The Zaporijjia nuclear power plant in Ukraine. Ⓒ IAEA
When we undertake humanitarian programmes, the aim is to reach the most distressed populations in order to help them as best we can, to help them live and even survive in crises for which they have no responsibility, but which hit them hard. We’re thinking of Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine, as well as natural disasters. Under the current system, this involves large-scale cash transfers that go well beyond humanitarian aid. Countries whose populations receive humanitarian aid receive even greater amounts of non-humanitarian Official Development Assistance (ODA).
International aid from official donors continued to grow in 2023, reaching USD 223.7 billion, compared with USD 211 billion in 2022. The increase is due to aid flows to Ukraine as well as an overall increase in humanitarian aid. All this is well counted, each year with a sometimes imperfect but always clear definition of what constitutes aid. Discussions within the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) are ongoing to ensure that the 32 member countries agree on what is ODA and what is not. Definitions are evolving slowly, so as not to create statistical breaks, but they are evolving in line with the crises we are experiencing and the major issues of the day. Is aid to refugees in donor countries aid or not? Is support for peacekeeping missions ODA or not? What part of loans to countries is ODA? Are private sector guarantees counted on the amount of the guarantee alone, or on the total investment that would not be possible without the guarantee? Everything quickly becomes very technical and complex in this area. Some donor countries want to count as much as possible to get closer to the commonly accepted target of 0.7% of gross national income dedicated to ODA. Other countries have this target set by law and therefore want to exclude as much ODA activity as possible in order to preserve their budgets. Everything quickly becomes a bit political too. But at the end of the day, the rules exist, they are reliable and if you put the counter at donor level, you get a good idea of the volumes of aid generated each year.
A bombardment partially destroyed a flat block in the Obolon district of Kiev on 14 March 2022. Photo: Oleksandr Ratushniak, UNDP Ukraine.
As for the country receiving the aid, that’s another story.
Development aid has long ceased to be a direct transfer of resources from donor budgets to the budgets of recipient countries. Originally, development aid was intended to compensate for the lack of national savings in newly independent countries, in order to finance the economic infrastructure necessary for their economic and human development. It was impossible to finance a port, a road or a social security system with non-existent national savings and still nascent tax resources. Countries received external resources from their sponsors at the time – the USSR, the USA, the former colonial power, and then the EU.
Gradually, these resource transfers have gone less and less directly into the budgets of developing countries, and are now mobilised through numerous channels, so that it is virtually impossible for anyone – starting with the governments concerned – to know how much a country receives from external sources and how.
For each country, and particularly for countries in crisis where the aid channels are even more complex, there is therefore a very large gap between the amounts indicated by the OECD and donors and what the government is actually informed of. This is important to understand, because it feeds suspicions and resentments that have a direct impact on trust – or lack of trust – between international players who suspect systemic misappropriation of aid and national authorities who suspect that aid benefits its providers more than its recipients.
The diagram below is a simplification of the mechanisms, but it helps us to understand this hiatus. On the left is what comes out of donors’ pockets. All DAC donors, a large proportion of non-DAC donors and the largest private foundations report their aid to the OECD. With a year and a half’s delay, the time it takes to count everything, we now know the precise amounts. By aggregating all these amounts, we know that in 2023, Ukraine will have become the world’s largest recipient of ODA, with around 20 billion dollars in aid.
On the right, governments have a precise idea of the amounts of direct aid, budget support or loans, since it is the central government, often the Ministry of Finance, that signs the loans and manages the budget. For the rest, they have little or no idea.
Donors or multilateral organisations sometimes support technical ministries directly, or regional authorities, and there is not always a system in place for them to inform someone who would centralise the information somewhere. The donors all support multilateral organisations, development banks or United Nations agencies, which sometimes inform the central government (the arrow is blue) and sometimes do not (the arrow is green). These agencies often become donors themselves and fund other multilateral organisations or NGOs to implement programmes. Humanitarian programmes, operating in contexts of heightened mistrust, are rarely reported. With large sums of money in some contexts, generally untaxed, there is often obvious frustration.
Beyond the aspects of mistrust that this lack of clarity causes, it also has an impact on the budgetary priorities of the countries concerned. To stay with Ukraine, the country has an urgent need for generators and other electrical equipment, which is now particularly targeted. It also urgently needs civil and military equipment. If the government prioritises the purchase of generators while the country receives generators from other sources, there will be stocks of generators and a lack of equipment for hospitals or the front line. Even if Ukraine is a special case, given the sums involved and the geographical and political proximity of most of the donors, setting up an aid management system is an important step in helping a country regain its budgetary autonomy. Understanding this complexity is also important for humanitarian actors involved over long periods.
Cyprien Fabre.
Cyprien Fabre is Head of the Crisis and Fragility Unit at the OECD. After several years on humanitarian missions with Solidarités, he joined ECHO, the European Commission’s humanitarian department, in 2003, and has held a number of positions in crisis contexts. He joined the OECD in 2016 to analyse the involvement of DAC members in fragile or crisis countries. He has also written a series of “policy into action” and “Lives in crises” guides to help translate donors’ political and financial commitments into effective programming in crises. He is a graduate of Aix-Marseille Law School.
INSO South deputy safety advisor, Wilfreud Mbouyavo using a sattelite phone near an INSO car
The question of the safety of humanitarian workers (or members of UN field teams) has been part of the history of modern humanitarian aid since its inception. It goes hand in hand with the questions of “how far to go” and “how to act while managing what risks” that are consubstantial with this commitment, at least when it comes to intervening in areas of armed conflict (or natural disasters with banditry and looting). As Alain Boinet pointed out in an article published in Droit et pratique de l’action humanitaire in October 2019, as well as in Défis Humanitaires: “If humanitarian action is a duty that comes under the ethics of conviction (according to the opposition between the ethics of responsibility and the ethics of conviction theorised by the philosopher Max Weber), its implementation in contexts of insecurity generates multiple risks, particularly for humanitarian staff, for whom organisations must assume responsibility“.
There was a time when humanitarians were held in relative esteem as representatives of a form of neutrality and independence that helped everyone. This esteem was far from absolute, but it offered some protection to the teams. Then there was a period when being a humanitarian didn’t offer much protection. Finally, there was a time when humanitarian staff were specifically targeted (attacks, murders, hostage-taking, etc.).
It is the consequences of this deterioration that the United Nations Security Council has sought to address once again, as part of its ongoing concern over the last ten years, by passing Resolution 2730 on 24 May, calling on States to respect and protect humanitarian and United Nations personnel in accordance with their obligations under international law. This resolution, adopted by 14 votes with one abstention (Russia), was presented by Switzerland and co-sponsored by 97 Member States. It should be recalled that, already, Security Council Resolution 2175 of 29 August 2014 reported “(…) an increase in acts of violence perpetrated (…) against national and international staff of humanitarian organisations (…)”. Resolution 2286 of 3 May 2016 also stressed that “(…) humanitarian workers (…) are increasingly the targets of acts of violence (…) violence against the wounded and sick, medical personnel and humanitarian workers“.
What are the obligations under international law that underlie these various United Nations resolutions? As Alain Boinet points out in his article, “they are the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1997 and 2005, as well as the rules of customary international humanitarian law which oblige the parties to an armed conflict to respect and ensure respect for IHL, which provides for the protection of the wounded and sick, medical personnel and humanitarian workers: Rule 31 of customary IHL stipulates that humanitarian relief personnel must be respected and protected. Rule 55 establishes the principle of freedom of movement for humanitarian relief workers“.
To find out more about the determinants and issues at stake in this situation addressed by the UN Security Council, we need to talk to INSO (International NGO Safety Organisation), an NGO founded in 2011 and based in The Hague in the Netherlands, which acts as a ‘platform’ dedicated to coordinating and advising on safety issues for humanitarian organisations working in high-risk contexts. INSO works in 17 countries for 1,202 NGOs and employs 1,307 people in the field:
On 24 May, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 2730 calling on states to respect and protect humanitarian and UN personnel. How did INSO welcome this initiative, and what does it mean to you ?
INSO: INSO welcomes Resolution 2730 as an essential reminder to conflict actors of their obligations to ensure the protection of humanitarian workers. The clauses calling for concrete actions to assess the risks to humanitarians and create relevant recommendations through regular reporting and solid evidence are highly welcome. This is recognition that the data generated by field-based platforms such as INSO is essential for NGO security and access.
From January 2023 to May 2024, INSO documented 1,944 incidents affecting humanitarians, including 57 killed, 208 injured and 185 abducted. What is your analysis of the trend in the number of incidents involving humanitarians ?
INSO: Every incident is worrying, and it is always worrying that our colleagues are exposed to this type of incident; any violation of IHL is unacceptable, but it is worth noting that in recent years, the number and annual rate of serious impacts on NGOs around the world have often been stable or declining; the drivers of this trend are due to a number of factors both internal and external to NGOs. However, changes in conflict patterns in Afghanistan and Syria have been important factors. In addition, although important to our perception of risk, incidents involving NGOs represent a relatively small proportion of all reported incidents in the field, ranging from 0.9% to 1.5% of all recorded incidents in any given year.
At the same time, crime accounts for the majority of incidents involving NGOs. The fact that the overwhelming majority of serious incidents involving NGOs are motivated by some perception of wealth rather than targeting because of the activity or profile of NGOs is consistent with this trend.
Nevertheless, despite a steady annual decline in deaths of NGO workers in particular, it is possible that, as we continue to interrogate the 2023 data, we will see a temporary reversal of the downward trend in serious incidents. This is because crises have erupted rapidly in places such as Sudan and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, contributing directly to the increase in the number of deaths of NGO workers.
The national staff of humanitarian organisations are paying the heaviest price for the insecurity on the ground. Can you at INSO corroborate this fact ?
INSO: There is a clear demand for a global analysis for NGO headquarters staff so that they can better support their teams in the field, including national staff. To this end, INSO produces dozens of reports tailored to the needs of humanitarian leaders and managers, who make up a network of around 140 NGOs and donors at global level (headquarters) – 1,200 NGOs in the field.
In fact, national or local colleagues are the most likely to suffer a serious incident. If we look at the reasons for this, we see that the percentage of incidents involving national staff is almost identical to the percentage of national staff in the overall NGO population, which in both cases is over 90%. This is the most reliable determinant of the composition of victims of serious incidents, along with other factors that contribute to NGO risk, ranging from risk tolerance to sub-national dynamics. This highlights the importance of field-based platforms for understanding and managing risk for NGOs, as it is difficult to understand risk when you are not close to partners.
Among the data, it is worth mentioning that it is the national staff of international NGOs that are most affected rather than the staff of national NGOs. This is linked to the fact that national staff of international NGOs represent the largest group of humanitarian workers in the field. Nevertheless, INSO works tirelessly to understand the internal and external nuances that can amplify risk, to ensure that analysis, advice, training, crisis management and emergency support are guided by the needs and profiles of our partners.
INSO staff discuss the context with members of the local community. Credit: C. Di Roma/INSO
What characterises the evolution of security for humanitarian personnel ?
INSO: Security risk management for NGOs has improved dramatically with the introduction of field-based platforms to help NGOs make informed decisions. With this development, we have seen NGOs share information at unprecedented levels; by having a platform, NGOs understand and contribute to collective security. In addition, while localisation continues to drive humanitarian strategies, the field approach to analysis and advice has enabled national NGOs to access the support systems traditionally available to their larger international counterparts.
And over the last ten years ?
INSO: NGOs have seen an unprecedented growth in on-the-ground support for their risk management efforts, and have exploited it well. What’s more, these efforts are increasingly inclusive; for example, more than 40% of INSO’s 1,200 or so partners are national NGOs.
The establishment of reliable mechanisms for collecting and sharing data at local level, stimulated by the Saving Lives Together framework, is at the heart of this evolution. The task ahead is to support and intensify relevant initiatives at an operational level. Through platforms on the ground, NGOs are demonstrating their willingness to support collective security through the sharing of information and views, in contrast to some of the rhetoric currently being propagated around the challenges of risk management.
What is your perception, at INSO, of the measures taken by humanitarian organisations to mitigate and manage security risks for their staff in the field? What is working ?
INSO: We work with NGOs on a daily, weekly and monthly basis in all our field offices. Through these engagements in safety roundtables, training and site reviews, we see how important information sharing is. At our round tables, where NGOs feel comfortable sharing what has worked and what hasn’t, we learn and our NGO partners learn. Safety risk management is a constantly evolving process and regular and open communication ensures that we can keep up with this evolution.
We know that NGOs are fully committed to the ‘Stay and Deliver’ principle. Our data shows that only a very small percentage of individual serious incidents result in NGOs losing access or withdrawing permanently. This suggests that NGOs understand the risks they face and feel they have the capacity and support on the ground to deal with these risks.
Nevertheless, through meetings with key informants, regular engagement and surveys, INSO has found that the rapid onset of a crisis can change NGOs’ perceptions of risk, their presence and their strategies, over a relatively short period of time. This is probably because NGOs balance the duty of care with the need to stay and deliver. In such cases, they take into account humanitarian needs, resilience, programme criticality and conflict sensitivity, while questioning their tolerance of risk.
The traditional components of security risk management, based on humanitarian principles and acceptance, remain the most useful tools for mitigating risk. As the contexts, and the world, in which we work change in unforeseen ways, best practice in risk mitigation has proved its worth.
INSO teams near Goma, DRC, discuss with their partners. Credit: O. Acland/INSO
What is your view on safety training ?
INSO: NGOs understand that capacity building and training are key elements of security risk management, and essential to fulfilling their duty of care obligations. For example, in 2023, INSO trained around 7,600 humanitarians through courses including security management, crisis management, humanitarian access and negotiation, personal security and first aid. NGOs are seeking to increase their internal capacity to analyse risks, plan and implement both preventive and mitigating measures. This includes their national staff, who account for 92% of INSO training participants, and a growing contingent of female participants, who represent around one in five learners.
From this volume of engagement, the INSO training team has strengthened its understanding of a number of best practices. Firstly, effective training must be accessible. This can range from solutions such as on-the-job training, to using technology to deliver online training. Secondly, adaptation based on solid learning engineering is essential to meet the diverse needs of humanitarians. For example, self-paced e-learning courses may be best for widely promoting the fundamentals of security management, while training based on realistic scenarios and including exposure to stress may be more effective for equipping field staff with vital knowledge and skills.
Finally, the most useful training for humanitarians is that designed by humanitarians, with a critical eye to contextualisation, based on data-driven information, and offering evidence-based content and methods.
In conclusion, how do you see the future security environment for humanitarian workers ?
INSO: Field platforms and support structures will continue to shape the ability of NGOs to address risks and access challenges. At the same time, NGOs will face bureaucratic and administrative hurdles that can lead to mission failure, even if they often do not represent explicit threats to physical security. Also in the short to medium term, NGOs will face multiple rapidly emerging crises requiring a review of programme resilience and duty of care. This will also require all stakeholders in the sector to leverage field operational support systems and collective security to ensure that risk management resources are optimised. In addition, among a number of potential emerging threats, as Resolution 2730 demonstrates, misinformation will be a significant challenge for NGOs in the future. Ultimately, the security of humanitarians will be ensured by operational partners, their needs and the support they can receive on the ground.
Many thanks to INSO for this precise insight into a decisive subject, and we remind you that, for more information on the subjects of this interview or INSO in general, readers can contact you atglobal.analysis@ngosafety.org.
Pierre Brunet
Writer and humanitarian
Pierre Brunet is a novelist and a member of the Board of Directors of the NGO SOLIDARITES INTERNATIONAL. He became involved in humanitarian work in Rwanda in 1994, then in Bosnia in 1995, and has since returned to the field (Afghanistan in 2003, the Calais Jungle in 2016, migrant camps in Greece and Macedonia in 2016, Iraq and north-eastern Syria in 2019, Ukraine in 2023). Pierre Brunet’s novels are published by Calmann-Lévy: “Barnum” in 2006, “JAB” in 2008, “Fenicia” in 2014 and “Le triangle d’incertitude” in 2017. A former journalist, Pierre Brunet regularly publishes analytical articles, opinion pieces and columns.
Cyprien Fabre is Head of the Crisis and Fragility Unit at the OECD. After several years on humanitarian missions with Solidarités, he joined ECHO, the European Commission’s humanitarian department, in 2003, and has held a number of positions in crisis contexts. He joined the OECD in 2016 to analyse the involvement of DAC members in fragile or crisis countries. He has also written a series of “policy into action” and “Lives in crises” guides to help translate donors’ political and financial commitments into effective programming in crises. He is a graduate of Aix-Marseille Law School.
Pierre Brunet is a novelist and a member of the Board of Directors of the NGO SOLIDARITES INTERNATIONAL. He became involved in humanitarian work in Rwanda in 1994, then in Bosnia in 1995, and has since returned to the field (Afghanistan in 2003, the Calais Jungle in 2016, migrant camps in Greece and Macedonia in 2016, Iraq and north-eastern Syria in 2019, Ukraine in 2023). Pierre Brunet’s novels are published by Calmann-Lévy: “Barnum” in 2006, “JAB” in 2008, “Fenicia” in 2014 and “Le triangle d’incertitude” in 2017. A former journalist, Pierre Brunet regularly publishes analytical articles, opinion pieces and columns.
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