Aid Agencies Re-Evaluate Demand for Security Enhancements

Recently Change.org blogger Michael Bear introduced me to Madeleine Kingston, a researcher for the European Interagency Security Forum (EISF). Ms. Kingston just completed a report in collaboration with humanitarian organizations re-evaluating aid worker's expectations for security in the field.

Surprise, surprise! In response to a survey, almost 30 percent of aid workers believed their agency was not taking security training serious enough, and about 50 percent believed their agency did not have a strategic training plan in place. This is most likely due to time and resource stretch. And 100 percent of respondents believed their agency should take part in collaborative efforts like those of EISF.

Aid workers really demand higher quality and greater quantity of training to prepare them for work in crisis zones, particularly with NATO's insistence on sacrificing humanitarian impartiality in order to merge aid with counter-insurgency (a move many aid workers oppose specifically because of the increase in security risks not only for foreign but local workers and beneficiaries).

However, as security costs get higher and higher; shifting funds to security concerns may sometimes mean less funds for direct aid.

For those who are new to the topic of aid worker security, here are some anecdotal challenges that humanitarians face in the field. Historically, humanitarian (crisis response) and development (long-term) aid workers worked separately from militaries unless there was a need for supply drops in countries where those militaries were not at war. When aid workers are third parties, risks tend to cluster around crime, lawlessness, or when workers need to bring supplies or services across a fighting line.

Since 2001, NATO countries have increased cooperation between militaries and aid agencies. Cooperation is fantastic, but when the two work very closely, the enemy of those militaries may assume that aid agencies are part of the fighting effort (which in Iraq and Afghanistan they sometimes now are). When this happens, aid agencies not only have to increase walls and guards, but communication around their offices and staff. They are sometimes even required to hire security organizations to protect workers, which could take the form of a local government force (as in Chechnya or Somalia) or a corporate contractor (as in Iraq or Afghanistan).

Ironically, the contractor costs are so incredibly high and so focused that foreign aid workers tend to spend less time in the field looking at what they're trying to do in the rougher countries. This is good in the sense that it increases the power of local managers who take on most leadership in rural areas, but it also means that the local workers, largely working without guards, are the lone representatives of the agency in very dangerous areas. More importantly, it means that many of the decision-makers in aid are internationals who live behind blast walls and must base decisions on second-hand data without the opportunity to see context for themselves.

As you can imagine, aid workers, internationals and locals debate numerous dilemmas and disagreements. Should aid agencies prohibit weapons? Most say yes. Should aid agencies provide locals with the same security and evacuation rights as foreigners? Most say no. Should an agency cooperate with rebel forces if that helps them to have access? Many say yes; many say no.

And so this is why the form, quality, quantity, and range of aid security training is so critical, why it requires many collaborative debates and discussions.

If you are an aid worker, particularly if you are a security staffer or collaborative development officer for an aid agency, check out the EISF site. They intend to make this one of the important rally points for global aid agencies discussing security enhancement. See you there.

Photo credit: Daniel J Gerstle (Blast walls, Baghdad, Iraq)