Protecting aid from politics

Protecting the neutrality of aid deliveries in Zimbabwe depends on fostering better communication and working relationships between NGOs, government and beneficiaries, says a new report. The report, "Neutrality in Humanitarian Assistance: A Case Study from Zimbabwe", released by the Overseas Development Institute, argues that "more needs to be done to publicly disseminate the principles that inform emergency programmes". This would avoid the kind of conflict around aid programmes that has been witnessed in Zimbabwe. When drought hit Zimbabwe in 1992-93, "appeals for international assistance raised generous amounts of support. At the same time, the positive relations that the government enjoyed with the international community meant that much of the aid was channelled directly through line ministries such as health, social welfare and agriculture", the report found. However, a decade later the appeals for assistance for the current humanitarian crisis are largely underfunded, and relations between government and the international community are strained. This has had a negative impact on the international agencies and NGOs attempting to provide relief aid in the country. In September 2002 the government temporarily suspended Save the Children-UK (SC-UK) operations in Zimbabwe, including a food aid intervention that benefited 125,000 people. This was at the height of the food crisis, and "the process of registering internationally respected humanitarian agencies was beset with difficulties and delays, for reasons which were often unclear", the report observed. While SC-UK has since resumed operations, and a number of agencies have subsequently been registered with the government, the experience raised various issues around the neutrality of aid. "Agencies' protestations of neutrality, specifically that aid will not be used to further a particular political or religious standpoint, have at times been met with considerable suspicion. The authorities have expressed concern that, for some agencies, the primary motive for assisting people in Zimbabwe has less to do with humanitarianism, and more to do with the foreign policy objectives of the governments with whom Zimbabwe has conducted a war of words over several years," the report commented. "One of the reasons for this is the fact that the aid effort in the current emergency is much more evidently an 'external' intervention ... [as] much of the aid has been donated by those same countries that have been most vociferous in criticising Zimbabwe's political situation," the report added. Another problem has been that much of the aid is distributed by agency personnel who were previously involved in development activities at the same locations. "These individuals, and their politics, are well-known within communities. Agencies, including Save the Children (UK), have stipulated in contracts with national staff that political views should never be expressed at emergency food distributions. Nevertheless, the very presence of such personnel has, in the eyes of some, undermined the claims to neutrality made by the organisations that employ them," the report noted. MUCH MORE POSITIVE RELATIONSHIP WITH GOVT SC-UK Zimbabwe programme director Chris McIvor told IRIN that "we enjoy a much more positive working relationship with government now [than in 2002]". The NGO has prioritised information sharing and transparency regarding its operations in Zimbabwe to foster this relationship. "We have made very strong attempts to keep them [the government] informed about what we do, and our principles. We have given a standing invitation to authorities to come and inspect and verify what we are doing," McIvor explained. He added that "transparency and information sharing is extremely important to minimise any suspicions that might arise and ... we have tried, to the best of all of our collective abilities, to ensure the working relationship remains good between NGOs and government". "At the end of the day, it's the beneficiaries who are the first to suffer if that relationship breaks down," said McIvor. More also needed to be done about informing beneficiary communities of the standards and principles that guide decisions about who qualifies for food aid and who does not. "Organisations generally see accountability in terms of accountability to donors, government or head offices. We're much less strong on the issue of accountability to the people we are supposed to be helping. In emergencies the pressure to deliver aid is such that informing communities often gets sidelined, partly because there's a rush to get aid in," McIvor said. While communities may be informed about ration rates and the place, time and frequency of distributions, the principles and "standards that agencies should uphold in their operations are rarely discussed". "Unless communities themselves begin to press for these standards to be realised, including the prohibition on furthering a political or religious position through aid deliveries, too much depends on the goodwill of implementing agencies to enforce them. Feedback structures at local level are needed, so that people who believe that a standard has been infringed have a clear, transparent and independent mechanism of registering their complaints," the report recommended. For the full report go to: www.odihpn.org