International Humanitarian Aid

International Humanitarian Aid: Aims vs.

Outcome Humanitarian aid represents a commitment to support vulnerable host populations that have experienced a sudden emergency, requiring ongoing assistance to maintain or improve their quality of life.[1] Over the past 15 years the number of humanitarian agencies, private organizations, governments (taxpayers), corporations, individuals and other stakeholders have grown enormously.[2][3] This group of diverse donors have differing mandates, values, goals, strategies, actors and activities, but most function under one universal humanitarian principle: to protect the vulnerable by decreasing morbidity and mortality, alleviate suffering and enhance well-being, human dignity, and quality of life.

However, many stakeholders believe that humanitarian aid has been unsuccessful in delivering on these promises through lack of coordination and duplication of services. This results in a failure to meet the needs of those meant to benefit. Indeed humanitarian aid with its diverse mandates, roles, people, time lines and funding, as well as the absence of clear definitions to describe specific identities (purpose, principles), presents a chaotic and confusing image to the public, host governments and recipients, as well as ongoing challenges for agencies and aid workers.

Since appreciable donor finances total billions of dollars annually, these critiques present serious credibility and survival issues to agencies that depend on donor funding in order to save and improve the lives of the vulnerable. It is for this compelling reason that it is important to deconstruct the roles of and linkages between emergency, relief and development aid, identify problems that impact effectiveness and sustainability, and also acknowledge progress and successes both past and present. Externalities Humanitarian aid can help increase violence in conflicts.

If diverted, these resources can be used to buy arms and thereby aggravate the conflict. The beneficiaries of aid (be they the general civilian population or detainees) may become the target of armed groups trying to get their hands on relief supplies.

Such victimization take different forms: pressure on or harassment of the aid's beneficiaries to relinquish part of the aid they have received; the forcible enlistment of young men, or even the displacement of entire population groups, by armed groups when food distribution prompts large groups to assemble; large groups of civilians taken hostage so they can be used as "bait" for humanitarian aid, which is then misappropriated by armed groups; direct attacks on the people receiving aid (looting, murder); attacks on humanitarian warehouses and convoys.

Humanitarian aid often serves as a substitute for action that should be taken by the warring parties themselves, helping those parties to shirk their responsibilities. Where the State has been weakened, humanitarian aid contributes directly to exacerbating the situation, in particular by setting up a parallel economy or a non-State health-care system, run by the aid organizations. This effect is all the more serious when it occurs in a State that is already in the process of collapsing, as it hastens that collapse and increases the risk of unrestrained violence.

But humanitarian aid can also help reduce violence. We have seen how it both relieves and prevents suffering -- by providing treatment for the wounded, food supplies, sanitation, etc. -- a nd thus helps alleviate the silent forms of violence that are part of armed conflict: hunger, thirst and disease. Aid also helps to reduce violations of international humanitarian law, which are very direct forms of violence. In all armed conflicts, the ICRC reminds the warring parties of their obligations, in particular where non-combatants are concerned.

For example, "the ICRC calls on all the parties involved to abide by the rules of international humanitarian law, and in particular to make a clear distinction between civilians and combatants and to respect persons who are not or are no longer taking part in the hostilities." [10 ] An appeal such as this is the first stage in the ICRC's work, aimed at actually preventing violations of international humanitarian law (so-called primary prevention).

Prevention work will be all the more effective if the ICRC is present on an ongoing basis, as is the case with aid operations. This presence constitutes a mode of protection for the victims, and thus helps lessen violence in conflicts. The following excerpt from a weekly bulletin of ICRC-related news, serves as an illustration: "After territories previously controlled by Fikret Abdic were taken over by Bosnian troops from Bihac on 7 August last, more than 20,000 Muslims fled Velika Kladusa heading for Vojnic in Croatia.

They are clustered along seven kilometres of road and are surviving thanks to an ICRC emergency operation. Despite the aid provided by ICRC delegates in terms of medical care, food and hygiene, these people are living in very precarious conditions. They have for example only fifty houses in which to seek shelter. For more than a fortnight the ICRC, which fears for the safety of these people, has had two delegates constantly present among them." [11 ] But the mere presence of humanitarian personnel is not always enough to prevent violence.

When they witness lawlessness, they must take all possible steps not just to help its victims but a lso to ensure that the violations do not recur. This may be done by reminding States of their obligations. The following excerpt from an ICRC Annual Report is an example. "After the mass expulsions in the Bijeljina region, the ICRC President called a meeting of all Geneva-based diplomatic representatives of the international community at the ICRC headquarters on 7 September.

In his formal address, he spoke out strongly against the brutal harassment, discrimination, hostage-taking, arbitrary detention, forcible displacement, forced labour and other, sometimes worse, forms of ill-treatment suffered by civilians in the conflict areas of the former Yugoslavia, and the Muslim population of Bosnia-Herzegovina in particular.

The President called on the parties to the conflict to put an end to these practices and reminded all the States party to the Geneva Conventions of their collective obligation to ensure that the provisions of international humanitarian law were respected in all circumstances." [12 ] History and Background of International Aid Agencies The beginnings of organized international humanitarian aid can be traced to the late 19th century.

One of the first such examples occurred in response to the Northern Chinese Famine of 1876 -- 1879, brought about by a drought that began in northern China in 1875 and lead to crop failures in the following years. As many as 10 million people may have died in the famine.[2] British missionary Timothy Richard first called international attention to the famine in Shandong in the summer of 1876 and appealed to the foreign community in Shanghai for money to help the victims.

The Shandong Famine Relief Committee was soon established with the participation of diplomats, businessmen, and Protestant and Roman Catholic missionaries.[3] To combat the famine, an international network was set up to solicit donations. These efforts brought in 204,000 silver taels, the equivalent of $7 -- 10 million in 2012 silver prices.[4] A simultaneous campaign was launched in response to the Great Famine of 1876 -- 78 in India. Although the authorities have been criticized for their laissez-faire attitude during the famine, relief measures were introduced towards the end.

A Famine Relief Fund was set up in the United Kingdom and had raised £426,000 within the first few months. Early attempts were in private hands, and were limited in their financial and organizational capabilities. It was only in the 1980s, that global news coverage and celebrity endorsement were mobilized to galvanize large-scale government-led famine (and other forms of) relief in response to disasters around the world.

The 1983 -- 85 famine in Ethiopia caused upwards of 1 million deaths and was documented by a BBC news crew, with Michael Buerk describing "a biblical famine in the 20th Century" and "the closest thing to hell on Earth." [5] Live Aid, a 1985 fund-raising effort headed by Bob Geldof induced millions of people in the West to donate money and to urge their governments to participate in the relief effort in Ethiopia.

Some of the proceeds also went to the famine hit areas of Eritrea.[6 Over the past 100 years, foreign aid structures that began with European colonialism have become tied to shifting economic and political interests, as well as a growing humanitarian movement. Keri Phillips investigates the competing motives behind foreign aid, and how emerging global powers are changing the game. An ideological battle has been playing out for decades over whether foreign aid should be used to facilitate economic growth, or to provide programs that directly meet people's basic needs.

As new global powers emerge as donors, a third 'horizontal' structure is now being discussed, based on mutual self-interest. Rich countries started giving money to poorer countries in the 19th century, and by the 1920s and '30s countries like Germany, France and Britain were providing regular aid to their colonies in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Colonial powers used their money to build infrastructure -- ports, roads, railways -- and wealthy American industrialists were also involved in development aid through the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations.

Even after the colonies gained their independence, foreign support continued to focus on economic development, says author and academic Rosalind Eyben. 'There was the idea that countries had to catch up, that Western Europe and countries like Australia, Canada and North America were developed.. they were the goal that everybody else had to reach,' says Ms Eyben. During the Cold War, dramatic shifts in political, economic and moral allegiances emerged.

'Within a few years the world had split into what were called three worlds: the first world, Western democratic countries; the second world which was the Soviet Union and its Communist satellites; and then what became known as the third world, which were the former colonies and countries that had come under imperial influence, which were now all independent and that formed themselves into the non-aligned movement in the early 1950s,' Ms Eyben says.

In the post-war decades, the United States became the world's biggest aid donor, starting with the Marshall Plan to help Europe rebuild. As the Cold War developed, the two super powers and their allies would use aid to encourage political allegiances.

Howard White, executive director of non-profit organisation 3ie, says the assumption during this period was that the old colonial powers would gradually phase out their direct financial aid as colonies became independent and multilateral organisations like the UN, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund took over development work. 'It was really through the 1960s that the aid programs started to formulate and take shape and become a more definite commitment.

That's where you see the start of the evolution of a 0.7 per cent target of countries giving 0.7 per cent of national income in development assistance,' says Mr. White. 'The northern European donors like Sweden, which historically hadn't had colonies, so it didn't have the reason to be giving money to ex-colonies in the way that Britain and France did, started to recognise the need for aid on humanitarian grounds and so also adopted these targets and started to develop aid programs in particular focus countries.

And it took off from there.' At the end of the 1960s, ideas about the purpose of aid began to change under the influence of Robert McNamara, who became head of the World Bank in 1968. He promoted the idea of using donor-funded programs to meet people's basic needs in health, education, water and sanitation.

By that time, Ms Eyben says there began to be a feeling that the people had been forgotten about, that there was still massive poverty in aid recipient countries, and that the investment in economic infrastructure was not necessarily making any difference to the lives of the majority.

'That was a decade where people began to talk about poverty, and they began to talk about why are people poor, and whether it was possible to have economic growth that was more equitable, economic growth that focused on reducing poverty rather than just assuming that if you had growth everybody would ultimately benefit. That discussion about what kind of growth is one that is alive and very well today as well, it's a constant theme in discussions about development,' says Ms Eyben.

'In the 1980s basic needs disappeared off the agenda as a result of the global recession that was a result of the oil shock of the 1970s. Many developing countries were heavily indebted as a result of the recession, and donor countries lent them money in order to manage their debts, but on the basis of them having to restructure their economies, and to particularly stop spending so much money on social services.

This was called structural adjustment, and it's very similar to what is happening in Europe at the moment with what we are calling austerity programs.' The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the end of the Cold War led to a return to democracy in many countries and the increasing participation in development projects by both non-government organisations and wealthy philanthropists like Bill Gates and George Soros during the 1990s. But many poor countries were still staggering under impossible-to-repay debt.

Steve Radelet, an academic and former chief economist for the U.S. Agency for International Development, worked in the U.S. Treasury on international debt relief deals from 1999 through 2002. He says that ironically the first countries that were able to get out from under their debt burdens were the ones that had borrowed from commercial markets, not from aid agencies.

'Those that had borrowed from Citibank and other commercial banks were able to do deals in the late '80s and early '90s under a program called the Brady bonds where essentially the commercial banks would swap old debt for new debt at 70 per cent of the face value or 50 per cent or 30 per cent, it varied by country,' says Mr. Radelet.

'The commercial banks pretty quickly figured out that they weren't going to get fully repaid and were willing to go in and do a deal where they would accept a write-down in order to get some things repaid.

But for loans that were made by donor governments, and by the World Bank and the IMF, many more years went by until those donors were willing to recognise that they were going to have to write their debts down.' 'Finally in 1998 the big movement forward happened when the World Bank and the IMF finally decided that it did not make sense for them to demand repayment of these old loans because countries were really stagnating under the weight of the burden of repaying it.' 'Most of the really poor countries that had built up a lot of debt have now had that debt forgiven.

There's really only a few countries remaining with large debt burdens, and they are tough cases. Somalia is one, Sudan is another, Zimbabwe is another, and the progress on debt relief there is frankly waiting for a transition to a government where the donor countries are more willing to move forward with debt relief.' Over the past decade, more attention has been paid to working out the most effective way to spend aid money.

This has included the rise of impact evaluation, a set of methodologies that allows agencies to determine how effective development programs are for the people they are trying to reach. The shift in global power relations that has occurred over the past 10 years has also been playing out in aid relationships. Some former aid recipient countries have now become important economic and political powers in their own right. These 'rising powers' have a different approach to aid, which they describe as development cooperation on the basis of mutual self-interest.

One of the most prominent examples of this is the relationship between China and Africa, says Ms Eyben. 'China provides a lot of economic infrastructure and support for social development, and in return becomes the privileged buyer of African raw materials for China's growing economy,' she says. 'On the philosophical side, which is important here because it influences how people think about what they are doing, these new sovereign powers stress that the corporation is horizontal, that it's not the old vertical relationship.