development, peace (HDP) — referred to also as the triple nexus — gained momentum during the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016, and more recently with the wide adoption of the recommendations on the HDP nexus issues by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development – Development Assistance Committee (OECD-DAC) in 2019.
The HDP nexus pushes for strengthening the links between humanitarian, development, and peace actors and actions in contexts of protracted settings, where all three forms of assistance overlap within the same communities. The focus on strengthening these links, however, is not new. For example, the discourse on ‘linking relief, rehabilitation, and development’ (LRRD) from the 1980s, also attempted to better align humanitarian and development activities. It was, however, critiqued because it saw aid as a linear process and lacked incentives for co-ordination, and focused primarily on the process of humanitarian agencies finishing their work, and development agencies taking over at some point. The triple nexus approach, on the contrary, pushes agencies and actors to improve co-ordination, collaboration, and coherence in order to increase aid effectiveness.
In this blog, I will explore the questions around engagement of national governments with triple nexus approaches. Specifically, I will look at (1) the importance of engaging with the national government; (2) existing challenges to this engagement; and (3) overcoming the challenges in engaging with the national government in relation to triple nexus approaches.
Wide acknowledgement for the need to engage with national governments
The overarching objective of the triple nexus approach is the prioritisation of better coordination and coherence between different actors and interventions in order to ‘end need’ and ‘leave no one behind’, thereby making the role of national governments a crucial element of this approach.
Therefore, while on one hand, national governments are critical for moving from emergency relief to long-term peace and stability, on the other, national governments can pose a threat to this progress when they are party to the conflict. This then becomes a difficult, and often a political dilemma, to determine how, and to what extent, should national governments be involved in planning aid strategies and interventions.
Challenges in involving national governments
One of the major concerns with engaging national governments in triple nexus approaches is that they will manipulate the strategies and interventions to their advantage — primarily by using the resources for their own gain — and fail to prioritise the interests of the majority of citizens. According to Berebi and Thelen (2011), aid, when given directly to affected population(s), rather than through unstable and potentially corrupt governments, can prove more effective. This is especially true for contexts dominated by conflict, where aid absorption is far less likely than in contexts that are safer and more secure.
This, however, raises an important dilemma— should a triple nexus approach sidestep government to focus on the need for more and better co-ordination in other areas? Purposely disengaging with the government in the spirit of more effective aid in the short and long-term, however, signals a lack of confidence in the national government, and thus, may cause more harm than good.
For example, according to a United Nations report from 2021 focused on South Sudan, since 2018, there has been more than an estimated $73 million, which has gone missing or been syphoned off by various government officials and bodies. In fact, from the recent interviews, which I conducted in November 2021, there is evidence that there has been an increase in tensions between both international and national non-governmental organisations in South Sudan and the national government. This is reportedly because more and more international donors are side-stepping from working with and depending on the government, for ensuring distribution of funds to specific project interventions. Whenever possible, the funds, instead, go directly to the national NGOs and project implementers. In cases where the national and regional governments are involved, the money meant to reach the intended beneficiary is not only often delayed but is also deficient in the intended amount. This issue becomes even more complex when related to implementing a multi-component initiative, that may require several different government ministries to work together efficiently and effectively.
Moving forward
While this is only one issue of aid in the context of fragile and protracted settings when engaging with national governments, it is nonetheless, a very important one. For the triple nexus approach, I would argue that the national government, like all entities, is made up of different people with varying interests. Therefore, when engaging across actors and actions, a process of discernment, by international actors, should be a priori, in finding those individuals in government who are invested in meaningful change — focused on meeting the needs of the community and the country in a way that builds long-term peace and stability.
A triple nexus approach, therefore, must assess different levels of engagement, that balance information sharing with proactive engagement within government bodies to determine the best way of engagement. Those using a triple nexus approach, must recognise that in pulling together humanitarian, peace, and development actors and actions, it may mean that they are encouraging and promoting inter-governmental collaboration, co-ordination, and coherence, that might be weak or non-existent.
On a positive note, however, encouraging working relationships between different ministries can also become a conduit for them to see the benefits of more co-ordinated responses that are focused on immediate relief, as well as ensuring the long-term peace and development of the country. In essence, the triple nexus approach can provide an opportunity for supporting positive inter- and intra-government working relationships.
Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.
About the author
Summer Brown is currently pursuing her Ph.D. at the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University, Rotterdam. Her research focuses on how Humanitarian and Peacebuilding interventions work together from the perspective of National non-governmental organisations in South Sudan. She takes on consulting work focused primarily on the HDP nexus and conflict sensitivity respectively. Some of her clients include the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Mott MacDonald’s Girls Education in South Sudan programme, International Alert, Islamic Relief, Christian Aid and Caritas Switzerland.
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Social researchers at times apply certain terms without critically reflecting on their use. For example, the word ‘humanitarian’ is used to refer to specific crises, while responses to such crises may move beyond humanitarianism. This article details the problematic of the application of certain research terminology and calls for a changing of lexicons in war-to-peace transitions.
Over the last two decades, the ‘world’s worst humanitarian crises’ have come, one after another. There was eastern Congo, then Darfur, South Sudan, Libya, and Syria, now Yemen, and more are in between. These are indeed man-made disasters and emergencies, causing untold suffering. But in 2007, David Keen advised that care should be taken when applying the word “humanitarian” to these crises, because, first, it implies that the solution lies with humanitarian relief. Though humanitarian response may alleviate suffering, it will not solve problems. Second, the word ‘may prejudge the motives of interveners as altruistic, when they can be much more complicated’ (Keen, 2007: 1).
Other terms are increasingly less applicable these days. Take “civil war” or “internal war” – does it still apply to the growing number of conflicts today with no clear front lines, where protagonists are not internal to any single country, and with no clear beginnings and possibly no definite endings, too? A war is aimed at a political or military victory, or at gaining control of territory in the conventional sense. Yet many of today’s “wars” are different – in some, protagonists have even developed an interest in instability as they profit from the war economy. There are more cases today of peacebuilding efforts failing, but not because of the complex constraints faced by peacebuilders. Rather, certain powers want them to fail.
Battles today are fought not just by armies with chains of command, but also by all sorts of irregular militias, criminals, or armed civilians with little discipline or no structure at all. “Soldiers” today include children kidnapped from communities with disintegrating social networks or youngsters peer pressured to join armed gangs.
The “end” of civil wars did not necessarily mean an end to violence. Rather, it merely marked a shift from militarised to other forms of social violence, as disputes over land, resources, and local rule continued. Severine Autesserre, who documented the violence in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) after the peace agreement has been signed, is intensely critical of the widespread use of the term “post-conflict”, because it obscures the primacy of land and other micro-level issues causing violence and producing anguish that were kept invisible and never resolved by the peace talks. She unpacks the methodological shortcomings of peacebuilding in the DRC that led to serious policy failures (Autesserre, 2010: 2).
In Central America, the end of militarised conflict often meant the beginning of criminalised violence. Monitoring by local and international groups such as the Geneva Declaration on Armed Conflict and Violence suggest that two countries with UN-brokered peace agreements in the 1990s – El Salvador and Guatemala – have more people dying today from violent crime (homicide and murder) than those killed in combat or incidents related to fighting during these countries’ civil wars. “Post-conflict” El Salvador suffers more violent deaths today than conflict-affected Iraq. Guatemala has one of the highest homicide rates in the world for a country that is officially not at war.
In addition, over 10% of the violent deaths recorded each year around the world are also attributed to manslaughter – a figure that includes the thousands of refugees and migrants from post-conflict countries who drown or are killed in attempts (labelled “illegal”) to move across territories, or to escape the transitions that are supposed to make life better for them.
So perhaps a first step in better framing war-to-peace transitions is to improve the lexicon in use. Caution is necessary when applying the terms so far listed. But more importantly, assumptions need to be seriously questioned. The expression “senseless violence” for example is a misnomer that divorces acts of violence from its context and ignores the telling details. Violence makes sense to its perpetrators – it could bring reputation, status, and meaning, not just utility.
Mark Duffield once posited that more recent examples of violence could simply be new and innovative ways of projecting political power. As Keen pointed out, famine and hunger, too (not just wars), could be politically manufactured to serve political and economic ends. Hence, violence is anything but pointless. Keen also rejected defining large-scale violent conflict in terms of a “breakdown of authority”. Citing the 1994 Rwandan genocide, he pointed out that ‘the problem was not so much that authority had broken down; rather, it was being imposed with ruthless and vicious efficiency.’ Hence, he argues that to automatically claim that authority has broken down where large-scale violent conflicts take place could be extremely damaging because it risks endorsing the dubious alibi of governments that have cleverly manipulated and exacerbated ethnic tensions (2007: 2-3).
Changing lexicons is not just a matter of semantics. Dropping some terms and using new ones can help frame the problems, and the responses, differently. A report on “Challenges in the Sahel” by the development agency Christian Aid, published in late 2017, used the term “perfect storm” to refer to that extraordinary combination of poverty, violent conflict, corruption, criminality, and climate change that drive the crises in the region. This implies that stand-alone security interventions not coordinated with development actors or other state actors, and vice versa, may not deliver desired results, or can even cause inadvertent outcomes. Solutions need to be smarter.
Also introduced was the term “unusual actors”, to characterise politicians who are corrupt but nevertheless get genuinely elected, or smugglers hunted by the law that may be the only providers of employment in disintegrating local economies. They may also spoilers of the peace who are predators to some but are protectors to others. “Unusual”, because though they may be “bad guys”, they are somehow tolerated, or even considered “good guys” by others. It posits that dilemma – how should humanitarian and development agencies deal with “unusual actors”?
To conclude, working differently on war-to-peace transitions may require changing lexicons, or at least requires more circumspection in the application of certain terms. We need to become better at bracing for perfect storms, and in preparing for, or at least recognising, the presence of rather “unusual actors”. Finding more comprehensive solutions means laying all options out, including decisions to walk away at certain moments.
The UN in its current form does not serve the citizens it promises to protect. Is it time for a UN 2.0 that puts citizens at the centre? This article explains why the current international system is becoming irrelevant. A world citizenship approach must urgently be explored. This blog is based on a presentation delivered at the International Humanitarian Studies Association Conference held in August 2018 at the ISS.
When the founding fathers—and the single founding mother—were assembling the building blocks of the United Nations in the waning months of WWII, they were spurred by narrative of ‘never again’. Jettisoning the lofty Wilsonian ideals of the League of Nations, they expressed their notions of peace and security through a mix of functionalist ideas (strongly influenced by David Mitrany) and the victors’ can-do capitalist spirit—a sort of Fordism applied to international relations: the right mix of money and technical expertise would set the scene for peace and development ‘in larger freedom.’ The notion that collective action problems (i.e. politics) could be solved or at least defused by depoliticising them through technique is one of the great contributions of the UN to international cooperation. This approach worked more (decolonisation) or less (superpower crossed vetoes) for some 50 years. Then something broke.
Despite the heart-warming rhetoric of ‘we the peoples’, the unit of measure in the international system was definitely the state. Sovereignty was worshipped in the UN. It became the Temple of States. But while states were busy honouring and polishing the Temple’s tabernacle, the world had moved on. The post-WWII order built on sovereignty, triumphant capitalism and superpower rivalry collapsed with the Wall, but the institutions established to ‘manage’ this order hardly noticed. It became progressively clear that the ‘system’ was constitutionally unfit to deal with transnationality and that ‘sovereign’ states were unable to rein in unregulated transnational capitalism and globalisation, not to mention radicalised non-geographical armed groups and movements, the havoc they and the GWOT wreaked, population flows (forced and voluntary), and climate change. Trump and the demise of multilateralism are but an epiphenomenon in the collapse of the so-called rule-based world order.
What did the UN ever do for us?
A system of global order based on the idealised notion of sovereign states, and their power configurations as they stood 70 years ago, are poorly equipped to deal with collective action problems that are transnational at their core. Moreover, citizens have no say whatsoever in how these institutions are run and for whose benefit. All attempts to reform the UN have failed. Yet it rambles on with its tiny brain and huge dyslexic body to which additional appendages are added as soon as a ‘new’ problem hits the headlines. Conventional wisdom has it that only a WWIII might provide enough motivation and vision to equip the UN for the future. Let’s not go there. Instead, let’s think outside the box.
If UN reform is pointless, then DRUNSA is the answer: Don’t Reform the UN, Start Again.[i] Build something in parallel; if it works, it will move centre stage. There is a research agenda here on how to make transnational citizen participation the cornerstone of any institutional reform.
The argument goes like this: the Temple of States was not conceived as a tool to deal with transnationality. It sacralises sovereignty and demonises the individual with or without citizenship. Yet in transnational times, states are unable to cope with crises, and citizens have no say on the consequences of transnational forces that affect them directly. Citizenship, for now, is inherently linked to the nation-state. But if the nation-state is no longer able to respond to citizens’ needs and is downright hostile to those seeking refuge or lack citizenship, perhaps the time has come to redefine citizenship by de-linking it from territory.
For now, this is little more than a pipe dream. But shouldn’t the question of the participation of human beings on matters that affect them directly be put on the agenda? And if this agenda cannot be handled by the UN because it goes against the grain of the outdated power dynamics of a sclerotic organisation, shouldn’t citizens and civil society start thinking of a UN 2.0—or better still a UCO (United Citizens Organisation)? This UCO would be based on the principle that “as a citizen of the world, I should have a say on anything that affects me”. In an extreme example, “if democracy is supposed to give voters some control over their own conditions … should a US election not involve most people on earth?” [ii] This is actually not such a revolutionary idea. It has been around for a while.[iii]
The point here is that mainstream international institutions are increasingly less relevant to the nature and scale of the conflicts and crises of the early 21st century. The toll on civilians caught up or trying to flee vicious wars is particularly high. Armed conflict itself is changing and so is its cortège of humanitarian consequences. We are in a pre-Solferino moment where the old laws no longer work and new ones adapted to the current dispensation have yet to emerge.
The humanitarian internationale suffers from similar ills as the state-based international “system”. Its very makeup is consubstantial with the state system as it is based on the triad of western donors, UN agencies, and prevalently western NGOs (in ethos if not in terms of nationality). It may have reached its structural limits. Humanitarian principles have stood the test of time but it is unlikely that they will survive the current wave of transnational crises and conflicts.
A good place to start DRUNSA is by bringing the citizen into the decision making around humanitarian action. Rhetoric around participation and accountability to affected communities abounds, but the stubborn reality is that the humanitarian enterprise is anything but accountable or participatory. It continues to be an establishment—some say a club—in which the rules have been set, so to speak, by absentee feudal landlords who have no clue about how the land is tilled.
To sum up, it is dubious that nation states can have durable success in combating transnational forces (of capital, finance, ethno-religious millenarism and the like). These movements are better countered transnationally through an UCO or coalitions of civil society groups or similar citizen-driven initiatives.
United Against Inhumanity: citizens at the centre
And this brings us to United Against Inhumanity (UAI), an emerging global movement of citizens and civil society who are outraged by the inability and unwillingness of the formal international system to address the causes and consequences of armed conflict. One of the goals of UAI is to work with citizen and civil society organisations and to put the citizen at the centre of efforts to combat the inhumanity of warfare and the abomination of measures that deny those in need of refuge the right to seek asylum. It aims to increase the political and reputational damage to perpetrators and to support civil society mobilisation actions on the inhumanity of war and the erosion of asylum.
[i] Kudos to Martin Barber for having coined the acronym and set up the DRUNSA organisation of which as far as I know he and I were the only two members.
[iii] R.Dasgupta, “The demise of the nation state”, The Guardian, 5 April 2018.
About the author:
Antonio Donini is a humanitarian researcher and one of the initiators of the emerging United Against InHumanity movement. This blog is based on a presentation he gave at the 2018 IHSA Conference. He can be reached at: antonio.donini@tufts.edu.
Today, not just disaster but the functions—and instrumentalisation—of disaster have been brought right into the heart of Europe. If widespread official violence and the instrumentalisation of disaster can happen right under the eyes of a free press and under the watch of two of the world’s most established democracies, what then is possible in greater seclusion? This blog is based on a keynote speech delivered at the International Humanitarian Studies Association Conference held in August 2018 at the ISS.
Visiting Calais in October 2015, the child psychiatrist Lynne Jones asked, “how is it possible that on the borders of a north European town, there are some 6,000 people living in conditions worse than those I have encountered with Somali refugees on the Ethiopian border, Pakistanis after a devastating earthquake, or Darfuris in the deserts of Northern Chad, one of the poorest countries in the world?”
It was shocking to realise that such a situation could develop—and be allowed to develop—in the heart of Western Europe. When disasters have occurred in more distant lands, government and aid officials have often pointed to obstacles like remoteness, insecurity and the rainy season. But Calais is an hour-and-a-half by train from London and Paris.
Where the functions of disaster have been recognised, this has often been in relation to ‘faraway’ places. These functions may include political repression in a ‘state of emergency’ as well as profits from price movements and from the depopulation of resource-rich areas. But today, not just disaster but the functions—and instrumentalisation—of disaster have been brought right into the heart of Europe.
The instrumentalisation of disasters
A big part of the instrumentalisation of disasters today is the logic of deterrence. Many aid workers and human rights workers saw the appalling conditions on the Greek island of Lesbos as part of an attempt to deter migration. In Calais, government officials have sometimes made it pretty clear that they want to maintain pressure on the migrants and to make conditions so bad as to discourage people from coming, and migrants/refugees in Calais themselves also saw a connection. For example, one young Sudanese man from Darfur said in the summer of 2016 when we were in Calais that “beatings are getting worse as large numbers are here now and they [the police] want to discourage it.”
The political instrumentalisation of Calais has involved not just deterrence, but also political theatre aimed at domestic audiences. This is partly about stirring up fears and then exploiting them politically. Particularly in the run-up to the UK’s Brexit referendum in June 2016, Calais was repeatedly on the front page of the UK’s Daily Mail, the Daily Express, and the Sun—considered right-wing newspapers. It somehow symbolised, crystallised and exacerbated very deep-rooted fears about immigration, criminality, disease, terrorism, and loss of control.
Another political pay-off from the high-profile situation in Calais was that it allowed the British government under Labour and then under David Cameron to send a strong message that, even while still within the EU, the UK was taking tough measures to control illegal immigration. When UK border controls were set up in France in 2002, this contributed to a sharp fall in UK asylum applications. It also had the effect of fostering the informal migrant settlements around Calais, which were then used to underline the necessity of strong controls.
Ever since the first major settlement in Calais in 1999, there have been periodic police actions to intimidate and disperse people. I think a great many British people do not realise what has been done ‘on their behalf’ in Calais and surrounding areas. This is an example of what Mark Duffield referred to a long time ago as ‘functional ignorance’. The UK government is been deeply complicit in this particular ‘hostile environment’, and indeed Calais migrants have often expressed this view. The UK has helped to plan and fund dispersals and has also sometimes taken credit for them. For example, a 2010 UK government press release welcomed the package of actions agreed with France the previous year, saying a key measure was “the dismantling of the illegal encampments along the Channel and North Sea coast.”[1]
In October 2016, French police, in coordination with the UK, destroyed the most famous ‘jungle’ camp, which had been established on a landfill site ridden with asbestos in January 2015. But such measures tend to disperse migrants and make them less visible rather than actually resolving the situation. In his book Illegality Inc., Swedish anthropologist Ruben Andersson brilliantly documented the way migration controls shift the problem geographically while allowing short-term gains from appearing tough.
In Calais, the violence of French police has been well documented, for example by the Refugee Rights Data Project (now Refugee Rights Europe) and by Human Rights Watch. One Calais volunteer told us: “Everyone has had experience of teargas or rubber bullets. The head injuries from rubber bullets were terrible.”
Sadly, the very enterprise of the migrants seems to have attracted further police repression. This may reflect what Noam Chomsky once called the threat of a good example. While we were at the camp in 2016, there was a series of large-scale police raids on the surprisingly vibrant network of shops and restaurants, closing some and confiscating food, drinks and documents.
Violent action and the plausibility of propaganda
This brings me to Hannah Arendt’s concept of ‘action as propaganda’ – essentially the use of violent action (often by totalitarian regimes) to create a world in which implausible propaganda becomes more plausible over time. One historical example she gave was confining Jews to insanitary ghettoes and camps so that they came to appear disease-ridden and even less than human, in line with Nazi propaganda. Calais has been a horrendous example of ‘action as propaganda’, with harsh punishment of any signs of cultural or economic life; meanwhile, violence and disease are generally portrayed as part of the threat that Calais poses, ignoring the reality of a community that could be extraordinarily kind and hospitable. Even the violence and disease that have occurred in the camp have overwhelmingly been a consequence of neglect and overcrowding. Meanwhile, the very brutality of police responses has helped reinforce the message that these vulnerable people are somehow an existential threat to Western populations.
Calais is part of a much wider phenomenon of outsourcing migration control. This involves a large dose of de-responsibilisation, a fairly systematic tolerance for human rights abuses that are in some sense functional and that can also be conveniently blamed on others.
And if widespread official violence and the instrumentalisation of disaster can happen right under the eyes of a free press and under the watch of two of the world’s most established democracies, what then is possible in greater seclusion?
EU member states have enabled the Libyan Coast Guard to turn back thousands of people to Libya, where they face torture, sexual violence and other horrendous abuses[2]. In Sudan, the Rapid Support Forces (which grew out of the notorious Janjaweed militias responsible for genocide) have been deployed against migrants (usually from ethnic groups victimised in the genocide) as part of Sudan’s effort to demonstrate to the European Union that it can contain flows of migrants[3].
We need to be extraordinarily wary of the signals sent when certain populations are deemed systematically to be unwanted and even, in Arendt’s telling word, ‘undeportable’. Arendt showed that in the 1920s and 1930s, in a context of mass expulsions in Europe and a corresponding unwillingness to receive these people, “the very phrase ‘human rights’ became for all concerned—victims, persecutors, and onlookers alike—the evidence of hopeless idealism or fumbling feeble-minded hypocrisy.”[4] The Nazis had carefully tested the ground and found that almost no-one was willing to receive the Jews, Arendt stressed, before they launched their project of elimination.
How can all this possibly be justified? Well, today the shadowy figure of the ‘people smuggler’ has acquired important political functions as a scapegoat and a convenient alibi for neglect and abuse by a range of political authorities and unaccountable militias. Studies of the diverse economic and political functions of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism suggest that the rebel or terrorist has frequently become a kind of useful enemy[5]; I would suggest that in many ways the figure of ‘people smuggler’ has stepped conveniently into this pre-existing paradigm. And like the terrorist, the ‘exploitative smuggler’ is also routinely reproduced by the policies of those who claim to revile him, not least the tightening of immigration controls (as Andersson and others have shown).
Closely related to the relentless official focus on the ‘human smuggler’ is the tendency to place everything within an ‘anti-crime’ framework. Again, crime is a reality, but it is very dangerous when anything and anyone remotely connected to migration—including the attempt to claim asylum—is labelled as criminal. The emerging ‘anti-crime’ framework is also a great alibi for abusive officials or neglectful officials and a great way of disguising official involvement in fuelling conflict.
The redefinition of humanitarianism
Closely related to the war on crime and on human smugglers is a fairly systematic redefinition of humanitarianism. Humanitarianism has today been routinely redefined as the prevention of dangerous journeys. In these circumstances, Western government policies that make these journeys more dangerous; for example, the curbing of search-and-rescue in the Mediterranean, or encouraging violence in Calais, or even turning a blind eye to attacks on migrants travelling through Mexico serve as another form of Arendt’s ‘action as propaganda’. Within this emerging system, drowning may come to serve two related functions—first, as deterrence and, second, as propaganda for the allegedly ‘humanitarian’ project of preventing people from making the journey in the first place.
It seems to be a case – to paraphrase Henry II’s infamous reported incitement to the murder of archbishop Thomas-a-Becket, of “who will rid us of these troublesome migrants?” As with the creation of ‘safe areas’ in Bosnia that turned out not to be safe, Western governments cannot be honest about the evolving situation in France, Greece, Libya, Sudan, Mexico, Turkey, Sri Lanka and many other countries when they are obsessed with containing people within those environments.
[2] Amnesty International, 2017, Libya’s Dark Web of Collusion, December
[3] Suliman Baldo, 2017, Ominous Threats Descending on Darfur, Enough, Washington, November; Susanne Jaspars and Margie Buchanan-Smith, 2018, Darfuri migration from Sudan to Europe; From displacement to despair, ODI, London, September forthcoming
[4] Hannah Arendt, 1951, The Origins of Totalitarianism, New York, Harcourt Brace.
[5] David Keen, 2012, Useful Enemies: When Waging Wars is More Important than Winning Them, Yale University Press.
About the author:
David Keen is Professor of Conflict Studies, London School of Economics. He has worked extensively on understanding war, including its causes and functions.
In a gripping account of his witnessing of the gross human rights violations inflicted on others, Khaled Mansour asks why aid workers are becoming apathetic toward the crimes against humanity that are still occurring today. He shows how genuine change is made possible by a group of aid workers that are countering worrying trends in the humanitarian sector by means of a global movement called United Against InHumanity. This post is based on his keynote address for the 5th conference of the International Humanitarian Studies Association that took place at the ISS on 27 August 2018.
Fifteen years ago, I survived the attack against the UN headquarters in Iraq, but the explosion killed 22 of my colleagues, also demolishing a personal barrier that I have had for years. This barrier ostensibly had helped me to cope with the scenes of abject poverty and degradation; violent deaths and inexplicable violence; and the looming menace that I have had to live close to for years.
For months, I stood at the brink of an abyss of dark and bloody recollections. Memories came flooding back: a flattened refugee camp in Jenin; small tombs for children that had died of malnourishment in Hirat; stories of torture inflicted on political prisoners or suspects from Syria to Pakistan, to name but a few.
I no longer try to forget these scenes. The barrier that I had erected between myself and even harsher and more frequent atrocities in areas of conflict is gone. And for that I am grateful. Like many people who engage in humanitarian aid and the defense of human rights in situations of conflict, I have had to grapple with occasional attacks of depression and waves of sadness, but I see them as signs of a shared humanity and a healthy vulnerability.
They are also a call for resistance through writing, teaching, volunteering and, most important, working with others to defend the dignity and rights of people in conflict. It is a call for action to build and rebuild what our common humanity means and how we can work together to protect it.
The growing apathy of aid workers
However, there is a dominant sense among critics of the humanitarian aid system that the old has disintegrated while the new is not yet born, as Grasmsci said almost a century ago.
There is also a shocking indifference in global and regional centers of power as to the fate of hundreds of millions of people whose lives and livelihoods are decimated in conflicts. Over the past few years, millions have been killed, maimed or forced to flee their homes because of such horrific violence. Civilians are suffering in what has become normalised military operations in Syria, Yemen, the Gaza Strip and many other places. The Assad forces have used indiscriminate barrel bombs and chemical weapons against civilians, while the Israeli and the Saudi forces simply disregard the concept of military advantage as they bomb densely populated areas or vital infrastructure installations, killing and harming far more civilians than members of the Houthi or Hamas militias. Armed non-state actors, ISIS for example, have also committed their share of spectacular atrocities.
Compliance with the laws of war and holding violators to account are becoming increasingly difficult tasks. The refugee law is not faring much better. The EU deterrence measures against possible refugees are an abomination that resulted in thousands of people seeking asylum drowning at sea.
This is fueling cynicism among aid workers as well as recipients. Aid agencies are reportedly jockeying for a bigger slice of the USD930 million promised by Saudi Arabia and the UAE to the gigantic aid operation in Yemen. These two countries have led a merciless war against Yemeni Houthi militias, killing as many as 20,000 civilians. Starvation and blocking essential humanitarian supplies as a war tactic has been regularly used in Syria since 2012, predominantly by the regime, while aid agencies simply acquiesced as the authorities rejected one request after another to access besieged areas. And now, we face the criminalisation of both asylum seekers and those who help them in western countries.
These are disturbing trends.
What is more disturbing is how human empathy is eroding. With an unprecedented rise in populism, rights (legal and otherwise) are increasingly limited to citizens and then not even to all of them. Within societies from the US to India, more demagogue chauvinists advocate that all humans were not equal and that not all cultures can peacefully co-exist. They are not the majority yet, but their influence is mushrooming.
A need for greater political will
There is a glaring absence of political will at the state and intrastate levels. The cosmopolitan values that are at the root of much of the humanitarian and human rights movements seem to be in retreat. This absence of political will was very evident in the ICRC’s failure to introduce a new mechanism for compliance with the Geneva conventions in 2015, or in the miniscule outcome of the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016, or the failure of the Refugee Summit in New York after two years of work to produce any real change to the grim reality.
So, to quote another Marxist, who was maybe luckier than Gramsci, what is to be done?
There is a large body of literature and policy studies that deconstruct the current aid system. There is a ton of policy papers and many think tanks that have ideas to reform/fix or change the humanitarian enterprise.
But what seems to be missing is sustained popular pressure to force a genuine change or quicken the pace of reform. There is a clear need for a movement of people to struggle alongside those who are affected in conflicts in order to ensure their rights to protection and basic needs.
United Against InHumanity: reason for optimism?
This is why a group of former and current aid workers, researchers, and activists have come together last year and started working to build such a global movement to produce action-oriented knowledge, engage in policy advocacy and, most important, organise and play an active political role against atrocities and the rising inhumanity in conflicts around the world.
United Against InHumanity (UAI) is still emerging, propelled by the outcome of extensive consultations with diverse groups and potential stakeholders in Africa, Asia, the Americas, Australia and Europe since late 2017 to turn a common feeling of indignation into a repertoire of impactful actions.
The overall purpose of UAI is to initiate and facilitate joint action by civil society at global, regional and national levels to challenge warring parties, their sponsors, governments and relevant international organisations in order to reverse the normalisation of indiscriminate warfare and the erosion of the right to asylum.
This is a tall order! But it is probably our only way to effectively stand against unbridled and murderous acts of inhumanity in conflicts instead of building barriers that we falsely think could save us.
About the author:
Khaled Mansour is a member of the emerging movement United against Inhumanity. He is a senior fellow at the Arab Reform Initiative. For the past 30 years he has been a writer in addition to working in aid, peacekeeping and human rights organisations around the world.
The humanitarian aid community in reaction to security risks facing its staff is slowly but surely building a Fort Knox around itself. This article details only some of the risks associated with the building of physical and psychological walls, showing that ultimately, this act negatively influences the relationship between humanitarian staff and local populations. Humanitarian aid workers and scholars must actively investigate how they manage the security of humanitarian staff to prevent this from happening.
Ahead of 2018 World Humanitarian Day on 19 August, organisations are again pushing for recognition of the safety of their staff and operations in countries such as Yemen, South Sudan, Syria and the DRC. In 2017, 313 aid workers were victims of major attacks, of which over 90% were national staff.[1] The perception of this type of violence is hugely influential for how the humanitarian community engages with and responds to the environment where aid work aims to alleviate suffering.
The discourse on violence in humanitarian work, and specifically that of severe violence, has helped exaggerate existential threats and foster a climate of heightened fear.[2] It is in this context that humanitarian risk management found significant traction.[3] Although the delivery of aid has always been in areas experiencing severe violence and suffering from natural disasters or conflict for example, humanitarian security is increasingly seen as a vital part of protecting both the concept and practice of aid.
The need for ways to assess humanitarian security risks
However, there exists no common framework for assessing and responding to risks for humanitarian programming and staff. Ideally, such frameworks are used to identify harm, the probability and severity of the impact, and the development of an appropriate response by the organisation.[4] However, the widespread use of “standard” risk management approaches in humanitarian work represents an increased reliance on standardised assessments and “expert” opinion. The knowledge of staff on the ground, whether in senior management positions or not, arguably no longer feeds into the creation and implementation of security protocols and manuals.
Blanket approaches to the management of security, including both operational and staff security, may mean that stringent restrictions on the movement and visibility of aid workers results in their distancing from those they aim to help. Building concrete walls, setting up barbed wire fences, and posting a security guard in front of the main gate may be a way to deter violence, yet this approach to security can do more harm than good in the long run.
Humanitarian organisations must do more
Presently, the international community approaches security from a reactive stance, often putting in place measures only after major incidences have occurred and without institutionalising dedicated security advisor roles. Yet, and indeed, while aid will never be delivered in entirely “peaceful” spaces, humanitarian organisations must do more to approach their security in ways that neither threaten their own existence, nor that of their staff and the local population.
The current environment of risk management does not allow for the consideration of individual decisions based on available information.[5] This “new” risk management approach is, arguably, institutionalised in aid organisations and erodes individual and local autonomy in favour of distant security experts.[6] Further, the use of security protocols and fortification procedures, in combination with continuous attacks against aid workers, continues to push organisations to react by putting up walls, setting up perimeter lining of their buildings, and reducing the movement and visibility of staff.
This discourse of fear poses significant problems for the future of humanitarian action:
“Risk” leading to invisibility, separation, or absence: Approaching risks in humanitarian programming from a reactive stance can result in the visible separation of aid workers from the local population through their withdrawal into fortified aid compounds. Beyond the visible separation, security protocols can generate a discourse of fear of the “Other”, and can even lead to the absence of humanitarian aid programmes or a transfer of risk to local partner organisations without an accompanying transfer of capacities.
Top-down and divisive approaches to security: Not only does a blanket approach to security fail to consider local information and experiences, but it also can significantly hinder the communication between HQ and the field, as well as between the senior positions on the ground and the national staff. This divide can lead to a loss of trust between the two, resulting in a stop of reporting on security incidences to protect jobs and the program as a whole.[7] The stark divide between both the number of national versus international staff affected by violence, as well as the different security procedures for each, significantly contributes to this.
Materiality of reactive security management and its impact on everyday life inside and outside the compound: The materiality of the actual fortification can serve to enable and hinder, shape and change the way in which aid workers inhabit the space inside the compound. Daily routines of requiring permission to exit the compound, using armored vehicles when doing so, and physically and visually reducing ‘seeing’ the beneficiary are results of existing security measures. This can not only have implications for how aid workers act inside the compound, but also for how they perceive their own security, positionality in the local context, and their relationships with other organisations and actors in the space. The compound’s spatial manifestation itself can also influence the local economy. Building materials required for fortification (or even the building of an office space) can impact and alter demand, potentially resulting in price inflation, a reduction of available goods, and an undermining of both local building practices and businesses.
The translation of security protocols and manuals into the everyday: Whereas the generation and implementation of security manuals and protocols is most likely not going to be phased out anytime soon, the way in which aid workers interact with these structures and guidelines every day can greatly improve or undermine how humanitarian aid is carried out and perceived on the ground. Protocols become operationalised through their interpretation, use and adaptation in the context in which they are employed. Restrictions on movements and strict reporting chains can lead to aid workers not only experiencing the local environment in very “securitised” ways, but can also visibly signal to the local population that the organisation sees their space as insecure outside the walls of their own “safe” compound.
Rather than ignoring some of these issues, the humanitarian community must actively investigate its own security management and understand how their actions, materiality and visibility can contribute to safely delivering the assistance they are set up to do. This involves recognising their complicity, through their own discourse and everyday actions, in generating an environment that would rather build walls than find ways to safely integrate themselves in the local society they aim to serve.
[2] Larissa Fast, Aid in Danger: The Perils and Promise of Humanitarianism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), 51.
[3] Important to note here that there is a distinction between risk and security management of aid organizations. Risk management encompasses, as one of its dimensions, the management of security.
[4] Victoria Metcalfe, Ellen Martin, and Sara Pantuliano, “Risk in Humanitarian Action: Towards a Common Approach?,” Policy Brief, HPG Commissioned Paper (London: Overseas Development Institute: Humanitarian Policy Group, 2011), 2.
[5] Mark Duffield, “Risk-Management and the Fortified Aid Compound: Everyday Life in Post-Interventionary Society,” Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 4, no. 4 (2010): 463, https://doi.org/10.1080/17502971003700993.
Duffield, Mark. “Risk-Management and the Fortified Aid Compound: Everyday Life in Post-Interventionary Society.” Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 4, no. 4 (2010): 453–74. https://doi.org/10.1080/17502971003700993.
Fast, Larissa. Aid in Danger: The Perils and Promise of Humanitarianism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.
Metcalfe, Victoria, Ellen Martin, and Sara Pantuliano. “Risk in Humanitarian Action: Towards a Common Approach?” Policy Brief. HPG Commissioned Paper. London: Overseas Development Institute: Humanitarian Policy Group, 2011.
About the author:
Janine Bressmer is a PhD Candidate at the Graduate Institute in Geneva.Her research examines how humanitarian organizations approach the security of their operations and staff, the spatial manifestations of security in terms of fortified aid compounds, and the implications for the practice and concept of humanitarian action. The project is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.
Today, in a rapidly changing world, humanitarian crisis response and humanitarianism is increasingly confronted with boundaries that are dissolving, displaced, or resurrecting. The bi-annual International Humanitarian Studies Association (IHSA) Conference taking place this week at the ISS seeks to unpack the way in which boundaries related to crisis and humanitarianism are shaped. IHSA President Dorothea Hilhorst in this article reflects on the importance of the conference in an era where governments are increasingly alienated from the vulnerable people that they have the duty to protect.
This week, the world has bereaved Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General of the United Nations. I have admired Annan as one of the most remarkable global leaders that during his time at the United Nations and thereafter tirelessly devoted himself to the promotion of democracy and the protection of vulnerable people. His death appeared in comments as the end of an era—a marker of the demise of value-driven internationalism.
Indeed, the prospects for crisis-affected people to secure protection, survival and refuge seem increasingly subject to the vagaries of geo-politics. Few governments remain that respect their duties to protect vulnerable people, and we see increasing polarisation between policies based on populist resentments against refugees and civic initiatives of solidarity to welcome people that are seeking for refuge.
It is in light of such events that ISS this week hosts the 5th bi-annual conference of the International Humanitarian Studies Association (IHSA). In more than 50 panels, academics, researchers and practitioners will discuss the state of affairs and emerging trends in humanitarian crises in the world today, involving refugees and displacement, conflict, disasters triggered by natural hazards, and protracted emergencies.
The conference reflects the broad concern of humanitarian studies, focusing on crisis and crisis responses and addressing these in relation to changing realities in world politics, welfare regimes, migration movements and concerns over the long-term effects of climate change and other ecological trends.
The cradles of many UN and humanitarian agencies, the USA and Europe, are seen to let politics of fear and security prevail over solidarity and international commitments. Countries close their borders or even seek to extra-territorialize their border control. The keynote of David Keen, professor of conflict studies at the London School of Economics, and several of the panels, will address the European politics towards refugees. The inhumane treatment of crisis-affected populations has now triggered a worldwide initiative, United Against Inhumanity, and we look forward to hear more about this initiative from Khaled Mansour during the opening of the conference.
Interestingly, while united international action at times seems increasingly elusive, this year has also seen the unanimous adoption of a landmark UN resolution that supports political action to address food crises related to conflict. Starvation as a weapon of war has been common in history, yet has not been recognised in international humanitarian law. It is only now, in this new resolution, 2417, that the starving of civilians or unlawfully denying them humanitarian access is recognised and condemned as warfare tactics. We are very pleased that the Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, Sigrid Kaag, as well as Alex de Waal, will speak about the relevance of the resolution during the opening of the conference.
The IHSA conference is a timely event to reflect on the profound changes happening in humanitarianism. The World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) of 2016 called for the rethinking of crisis response, bridging the domains of humanitarianism and development and increasingly localizing responses. The evolving Global Compact on Refugees compounds the trend to make humanitarian response subject to localized arrangements. The trend in humanitarian aid to build on people’s resilience had become mainstream and merits serious discussion on how these trends affect the possibilities for people and communities affected by crises to be assured of basic protection.
If we want to understand these shifts in humanitarianism, we have to delve deeply into the nuts and bolts of how they change practice on the ground. And this is exactly what the conference will do. The range of panels is impressive, enabling us to unravel how humanitarian practices are evolving. To name a few of the issues that come by in the panels: the link between humanitarian aid and national governments, issues of participation and accountability, the role of innovation in aid, and the role of debt in the ways that people can cope with crises.
Finally, I am excited to continue the discussion on the ethics of humanitarian studies. During the World Humanitarian Summit of 2016, scholars agreed on ethical commitments for humanitarian studies. These commitments concern collaboration and inclusion in humanitarian research; the study of the impact of the WHS; the further development of evidence-based approaches; the localization of humanitarian research and education; the impact and increase of the use of humanitarian research; and the protection of academic freedom and scientific ethics. While we observe, analyse and seek evidence to expand our understanding of crises and crisis response, I hope that humanitarian scholars will also use the conference to reflect on how our research can be made more relevant for crisis-affected communities.
About the author:
Dorothea Hilhorst is professor of humanitarian aid and reconstruction at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam.
The use of technology in the humanitarian aid sector is showing a steady increase based on a sense of hope that technology could help to improve the delivery of aid and solve multiple systemic problems. Technological solutions alone, however, cannot properly address such complex problems. This blog engages in an ongoing debate among development scholars on some of the hopes and concerns related to the use of digital and web-based technology in this sector. The main conclusion: we need more case research on the use of technology and, in the meantime, the careful use of technology is invited.
The application of technology is gaining popularity in the humanitarian sector due to the series of perceived benefits and ‘solutions’ that it seems to provide. Increasingly, development scholars are warning of the unintended consequences that such technological ‘solutions’ can produce—some of them negative. Dr. Duncan Green, Senior Strategic Adviser at Oxfam GB, in one of his blog posts, cautions us about the limits of technological solutions, saying that ‘just because technologies can allow us to collect, store, analyse and communicate data and ideas in unprecedented ways should not lull us to think they can address old, entrenched problems in unprecedented ways. The primary constraints for human action are non-technological in nature.’
Long-term research on the topic by Dr. Kristin Bergtora Sandvik, Dr. Katja Lindskov Jacobsen, and Sean Martin McDonald, from the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), reminds us of how technology shapes humanitarian action; they also write in a blog post that technology is implemented in the humanitarian sector without adequate legal, ethical and methodological frameworks. Another warning comes from Dr. Emre Eren Korkmaz, post-doctoral researcher at the University of Oxford, who in a recent blog post shows how the use of blockchain technologies[i] by aid agencies to support people in need, especially refugees, is embraced with great hopes, but also brings along deep concerns. He highlights the complexity of certain socio-environmental problems that are unlikely to be sufficiently addressed by technological solutions alone. Sandvik, Jacobson and Korkmaz in deepening the debate then call for more research on specific cases of the applications of digital and web-based technology in the humanitarian aid sector.
The utility of technological ‘solutions’
Is the use of more technology really making humanitarian aid and disaster responses better, faster or more efficient? Even though it is difficult to find a single answer to this question, the reality is that many believe that technology can fulfil this ideal. Let’s consider a few examples:
Satellite images are being used for data collection and project monitoring with the hope that this technology will obtain more accurate information, more quickly. Iris and fingerprint scanning for the registration of the recipients of aid bring the hope of reducing duplications on the delivery of aid and more focused assistance. The use of Skype, email, and cloud systems are essential for the day-to-day management of humanitarian aid, but the hope remains that they will also improve the coordination of disaster responses and humanitarian aid provision within and among organisations and agencies.
Technology, it is said, will also reduce excessive bureaucratic bottlenecks and could provide a solution to problems of access and increased insecurity in the field. The use of digital payment systems, e-transfers or “mobile money” revolutionised the ways of delivering economic aid, promising more flexible, faster and safer economic assistance as compared to moving and distributing cash. Finally, there is hope that the use of technology will help to avoid problems of corruption, power struggles, or inequality. It is believed that using technology is politically neutral, but this belief has proven to in fact be far from reality.
A panacea for deeper problems?
Despite the benefits that these technologies can bring, they cannot be used naïvely, as the use of any technology (and the use of the information obtained along with it) involves multiple political and social variables. New technologies interplay with the realities of the places where they are implemented, and in places requiring humanitarian aid, with the existing and emerging needs of people.
We must question how these technologies interact with the inequalities of these places or their political regimes. As Korkmaz warns in his blog, there is also risk of abuse —institutions can use digital identities ‘to track people’s choices and desires’, which could lead to increased surveillance and the use of information against refugees.
Technology is also subject to instrumentalisation and can be used for purposes quite the opposite of those humanitarian purposes it is intended to serve. The way in which information is collected, analysed and presented, can also be motivated by other, non-humanitarian objectives. In other words, the use of technology is never politically neutral— it affects and is affected by actors and processes, in ways not always fully understood. Reflecting on this is as important as thinking about the benefits of using new data-collection technologies. And we must also identify when, how and which technology to use.
The need for more case studies
The expansion[ii] and international call[iii] for the use of technology need to go hand-in-hand with greater reflection and deeper knowledge of the real impact, benefits and consequences of technology’s use. As McDonald, Sandvik, and Jacobsen argue in their blog post, ‘humanitarians need both an ethical and evidence-driven human experimentation framework for new technologies.’
As the discussion on the need for awareness about the use of technology is already ongoing, it is important to start gathering information on specific cases showing how which technology is used in reality. Afghanistan presents a good case for examining the application of aid technology, as its use has increased here over the last decade4–6.
Ongoing research I’m carrying out as Visiting Scholar of the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU) on the (political) use and the introduction of data-collection technology in Afghanistan seeks to map this technology, also reflecting on who uses it, who can get access to the collected information, and how and for which purposes it is used. The research importantly also asks: does technology really fulfil the promises it carries?
The promotion of technology is still alive in Afghanistan and globally, as multiple new forms of technology are being implemented by the humanitarian sector, like bitcoin or blockchain technology9,10. However, the applicants of technology in the humanitarian sector should not be blind to its potential negative effects. Technology can be tremendously helpful, but must also pass the ‘do no harm’ test11,12 and should be applied in a reflective manner. In the meantime, the thoughtful use of technology and more research on the topic are invited.
[i] Blockchain technologies refers to a distributed and decentralized database of continuously growing records of digital information, ordered, linked and secured using cryptography.
[ii] The use technology in the humanitarian sector, if far from new, is a growing phenomenon since the late 20th Century1–3. The difference nowadays lies in its expansion and penetration at all levels of the humanitarian aid system.
[iii] There has been an international call to innovate and introduce more technology. For instance, two reports from 2013 reinforced the use of multiple communications and data collection technologies in the humanitarian system: the World Disaster Report from the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC), and the document Humanitarian in a Network Age from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
References:
Stephenson, R. and P.S. Anderson (1997) ‘Disasters and the information technology revolution’, Disasters 21, 305–334.
Sandvik, K. B., M. Gabrielsen Jumbert, J. Karlsrud and M. Kaufmann (2014) ‘Humanitarian technology: a critical research agenda’, Int. Rev. Red Cross 96, 219–242.
Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (2011) ‘Disaster Relief 2.0: The Future of Information Sharing in Humanitarian Emergencies‘. UN Foundation & Vodafone Foundation Technology Partnership.
Jacobsen, K. L. Experimentation in humanitarian locations: UNHCR and biometric registration of Afghan refugees. Secure. Dialogue 46, 144–164 (2015).
Jacobsen, K. L. Humanitarian biometrics. In The Politics of Humanitarian Technology: Good intentions, unintended consequences and insecurity. 57–87 (Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2017).
Rodrigo (Rod) Mena is a socio-environmental AiO-PhD researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies of the Erasmus University Rotterdam. His current research project focuses on disaster response and humanitarian aid in complex and high-intensity conflict-affected scenarios.
In January this year, a long day of interviewing aid workers involved in the Myanmar Rohingya crisis revealed that these aid workers often refrain from talking about the human rights violations in Myanmar. Out of fear to be forced to cease operations or to get fired, they keep silent and carry on. This raises the question: should the scholars engaging with them speak up in their stead? This blog provides a reflection of whether and how scholars can get involved in the entanglements of humanitarianism and conflict. It also provides insights into the ethical and practical reasons why both aid workers and scholars sometimes hesitate to become more engaged.
The time we were doing fieldwork relating to the governance and the accountability of aid in Myanmar coincided with a massive exodus of the Rohingya Muslim minority fleeing persecution and the destruction of their homes in the northwestern Rakhine province. Yet, as we asked broader questions relating to the accountability of aid, the stories of humanitarian aid workers resounded with us. Stories of frustration and powerlessness, as they felt barriers were posed to their work not only by authorities, but also by their own organisations. As scholars, we felt determined that we wanted to ‘do something’. But along with this urge to act came insecurities and concerns.
Providing aid in restrictive settings
Local and international relief agencies that work in restrictive conflict settings are doing something that is intrinsically difficult. Often perceived as a threat by authorities involved in violence, agencies need to make sure they remain tolerated and even supported by these same authorities in order to operate effectively and deliver aid to those in need. In practice in Myanmar, aid agencies are stuck in the middle of two discourses: that of the United Nations that from afar qualifies the military offensive in Rakhine as a « textbook example of ethnic cleansing », and that of Myanmar authorities, who claim they were fighting Rohingya militias only and deny targeting civilians.
Faced with the overwhelming need for support to continue operating in the field, most humanitarian agencies refrain from being overtly critical of human rights violations and prefer to assert their position as impartial and neutral aid providers. Only very few are allowed by the government to work in Rakhine, and those who may, generally keep silent about what they observe. No wonder: when in 2014 Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said that it was deeply concerned about the tens of thousands of people it was treating, the government forced it to cease operations in Myanmar. In order to avoid that for their own organisations, most aid agencies active on the ground thus strictly do and say what they’ve agreed to in (obligated) memoranda of understanding with the government—even if that does not match needs on the ground.
The personal dilemmas of humanitarians
These strategic decisions, however understandable, can have major consequences for the people whom agencies come to assist, but also have psychological implications for relief workers. Many suffer from what Hugo Slim has termed ‘bystander anxiety’. And this was also evident during our interviews: many of those we talked to in Yangon felt anxious and frustrated by the violence they observed in the field and the self-censorship they observed within their own organisations.
One field officer of a large international organisation felt that his agency was « sacrifying its principles and moral authority » in exchange for Rakhine field access and status, which was not even alleviating suffering on the ground because the government forbade actual activities. After he anonymously spoke to journalists, the whole team received a serious warning never to speak to the press again. He lamented the complete lack of internal discussions on these dilemmas, even as many of the staff, including Rohingya, « begged the organisation to speak out ».
We heard many similar stories from humanitarians working for INGOs or the UN. They could not openly discuss, let alone act upon, what they observed in the field. Particularly in meetings attended by the government, they knew « not to be critical ».
Here is where the scholars could come in, but often don’t do so.
Four broad arguments can motivate scholars to engage in the humanitarianism-conflict debate. First, as independent researchers in the field, scholars have more freedom to speak up. Second, many will argue that ‘speaking the truth’ is a scholarly duty. Third, scholars’ voice might carry differently than that of human rights organisations or journalists, as scholars are supposed to adhere to rigorous scientific and ethical standards that grant their research some credibility. Last, academics increasingly vary their channels to seek ‘societal impact’. Newspaper articles, debate evenings, social media and blogs such as this one can help convey to a wider audience what would otherwise remain obscured.
But this freedom comes with responsibilities. Scholars, somewhat like humanitarians, tread a fine line between engaging in effective action and making their own work—or worse, that of relief agencies or local research partners—harder or even impossible to carry out. Discussions about the role of researchers are by no means new. Take the discussions on scholar activism and action research (combing research and social change work), or the divide in the field of anthropology, amongst others, between those who believe they should retain distance in the field and those who support local activism or other types of involvement.
Ethics aren’t the only reason scholars often don’t speak up. Many of the issues that came up during our Myanmar discussions were practical, concerning safety, future access to visas and research permits, academic integrity, and access to non-academic channels, both in terms of networks and skills. Myanmar is a complex setting to work in, not only for humanitarians. Scholars and journalists also face difficulties in accessing the field, while some have been deported or arrested.
Moreover, the ‘hard evidence’ was thin. There would not be enough informants allowing for the rigorous cross-validation of statements. Interviews could not always be recorded and informants insisted that they, their agency and the locality where they operated should remain confidential to avoid raising colleagues’ or authorities’ suspicions. Were these stories even convincing enough for people who hadn’t been here, let alone fulfilling academic standards? Wouldn’t journalists after all be a better fit to relay them?
The answers might differ for each scholar, for each person. We share them to stir up a conversation and to share our doubts with researchers and (inter)national practitioners alike. Even with intentions to change local realities for the better, it’s not easy to take the leap from scholar to messenger. Yet, who else would fulfil that role?
This blog is a first attempt to support humanitarians who can’t speak up.
About the authors:
Roanne van Voorst is a postdoctoral researcher involved in the research project”When disaster meets conflict. Disaster response of humanitarian aid and local state and non-state institutions in different conflict scenarios” at the ISS.
Isabelle Desportes is a PhD candidate working on the governance of disaster response, in particular the interplay between humanitarian and local actors.
Problematic assumptions related to women’s position and role in humanitarian crises are unpacked in a special issue of the journal Disasters on gender, sexuality and violence. The main lesson drawn from the special issue is that aid actors should tread carefully and seriously invest in their capacity to carefully monitor the intended and unintended effects of programming on gender relations.
At the United Nations (UN) World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) in May 2016, ‘achieving greater gender equality and greater inclusivity’ was identified as one of the five key areas of humanitarian action. The WHS wanted this to be a watershed moment that would spark a shift toward systematically meeting the needs of women and girls and promoting their role as active decision-makers and leaders.
After more than four decades of discourses on ‘gender in development’ and a substantive history of evolving international law and practice on women, peace, and security, the WHS marked an important declaration that the humanitarian aid field takes gender seriously. ‘Gender’ too often has been understood as synonymous with ‘women and girls,’ neglecting questions of agency, vulnerability, and the dynamic and changing realities of gendered power relations.
The focus on sexual violence has brought significant attention to some of the challenges that many women face, but has also reproduced a generalised image of women as victims. That idea was already well-embedded in classic views of conflict that see men as aggressors and combatants and women as non-combatant victims. While this depiction is grounded in sad empirical realities, it leads to a kind of tunnel vision that only centres on the suffering of women, viewing them as the primary victims and primarily as victims. The victim discourse furnishes a rationale for providing women with direly needed assistance, and in fact, women themselves are often keen to play the role of victim to become eligible for aid, backgrounding other aspects of their identity, including their (political) agency. Nonetheless, this focus is problematic in obscuring other realities in which men and women assume different and more complex roles.
Humanitarian programmes often seek the participation of women because they (we) are considered the more caring gender. Women are often targeted for aid as a proven means to improve the wellbeing of children, foster more peaceful conditions, and prevent the misdirection of resources. In the process, international aid often aims to also structurally improve the position of women. This is why UNICEF considers engaging women in service delivery as a positive step towards promoting women’s rights, and describes it as the ‘double dividend of gender equality’.
While well-intentioned, all of these assumptions pertaining to women’s position and role in humanitarian responses have problematic aspects. These dimensions are what we aimed to unearth and explore in our new special issue of the journal Disasters on gender, sexuality and violence in humanitarian crises.[1]
What about men?
The attention on women as aid recipients drowns out the voices that are asking: ‘What about men?’ (not to mention other marginalised gender categories like LGBT communities). Men also cope with specific vulnerabilities, often related to their gender. They are much more often at the receiving end of lethal violence than women, and are frequently victims of sexual violence. When aid is channelled through women, it can lead to a situation where men’s vulnerability is forgotten, or where men feel emasculated or disenfranchised from their traditional social roles (see, for example, the contribution by Holly Ritchie to the special issue). Such situations can have a variety of consequences, ranging from mental health problems among men to the (violent) re-assertion of men and masculinities.
Gender as relations of power
The articles in the special issue bring another layer to this discussion that all too often boxes men and women into stagnant categories. By prioritising these categorical issues that ascribe and assume particular traits as specific to men and women, debates may miss the mark regarding gender as relations of power that, like everything else, are cast into disarray during humanitarian crises. It is well-established that gender roles are interwoven with other social identity markers, and that these intersectional gender relations are, moreover, deeply ingrained in and reproduced by the working of all institutions in society, ranging from the personal between men and women to the working of cultural values, geopolitics, governance practices, and religion. In creating the special issue, we asked: how do humanitarian responses interact with these myriad aspects of gender and other interrelated social identities? And how do humanitarian responses thus affect gender relations?
Persistence and change
The special issue testifies both to the persistence of gender relations as well as their propensity to change. Julian Hopwood, Holly Porter, and Nangiro Saum found a drastic reported change in everyday gender relations in Karamoja, Northern Uganda, especially where women’s material resource bases were enhanced, but they raise questions about whether such change is enduring. The economic empowerment of women may spill over positively into other domains of life, or contrarily may undermine goodwill towards women’s positions and bring about a violent backlash against them (and against humanitarians)—or both. Likewise, well-meaning interventions can have adverse effects, as Luedke and Logan found in South Sudan, where a narrow focus on conflict-related sexual violence and recycled (although well-intentioned) responses thereto by international organisations were not only unhelpful, but also ran counter to and undermined local norms that might have protected women.
The instrumentalisation of gender
A final layer that complicates the analysis of and interventions in gender relations is that gender as an issue is often instrumentalised for different purposes. Gender has firmly become part of the high politics of international relations. More locally, an interest in the position of women can, for example, obscure attempts of a government to firm up its grip over local authorities, as Rebecca Tapscott found in another contribution to the special issue on Northern Uganda. Likewise, Hilhorst and Douma found that the responses to sexual violence in the DRC were instrumentalised for various purposes by a large range of actors.
Treading carefully
What do these different layers mean for humanitarian action, apart from standing as a reminder that paying attention to women should not result in turning a blind eye to vulnerability and agency of other gender categories? The special issue highlights the dynamic and entangled nature of gender relations, and how humanitarian and political attention to gender adds additional layers to the complexities of gender relations in crisis environments. Aid can often do lots of harm. This does not mean that gender objectives should be abandoned, but that aid actors need to tread carefully and seriously invest in their capacity to carefully monitor the intended and unintended effects of programming on gender relations.
[1] The issue is open access for the duration of 2018.
Holly Porter is Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Institute of Development Policy and Management (University of Antwerp) and Conflict Research Group (Ghent University). She is also Research Fellow at the Firoz Lalji Centre for Africa of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Rachel Gordon is an independent research consultant on gender and humanitarian aid, and was formerly an SLRC Researcher and the SLRC Gender Team Leader, Feinstein International Center (Tufts University)/Overseas Development Institute.
The spreading “Oxfam scandal” will affect the entire humanitarian sector painfully. It brings into plain sight what observers of the internal workings of NGOs have known for a long time: NGOs have an organisational reflex of banning outsiders from their kitchen, and keeping their potentially dangerous secrets hidden.
Abuses of power are common in any situation where vulnerable people depend on powerful service providers. But the key question that still haunts this sector is how organisations should deal with the rotten apples – the abusers of power. Even though Oxfam has taken earlier abuses and misconduct seriously, the organisation has acted alone and resorted to internal measures in dealing with the problem.
The case of the Oxfam country director hosting sex parties in the staff house in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake – perhaps it is only the tip of a rapidly expanding iceberg.
What matters is how organisations respond to such incidents. Have trespassers been sanctioned, and was the harm done redressed? Were the disciplinary procedures transparent, and have efforts been made to avoid the repetition of these events?
About the author:
Dorothea Hilhorst is professor of humanitarian aid and reconstruction at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Transactional sex is a widespread reality in humanitarian crises, and one of the strategies that many people use to secure their livelihoods. Dorothea Hilhorst argues that humanitarian agencies, instead of ignoring this reality or understanding it solely as a form of sexual violence should rethink their view on the issue.
The #MeToo movement has swept through the world with millions of women testifying to sexual violence they have encountered. It has not left the humanitarian world untouched. In a brave guest column for Irinnews, two anonymous aid workers lift the veil of #MeToo in the humanitarian world. The humanitarian world, reads the by-line of the column, is not populated by saints, and the aid workers speak out about sexual harassment and assault in their sector.
Sexual violence in the humanitarian world is an extremely sensitive topic. It conflicts with everything humanitarian aid stands for and is morally akin to sex scandals in the Catholic Church. It evokes the scandal that rippled through the aid world in 2001 when female refugees in West Africa complained about being forced by aid workers to trade sex for food. Codes of conduct and other high-level interventions have subsequently promoted preventive action and alertness to abuse.
The aid workers writing the column also refer to the use of sex workers by male colleagues, especially in Africa. They take offence at the banter of these colleagues who come to the office after the weekend and brag about their sexual adventures. While I share the sentiment that such talk is offensive to anyone forced to listen in, I have difficulty accepting – as the column suggests – that sexwork in the context of humanitarian crises must always be seen as sexual violence. To my mind, humanitarian actors should broaden their view of transactional sex beyond sexual violence and acknowledge that it is an important aspect of livelihoods.
In the wake of the 2001 scandal, transactional sex in humanitarian emergencies – if discussed at all – has usually been considered under the heading of sexual violence. The sector is uneasily silent about the phenomenon, even though there is ample evidence which suggests that women – and men –resort in great numbers to transactional sex to survive a humanitarian crisis or to organize their livelihoods in times of duress. Apart from prostitution, where sex is directly exchanged for money, there is a massive and ill-demarcated resorting to transactional sex where the exchange of gifts is part of a broader set of relations. Although this is often construed as a form of sexual violence where powerful men abuse women’s despair to gratify their desires, there is also agency in the choice of people to engage in transactional sex. In 2016, I was part of a research team of the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium, investigating the multiple realities of prostitution and transactional sex in Eastern DRC, together with colleagues from the gender center of the Institut Supérieur de Développement Rural in Bukavu, DRC. Our report, based on a large survey, interviews and focus group discussions showed a variety of reasons to engage in transactional sex, most importantly poverty and distress – but also the desire to advance in education or careers.
There are important reasons why the humanitarian world should be more explicitly concerned with transactional sex. Once it is recognized that transactional sex is often a livelihood strategy, this would also open the way for the provision of services and protection against some of the risks that come with the trade. Many women in our research revealed health problems related to their sexual relations. Lack of contraceptives makes pregnancy for most a constant threat, with many stories of children borne from transactional relations. Among the 480 sexworkers we surveyed, more than 200 reported to have undergone one or multiple (illegal) abortions. Awareness programmes and reproductive health services could make a big difference to this number.
There are clearly moments when transactional sex should be treated as sexual violence. Obvious cases are when perpetrators take advantage of the fact that someone has no other option to survive, when it concerns children, or when aid workers abuse their position and trade aid for sex. Outside of these, there remain many cases where adults engage in consensual yet transactional relations in areas of humanitarian crises. However, these relations are prone to become violent too. The stories of women we interviewed were full of instances of clients that refused to pay or used force, and of police officers demanding free sex. Transactional sex can never be an excuse for rape. The point is that outlawing transactional sex or making it a taboo will make it more difficult to identify and address cases of violence and abuse.
Once they get rid of the atmosphere of taboo and prohibition around transactional sex as a form of livelihood, authorities and service providers could start to listen to the specific stories of abuse, and encourage victims to report them. Making transactional sex a topic on the humanitarian agenda – seeking to strike a balance between ethics of aid, respecting the agency of people engaging in transactional sex and offering protection and services – is a first step
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A humanitarian crisis with multiple consequences
Kalehe is one of the territories in the province of South-Kivu located in the northern side of Bukavu city (capital city of South-Kivu province). It covers the Eastern littoral of the Kivu Lake in Eastern DRC. Decades ago, there was a large tree-planting effort to protect the environment. In recent years, however, Kalehe’s population has grown rapidly due to the presence of Internally Displaced People (IDPs) in the territory. As a result of this, Kalehe has experienced widescale and rapid deforestation and loss of grassland in the middle and high plateaux to produce wood and charcoal without planting other trees.
In the night of 4 May 2023, heavy rains caused water levels to rise,as well as flooding in some villages of the Bushushu groupement in the Buhavu chiefdom of this territory. The Lukungula River of Bushushu, and the Kamikonzi River in Nyamukubi went beyond their limits, resulting in flooding and spreading of mixture of water, large stones, and mud in four out of seven sub villages of the locality, particularly Bushushu, Kabuchungu, Nyamukubi and Musumba. The humanitarian consequences of this were dramatic and multiform: 5525 people missing, more than 513 bodies buried, more than 2046 houses totally destroyed, more than 562 families mourning, many schools and health centres destroyed, loss of household assets including tables, chairs, and loss of documents of value such as electoral cards. The DRC HO team conducted fieldwork from 29 through 30 June 2023 in the area to know more about the crisis. WFP’s emergency response to the Kalehe floods, South Kivu – Flash Report #2 (19 May 2023) – Democratic Republic of the Congo | ReliefWeb
Kalehe crisis: challenges of the humanitarian assistance
During the fieldwork, the team identified several challenges associated with: (i) people’s (re-)location, (ii) deforestation, (iii) insufficient aid and, (iv) deficit of accountability while delivering assistance.
A pervasive issue with devastating consequences
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”When disaster meets conflict. Disaster response of humanitarian aid and local state and non-state institutions in different conflict scenarios” at the ISS.
In the wake of the 2001 scandal, transactional sex in humanitarian emergencies – if discussed at all – has usually been considered under the heading of sexual violence. The sector is uneasily silent about the phenomenon, even though there is ample evidence which suggests that women – and men –resort in great numbers to