Safety and Security of Aid Workers

While few statistics are available, there is an abundance of evidence indicating that aid workers are victims of hostage taking, assassination, mine explosions and robbery in addition to the ongoing exposure to vehicular and health threats. An important factor is the perception that aid workers are now more at risk of being deliberately targeted, either for political reasons or because they are easy prey for criminals, and this drastically alters the perception of risk.

Official harassment is typical in situations where an NGO is assisting a group persecuted by the host government, or where NGOs are operating across lines of confrontation. Bribery is not a good strategy here, as it only exacerbates the problem for all concerned over time.

Opening primary health care programmes and a winter heating programme
in Republika Srpska greatly enhanced the ability to negotiate passage, while not compromising the mandate in the region. Similarly, singling out refugee or returnee groups from a larger community which might also be in desperate need can also undermine security. Health programmes in northern Sudan have sought to provide assistance in a balanced way to Northerners as well as Southerners.

Threat assessment should accompany any initial programme assessment, and be carried on continually during programme operations. Like programme assessments, security threat assessments should include a wide variety of inputs from the United Nations, the embassies and national government, through to other NGOs, local government and community leaders and finally individuals in the community. In the simplest terms, it is a matter of identifying what security threats are of the highest probability and greatest consequence to an NGO’s operations and prioritizing resources to these threats accordingly.

The Security Triangle:
Acceptance-Protection-Deterrence
Security is often conceptualized in terms of military or police models which emphasise equipment and tactics. While there is much that we can learn from these models, NGO security is far more complex. Fancy communications gear, logistics capabilities and compound security have their place, but are only a small part of what constitutes security for aid workers. Field offices must adapt a local security protocol which includes each of the three elements of the security triangle: acceptance, protection and deterrence. An effective local security protocol must balance all three elements. A strong acceptance strategy with supportive protection and deterrence elements is ideal. However, where local conditions limit the effectiveness of the acceptance strategies, it is necessary to build stronger protection and deterrence capabilities.

Acceptance is the cornerstone of security for NGOs with a development mandate, but is often challenged under the timeframes and political circumstances in which NGO relief efforts take place. In war-time relief operations, acceptance by the beneficiary community may seem to be grossly overshadowed by the hostility of one or more of the combatants.

Protection strategies can mitigate against official harassment. Training of staff in methods of conflict diffusion is helpful. Staff need to be well oriented in the agency’s mandate and mission and be able to represent the NGO in a mature and non-threatening way. Finally, the deterrence strategies centre on the relationship between the NGO and the larger political actors who may be able to cajole a hostile government when all else fails.


Conclusion
There are clearly advantages and disadvantages to any strategy, which must be weighed within the context of each local environment. In Liberia, for example, the poor quality of rented cars and their drivers eventually posed a greater risk than car theft, and the policy was abandoned. Thus, flexibility and local control over security policies are an imperative. When developing security policies, field managers should first identify the key risks in the local environment based upon probability and consequence. Risks of high probability and/or high consequence should be the primary focus of agency attention and resources. Secondly, for each of these key risks, the field manager needs to carefully and creatively consider each of the three strategies - acceptance, protection and deterrence - in devising an appropriate local response. Security for humanitarian staff operations is too often viewed in terms of military models or, worse yet, overlooked as an inevitable and inalterable aspect of working in humanitarian crises. In fact, there is a lot that can be done to enhance security in humanitarian operations. However, security in humanitarian operations calls for a new paradigm that weighs not only the familiar equipment and technology of security but also the dynamics of community support, interagency coordination and diplomatic influence.


source:
Security training: where are we now? Forced migration Review, Oxford University, 2003

NGO Field Security, Forced migration Review, Oxford University, 2003