World Disaster Report highlights ethical dilemma

Measured against the 1994 Code of Conduct in Disaster Relief, the humanitarian community has had a poor record, says Eva von Oelreich, head of disaster preparedness and policy of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Speaking at the 17 July launch of the eleventh edition of the Federation's World Disaster Report, Oelreich noted that within days of the end of the Iraq war, US$1.7 billion had been raised for relief efforts, a stark contrast to the US$ 1 billion shortfall faced by a UN appeal to avert starvation among 40 million people in 22 African countries.

The 2003 Report, which focuses on ethics in aid, highlights a growing tendency among donors and humanitarian agencies to favour high-profile aid efforts in politically strategic conflicts such as Iraq and Afghanistan, while chronic emergencies, notably in Africa, receive little attention.

“Clearly, humanitarian aid is far from impartial,” Von Oelreich said.

According to the report's findings, aid agencies are responsible for failing to attract attention to some of the world’s more chronic emergencies. Poor data gathering, information sharing and collaboration between agencies has meant that the international community has ignored or been unaware of the true scale of suffering in many crises or sent the wrong kind of aid.

The report also warns that international efforts to curb global terrorism pose major ethical dilemmas that threaten the legitimacy of humanitarian agencies. “The fight against terror was driving the money,” said Von Oelreich. A Geneva-based diplomat attending the launch also acknowledged that the war on terrorism had indeed placed extra pressure on official aid programmes and resource allocation.

“It is easy to blame governments; however, aid organizations are also complicit in that they do what the donors pay them to do," said Von Oelreich. "The humanitarian community needs to invest more in measuring global needs and systematic monitoring of those needs. When needs are not properly measured do we clearly know what they are?”

Citing a rare survey conducted in 1998-2003 by the International Rescue Committee in the Democratic Republic of Congo which estimated that 3.3 million people had died there, most from treatable diseases, she noted that in 2000 peace efforts had attracted US$ 250 million, while life-saving humanitarian aid had received only US$ 37 million. “Inaccuracies and delays in early warning are costing lives,” she said.

The report calls on the humanitarian community to engage in more long-term, professionally administered assessments that encompass direct household needs rather than the growing reliance on data gathered at a distance through high-tech imaging. Von Oelreich also told IRIN that the NGO community and the Federation needed to be bolder and more proactive in confronting donor funding priorities, of which the surveys were an important component.

“We are facing a real inequity in global humanitarian practice where many of the world’s wars and disasters have become forgotten emergencies," said Federation President Juan Manuel Suarez del Toro. "If the aid community and donors are committed to providing aid on an impartial basis they must act on their principles and intervene where the needs are most acute.”

[For information on acquiring the report refer to http://www.ifrc.org.]