Who Are These Guys? Non-Governmental Organizations in Humanitarian Relief Operations.
Abstract : The purpose of this paper it to provide an understanding of how to deal with nongovernmental organizations during a humanitarian relief operation. Examples and lessons are drawn from the following humanitarian relief operations: Provide Comfort in Northern Iraq in 1991 (helping the Kurds); Restore Hope in Somalia in 1992 and 1993; and Support Hope in Rwanda in 1994. I have described the players in humanitarian relief operations, described their interaction during the execution of relief operations, and provided some lessons learned for future relief and peacekeeping operations. An integral part of understanding of how the international relief community works is understanding the role of the various United Nations and United States agencies that coordinate relief efforts.
The United Nations in the New World Order
By the time it turned fifty, the United Nations had entered a critical period in the history of its peacekeeping operations and other national security affairs. Mounting criticism of its objectives and capabilities from within the organization became public. From Somalia to Rwanda and Burundi the world was shaken by a chain of momentous events after the end of the Cold War. The East-West conflict that had defined international events for decades was no more, the 1991 Persian Gulf conflict changed the traditional political dimension of the Middle East, and the former Yugoslavia was testimony to Europe's most brutal platform for ethnic cleansing. Nonetheless, profound progress has been made in reducing weapons of mass destruction insofar as Russia, the United States, South Africa, and some central European countries are concerned. And concrete steps have been taken with the extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and overwhelming approval by the United Nations General Assembly of the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty to prevent further spread of nuclear weapons. But it is in the context of new conflicts that Thakur critically assesses the United Nations and, in conjunction with others, offers tangible answers to how the United Nations can meet the challenge of a balance between the desirable and the possible. A furthur addition to the growing literature in this area is Dimitris Bourantonis and Jarrod Wiener's edited The United Nations in the New Worm Order. Both books take similar and somewhat complementary approaches in their studies of the United Nations. Thakur's book is a galaxy of distinguished papers from the Thirtieth Foreign Policy School of the University of Otago, New Zealand. These papers reflect a wealth of experience and knowledge shared by foreign ministers, generals, ambassadors, and scholars. The Bourantonis and Wiener work, on the other hand, contains the views of specialists from European and one American universities. The central thesis of the two books is that the Cold War and the collapse of bipolarity has opened up new vistas and opportunities for international organizations, not least for the United Nations which in recent years has moved from the margins to become a central player in world affairs. The various chapters in the two books focus on the ability of the United Nations to sustain this new dynamism in the upcoming years. The articles in the Thakur book deal with six specific areas: evaluating the United Nations, United Nations reform, peacekeeping operations, preventive diplomacy, mediation, and development. Following an examination of trends, changes, and tensions in the global scene by the editor, an evaluation of the United Nations system is undertaken by Don McKinnon and Malcolm Templeton. An excellent account of the origins of the United Nations and the role of New Zealand, and the achievements in world organization in terms of its universality, the championing of human rights and its incorporation into international law, the welfare of colonial people, economic and social work, the advancement of development, and the codification of the Law of the Sea as part of the United Nations achievements appear in these chapters. As to failure, Templeton lists the reluctance of member-states to give up their sovereignty, the inability to maintain world peace, the increasing frequency of interstate civil wars, limited success in disarmament, and the final crisis. …
The continuing metamorphosis of the humanitarian practitioner: some new colours for an endangered chameleon.
In this article I set out an agenda of good practice for today's humanitarian practitioner. I first outline the distinctive political and conflict-related features of today's complex political emergencies, and the new interventionist strategies of the international community and the United Nations in responding to them. From this description of the new operating environment faced by humanitarian practitioners since the end of the Cold War, I go on to identify a range of key skills required by today's relief workers. These include: informed political analysis; negotiation skills; conflict analysis management and resolution; propaganda monitoring and humanitarian broadcasting; a broader understanding of vulnerability to include notions of political, ethnic, gender and class based vulnerability; human rights monitoring and reporting; military liaison; and personal security and staff welfare. Finally, the article focuses on the moral skills required by today's humanitarian practitioners if they are to work out a new model of humanitarian identity and positioning which supersedes the traditional but devalued notion of neutrality.