Public Talk on “Challenges faced by Humanitarian Action”
This is for those who are interested in humanitarian organisations. It’s FYI for those interested.
This was an event I attended at Shangri-La Orchard recently (the details are in the pictures above). SIIA is the Singaporean Institute of International Affairs. It is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation founded in ‘61 dedicated to the research, analysis and discussion of regional and international issues. It is Singapore’s oldest think tank and is also a founding member of the ASEAN-Institutes for Strategic and International Studies (ASEAN-ISIS) network. How I got involved with them is a long story. In short, I’m just a participant in some of their public events. This time, both the SIIA and USP emailed me and I decided to book a seat (like all public events, RVSP is required and it’s a full house event). Simple as that.
BTW, photos suck because I was chicken enough not to go running around to get better close-ups. That’s because at the event I was practically outdressed. I went there in formal wear (my standard shirt, slacks and shoes), but most of them were in ties and coat too! A running joke among my friends here when I related my experience to them after I got back is that even the waiters are better dressed than I am (come to think of it, it’s quite true). Most of the attendees are (I’m guessing) lawyers, members and affiliates of humanitarian organisations and obviously, foreigners (Westerners included). Of course, it’s covered by the media too.
Oh, this is Dr. Jakob Kellenberger (Jacob pronounced as Ya-kob), the current President, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). He’s a former Swiss diplomat of roughly 30 years experience. Here’s a picture of him. Again, I apologise for the lousy picture. Mr. Simon Tay, President, SIIA is also an Associate Professor from the NUS Faculty of Law.
As you can gather from the title, it relates mostly to the operational and institutional challenges ICRC faced when operating globally, with a focus on SEA and to a lesser extent, Africa. Because I don’t have much time to elaborate on a 2 hour talk, I’ll give it to you in point form. Please note that because this are personal notes of the speech and not an official transcript, please treat this as a secondary source and not a primary one, if you should decide to use it for research purposes. Furthermore, in the event of doing so, please countercheck to see if the notes tally with official ICRC policy statements. Remember that I am not perfect, and in the process of paraphrasing I may have altered the meaning of some statements.
Operational Challenges
- ICRC can only intervene effectively when international humanitarian laws (IHL) apply. It is currently working to improve state-level respect for IHL.
- Ongoing security problems in Afghanistan.
- Darfur - presence of 1 armed group in 2003 to 11 today complicates ICRC efforts.
- Myanmar prevents ICRC access to its detainees. Note: ICRC only visits detainees if it has unrestricted, unsupervised and unrecorded access to detainees to ensure fairness. Without it, ICRC will not conduct its visits and will not accept compromises to avoid ‘double standards’.
- Getting wounded people to medical access in remote areas or areas with damaged infrastructure.
- Draw attention to state obligations when there is IHL violations
- To the question of ‘Is war on terrorism an armed conflict?’, the answer is that IHL applies to Iraq and Afghanistan because it is a state to state armed conflict, but this definition does not apply to domestic terrorism, because it is a nonstate to state struggle.
- Drawing attention to the fact that state investment in human rights is a long term security investment.
- A large proportion of armed conflicts are internal events (i.e. civil war).
Institutional Challenges
- Positioning and Identity of ICRC (to ensure that its credibility and identity still represents independent, neutral humanitarian action. He said, "To be credible, you have to deliver.").
- Coordination in humanitarian field
- Lack of structuring in the humanitarian landscape (what this two points mean is probably because humanitarian agencies overlap in mandate and operations, there is insufficient coordination between relief agencies and efforts are not structured properly for maximum effect. I might suggest that they learn from and coordinate with the military here, as Katrina and the Aceh tsunami demonstrated that the US armed forces responded with the best efficiency logistics-wise, far better than FEMA in New Orleans for example)
- Competition among organisations (financial maybe?)
- Financial info: 80%-90% funding by US & EU of which US, UK are the largest contributors. Countries donating CHF >10 million (CHF=Swiss Francs) are forming a donor group support (not sure if it’s exclusive to ICRC or it also helps other humanitarian groups)
Ingredients for credibility
- Action speak louder than words
- Be crystal clear on capacity (how much can be put on the ground when the need arises)
- Do not rely solely on situational assessments from other humanitarian groups, but ICRC actions are based on own reading of the current situation. I think this is an important point. The Pentagon did this during Katrina. They gathered assessments and reports on the situation from the start, and made preparations of the logistics, manpower and supplies needed for deployment. Therefore, when the time came, all that was needed for the US military to get involved was the green light from the Executive branch and for the orders to get out. FEMA just got bogged down by bureaucracy and mismanagement. Consequently, this is a point made in justifying the need of an active army. They know best on what to do during crises and have all the right tools and resources to do it.
Other info
- ICRC was active in Aceh mostly during the emergency phase (in the days and weeks of the aftermath). They had a head start because a small team was already there monitoring the civil war.
- 50% of African conflicts will revert to conflict after truce is declared in <5 yrs.
- In failed/weak states, rehabilitation of medical facilities is a major focus before handover to government/humanitarian organisations/development agencies.
- Humanitarian action is direct, maenwhile humanitarian assistance relates to rehabilitation efforts and protection of detainees.
- Generally, humanitarian efforts are short-term while development is long-term
- Half of ICRC operations are in Islamic countries.
- Palestine/Israel, Lebanon, Pakistan administered Kashmir (earthquake related I think), Somalia are where the largest ICRC operations are located.
- For looting of humanitarian aid (in the context of Somalia) the ICRC halted supply when it became evident that the aid convoy and shipments may be compromised.
- When asked for recommendations on what Singaporeans could do to help out, he misunderstood it to mean it in the context of government aid. He suggested that more financial support from the government would be good. He also noted and thanked Singapore’s aid from the logistical perspective during the Aceh crisis.
P.S.: I apologise for not forwarding this event to the Law and Medical students in NUS, if they had not done so. It’s more for you guys anyway.
