Humanitarian Aid and NGOs

For my transnational politics class today, I invited three guest panelists from the humanitarian/non-profit sector. Pete from Food for the Hungry, Brendan from Save the Children and Lynn from National Endowment for Democracy. Unfortunately, Lynn fell victim to the swine flu so we only had two panelists.

The panel discussion was not only informative and inspiring for students, but for me as well. Pete's story - from a logger in Montana to the director of policy with FH - and his recent experiences in Indonesia and Afghanistan were particularly inspirational. A few things I learned from the panel and students' questions.

1. NGO Vocabulary:
- The 3 M's (Military, mercenary, missionary): This was in reference to the three types of groups involved in aid work. Mercenaries are the contractors, and NGOs who follow the money (or the military). Missionaries (not necessarily in the religious sense) are those who are genuinely concerned about the people and there to bring change/improvement.
- The 3 Ds (defense, diplomacy, development): What's needed to bring stability, good governance, and improve quality of life in places like Afghanistan.

2. Afghanistan:
Pete just returned from an assessment trip to see whether and how FH could get back into Afgh, and returned a bit discouraged. A lot of money is going to waste. While aid has been pouring into the country, it hasn't been used efficiently or wisely. As an anecdote, Pete mentioned how a friend in a different NGO said it cost a million dollars just to "open-shop" and 90% of the funds were spent on providing security to the workers and operations. This doesn't even get into the corruption issue. Only a small percentage is being used directly to provide aid for people on the ground.

3. Value chain
Brendan, who's working on aid reform, mentioned the importance of the "value chain" -working on projects which provide added value to other projects. For instance, delivering food aid requires establishing a distribution system. FH might help farmers grow crops, but if they sit in storage and can't be distributed efficiently, they end up rotting, and everything goes to waste.

4. Working with corrupt or despotic regimes
In relief or disaster work, sometimes you have to work through the corruption if you're going to save lives.

5. Militarization of Aid
As a long term trend, the development sector needs to think carefully about delegating humanitarian tasks to the military. However, the US Navy's role in the 2005 Tsunami relief effort demonstrates the military's potential for effective and efficient mobilization of disaster relief. Although the US military sometimes acts before it thinks, in the tsunami relief effort, the quick response saved thousands of lives. On the other hand, after an earthquake in X region, FH requested the UN to helicopter in FH's disaster kits. However, the UN stated they hadn't processed all the necessary paperwork. The helicopters stood idle on the launch pad for eight days as NGOs waited for approval. Meanwhile, with each passing hour, the death toll climbed.

6. Protecting NGO workers in security scarce zones
FH's protection comes through relationships rather than guns. In other words, they are basing their protection by gaining trust from the locals.

For more on these issues, here's a recent book on humanitarian assistance and foreign policy: Global Compassion: Private Voluntary Organizations and U.S. Foreign Policy Since 1939