From top-down to networks

Humanitarian aid is changing: with the emergence of non-traditional donors and "non-professional” aid workers, crisis response decisions are no longer exclusively made in New York, Geneva, Washington or the West in general.



What some analysts at the Second World Conference on Humanitarian Studies at Tufts University in Medford, USA, are wrestling with is how this emerging decentralized network, which challenges the traditional top-down hierarchical donor model, can be made "more efficient and accountable", said scholar Michael Barnett.



Other trends are afoot: Barnett, and analysts like Taylor Seybolt, director of the Ford Institute of Human Security at the University of Pittsburgh, are looking at the implications of the business management approach which is increasingly being applied to aid. Major aid organizations have begun to refer to the field as an “industry” and beneficiaries as “clients”.



Theories around “hierarchy”, “network” and “markets” are drawn from business models.



But the emergence of a corporate culture in the aid industry sits uncomfortably with the rise of a new-breed of aid worker. “People who were happy to write out cheques to aid organizations now want to hop on a plane and deliver the aid personally to the affected communities, which is not necessarily in the best interest of the beneficiary,” Barnett told IRIN.



Some of his research indicates that the number of these good samaritans acting mostly for faith-based organizations and churches going into developing countries far exceeds professional aid workers. “But there is a lack of good data to say that with greater certainty.”



Seybolt on the other hand argues that providing beneficiaries with more choice of suppliers of aid is not necessarily a bad thing. He told IRIN that some of his students doing research in Haiti after the earthquake in 2010 found that people preferred to go to a camp run by the Hollywood actor Sean Penn rather than the one set up by the UN as it was cleaner and more efficiently run.



“But this business is about saving lives where you cannot make mistakes - you need accountability and a high level of professionalism,” said Peter Walker, director of the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University, the organizers of the four-day humanitarian studies conference.



Minimum standards



Both Barnett and Seybolt acknowledge that there is a need for all emerging players to meet a minimum standard and the humanitarian code of conduct.



Walker argued that by developing humanitarian professionalism in individuals - whether from a donor government or a random organization that responded to a crisis - the system could move towards a more accountable network approach. “Each individual is then responsible and accountable.”



The Tufts conference began on 2 June and has attracted more than 400 experts to discuss emerging trends in the humanitarian system and how best to respond to the needs of people affected by both man-made and natural crises.



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