When crisis--whether a natural or technological disaster or a complex humanitarian emergency--strikes, the international community increasingly responds with large-scale assistance and, often, military support. This response augments and sometimes temporarily substitutes for an ongoing international effort to promote development and improve the well-being of individuals and societies in developing regions. Both the ongoing development assistance process and disaster relief involve a myriad of national government and international organizations and entities from around the world. In addition, hundreds of NGOs serve as the implementing agents of official organizations or pursue their own independent development missions in-country. During a period of crisis many of these organizations, particularly the development organizations, will reduce their presence or shift their emphasis, while relief organizations will increase their level of activity.
The complex lines of responsibility and overlapping and diverging missions of these many organizations make coordinating the international response particularly difficult. Nevertheless, that is precisely what responding nations, the United Nations, and the NGO/PVO community are called upon to do in order to alleviate the crisis as quickly as possible, save lives, and return to stability. In principal, coordination of disaster response occurs through the local government, but during a crisis, or if the government is weak or failing, international agencies will bolster or substitute for local authority. Figure 1 depicts the process of shifting priorities and changing actors that occurs as a disaster response evolves.
Prior to the crisis and as it unfolds (Figure 1, Time A), some level of national and international development activities involving both international agencies and NGOs is very likely taking place. As the political, economic, or security situation deteriorates and long-term development activities become more difficult or impossible to pursue, some of these organizations withdraw or reduce their presence (Time B). Others shift their emphasis to relief efforts. The situation may deteriorate further until generating a demand for emergency international response. When the local government requests assistance or the international community, usually acting through the United Nations, decides to respond to the crisis, a massive, focused, and temporary international response, backed by military logistic and security support, takes place (Time C to D). The international community's goal in disaster response is to ameliorate the crisis and stabilize the situation as quickly as possible (Time D) so that development efforts can continue (Time E). The actual transition process may take months or years, a fact that is often not contemplated in contingency planning.
From the outset of the workshop, it was clear that the NGO community is quite diverse. The differences among NGOs themselves are so vast that attempts to group them together as one community are nearly impossible. Differences include organizational structures, size and origin of resources, national ties, focus of activities, as well as access to and use of technology.
Organizational Structures. The International Humanitarian Assistance community can be divided into roughly four components: UN agencies and other public international organizations, private international organizations, donor agencies, and individual NGOs.
Resources. In addition to the national and international dimensions of NGOs, organizations vary by the size of their resource bases. Some NGOs are quite large (e.g., CARE's total support and revenue top $450 million), while many others have operating budgets of less than $10,000. The origin of funding can vary greatly from NGO to NGO, but is comprised of:
Most NGOs depend on a combination of public and private funding. However, some NGOs decline to accept funding from government agencies so as not to be compromised by specific government policy interests. Like their budgets, NGO personnel rosters vary according to budgets and mission. Larger NGOs have a greater ability to respond to unexpected contingencies because of their resource base.
Focus of Activities. NGOs also vary by mission. Individual NGOs typically have very focused purposes. They may seek to promote sustainable economic development through projects in agriculture, trade, small business development and so forth, or foster improved infant and maternal health, control disease, provide food, or expand access to education. A number of NGOs focus on human rights, election monitoring, and conflict resolution. NGOs generally are committed to building the capacities of their indigenous partners in the field, and often work at the grassroots level rather than with central government agencies. Their programs usually emphasize the need to enable people to assume responsibility for their own affairs. Many NGOs have worked on projects in individual countries for many years. In several workshops, NGO representatives have emphasized that others--the U.S. Government and the military--must understand that they are "there for the long term...," before the crisis and after.
Technology. According to NGO representatives at the workshop, the level of technology employed by an NGO is dependent upon the size of the organization and its operating situation. Because these largely voluntary organizations operate on small budgets and seek to expend the bulk of their resources on in-country programs, little money is budgeted for technology. As such, many of the NGOs--especially the smaller ones--use older generation computers, communication devices, and software, and lack the up-to-date technologies common to most American business or government offices. Some of the larger NGOs, however, possess modern systems and can afford upgrades in technology.
Workshop participants pointed out that their mission frequently is not enhanced (and can sometimes be impeded) by technology. When conflict is raging in the areas in which the NGOs are operating, computers and other items of value - four-wheel drive vehicles, satellite dishes, etc.- are frequently stolen or may make NGO personnel vulnerable to attack. In addition, in the remote areas of NGO operations, such as the interior of Zaire, establishing communication links or accessing a reliable source of electricity is often impossible. Consequently, NGOs are reluctant to look toward technological "quick fixes." Moreover, because of the grassroots nature of NGO work, these organizations need to blend with the local community, which is typically "low- or no-tech." Several NGO representatives also commented that their use of sophisticated communications technology could raise concerns within the host government, particularly if that government did not have similar access to technology or if it involves communications with the U.S. military.
Despite extreme differences in funding and organization, NGOs share a common culture. InterAction, a coalition of more than 150 NGOs engaged in humanitarian efforts, characterizes this culture as:
The workshop participants emphasized that, because of their commitment to a long-term relationship in-country, NGOs are very concerned about maintaining neutrality, including the appearance of neutrality. The Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and Non-Governmental Organizations in Disaster Relief, which provides guidance on standards of behavior for NGOs, illustrates the commitment NGOs have toward operating independently of any government:6
NGOs believe that their neutrality and independence from government policies enables them to better perform their missions. Moreover, their ability to carry out their programs in-country ultimately depends upon the willingness of the host country or different parties to a conflict to allow them to do so. Consequently, any perceptions that an NGO is violating its neutral stance could jeopardize its programs.
Despite the NGO community's staunch independent nature, NGOs are learning to work more closely together to achieve common goals. NGOs established an NGO coordinating committee for the first time in Thailand during the Cambodia refugee crisis.7 The model was copied in Northern Iraq, where the community point of contact proved critical for coordination with both civilian and military organizations. NGOs have gradually begun to coordinate their efforts more closely in subsequent emergencies.
As international community responses to complex humanitarian emergencies have grown more frequent, and the number of official agencies and NGOs responding to crises have burgeoned, the organizational complexity of the response process has grown geometrically. This trend has tremendous implications for command and control and interagency interface on the ground. Figure 2 is an effort to capture the dynamic complexity of organizational relations in disaster response and also to depict the intricate lines of communication and reporting responsibilities of both the civilian and military communities.
To understand the complexities captured in the figure, one needs to view the situation by examining "organizational slices of the pie." As a starting point, the host nation --the central focus of relief activities--will possess some government capability that affects the relief process in most cases. Where government is effective, most NGOs operating in the host nation are authorized to be there by the host government and will seek to retain a positive relationship with that government. The host government also works closely with international actors in coordinating the relief response.
Although most practitioners in complex humanitarian emergencies refer to the NGO community as if it were a monolith, each NGO remains committed to its particular mission. Figure 2 illustrates the diversity of the NGOs--their differing sizes, mission orientations, and resource capabilities--by depicting them with contrasting sized, shaped, and shaded figures in the NGO arenas. Clearly, communication among these differing entities becomes complex. Because most NGOs depend on donor funding for their activities, they must be responsive to their own headquarters, the host country, and to the external funding agencies. The situation is complicated further by the fact that the donor(s) may be a national government, an international organization or agency, or both. These donor agencies --particularly national government agencies--may have different political reasons for their involvement in development or relief efforts. Donors collaborate with each other, but do not always share information or achieve consensus on their full range of activities. Also, donors may cooperate well at the national government level, but have greater difficulty collaborating in the field. Both governments and NGOs sometimes complain that donors should "keep better tabs" on those NGOs using donor resources or operating under a donor's national flag.
International organizations present yet another layer of complexity because they operate under a different set of rules than do national organizations. UN organizations function with relative autonomy, particularly in non-crisis periods, but are subject to the constraints of the collective mandate of the Security Council during a crisis and are very sensitive to host country preferences. Within a host nation, a UN Special Representative, who reports to the UN Secretary General, will be the chief point of contact for all UN organizations responding to the crisis and will be the focal point for UN communications, however, he will not have the authority to command the various organizations. In addition to the UN, regional government organizations, like the OAU or the OAS, may station individuals or operate programs in-country. Their reporting responsibilities flow back to the regional organization's headquarters and from there to country members.
One of the principal actors in any disaster, the Red Cross Community, maintains a wholly independent set of relationships with the host nation and other NGOs. Like other international organizations, the unique capabilities and linkages this group of organizations already has established in-country allows it to respond quickly and effectively in many cases. It frequently strives to maintain good communications with the other actors involved in disaster situations.
In responding to disaster, the military, supporting national and international peacekeeping or relief efforts, often gets involved in a crisis after many of the other actors are already present and active in the relief process. Operations to protect Kurds in Northern Iraq, where the military arrived first, were an exception to the general experience. Other recent crises, such as Somalia or Rwanda, have presented unique challenges, and both civilian and military authorities have had to improvise to respond appropriately. Lessons learned have been incorporated into subsequent planning efforts, but the unique circumstances of each situation inevitably present unforeseen challenges to planning, coordination, communication, and implementation of the strategy.
The military's primary missions in disaster response are to establish security and make it possible for relief organizations to operate. Carrying out these missions may require the military to first establish a secure environment, then to provide transportation, communication, and/or security for the NGOs as well as for the military force itself. A secondary mission is to assist in creating conditions that will permit the host nation to return to normalcy. This mission is often more controversial than the first, given that it requires the military to perform duties outside of its primary responsibility of ensuring a secure environment. Primary and secondary missions are often blurred in complex emergencies such as Somalia or Bosnia. In several NDU workshops, NGOs have observed that it is important for the military to consult with NGOs and donors already on the ground before undertaking action so as not to disrupt ongoing activities. At the same time, NGOs seek to remain independent and neutral in their dealings with the military. The NGOs' ongoing relationship with local grassroots organizations and their commitment to their unique missions make it difficult to create and apply a single set of rules to govern NGO relations with military organizations and government representatives. This is the heart of the dilemma confronting both civilian and military organizations as they seek to develop a more coordinated and cooperative approach for responding to complex humanitarian emergencies. This process is described in detail in The U.S. Military/NGO Relationship in Humanitarian Interventions, for which the author interviewed many of the actors in NGOs, Government, and military, in recent complex humanitarian emergencies.8