Humanitarian aid

File:Durres airport supplies.jpg

Humanitarian aid arriving by plane at Rinas Airport in Albania in the summer of 1999. Many organizations engaged in assisting refugees fleeing Kosovo.

A distribution point for humanitarian aid in Southern Kosovo in 1999. In this case, food donated by USAID to an international NGO is being distributed by a local NGO to recipient families. Note the cans of cooking oil and sacks of flour being broken down into family sized rations by distribution point volunteers.

U.S. Army Sgt. Kornelia Rachwal gives a young Pakistani girl a drink of water as they are airlifted from Muzaffarabad to Islamabad, Pakistan, aboard a U.S. Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter on the 19 October

Humanitarian aid (also called succour) is material or logistical assistance provided for humanitarian purposes, typically in response to humanitarian crises. The primary objective of humanitarian aid is to save lives, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity. It may therefore be distinguished from development aid, which seeks to address the underlying socioeconomic factors which may have led to a crisis or emergency.

Humanitarian response

Humanitarian aid is delivered by governmental agencies, non-governmental organizations, and other non-governmental humanitarian agencies according to humanitarian principles set out in Resolution 46/182 of the United Nations General Assembly (for governments and UN agencies), and in Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief (for NGHAs).

Funding

They are funded by donations from individuals, corporations, governments and other organizations. The funding and delivery of humanitarian aid is increasingly being organized at an international level to facilitate faster and more effective responses to major emergencies affecting large numbers of people (eg. see Central Emergency Response Fund). The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) coordinates the international humanitarian response to a crisis or emergency pursuant to Resolution 46/182 of the United Nations General Assembly.

Standards

Humanitarian Accountability Partnership International Working with its partners, disaster survivors and others, HAP-International produced the HAP 2007 Standard in Humanitarian Accountability and Quality Management. This certification scheme aims to provide assurance that certified agencies are managing the quality of their humanitarian actions in accordance with the HAP standard. In practical terms, a HAP certification (which is valid for three years) means providing external auditors with access to the organization’s mission statement, accounts and control systems, providing for greater transparency in operations and overall accountability.

As described by HAP-International, the HAP 2007 Standard in Humanitarian Accountability and Quality Management is a quality assurance tool for humanitarian organizations. By comparing an organization's processes, policies and products to the Standard's six benchmarks, it is possible to measure how well the organization assures quality and accountability in its humanitarian work.

Agencies that comply with the Standard:

• declare their commitment to HAP’s Principles of Humanitarian Action and to their own Humanitarian Accountability Framework
• develop and implement a Humanitarian Quality Management System
• provide key information about quality management to key stakeholders
• enable beneficiaries and their representatives to participate in program decisions and give their informed consent
• determine the competencies and development needs of staff
• establish and implement complaints-handling procedure
• establish a process of continual improvement

The Sphere Project handbook, Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response, which was produced by a coalition of leading non governmental humanitarian agencies, lists the following principles of humanitarian action:

• The right to life with dignity
• The distinction between combatant and non-combatants
• The principle of non-refoulement

The Quality Project, based on the Quality Compass, is an alternative project to Sphere, taking into account the side effects of standardization and those of an appraoch based on "minima" rather than the pursuit of quality. This project is led by Groupe URD.

Safety

Every organization participating of humanitarian aid operations, has its own particular rules, regulations and preventive plans of action for keeping their aid workers as safe as possible. Nevertheless, the dangers and threats inherent to these kind of operations have always existed and are not easy to minimize as each field of operation is unique. Even in areas with relative calm and tranquility, violence can suddenly appear.

Attacks on humanitarian workers

Humanitarian aid workers belonging to UN organisations, PVOs / NGOs or the Red Cross / Red Crescent have traditionally enjoyed both international legal protection, and de facto immunity from attack by belligerent parties. However, attacks on humanitarian workers have occasionally occurred, and became more frequent in the 1990s and 2000s. This is attributed to a number of factors, including the increasing number of humanitarian workers deployed, the increasingly unstable environments in which they work, and the erosion of the perception of neutrality and independence.

Legal basis for protection of humanitarian workers

The legal basis for protection of humanitarian workers in conflicts is contained in the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the related Protocol of 1977. These treaties describe the category of civilian non-combatant and outline the rights of obligations of non-combatants during conflict. These rights include the right to be treated humanely; to have access to food, water, shelter, medical treatment, and communications; to be free from violence to life and person, hostage taking, and humiliating or degrading treatment; and the prohibition against collective punishment or imprisonment. Civilian non-combatants include local citizens and nationals of countries that are not party to the conflict.

While the Geneva Conventions guarantee protection for humanitarian workers, they do not guarantee access of humanitarian workers to affected areas: governments or occupying forces may, if they wish, ban a relief agency from working in their area. Médecins Sans Frontières was created in 1971 with the express purpose of ignoring this restriction, by providing assistance to populations affected by the Biafran civil war despite the prohibitions of the government of Nigeria.

In addition, the Geneva Conventions do not require that parties to the conflict guarantee the safety of humanitarian workers. The Conventions prohibit combatants from attacking non-combatants, and they require occupying forces to maintain general order. However, the Conventions do not require that combating parties provide security escorts, for example, when other factions threaten the safety of non-combatants operating in their area.

Trends in risks faced by humanitarian workers

• Wars between states became much less common in the period following the end of the Cold War. Unfortunately, these wars have been largely replaced by an increased incidence of internal conflict and resulting violence and miscommunication, increasing the risk to civilians and humanitarian workers alike.
• Between 1985 and 1998 slightly less than 50% of all humanitarian worker deaths came from workers in UN programs. 25% of these deaths were UN peacekeepers.
• Most deaths of aid workers are due to deliberate violence.
• One third of deaths occur in the first three months of deployment, with 17% occurring within the first 30 days.

Humanitarian access

Humanitarian access is a specific legal term, referred to the ability by neutral humanitarian actors (such as the United Nations, the ICRC, and foreign or local NGOs), to enter an area during a conflict, to provide humanitarian aid as well as monitor and promote human rights.

As of 2007, a region where humanitarian access is a problem is Darfur. Whether due to restrictions posed by the Government or by other parties to the conflict, or whether due to general insecurity, humanitarian access is bad in many areas and continues to worsen, as the areas of limited or no access for humanitarians rise.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Minear, Larry. The Humanitarian Enterprise Dilemmas and Discoveries. Bloomfield, Conn: Kumarian Press, 2002. ISBN 1565491491
• Roberts, David Lloyd. Staying Alive. International Committee of the Red Cross, 1999. Available online Retrieved May 6, 2008.
• Waters, Tony. Bureaucratizing the Good Samaritan The Limitations to Humanitarian Relief Operation. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001. ISBN 0813367905

External links

All links retrieved November 28, 2007.

• Networks
  • The Sphere Project
  • Aid Workers Network
  • UN ReliefWeb
• News media
  • AlertNet
  • IRIN
• Academia
  • The Center for Disaster and Humanitarian Assistance Medicine (CDHAM)
  • The ODI Humanitarian Policy Group
• Critiques of Humanitarian Aid
  • A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis - interview with David Rieff and Joanne Myers
  • Post-Modern Conflict and Humanitarian Action: Questioning the Paradigm - Sean Greenaway, Journal of Humanitarian Assistance.

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