Experts Outline Challenges Facing Humanitarian Aid Community

American Refugee Committee
Tuesday, 11 July 2000

Growing ethnic tensions, new infectious diseases, inadequate protection of internally displaced persons and politicization of humanitarian aid are among the challenges facing relief organizations in the post-Cold War era, a panel of experts told the American Refugee Committee (ARC).

The experts, who addressed ARC's board of directors at a recent meeting in Washington, also highlighted problems such as the lack of a public constituency for U.S. foreign aid, weaker donor commitment to Africa than to Europe and the devastating impact of AIDS on Africa's social fabric.

Ramesh Rajasingham, humanitarian affairs officer for the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said that 27 major armed conflicts were recorded in 25 different countries in 1999, all but two of them internal conflicts. While the nature of humanitarian emergencies per se has not changed since the 1970s, he added, civilians suffer more today because so many of the emergencies result from civil war.

"The protection of civilians has become a major, if not the major priority of humanitarian action," he said. Today's conflicts are also increasing the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) - those who remain in their home countries. Unlike refugees who cross borders, they must rely on their own government for protection without international legal guarantees.

James Bishop, director of the disaster response committee for the nonprofit coalition InterAction, warned that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) may not have the capacity to respond to all humanitarian emergencies in the next few years. "The treetop rescues in Mozambique and rapid population flows from Rwanda and Kosovo probably will have their sequels," he said.

Bishop said that NGO capacity would be quickly swamped if weapons of mass destruction were employed. "Should the existing North Korean leadership be replaced by those who request immediate help for millions of their citizens on the brink of starvation," he added, "NGOs alone will be unable to provide an adequate response."

George Fidas, deputy national intelligence officer for economy and global issues for the National Intelligence Council, highlighted the threat posed by infectious diseases, noting that tuberculosis and malaria are reemerging in deadlier, drug-resistant forms and that Asia is likely to replace Africa as the epicenter of HIV/AIDS before 2015.

He also discussed the shift in power away from nation-states and toward nonstate actors including terrorist and other criminal networks, subnational governments and regional and international institutions. "At the same time, nongovernmental organizations will continue to expand in sheer numbers, range of activity and political clout," he said. "NGOs today may number 'in the millions' if one includes the full range of organizations from large international groups to tiny village associations."

Traer Sunley, vice president of communications for the nonprofit development organization Pact, said that "thought leaders" who were interviewed for a Pact study largely agreed that federal foreign aid was not likely to increase the near future and many agreed it would decrease.

They also saw a continuing lag in business support for development, "despite the fact that economic opportunity is shifting to overseas markets, where 95 percent of the world population lives." Sunley highlighted the trend toward demand-driven development models, quoting one respondent who said, "the client is right if he wants your service and if he wants it, it is the right service."

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