Provocation: NGO Neutrality Is Dead

It's time we accepted a rather brutal fact - NGOs aren't neutral.  Or, more to the point, NGOs are no longer seen as neutral, at least not in places like Afghanistan and Darfur.

And the longer that NGOs insist on clinging to a myth of neutrality - at least in certain conflicts - the more aid workers will be killed.

We can argue over causes, but the statistics speak for themselves.  According to a recent report by the Center for International Cooperation and the Overseas Development Institute, 260 humanitarian aid workers were killed, kidnapped or seriously injured last year, making 2008 by far the deadliest year on record.

(By comparison, in 206 aid workers were killed, kidnapped or seriously injured in 2007.)

Two statistics are most telling.  First, these attacks are clustered in relatively few countries - 75% of all attacks over the past three years occurred in just seven countries: Sudan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Chad, Iraq and Pakistan.

Second,more and more attacks are politically motivated - "Politically motivated incidents rose from 29% of the known total in 2003 to 49% in 2008."

As the report explains:

"The most recent evidence continues to show that even those agencies that make considerable efforts to disassociate themselves from political actors and project an image of neutrality have not been immune from attack...We would posit that aid organisations are being attacked not just because they are perceived to be cooperating with Western political actors, but because they are perceived as wholly a part of the Western agenda."

No matter what we might want to believe, it's increasingly difficult to put much faith in NGO neutrality, at least in the countries mentioned above.

And once the perception of neutrality goes out the window, then the entire idea of security through acceptance begins to look increasingly problematic.

The allegiance and support of a local community in a country like Afghanistan doesn't mean much when the Taliban come through town.  Especially not when the Taliban see aid workers as part of the "foreign invader forces".

A man I very much respect used to talk about frogs in boiling water - the inability to see that a situation has deteriorated past the point of no return until it's far, far too late.

Or, put another way, aid agencies have a choice.  They can stop working in certain conflicts, or at least in certain areas, or they can accept the cost of continuing operations - more and more staff injured, kidnapped, and killed.

The one unforgivable sin is to pretend that these choices don't have to be made.

[Image from Flickr]