A Doctor in Political Science and a researcher with the IRD (Institut 

de recherche pour le développement), I teach in the Institut d'études 

politiques in Paris and I work on forced migrations and armed 

conflicts in Africa. I was posted for several years in Nigeria, South 

Africa and Kenya, I wrote papers for the JRS, Khalid Koser's New 

African Diasporas and Politique africaine, as well as books like Le 

Nigeria (Paris, Karthala, 1994), Violence et sécurité urbaines en 

Afrique du Sud et au Nigeria (Paris, L'Harmattan, 1997), L'aide 

humanitaire, aide à la guerre ? (Bruxelles, Complexe, 2001), Villes 

et violences en Afrique subsaharienne (Paris, Karthala-IRD, 2002), 

Diaspora et terrorisme (Paris, Presses de Sciences-Po, 2003), etc.



Within the Research Unit 102 in the IRD, I now conduct a research 

programme which studies humanitarian NGOs strategies in war-torn 

countries and which is enclosed hereby. I would like to cooperate and 

share ideas with researchers or Ph.d students who work on similar 

issues and focus on the actors in the UK. The first step of our 

research is to collect data and put online detailed information on 

humanitarian NGOs. To be exhaustive is impossible and we only try to 

have a representative sample. The NGOs in our British database are 

the following (in brackets the ones already studied by a member of 

the team): ACTIONAID, (AFGHANAID), (Antislavery), Amnesty 

International, The Mines Advisory Group, Islamic Relief, 

International Alert, CHRISTIAN OUTREACH, CHRISTIANAID, CAFOD, Peace 

Brigades International, Oxfam, MUSLIMAID, Minority Rights Group, 

(Merlin), YMCA, WARONWANT, TEARFUND, SCF, Salvation Army.



If you are interested, you can contact:

Marc-Antoine Pérouse de Montclos

IRD (Institut de recherche pour le développement)

32 av. Henri Varagnat

93143 Bondy cedex

FRANCE

t. 33 (0)148025697

f. 33 (0)148473088

[log in to unmask]





Here is a brief on the research programme re. humanitarian NGOs in 

war-torn countries. More information is available for those 

interested.



The study is based on the following facts:

1) The modern humanitarian movement has been gaining great influence 

over the past three decades.

2) NGOs working in or about conflict situations have become important 

political actors on the global diplomatic scene, i.e. lobbies which 

have contributed to the establishment of an International Criminal 

Court or the signature of a treaty banning the use of landmines.

3) The different private structures composing the humanitarian 

movement are far more difficult to seize and study than the 

institutional actors of aid, namely states and intergovernmental 

organizations.



The Core issue: an introduction



Beyond the usual problems of logistics, aid in war-torn countries 

encounters several difficulties. Some points must be made clearer 

before undertaking a thorough study. First, war is certainly not 

restricted to the times of fighting, as peace is not characterized 

only by the absence of war. In his Leviathan, Hobbes would define 

peace rather as the absence of the threat of war. In other words, the 

field of the study is not limited to a dubious dichotomy between 

emergency and development. Crises can become permanent, while 

development experts sometimes have to deal with exceptional 

situations. Sustainable development is linked to two fundamental 

aspects of humanitarian action, namely reconstruction and the 

prevention of conflicts.



Another point to be stated is that establishing the difficulties and 

the challenges of aid in conflict situations leads to a quite complex 

description. Thanks to his academic and financial independence, a 

researcher can undoubtedly write more freely than a consultant in 

charge of making an internal evaluation for financial backers of 

projects funded by the same backers. Yet the aim is not to disparage 

the humanitarian movement but, if possible, to contribute to 

improving work in the field, even if it involves informing without 

hiding problems. Looking critically at the aid provided by states, 

intergovernmental organizations or private actors is in no way 

incompatible with positive propositions. It is only necessary to 

avoid amalgams and identify clearly the mistakes, not to generalize 

improperly.



By showing the programmes at risk, the idea is to point out 

shortcomings to avoid catastrophes. The "humanitarian intelligence", 

as we call it, consists in strengthening the analytical capacity and 

the "political awareness" of the aid operators. As NGO employees in 

the field often change quickly, the aim is for instance to study the 

records of a programme and to stress the importance of the historical 

dimension which is indispensable to assess a situation in terms of 

improvement or degradation. As the contexts are very diverse, the aim 

is also to identify the features, to point out the obstacles and to 

take into account both the positive and negative effects of aid.



The dangerous relationship between humanitarian aid and war



Over the past twenty years, relief operations to war-torn countries 

have greatly expanded. In developed countries, it has become a major 

political theme, as is shown by its take-over by donor states for 

diplomatic and strategic purposes. In the West, notably, the fact 

that governments and public opinions are more and more opened to 

humanitarian issues has emphasized phenomena that already existed 

during the Cold War, when aid was seen as another way of promoting 

national interests. Now, the armies of industrialized countries 

allegedly develop humanitarian programmes, NGOs are consulted by the 

United Nations Security Council and the private sector is asked to 

take part in peace operations: a militarization of aid that can lead 

to preventative wars or wars of aggression.

In developing societies, where most of the assistance goes, relief 

has also become an important element of armed conflicts. The 

shortcomings of the system are structurally quite well identified, be 

they keeping the recipients in a "dependency syndrome", increasing 

social inequalities by aiding refugees to the detriment of the 

locals, or harming the local farmers by distributing free food. The 

way humanitarian aid supplies a civil war economy is particularly 

significant.



The hijacking of relief by combatants can be seen at three levels. At 

the first level, the most obvious one, there is direct extortion: 

four wheels drives vehicles are stolen, food warehouses looted, 

medicine stolen, refugee tents sold, humanitarian workers protected 

for money or abducted and freed against a ransom. At a second, more 

subtle, level, one can find the side effects of international aid. In 

economies where resources are scarce, NGOs rent houses, employ 

locals, pay customs duties to authoritarian regimes, "buy" the 

agreement of warlords with baksheesh, and provide, eventually, a 

population wholly engaged in civil wars. At a third level, finally, 

the injection of humanitarian funds and logistics in a conflict 

allows indigenous resources to be invested in the fights, leaving the 

provision of the basic public services to NGOs.



This is why it is not possible to know how many lives are saved in 

the long term. True, it is impossible to anticipate the side effects 

of humanitarian aid in sustaining the hostilities. But neither is it 

possible to know, retrospectively, what would have happened without 

relief from abroad. One cannot be sure that a conflict would have 

dried out and ended on its own if it had not been stirred up by 

adding "humanitarian fuel" on the fire, a balm that would only 

alleviate sufferings for a while. Money is the nerve of war and the 

introduction of aid resources in a conflict widens the field of 

competition and the stakes of the extortion. This is the main 

challenge that humanitarian organizations are confronted with.



A focus on the Actors



All this shows the need for a critical observation of aid in war-torn 

societies. One of the main tasks of the research programme is 

therefore to analyse the implementing strategies of NGOs that define 

themselves as "non-profit making" "private voluntary associations" 

with a "charitable aim". The review does not aim to be exhaustive. 

Only the most relevant associations dealing with situations of crises 

and armed conflicts are to be considered, which implies longer term 

studies of programmes for the prevention of violence or for post-war 

reconstruction in a view towards sustainable development. Less stress 

is to be put on the fake dichotomy between those working in 

"development" and those in "emergency". The former can be involved in 

a crisis and the latter sometimes conduct long-term programmes when 

insecurity becomes permanent and when countries rebuild themselves 

after the signature of a peace treaty or the military exhaustion of 

the combatants. The intervention in war situations constitute the 

core issue of the study.



Plan of Action



As a first step, information will be collected, analysed, and checked 

with NGOs. The results expected are of two different kinds: setting 

up a database published as a directory on the one hand, and 

developing thematic studies on the other hand. The first part of the 

research focuses on humanitarian actors; the second is centred on 

transversal issues or country case studies.



In the NGO database, we will only consider international charities 

providing physical, legal or moral assistance in situations of 

crisis, mainly in war-torn societies or in countries about to be 

rebuilt, bearing in mind that the ending of a conflict is always very 

fragile. In developing countries, the study will thus put aside 

charities without a formal NGO structure in the modern sense of the 

word: trade unions, students associations, doctor's or engineer's 

corporations, Sufi brotherhoods and Christian missions whose social 

work was born far before the humanitarian trend, etc. Much attention 

is dedicated, in that prospect, to possible "straddling" between 

donors and recipients of programmes, which makes it possible to 

distinguish between: tribal unions where the number of donors is 

usually smaller than the recipients'; co-operatives and professional 

corporations in which the two groups almost overlap; and the 

religious communities in which the number of donors can be higher 

than the number of recipients.



The investigation focuses on the relationship between humanitarian 

aid and war, as it is in such a situation that challenges, risks and 

drifts of relief operations are most striking. Much has already been 

said about the failures of development assistance in times of peace. 

The embezzlement of bilateral or multilateral funds is truly 

regrettable as it can be indirectly responsible for the deaths of 

people when the budget for a hospital ends up on a bank account in 

Switzerland and allows dictators to survive economically. But the use 

of humanitarian aid by the combatants during a fight is far more 

serious as it directly supplies war economies, and increases the 

number of casualties as it contributes to buying weapons and making 

conflicts last longer.



The field of investigation is also limited to NGOs. Not because donor 

states and intergovernmental organizations are not concerned by the 

issue. But because charities and humanitarian operators are more 

numerous and less known. As they try to escape from the political 

constraints of states, they claim to be the watchdogs of 

international ethics and are in charge of a heavier moral burden. 

They challenge decision-makers and seek public generosity by 

incarnating "the conscience of the world".



In the history of an NGO, special interest is thus dedicated to the 

social origin and the ideological motivations of its founders and 

executive members; to its relations both in the head office country 

and in the countries of intervention with trade unions, political 

parties, military forces and religious movements, as well as the 

press and the judiciary; to the strategy of the organization 

regarding its programmes; to the problems encountered in the field 

(expulsions, assassinations, accidental deaths); to the impact on the 

recipient populationsŠ



Methodology



Five strategic criteria are proposed to describe a humanitarian NGO 

and its strategic position in an armed conflict:

1) the ideological involvement;

2) the political neutrality in the field of action;

3) the proportion of public and private funds;

4) the transparency;

5) the analytical capacity to be self-critical, or politically aware.

These parameters are different from the ones generally used by 

donors, namely: administration and programmes expenses, fundraising 

capacity, quick reaction to emergencies, good logistic and financial 

management, etc.



Criteria of ideological involvement and political neutrality

As far as strategy is concerned, a clear difference must be made 

between the ideological involvement of an NGO and its impossible 

neutrality in the field. Let us make these concepts of ideological 

and political neutrality clear. Ideological neutrality consists in 

not showing an "a priori" position before intervening in a war-torn 

country. Once there, political neutrality consists in not taking 

position for one side of the conflict. In practice, such an objective 

often remains a wish since the aid brought to victims infringes war 

logic. Used for ethnic cleansing or military victory, hunger has 

always been a weapon. In the Middle Ages, warriors were already 

besieging whole cities; nowadays, third world combatants do not act 

differently. Theoretically, "natural" famines should not even exist 

if we are to consider the progress of technology, which allows to go 

against the hazards of the climate, and the development of transport, 

which makes it easier for farming surplus to be brought to areas 

which need them, that is if such areas are not under a military 

blockade.



There are two humanitarian strategies in this regard. The first one 

aims at supplying "equally" each of the parties of a conflict, even 

if it implies privileging regions already well supplied, and making 

assistance plans according to the military forces in presence rather 

than according to the actual needs. The International Committee of 

the Red Cross (ICRC), which is not an NGO, has often defended this 

position, and has thus been able to have quite a good national 

coverage of countries like Sudan or Somalia, which gained it a 

reputation of impartiality, but compelled it to feed populations that 

were not always starving. On the contrary, another strategy, less 

costly for smaller associations, consists in trying to fulfil the 

victims' needs according to available assessments, but this provokes 

anger among those who don't get assistance, and it politicizes 

humanitarian workers.



However, an impossible political neutrality in the field is to be 

distinguished from ideological involvement. In fact, some so-called 

"humanitarian" NGOs deliberately choose a side. The "religious" ones 

are a typical example when they follow a proselyte goal, be it 

Islamic or Christian fundamentalism. Yet all of them do not have a 

highly pronounced political bias, including in wars with much 

denominational aspects. "Ecumenical" NGOs, which praise for dialogue 

between religions, help populations in need whatever their individual 

beliefs. Inversely, some secular NGOs take fighting positions, like 

the "humanitarian branches" of guerrillas, or the "offshoots" of 

dictatorships. When they realize the impossibility of remaining 

politically neutral in the field, some charities from developed 

countries also decide to support openly one side - it was especially 

true of the Scandinavians in Southern Africa, in Nicaragua and in 

Sudan. Others stand for the interests of their homeland. It is beyond 

doubt that NGOs are sources of intelligence for diplomats, as they 

are ideally placed on frontlines. NGOs also provide information for 

the media, who use humanitarian workers and logistics to report on 

conflicts.



Criterion of financial independence and transparency

As it is linked to the interference of governments, the proportion of 

public and private resources in the budget of an NGO is another 

important criterion, if we are to consider the impedimenta of a 

contracted assistance and the conditions of the programmes financed 

by various states. It must be said that these ratios are given by 

NGOs themselves: a researcher does not have the means to go through 

accounts and is not entitled to do so. Another important point to 

make is that the proportion of public funds does not always involve a 

political dependency towards the institutional backers. Considering 

the great variety of humanitarian "dispensers", an NGO can very well 

diversify its public funds, while an intergovernmental organization 

can also call on people's generosity, or foundations' or companies': 

about one third of the resources of UNICEF (United Nations Children's 

Fund) comes from private donations, and the UNHCR (United Nations 

High Commission for Refugees) has created associations for that 

purpose in France and Great Britain.



After a quick description of the budget, the analysis will focus on 

transparency. Some associations do not publish annual reports on 

their programmes and accounts. To "publish" means to make these 

reports available to other people than the sole financial backers or 

members of the NGO. This can be done by putting them online, or by 

allowing anyone an access to them on request to the head office.



Criterion of the capacity to be self-critical, or politically aware

That last criterion consists in studying the analytical capacity and 

the culture of self-criticism of an NGO, that is to say the ability 

to:

- evaluate the consequences, in the local context, of its actions 

before, during and after a humanitarian programme;

- assess the quality of the actions independently of the donors;

- adjust a programme as it is implemented, and if necessary, sack the 

individuals implied in cases of sexual abuse, robbery, violence or 

corruption;

- withdraw from situations where the aid is obviously hijacked by the 

combatants.



Here, the focus is on an organization's strategy. Whether a support 

to fighters is chosen or imposed makes all the difference, 

considering the political character of aid. In order to help 

populations at risk, some choose their side openly, as the 

International Brigades did during the Spanish civil war in 1936. 

Their help loses its humanitarian meaning when it comes to supporting 

a military effort and does not only consist in paying a bribe to gain 

access to the victims of conflicts. This option separates a 

"mercenary" volunteer service from the compromises of an NGO which, 

in order to save lives, sees its logistics being hijacked for 

military purposes, without being able to prevent it, and plays the 

role of the Red Cross of an army or a guerrilla.



When studying the history of an NGO, particular attention is thus dedicated:

- to the conditions in which a programme is started or ended;

- to lobbying through the diplomacy or the media;

- to the relations with political parties, governmental armies and 

rebel movements;

- to the warlords' extortion;

- to the possible discrimination in medical care or food distribution;

- to the impact of aid in war-torn countries, especially regarding 

embezzlement, abduction, assassination of humanitarian workers, etc.



"Humanitarian intelligence"

Considering the complexity of relief programmes in armed conflicts, 

the criterion of the political awareness is eventually what enables 

to understand the professional performance of an NGO. In fact, none 

of the other criteria is sufficient, taken alone, to identify the 

humanitarian character of a charity.



Indeed, an NGO's ideological involvement does not always imply 

dubious programmes. A support to a guerrilla can turn out to be 

positive as long as it respects the Geneva Conventions. Among the 

various "humanitarian branches" of African armed movements, ERA 

(Eritrean Relief Association) and REST (Relief Society of Tigray), 

respectively in Eritrea and Ethiopia, differed a lot from empty 

shells like the SRRA (Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association), 

in Sudan, and they have sincerely sought to help people in need. In 

other words, the support to a belligerent can be less important than 

the reliability of local partners. The fairness of a political cause 

is certainly not enough to certify the humanitarian position of one 

of the parties at war: fighting the Islamic junta in power in 

Khartoum, for instance, does not turn the SRRA into the democratic 

apparatus of a guerrilla famous for its violations of Human Rights. 

In the same way, good intentions are no excuse for a humanitarian 

worker's blindness.



The impossible political neutrality in the field, another strategic 

criteria, is not so much of a problem when it shows a real empathy 

with the victims. Politicisation is not always opposed to 

humanitarian goals since it assigns international NGOs to watch, 

testify, report, advocate and lobby, especially during multilateral 

negotiations on the protection of refugees, human rights, environment 

or the establishment of a criminal court in charge of punishing 

crimes against humanity. Handicap International did much in favour of 

the treaty banning the use of landmines. Thanks to many petitions, 

Doctors Without Borders (Médecins sans frontières) managed to get a 

parliamentary committee to inquire on the role of France in Rwanda; 

not to mention the active diplomacy of mediators like the Community 

of Sant'Egidio which helped to put an end to the civil war in 

Mozambique in 1992.



The financial dependence on institutional backers is not a 

discriminatory criterion either, as we have seen: NGOs can diversify 

their public funds to avoid being the subcontractor of a donor state, 

and they sometimes even give up official support when the pursuit of 

an aid operation is counter-productive for the victims. Moreover, 

private funds are not untouched by conditions. Some corporate donors 

are deeply involved in the preparation of programmes, and they impose 

geographical or thematic constraints on a humanitarian project. This 

tends to be a serious problem when patrons like mining or oil 

companies are already parties to a conflict.



The absence of transparency, finally, is not automatically the sign 

of bad will, especially when one thinks about the small third world 

associations which can not even afford a computer. From that point of 

view, the analytical capacity of an implementing operator constitutes 

without doubt the most important criterion in the matter. During 

emergencies, only a few NGOs take the time to try, more or less 

empirically, to understand the local context and to adapt their 

programmes in consequence. As the staff of an NGO changes frequently, 

and there is little "institutional memory", learning the lessons from 

the past is not easy. By comparing relief strategies, this research 

programme could precisely contribute to strengthen humanitarian 

intelligence.



Short Bibliography

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UNRISD, Londres, James Currey, 1994. 305p.

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University Press, 1989, 380p.



Bien cordialement,





Marc-Antoine Pérouse de Montclos

IRD (Institut de recherche pour le développement)

32 av. Henri Varagnat

93143 Bondy cedex

FRANCE

t. 33 (0)148025697

f. 33 (0)148473088



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