The perils of being an aid worker

International aid work is a dangerous profession. Serious violence against humanitarian workers has increased in recent years. International humanitarian law and UN conventions designed to protect civilians, including aid workers, from violence during conflict are increasingly flouted. How should aid agencies respond to new security challenges?

A joint report from the Overseas Development Institute, UK, and the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, USA, collates data on violence against aid workers and analyses how perceptions of increased risk have shaped new security measures and programming approaches.

Since 1997 the number of major acts of violence (killings, kidnappings and armed attacks resulting in serious injury) committed against aid workers has nearly doubled. Overall, there were 408 reported acts of major violence against aid workers from 1997 to 2005 involving 941 victims and resulting in 434 fatalities. Violence is most prevalent in Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Chechnya and the North Caucasus. Most aid worker victims are deliberately targeted, for political and/or economic purposes, rather than being randomly exposed to violence.

International non-governmental organisations (INGOs) have changed the way they conceive and manage operational security. The United Nations has set up a new institutional structure – the UN Department for Safety and Security (UNDSS). More funding is being provided for security staff and risk assessment, incident monitoring and response. UN personnel have become more secure than INGOs, and INGOs have in turn seen their international staff become safer, while their national staff and partners suffer increasing casualties. National staff represent 79 percent of all victims, and their casualty rates per staff member in the field are rising compared to their international counterparts.

In times of heightened insecurity, international staff rely increasingly on national staff or local partners to manage aid programmes. Remote management keeps operations going but creates several challenges, including less effective service delivery, difficulties in strategic planning, corruption risks and accountability concerns.

The authors note that:

• Humanitarian organisations have failed to fully consider the ethics of transferring security risks from expatriate staff to national staff or local NGOs.
• The assumption that national workers are at less risk than their international counterparts, which often leads to failure to provide adequate security training or equipment, is often unfounded.
• Nationals may find it exceedingly difficult to decline potentially dangerous work for economic or altruistic reasons.
• Organisations have insufficiently planned and prepared for remote management scenarios, despite this being a frequent and widespread practice

It is widely agreed that agencies need to develop a strategic approach to security and share experience. Among the study’s recommendations are:

• choose partners carefully in such dangerous places as Afghanistan, Darfur or Iraq: agencies should stress their humanitarian principles and do more to challenge perceptions they are involved with political processes
• better assessment and mitigation of risk for remotely-managed national staff
• proportionate representation of national staff in security training and briefings and provision of security materials in the national language(s)
• improved incident reporting, using standardised software platforms to promote centralised sharing of data and best practice
• establishing an inter-governmental donor forum to share security information
• investigate the implications for using deterrence measures in humanitarian contexts, including the practice of employing private security companies.

Source(s):
‘Providing aid in insecure environments: trends in policy and operations’, Humanitarian Policy Group Report, by Abby Stoddard, Adele Harmer and Katherine Haver, September 2006 (PDF) Full document.

Funded by: Government of Canada

id21 Research Highlight: 12 June 2007

Further Information:
Abby Stoddard and Katherine Haver
Center on International Cooperation
New York University
418 Lafayette Street, Suite 543
New York, NY 10003, USA

Tel: +1 212 9983680
Fax: +1 212 9954706
Contact the contributor: abby.stoddard@nyu.edu, kh73@nyu.edu

Center on International Cooperation, New York University

Adele Harmer
Humanitarian Policy Group
Overseas Development Institute
111 Westminster Bridge Road
London, SE1 7JD, UK

Tel: +44 (0)20 79220300
Fax: +44 (0)20 79220399
Contact the contributor: a.harmer@odi.org.uk

Overseas Development Institute, UK

Other related links:
'Gunning for aid workers: can agencies improve staff security?'

'Networking for peace?'

Mainstreaming the Organisational Management of Safety and Security: A review of aid agency practices and a guide for management, Report 9 from the Humanitarian Policy Group, Overseas Development Institute, UK (PDF)