IRIN Web Special on Civilian Protection in Armed Conflict

Safety and security of humanitarian workers

Within the broader issue of access, the safety and security of humanitarian workers assisting populations is an important issue.

Under IHL, belligerents must provide safe and secure access to independent and impartial humanitarian actors (which highlights the importance for humanitarians of the concepts of neutrality, independence and impartiality).

"We also have to make clear that access is not an end in itself. Giving security to humanitarian organisations is not enough, because humanitarian activity is supposed to give security to civilians," said Bouchet-Saulnier. "In negotiating access, it’s very important to make clear that humanitarian action is not under military control – but under military responsibility not to target us and not to target the civilians."

At all times, in considering civilian protection, one has to bear in mind the safety of humanitarian staff, according to Golberg. "Absolutely, they have to promote the protection of civilians, but if they themselves are insecure it makes it very difficult for them to do that," she told IRIN.

But the difficulty of securing this safety was emphasised yet again with the discovery of the bodies of four Red Cross volunteers in Cote d’Ivoire in mid-March, after they had gone missing in January while providing assistance to vulnerable displaced people in a country torn by internal violence since September last. Reports suggested that they had earlier been taken prisoner by armed men, according to the International Federation of the Red Cross/Red Crescent, which called for a full investigation of the incident and greater efforts to ensure the safety of humanitarian workers.

"I think access and security are clearly the two principal challenges we consistently run up against, whether it’s the aid agencies themselves or donors trying to support them," said Golberg. "That’s access to the actual affected civilian population, and physical security of civilians, as well as [that of] humanitarian workers.”

The targeting of aid workers alongside civilians in times of conflict is an attack on the role of humanitarian organisations, and "an attempt to drive them out and deny their role as protectors of civilians in conflict", according to Annan. "Such acts," he told the Security Council, "should be recognised as war crimes and dealt with accordingly by the relevant national authorities or the ICC [International Criminal Court]."

Humanitarian accountability

The need for greater accountability among humanitarian agencies, in terms of their operations and conduct, was an area that needed to be addressed, according to the ODI’s James Darcy. At one level, this involved the agencies’ need to be more accountable to beneficiaries – those on whose behalf they are purporting to act – and, on another, the need to be accountable to the broader humanitarian community and to those who provide the resources for humanitarian action.

It was for these reasons that the Sphere project [that devised a humanitarian charter and minimum standards for disaster response] tried to locate this notion of accountability much more centrally in the humanitarian endeavour, he added. [see www.sphereproject.org]

In that light, humanitarian agencies need to make their own evaluations, to be on the ground, to be present with and for people in a situation of armed conflict, according to Francois Bugnion of the ICRC. It was important that agencies "react to needs that they have determined by themselves, react to their own evaluations of the needs of the victims, are personally present whenever distributions take place, and are transparent about the use they are making of goods and funds put at their disposal," he added.

The dangers of politicisation

There has been a trend to put the international political and military management of crises under the flag of "humanitarian action", but humanitarianism should remain separate, know the scope and limits of its mandate, and not allow itself to become scapegoat for political inaction, said Bouchet-Saulnier. "Humanitarian, political and military are three very different areas that should remain clearly separate in order to remain efficient" in their different realms, she said.

Humanitarians have often been very good at taking on themselves responsibility for things that actually are not their responsibility, according to Darcy. "Often they do not have the means to fulfil their stated objectives, and in attempting to do so, they blur the lines of responsibility," he said. "I believe that we need to define those responsibilities [humanitarian, political and military] very clearly."

The ODI has warned of dangers in the blurring between overtly humanitarian and more political intervention - together with the "retreat" of donors from many parts of the world, meaning that humanitarian agencies are being sucked into taking more political space – not least to the very notion of humanitarianism.

While humanitarian agencies frequently bemoan the politicisation of humanitarian action, much of that has arisen from willing expansion into new areas of operation, where they seize new opportunities for growth, it said. Some of these, such as conflict prevention, capacity building, critical engagement and human rights advocacy, are inherently political, according to the organisation’s humanitarian policy group.

Alongside deliberate targeting of civilians and some belligerents’ belief in total, not limited, warfare, the ODI humanitarian policy group has identified a range of other changes that present a powerful challenge to the principles of humanitarian action, including:

• A decline in powerful states’ interest in non-strategic wars
• The weakening of absolute notions of state sovereignty
• A tendency for humanitarian action to substitute for international political engagement
• The fact that humanitarian actors are now significant actors in their own right in many conflict situations, and in international political arenas

New strategies used in the name of a humanitarian imperative – such as humanitarian conditionality, human rights advocacy and capacity building – are inherently political, and challenge our understanding of the principles of humanitarian action, it says. "Without a way of distinguishing between political and humanitarian intervention, both conceptually and organisationally, humanitarian aid may well become more politicised and thus struggle with acceptance and safety, not to mind legitimacy," according to the ODI.

"We see the need for coherence, in the sense that there are certain forms of political action that are absolutely, intrinsically connected to humanitarian outcomes," said the ODI’s James Darcy. "What’s much more worrying," he added, "is the attempt to use the humanitarian vehicle in an attempt to achieve outcomes that it was never designed to achieve [like conflict prevention], probably never could and, in doing so, threatening basic principles like neutrality."

Observers note that humanitarian agencies should be taking steps to ensure that, through their own programming, they are providing assistance in ways that mitigate, rather than exacerbate, the suffering of civilians.

What comes across clearly is the need for humanitarian agencies to think beyond programming practicalities to the political economy of conflict situations, as well as the need to analyse where and how their activities fit into this, and whether they provide protection for civilians or, in fact, worsen conflict situations.

Observers suggest that action would be appropriate on: balancing attention to assistance and protection needs, establishing roles, responsibilities and standards; and increasing transparency and accountability.

In addressing these, humanitarian agencies may be able to identify ways in which assistance can be provided so that, rather than exacerbating and worsening conflict, it helps local people disengage from fighting and develop systems for settling the problems which prompt conflict within their societies.

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