International Public and NGO Management
Humanitarian assistance
24 October 2023
This week we are going to look at one of the fastest growing aspects of international public management: humanitarian assistance. It includes the humanitarian part of political problems like Syria, Iraq, Myanmar, Yemen and the Ukraine. But it also includes a growing response to natural disasters like the Tsunami, drought and hurricanes, increasingly connected to climate change.
In contrast to regime creation, which is largely about ideas, the function here is about tangibles: wheat unloaded, camps constructed, wells dug, refugee applications processed, internally-displaced people attended.
A significant original purpose of the United Nations was to mount humanitarian operations. This would provide short-run relief while the longer-term efforts related to development addressed the causes of the disasters.
The delivery of these services has seen the greatest successes and the greatest failures of the United Nations in its first seventy-five years, but they go back over a hundred and fifty years, starting with the International Committee of the Red Cross and the refugee programs after World War I.
The amount of funds involved in UN-monitored humanitarian assistance amounted to almost $13 billion in 2012, divided between the common emergency response fund (CERF), the Common Humanitarian Fund (CHF) and Emergency Response Funds (ERF) which total almost $1 billion, and other global humanitarian fundings which totaled almost $12 billion. You can see the full picture in the Humanitarian aid contributions 2019 in OCHA's Financial Tracking Service. That shows a request of $23.6 billion, of which only $11.1 billion had been funded. In 2020, UN humanitarian agencies and partner organizations initially needed a total of $28 billion to provide aid to 108 million people in 55 countries, a figure that increased by more than $10 billion due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
It is therefore a real challenge for administration.
I. ORIGINS OF humanitarian operations
A. Types of services foreseen in the Charter
Humanitarian assistance is found in the United Nations Charter in its first article which states that one of the purposes of the United Nations is
3. To achieve international cooperation in
solving international problems of an economic,
social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in
promoting and encouraging respect for human
rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without
distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion'
It does not, however, specify what that cooperation means. That has been elaborated over time.
B. Early humanitarian operations
The United Nations had had humanitarian relief as a task from the beginning. The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) was a temporary organization set up after WWII to help rehab areas of Europe. UNRWA was set up to manage the refugee camps after the creation of Israel (it was set up as a new, if temporary, agency, because terms of reference of UNHCR did not include long-term refugee assistance.). There were many examples of operations.
The main humanitarian agencies:
•UNOCHA – The United Nations Office for Co-ordination of Humanitarian Assistance is part of the UN Secretariat and is responsible for coordination, as well as organizing fund raising meetings.
• UNDP - while its charter is development, the fact that it is usually the main UN system country office means that it become involved in humanitarian operations.
• WFP - provision of food has become a central focus of humanitarian assistance and WFP has increasingly shifted from development to humanitarian assistance in response.
• UNICEF - as children are increasingly the victims of conflict, UNICEF, which also has an excellent reputation for political neutrality, has become a player in humanitarian assistance. This is aided by the fact that UNICEF primarily provides equipment and has an excellent supply operation.
• UNHCR - UNHCR was originally set up to certify refugee status, with the refugees (and their camps) being assisted by receiving and transit governments. As the refugee problem has become one of impoverished developing countries, UNHCR has increasingly had to run the camps itself and has become a major humanitarian agency.
1. UNROD
The creation of Bangladesh in the early 1970’s, after a civil war, left a new country in ruins; problem of rapes (also a place where disaster is a commonplace). The UN set up one of its first big operations there. The Special Representative of the Secretary-General (the head of the operation) was Victor Umbricht, a Swiss who had worked with the Red Cross. There was considerable public support for it: e.g. Beatles’ Concert for Bangladesh. The operation is described in Thomas Oliver‘s book, the United Nations in Bangladesh, which is one of the few "insider" books on the UN. Oliver, from England, was an old hand, who had been the Chief Editor of the Economic and Social Council (I took an English drafting class from him).
2. Cambodia
After the "killing fields" period, starvation and sickness became endemic. Civil war was on. What to do? Government was unwilling to ask for help. UNICEF took a lead in bringing in assistance. William Shawcross’ book The Quality of Mercy is about this period.
3. The Sahel
In the late 1980’s, the second Sahelian drought created a famine that spread over 20-some countries in Africa, from Somalia through Senegal. Problem of providing relief. Problem of early warning. Considerable public concern, but actions were uncoordinated. This was the first era of popular music intervention (other than the Beatles' Concert for Bangladesh), including Band-Aid, Don’t they know it’s Christmas; Michael Jackson.
At the beginning of the drought, the various international and bilateral humanitarian agencies seemed to be falling all over each other. Ships were piling up in one port, while another port was empty. Equipment supplies were inconsistent and didn't always meet needs. In response, the Office of Emergency Operations in Africa was established as a temporary coordinating agency. It did not itself direct relief, mostly coordinated. It had two heads, Bradford Morse, the Administrator of UNDP and a former US Congressman, and Maurice Strong, a Canadian businessman who had run the first environmental conference. Raised money. Coordinated delivery (problem of port capacity).
A main feature was to name a representative in the field, at a higher rank who could exert coordinating authority. (The first, at Assistant Secretary-General rank was Kurt Jansen, a Finn who was a career UN official who had risen to Director of the Social Development Division and had then moved on to UNDP where he was Resident Representative in Pakistan and Nigeria and then on to UNICEF, where he coordinated the Cambodia relief effort.)
4. Common features, lessons learned
The UN learned that can deliver a complex relief effort, including diversion of supplies already on way. There was a need for strict neutrality and for a top official. There was also a need to involve all main agencies, but find a way to coordinate them.
However, the fact that there did not seem to be a constant series of need, the operation of OEOA was temporary and discontinued. Instead, UNDRO (the United Nations Disaster Relief Office) was established, to provide a basis for planning, etc.
The change in the political environment has made the UN a major actor, as has been noted. There have been a plethora of operations of all types, working in cycles.
C. Problems and issues
The main asset of the UN is its neutrality. However, in many peace operations involving internal conflict, it has proven difficult to maintain that neutrality.
Sometimes there has been a conflict between humanitarian and military: e.g. Somalia, where the Chapter VII action may have poisoned the water against the UN by making it appear that the UN was siding with a particular group of warlords.
In Angola, the UN rep (Dame Margaret Anstee) was considered by UNITA (one of the warring parties) not to be neutral. In fact, UNITA was not very good at living up to agreements in any case.) Dame Margaret's experience has been written in a book entitled Orphan of the Cold War.
Management environment
New York vs. field. There has been conflict between partners (e.g. UNHCR vs. UN in Yugoslavia).
II. Humanitarian operational problems
Humanitarian operations are subject to many of the same problems as peacekeeping, but because they are built on permanent agencies with consistent structures, have had fewer problems. There has been a defacto division of labor: for immediate relief, use the International Committee of the Red Cross, for refugee situations (defined as transborder movements) lead is usually UNHCR, for displaced situations (non-transborder), lead can be WFP or UNICEF or UNHCR. The UN Humanitarian Coordinator becomes responsible for consolidated fund appeals. You can see some of the problems with this by reading the evaluation reports produced by UNHCR.
New problems include perceived lack of neutrality of humanitarian personnel, increasing danger in work (e.g. UNICEF and WFP casualties in Burundi), problems in obtaining enough funds to cover expanding functions.
There is also a need to coordinate with NGOs.
III. Role of NGO's
As can be seen from l999's Nobel Peace Prize to the NGOs that successfully advocated for the Land Mines Convention, NGO's are taking on an increasingly visible role (they have always been involved as relief agencies). Medecins sans Frontieres have been particularly notable in that they ignore political issues as well as security concerns and tend to be the last ones to stay.
The problem is often one of co-ordination. NGO's do not like to cede their autonomy and yet, to obtain a coherent response to emergencies, there is a need to pool efforts.
NGO's need to demonstrate to their donors that they, as individual organizations, are effective. This means that they need to have an identifiable role.
NGO's are often staffed by persons of fewer nationalities than international public agencies.
An unresolved question is how to overcome these issues in a generic sense, although in specific operations the problems can be overcome by good management on the part of whoever is given the international lead.
©2003-2023. John R. Mathiason. All Rights Reserved.
Last modified: October 18, 2023