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Stephen Commins
The Blurred Continuum
International non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and other humanitarian agencies have traditionally posed a dichotomy between relief and development work. Sometimes, this dichotomy has been reinforced by the way in which bilateral donor bureaucracies allocate funds for programmes and projects. Occasionally, as Goodhand and Chamberlain illustrate in their paper on NGOs in Afghanistan, donors have even refused to support projects in what are deemed as relief areas if the programmes are 'too developmental'. Over the past decade, there has been a move towards establishing clear linkages, both conceptually and operationally, between initial relief operations and longer-term development goals. Indeed, there is now a common language on 'the continuum' between relief and development work. This has proven helpful in food-insecure and drought situations, but changes in the nature of emergencies demanding a humanitarian response now require the recognition that both the old dichotomy and the new continuum may obscure more than they clarify. The difference between relief and development has been substantially blurred in situations of long-term political emergencies relating to civil conflict. What is now apparent is that some forms of gap-filling development work to provide stabilising mechanisms can occur, and are indeed necessary, in situations of conflict.
New Skills, Challenges and Perspectives for a Changed Environment
Operations in conflict-related emergencies require different skills and time frames, and a recognition that local communities have their own resources and priorities, and are not helpless victims, even in situations of brutality and suffering. The experiences of NGOs operating in such situations can provide a valuable base for helping other agencies to identify development potential within conflict, to review their priorities and capacity for work in different settings, and to present policy challenges to governments and donors. Without an understanding of the ways in which development can and does occur on the midst of conflicts, NGOs will miss opportunities to strengthen local communities. Further, without a political and/or a human rights perspective on conflicts, NGOs may either unintentionally strengthen warring groups, or serve as political cover for the lack of action by donor governments.
NGOs have begun to move, however unevenly, towards a wider understanding of development, which is not limited to economic indicators. They have come to recognise that there are questions of social relations, production relations, gender, human capacity and natural resource management, that need to be considered. In order to have lasting and more embedded changes, development becomes a more inclusive concept that cannot be contained in the old linear 'relief-to-rehabilitation-to-development' continuum. These new concepts do not view development as depending on the end of armed hostilities, because they include relations and capacities that require attention even during conflicts - as can be seen from the experiences of agencies in places as diverse as Sudan and El Salvador.
Reflections for Fresh Insights
This Reader is a collection of papers from previous issues of Development in Practice offering a number of perspectives on the challenges facing NGOs in conflict situations. The designation 'NGO' is often overly inclusive (one colleague described 'NGO' as equivalent as calling a table 'not water'), but for the purposes of this essay, it includes local, national, and international NGOs, with an emphasis on the roles of the latter in the context of conflict. The relationship between international NGOs and local organisations is often complex, as is clear from several of the papers in this Reader. Learning from these experiences is not a matter of finding answers to simple or linear questions; rather the papers can help practitioners to recognise their own perspectives and assumptions about working in conflict, the importance of providing policy input to governments and humanitarian agencies, the need to review the priorities of their own organisations, and questions related to operational practice.
If the experiences from the mid-1970s onwards are inadequately understood, NGOs will miss opportunities to improve their effectiveness while operating in the line of fire, their goals may be at odds with community perceptions, and as observers such as Mary B Anderson and John Prendergast have pointed out, they may worsen rather than alleviate the conflict (1). The provision of food and other resources, the hiring of armed guards, agreements with particular political factions, or the selection of specific regions in which to concentrate, can all have an influence on contending factions and even the eventual outcome of the conflict. In a world where situations of long-term conflict are on the increase, these papers offer insights that will be a valuable resource for practitioners.
Complex Humanitarian Emergencies (CHEs), 'The New Reality'
The end of the Cold War in 1989 has been seen as leading to more civil strife and internal wars (2). There is a danger in implying that 1989 was the date on which complex humanitarian emergencies (CHEs) came into being. Instead, it may be that the removal of super-power restraints on client states has also been accompanied by growing awareness of the spread of such emergencies. These are characterised by the breakdown of political, economic and social orders, and by the targeting of civilian populations for violence. The cruel realities of today's CHEs can be found in the earlier civil wars in which NGOs gained important experiences in the 1970s and 1980s. For example, there were many significant and brutal emergencies before 1989 (such as Afghanistan, Mozambique, Cambodia, and El Salvador), but these were overshadowed by the Cold War, and many were somewhat muted by the actions of different external actors. They share with more recent crises the character of being political, rather than natural, emergencies. And as such they are important sources of information and experience that can provide guidance for practitioners today.
The Cold War was a time of vicious, proxy wars, and while the patrons have been removed, the arms and sources of conflict have not. The growth of CHEs is documented in the increased number of refugees since 1990, the growing numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs), and the higher proportion of official development assistance (ODA) now spent on emergency relief. One result of the recognition of the realities of working in long-term CHEs is a rethinking of the role of NGOs in these conflicts. The harsh lessons from experiences such as Rwanda, Somalia, and Bosnia point to the need for NGOs to give serious attention to how they operate in such contexts. Increased recognition of the difficulties of working in situations of armed conflict should not detract from lessons that have been learned in the past two decades. Because of the decline of security issues related to the Cold War conflicts, there has been greater attention to other kinds of conflict. In particular, the unravelling of a number of states in Africa has created the impression for some that the work of NGOs in situations of conflict is fairly new. However, this far from the case, as can be seen when reviewing the range of NGO experiences in several long-term conflicts around the world prior to 1989.
Although there has been a tragic increase in the overall number of CHEs involving warfare and violence, over the past several decades many NGOs have gained significant experience of working in the line of fire. As the papers on Sudan and El Salvador point out, NGOs (local and international) who have worked with local communities in the midst of conflict have learned valuable lessons. Other places in which long-term development work has taken place in the midst of relief needs and conflict settings include Ethiopia, Mozambique, Afghanistan, and Cambodia. In this Reader, Joyner's paper on work in Sudan provides insights into aspects of incorporating development goals in long-term work with refugee populations. As she notes, it is 'too late to wait until after the emergency'. In this case, the introduction of a flexible system for educating teachers offers an approach for human development that is not contingent upon investing in buildings that might not survive the war. Joyner astutely notes that even in prolonged conflicts, depending on the nature of the warfare, societies will continue to 'develop' through crisis periods. If NGOs can also be flexible and mobile in their efforts, then improved education and training becomes an investment in people which can survive physical destruction. This is echoed by Alvarez Solis and Martin, who conclude that 'a wealth of experience has been accumulated in humanitarian assistance, non-formal education and community-based health, economic and social development, particularly in areas and communities most severely affected by war'. The very difficulties inherent in assessing the impact of assistance in unstable environments, point to the importance of enhancing local capacities in this area.
Building on Local Institutional Capacities and Local Learning
As noted earlier, the relationship between international NGOs and local organisations are complex in ways that require attention and astute responses. NGOs experience tensions over the use of funds and programme priorities, as well as the problem of sub-contracting. International NGOs, in particular in emergency relief situations, often operate as implicit or explicit sub-contractors for multilateral and bilateral donors. When they begin to work with local NGOs or grassroots organisations, there is a danger that due to pressures of time and the larger operational structure within which they must function, the relationship will be established on a contractual basis for expeditious purposes. A further risk is that the pressure to 'go operational' will reduce the ability of international NGOs to assess their potential counterparts. Yet there are important issues for assessing the legitimacy and accountability of different local organisations that require careful analysis.
In civil conflicts, there are often new roles for local NGOs and grassroots organisations that stretch them in their operations and skills. Local organisations such as labour unions, churches, peasant cooperatives, and women's groups may move into different aspects of relief and rehabilitation work, out of necessity. This transition can cause difficulties when conflicts die down or cease, as Goodhand and Chamberlain, as well as Alvarez Solis and Martin, point out. There are new roles, new tasks and even new structures that emerge from conflict that then must adapt when conflict diminishes. In the Salvadoran civil war, many local groups emerged to defend community resources and provide for survival; and it was indeed in response to violence that new forms of social organisation evolved. This is also a reminder to international NGOs that often there are locally-generated forms of organisation that should be their partners and the lead agency in the community, rather than the external NGO seeking to generate its own structure or project. Assessing the realities in Central America, Alvarez Solis and Martin point out that 'many of the 1980s generation of NGOs are essentially the institutional expression of sectors of the urban and rural poor who organised to defend themselves from violence and oppression.' Given the enormous differences in country or regional contexts, the capacity or legitimacy of local NGOs cannot be taken for granted and requires astute on-the-ground assessment by those agencies who would support them.
Work in El Salvador, Cambodia, Sudan and other countries has provided NGOs with lessons about, among other things, how development for survival occurs in the midst of conflict. The line between 'relief' and 'development' disappears, especially when one recognises that local populations have lives and histories that pre-date the presence of external agencies (as James Scott and Robert Chambers have emphasised). The challenge for NGOs is to understand the geographic spread and impact of contemporary conflicts, as well as the long historical timeframe. This comes though clearly in Goodhand and Chamberlain's paper on Afghanistan, where NGOs are forced to recognise that their work is occurring in situations of complexity and multi-layered realities. Similarly, Roche's insights about operating in turbulence also show the possiblity of finding stabilising points, which do not resolve the conflict, yet may provide a foundation or base for future development.
As NGOs build up lessons from their experiences in CHEs, they face questions regarding their wider roles and responsibilities, especially in relation to the victims of violence. There has been an accepted distance between NGOs and other humanitarian agencies in relation to the politics of warfare and civil conflicts. This has begun to change as there is greater scrutiny of NGOs' conduct in complex emergencies. The increased presence of NGOs in contexts of long-term conflict has created greater questions about the impact and role of any humanitarian agencies in such situations. Serious questions about their impact have been raised by commentators who have challenged NGOs to consider what their roles really are in multi-mandate operations (see Annotated Bibliography for examples).
Responding to Critical Need, Lost Neutrality and Other Complications
Mary B Anderson has shown that there are many ways in which NGOs can exacerbate conflict. Frequently, the introduction of external resources has either been interpreted as favouring one side against another, or providing invaluable material that enhance the power of factional leaders. When NGOs hire guards or negotiate agreements with particular leaders, they move from a neutral role to one of influencing the outcome of the conflict. Anderson's concerns are echoed here by Alvarez Solis and Martin who comment that the contribution of NGOs was not entirely positive, as they also brought competition, duplication, poor planning, lack of coordination, and generally weak evaluation of their work. They also point to the difficulties that come from competition between NGOs for funding, and the tensions between NGOs and popular organisations. A problem which afflicts many NGOs, and not only in conflict situations, is the increasing reliance on packaging and selling projects to donors.
These types of criticisms are welcome and necessary, because during the 1980s there was a tendency to generalise about the attributes of NGOs without a concomitant willingness to ask hard questions about the quality of their work. NGOs are under growing scrutiny regarding their legitimacy, accountability and effectiveness (3). There is a need to evaluate their impact and determine how accountability to local populations can be balanced with the requirements of different donors to NGO programmes. And accountability is also required in terms of how NGOs act in relation to harder political questions arising from conflict.
African Rights has produced trenchant criticisms of how international agencies have fallen short of their goals in Somalia, Sudan, and Rwanda. The paper 'Humanitarianism Unbound?' questions the role of humanitarian agencies and whether there is a new imperialism and arrogance amongst those that call for military action or 'humanitarian intervention' as a quick fix to complex emergencies (4). A question that emerges both from this critique and the wider literature is whether humanitarianism is unbound or has unravelled. Have NGOs called for intervention through arrogance, or rather as a result of their uncertainty about what to do in conflict situations?
Security Risks, Violence and Psychosocial Trauma
If NGOs accept that they are working in the midst of emergencies that are political, and that often involve widespread and deliberate violence against civilians, they should not keep silent. But how they convey their concerns about human rights and political issues is not always clear. De Waal, the co-author of many African Rights reports, notes that the point of entry for human rights concerns regarding famines may be the issue of internationally denying food to civilians, for political rights are important to fighting famine (5). Kothari makes similar points in the observation that the forced evictions and uprooting of people and communities are becoming a recurrent part of conflict and government power plays. The brutalisation of civilians, either by famine or forced displacement, demands a clear role for NGO advocacy at a policy level, as well as provision of immediate relief.
Even as NGOs struggle with how to address human rights and political questions within conflicts, they are also faced with the escalating emotional toll of violence on both their own workers and on civilian populations. Hugo Slim's seminal essay on ' endangered chameleons' underlines the increased targeting of humanitarian workers, who had previously been able to operate in a neutral space between combatants. NGOs have had a sense of protection and uniqueness which has encouraged them to operate in such situations with a view that dangers were fairly low. This has changed with the increase in kidnapping, armed theft and even intentional targeting of NGO staff for violence. Slim's identification of the security issue and the psychological toll on NGO staff has been borne out in Rwanda, Burundi and Liberia, as elsewhere, where NGOs and other humanitarian agencies have had offices attacked, staff killed and wounded, and threats delivered to their personnel by different military factions.
The demand on NGOs to operate in conflict and high-risk situations is paralleled by the challenges of working with traumatised populations. The papers by Buwalda, Bonnerjea, and Shackman and Reynolds all point to the costs imposed on civilians that are often longer lasting that the need for food, shelter or health care services. These three papers all address social costs borne by communities caught up by warfare situations. At the same time, as Summerfield stresses, it is important to note that these communities and their residents are not passive victims, nor are they simply 'trauma cases'. Again, there are complex historic and political circumstances in each situation to which NGOs must be sensitive when planning and conducting their operations.
Developing Wider Experimental Resources
The selection of papers in this Reader provide several paths for NGOs working within conflicts or after these have formally ended. There cannot be one answer for how NGOs should operate within such settings. But to encourage thinking within NGOs and by practitioners, these papers have been chosen to bring together the diverse experiences of NGOs and practitioners, and so to offer starting points for reflective questions and for generating new ideas out of organisational learning.
In addition, there is a growing body of literature for and by development practitioners who are working in conflict situations, some of which is included in the Annotated Bibliography to this volume. In particular, the 1995 edition of The Oxfam Handbook of Development and Relief draws on a new decade of experience, and reflects some of this expanding practitioner literature.
There are indications that NGOs and other humanitarian agencies are giving greater attention to the dilemmas presented by working in complex emergencies. Along with the just criticism that NGOs compete at times for resources and media coverage, the level of cooperation among NGOs both at the national and international level has increased substantially in the past five years. Deeper commitment to cooperation can be found at both the national and international level, as seen through the efforts of umbrella bodies such as the International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA) and the NGO coordination with United Nations Department of Humanitarian Affairs (DHA). This is happening both in terms of operational work and for establishing a stronger and more coherent policy voice. There is interest in establishing mechanisms for giving accreditation to individual NGOs for different sectoral skills, partly to reduce the media and resource-driven nature of NGO work. Further, important questions are being asked about the difference between neutrality and independence in situations of egregious human rights violations.
In closing, there are a number of wider issues that require further elaboration, and questions which can serve as the basis for greater reflection within and between different agencies:
- Given the massive human rights violations that are committed in some political emergencies, do NGOs believe in the use of lethal force?
- In view of the longer term nature of political emergencies, what are the best policy roles for different NGOs, especially in relation to the root causes of such conflicts?
- How can NGOs expand their timeframe for working in conflict situations?
- What are the challenges to the bureaucratic and administrative management of relief and development programmes in the context of complex emergencies?
- Can NGOs put aside their institutional survival imperatives and work for coherence and common programme standards?
- Are NGOs willing to address staff capacity issues as well as the question of credentials or Codes of Conduct for working in complex emergencies?
- How can NGOs respond to the challenges of new staffing and personnel roles, as well as new types of teams?
- Are there operational roles for NGOs in situations where they have no prior experience?
- How can NGOs most effectively 'scale up' from field experience to policy-making and become public voices for the victims of violence?
- How can NGOs 'scale down' or redirect their work to be attuned to how communities define their own survival and development issues?
These questions are meant to encourage all NGOs and individual practitioners to think creatively about the alternative futures. NGOs could become little more than ladles in the global soup kitchen, superficially alleviating the misery of the victims of conflict, but lacking the capacity, understanding or interest to address its causes and consequences. NGOs may also become public sector contractors for large donors, but if so, can they retain independent voices and engage in well-informed actions in difficult situations?
Experience of working in situations of armed conflict has shown that opportunities for adaptive and creative programmes do exist, even when to the outsider there appears that little or nothing can be accomplished. The paper by Roche offers both a challenge and an opportunity, for NGOs to establish stabilising points for their operations. Amidst both international and national dislocations, NGOs can build accepted frameworks for working and interpreting what is happening. Even in the face of rapid, discontinuous, or turbulent change, where old assumptions are no longer valid, it may indeed be possible for NGOs to operate in the line of fire with effectiveness, accountability and long-term impact.
References
1 Mary B Anderson, Relationships between Humanitarian Agencies and Conflict and Remedial Steps that Might be Taken, unpublished paper presented at the Symposium on Humanitarian Assistance and Conflict in Africa, 1995; also, International Assistance and Conflict: an Exploration of Negative Images, (1994), Issues Series No. 1, The Local Capacities Peace Project, Collaborative for Development Action.
2 Mark Duffield, 'Complex Emergencies and the Crisis of Developmentalism', (see Annotated Bibliography).
3 Edwards, Michael and David Hulme (1996), Non-governmental Organisations: Performance and Accountability - Beyond the Magic Bullet, London: Earthscan/SCF
4 African Rights, (1994) Humanitarianism Unbound? Current Dilemmas Facing Multi-Mandate Relief Operations in Political Emergencies, Discussion Paper No 5, London.
5 See also Drèze, Jean and Amartya Sen (1989), Hunger and Public Action, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6 Slim, Hugo 'The Continuing Metamorphosis of the Humanitarian Professional: Some New Colours for an Endangered Chameleon', (see Annotated Bibliography).
