NEWSBYMICHAEL KEIZER

Am asking people I respect a tremendous amount to weigh in on some of the more contentious humanitarian issues, everything from the costs and benefits of advocacy to the question of neutrality and legitimacy.

The first posts are from Michael Keizer, who writes the phenomenal blog A Humourless Lot: Where Health, Logistics and Aid Work Come Together.  Michael has been an aid worker since 2001, working for various aid organizations - including UNICEF and MSF - in logistics and program management.

Michael's post below looks at the question of whether aid organizations should engage in advocacy.  Part 1 is here. For other musings this week, see here.

The humanitarian precautionary principle: complementary action as a better alternative

In the first part, I introduced the humanitarian precautionary principle as a means to simplify intractable dilemmas about advocacy versus field operations. I finished with an open question: is the principle a good one? Is it really the best resolution for our discussions?

I think that the humanitarian precautionary principle in this form confuses aims on the one hand, and ways and means on the other. We are not pursuing our “programs on the ground” as a goal by itself, but as a means to ameliorate the situation of the population we serve. In the final analysis, we will have to do whatever will improve the population’s lot most effectively (and most efficiently).

This is nothing new: politics has had to deal with these issues since the start of civilisation, and over the ages it has come up with the notion of complementary action: in almost all cases, it is not a question of which single action to pursue, but of which mix of actions is most effective – taking into account that there is almost always a mix of actions to be found in which the total is bigger than the sum of the parts.

For the issue of advocacy versus operations, I would suggest in a similar vein that there is no ‘versus’ here: advocacy and on-the-ground operations can almost always be used in mutually reinforcing ways.

Advocacy is hardly ever a threat to aid operations. This is already true on an organisational level: very few aid projects have ever been stopped or even severely hampered by the repercussions of advocacy. However, it is even more apparent on a humanitarian-systems level.

Am starting something of a salon this week - asking people I respect a tremendous amount to weigh in on some of the more contentious humanitarian issues, everything from the costs and benefits of advocacy to the question of neutrality and legitimacy.

The first posts are from Michael Keizer, who writes the phenomenal blog A Humourless Lot: Where Health, Logistics and Aid Work Come Together.  Michael has been an aid worker since 2001, working for various aid organizations - including UNICEF and MSF - in logistics and program management.

Michael's post below looks at the question of whether aid organizations should engage in advocacy. Part 2 is here.  For other musings this week, see here.

The Humanitarian Precaution Principle: The Way Out Of An Intractable Conundrum?

Most humanitarian workers seem to subscribe to the idea that we do what we do for the benefit of the population: to save and improve lives, and to reinstate people’s self-reliance. The usual question doesn’t seem to revolve around the aim of our work, but about ways and means. Yet even this can lead to heated and sometimes acrimonious disagreements.

A very recent example is the debate surrounding the ICC indictment of Sudanese president Al-Bashir. In the period leading up to and immediately following the indictment, impassioned and occasionally harsh descriptions were used by opponents of the measure: it would endanger aid workers and (perhaps more importantly) aid operations, and hence could only be deleterious for the population – and those who were in favour of the indictment could not have been aware of the realities on the ground.

Proponents of the indictment countered equally heatedly that there would be no hope for long-term improvement for that same population if there would be no end to the present impunity for atrocities like the ones committed in Darfur – and that those against the indictment were blinkered by the short-term gain that was no more than a band-aid on a mortal wound.

Again, the discussion was not about the final aim (amelioration of the situation of the Darfur population), but about how to go about it.