The Problems with Humanitarian Aid

Haiti @Unocha.org

With the amount of traumatizing disasters and events going on around the world, the need for humanitarian groups that focus on providing the people stuck in these situations with whatever they may need- food, clean water, and medicine being some of the most in demand products- is only growing. With the rise in demand of help over the last few decades, the world has seen many groups step up to the plate and help. However, there are many issues and barriers that humanitarian groups have to face in order to fulfill their purpose.

In The Crisis Caravan, Linda Polman- who is a Dutch author that specializes on humanitarian aid and intervention- points out the many issues that comes with being involved in humanitarian aid that are caused not only by the many hostile and corrupt groups that are usually located in a lot of developing countries, but also by the humanitarian group themselves.

South Sudan soldiers stealing UNICEF aid @NYDailyNews.com

The biggest problem that these groups face are the fact that they are most often stopped by rebel groups who won’t let them pass into the territories without some sort of “payment”. Polman says that the percentage of the aid that the groups want changes with every warlord. Some will take as little- relatively little, I suppose- as 15 percent, while others will take as high as 80. Also, when dealing with these negotiations, the humanitarian groups have to be very careful at how they approach the situation. The groups deal with many different types of people- who often have conflict with one another. As the six ICRC workers- who helped the Lendus people despite what their enemies the Hema people wanted- demonstrated, crossing the wrong people can result in death.

The aid usually ends up not reaching the people it was donated for in most situations. The warlords use it to supply their own armies. However, even when the aid does reach the designated village, the humanitarian groups find that they have created their own problems. Polman says that there are some cases of groups finally getting to the victims, and realizing that they do not have the resources that are needed the most, like adequate medical care.  Because these groups usually operate under the slogans that every little bit helps, they are usually left with completely useless resources to give to needy people.

Humanitarian aid has also turned into an industry, with many NGOs fighting to receive the money needed to fund their missions. On page 177 of The Crisis Caravan, Polman says that “Aids are businesses dressed up like Mother Teresa”. I believe that she uses that phrase to describe modern humanitarian aid because they have turned into businesses, and it has become an industry where every dollar and every mission that is ‘successfully’ completed means that there is a better opportunity that they can continue doing what they need to do. However, this leads to a lot of corruption within NGOs. Because they’re so dependent on donations and grants, they have to keep a relatively clean image to the public. This leads to a lot of NGOs hiding the fact that- a good portion of the time- the aid is falling into the hands of the people who are arguably causing so much of the disarray in these regions.

That image doesn’t make it to the public, though, and the image that NGOs are putting out- through media- is a more ‘saintly’ one, like Mother Teresa (which even her image is debatable in some circles, but for the most part, she’s regarded as a saint).

NGOs are seen as the unbiased, neutral light in war torn countries, but that doesn’t mean that they are without fault. Polman says in the afterword that she doesn’t know if there is a solution to making humanitarian aid more successful, but there are a few places that we can start.

UN meeting discussing humanitarian aid @MFA.gov.tr

First, we have to start holding journalists that cover these groups more responsible for telling a complete story about the conditions within these groups. Polman says that journalists, despite being trained to get a well-rounded story with many different sources, usually just take whatever NGOs say about their missions with very little question. This only contributes to the misconceptions about NGOs and humanitarian aid in war-torn countries.

If we can get that to happen, then the public can be more knowing- they’d have to care, first, but if they’re donating, then they probably already somewhat care- of who they’re donating to, and can put more pressure onto NGOs to handle their operations better. The public knowing could also help push pressure onto governments around the world to set up systems for assessing the overall performance of NGOs since there seems to be no real standards for how NGOs should be operating. This allows the agencies to control themselves, and it’s being shown that they aren’t feeling any need to reform they’re practices.

It would be ideal to live in a world where no one is in need of humanitarian aid, but it would also be naïve to sit around and wait for it to happen instead of trying to fix the current issues that are preventing humanitarian aid from working. I believe that with a little more regulation from the government, a little more coverage from the media, and a little more urgency from the public, we can collectively come together and solve these issues.