[P2P-F] Fwd: [Networkedlabour] Fwd: [WSF-Discuss] Humanitarian agencies: passing relics of an imperial model of charity?

Tue Sep 16 14:38:20 CEST 2014

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: peter waterman <peterwaterman1936 at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 9:39 PM
Subject: [Networkedlabour] Fwd: [WSF-Discuss] Humanitarian agencies:
passing relics of an imperial model of charity?
To: networkedlabour at lists.contrast.org

This kind of critique can be applied to NGOs in general, to 'Development
Cooperation' NGOs in particular and, with a little adaptation to the
commonly state-dependent activity of international trade union 'development
cooperation' with the Non-West.

PeterW

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Brian K. Murphy <brian at radicalroad.com>
Date: Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 1:09 PM
Subject: [WSF-Discuss] Humanitarian agencies: passing relics of an imperial
model of charity?
To: worldsocialforum-discuss at openspaceforum.net

 *http://aeon.co/magazine/society/can-humanitarian-agencies-reinvent-t
<http://aeon.co/magazine/society/can-humanitarian-agencies-reinvent-t>hemselves-in-a-network-age/*
*The humanitarian future*
*Can humanitarian agencies still fly the flag of high principle, or are
they just relics of an imperial model of charity?*

by Paul Currion | Aeon | September 2014

I became an aid worker in the 1990s, just as the break-up of Yugoslavia and
the genocide in Rwanda cast a long shadow over the humanitarian sector.
Those highly visible political failures were a major influence on my
decision. I was possessed of a distressingly youthful belief that we could
do better in the core humanitarian mission of saving lives, feeding the
starving, healing the sick, and sheltering the displaced from natural
disasters and armed conflicts.

I worked on co-ordination with the United Nations and non-governmental
organisations (NGOs): identifying gaps and overlaps in the delivery of aid,
then persuading humanitarian organisations to avoid those overlaps and fill
those gaps, a slow and frustrating process of herding cats. Co-ordination
had become increasingly important as the humanitarian sector expanded
dramatically following the end of the Cold War. In Kosovo, after the NATO
bombing campaign of 1999, we registered one NGO for every day of the year.
A decade later, after the 2010 earthquake near Port-au-Prince, an estimated
3,000 NGOs descended on Haiti.

It wasn't just the size of the humanitarian sector that was increasing -
the scope of humanitarian work was widening as well. In the post-Cold War
world, humanitarian organisations were increasingly enlisted as government
sub-contractors in a larger political project: the post-conflict
reconstruction of entire countries. After Kosovo I found myself in
Afghanistan, where Secretary of State Colin Powell referred to NGOs as a
'force multiplier' for the US military; then Iraq, where Andrew Natsios,
then head of US overseas aid, asserted without apparent irony, that NGOs
were 'an arm of the US government'.

Some took this assertion literally. On 19 August 2003, the UN headquarters
at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad was bombed by enemies of the US government.
The bomb - placed outside the information office that I had helped to set
up - killed 22 and injured more than 100 people. I had left Baghdad a few
weeks earlier, precisely because I was worried by deteriorating security.
My youthful belief that we could do better was still intact (even if my
youth was not), but it now seemed clear that humanitarianism had taken a
wrong turn somewhere.

As we mark the 150th anniversary of the first Geneva Convention, it's worth
stating that humanitarian aid is not a waste of money - it can mean the
difference between life and death - and for the most part that money is
well-spent. While some criticism is warranted, the humanitarian community
is not blind to its shortcomings, and has sought to improve its work since
the mid-1990s.

One of the most important initiatives in this regard was the publication in
1994 of the Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red
Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief. The Code was welcomed by
NGOs as a largely successful attempt to articulate core humanitarian
principles, but it also doubled as a field guide to the tensions inherent
to the sector. After the more obvious principles - humanity, neutrality,
impartiality and independence - the last of the Code's 10 points goes in a
surprising direction: 'In our information, publicity and advertising
activities, we shall recognise disaster victims as dignified human beings,
not hopeless objects.'

It's now widely acknowledged that affected communities don't wait around
for outside help, but actively develop their own strategies for coping with
disaster. Yet the humanitarian community has struggled to embody this
realisation. To their public donors, charities continue to present a Black
Box of Suffering. On the front of the box is the single image of a
suffering child that serves as a proxy for all the suffering that can be
imagined. 'What's happening inside this box is terrible,' it says, 'and you
don't want to see inside.' Then, the pitch: 'Give us your money, and we'll
put it into the box, and that will end the suffering.'

The Black Box is effective in terms of raising funds, but its platonic
ideal of suffering obscures the wider context in which that suffering takes
place. The lack of context leaves the public with little understanding of
how the aid industry works - when questioned, most people offer some
variation on the theme of 'Whites in Shining Armour' - which in turn
prevents NGOs from being fully open about the problems of delivering aid in
the most challenging environments on Earth. Because all NGOs rely on public
support, they face a dilemma: more nuanced messages will not reach their
public, but less nuanced messages leave them open to criticism.

Humanitarianism has been intimately linked to the media from the beginning.
The Swiss businessman and social activist Henry Dunant, who inspired the
early Red Cross movement, had his book* A Memory of Solferino* (1862)
printed at his own expense as an advocacy tool to spread the humanitarian
message across Europe, arguing that 'in an age when we hear so much of
progress and civilisation, is it not a matter of urgency, since unhappily
we cannot always avoid wars, to press forward in a human and truly
civilised spirit the attempt to prevent, or at least to alleviate, the
horrors of war?' Pressure on governments to adopt the Geneva Conventions
came from popular sentiment, as the public gained greater access to
information about the reality of modern war through the popular press. The
growth of mass media in the 20th century enabled spectacles such as the
Live Aid concerts in 1985 for famine relief in Ethiopia. NGOs realised that
they could shape the humanitarian narrative using their access to
disaster-affected areas.

 Today, writers from the Sunday supplements of UK newspapers accompany NGO
staff to health clinics in inaccessible places, returning with stories of
stoic suffering and sterling effort. This worked well into the 1990s, when
communication was still controlled by corporations and information sources
were scarce. With the information revolution, however, individuals and
groups affected by disasters have increasing access to digital
communications that provide alternative perspectives not mediated by
humanitarian organisations. The Black Box is breaking open, exposing the
humanitarian community to more public scrutiny than ever before.

Humanitarianism was shaped by specific historical circumstances that no
longer exist. Global economic and political developments - including the
rise of Brazil, Russia, India and China - put a question mark over the
assumptions on which the system was built. The same technologies that have
given disaster-affected communities a voice also enable them to organise
themselves more effectively, which in certain places means less need for
external organisations to become involved. While there will always be those
caught in the wake of natural disasters and human conflicts who need some
form of outside assistance, the 'rich West giving to the poor rest' no
longer makes so much sense.

It might simply be that humanitarian NGOs are no longer the right type of
organisation to meet the needs of the future. It's not merely that they are
no longer fit for purpose: it's increasingly uncertain what that purpose
is. What are humanitarian organisations* for*? Are they delivery vehicles
for humanitarian* assistance* - logistics companies with a side order of
social concern? Or are they delivery vehicles for humanitarian* principles,*
with any tangible assistance they provide is just a manifestation of those
principles?

Focused on the next emergency rather than the last, unable to draw easily
on past experience, plagued by a high turnover of staff, it seems as if
each new generation of aid workers suffers from a kind of 'Year Zero'
thinking. This continues despite efforts to professionalise aid work. If we
fail to pay attention to how history has shaped the humanitarian sector in
the past century, we cannot begin to understand what is needed to shape it
to meet the needs of the coming century.

The modern humanitarian movement began on 24 June 1859, at the Battle of
Solferino in Italy. For the last time in European history, monarchs were in
direct command of both sides of the battle. After Solferino, the European
states began their trek towards the horrors of total war in the 20th
century. Yet a parallel history also began that evening: businessman Henry
Dunant, horrified by the carnage he'd witnessed in the battle's aftermath,
organised a relief effort to care for the injured and the dying -
regardless of which side they had fought on.