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Occasional Paper #22

THE POLICIES OF MERCY:UN COORDINATION IN

AFGHANISTAN, MOZAMBIQUE,AND RWANDA

by Antonio Donini

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Occasional Papers is a series published by

The Thomas J. Watson Jr.Institute for International StudiesBrown University, Box 19702 Stimson AvenueProvidence, RI 02912

Telephone: (401) 863-2809Fax: (401) 863-1270E-mail: IIS@brown.eduhttp://www.brown.edu/Departments/Watson_Institute/

Thomas J. Biersteker, Ph.D., DirectorThomas G. Weiss, Ph.D., Associate DirectorFrederick F. Fullerton, Assistant EditorNancy Soukup, Assistant EditorAmy M. Langlais, Staff Assistant

Statements of fact or opinion are solely those of the authors; theirpublication does not imply endorsement by the Thomas J. Watson Jr.Institute for International Studies.

Copyright © 1996 by the Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute for Interna-tional Studies. All rights reserved under International and PanAmerican Convention. No part of this report may be reproduced ortransmitted in any form or by any other means, electronic or me-chanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information stor-age and retrieval system, without prior written permission from thepublisher. All inquiries should be addressed to Occasional Papers,Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute for International Studies.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword....................................................................................... v

Acknowledgments ..................................................................... ix

Part One

Introduction .......................................................................... 1The Challenges of Coordination ........................................ 7

Part Two: Case Studies

Afghanistan: Humanitarianism Unfettered ................... 21Mozambique: Humanitarianism Upstaged ................... 61Rwanda: Humanitarianism in Doubt ............................. 89

Part Three: Conclusions and Lessons for the Future ......... 117

Acronyms.................................................................................. 145About the Humanitarian and War Project .......................... 147About the Author .................................................................... 149

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How long persist with sword and spear?How long with fraud and deceit?

These are the ways of wolf and foxFully human you’ll recoil from these

Khalili*

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FOREWORD

Coordination of humanitarian action in armed conflicts isa hobby horse of governments, parliaments, and publics,which use its frequent absence to lambaste organizations thattry to assist people in need. Yet, as one donor government aidofficial conceded in a recent meeting, realizing coordination asa goal is made more difficult, if not altogether impossible, bythe actions of those who demand it most vociferously.

Touted by all but honored only in the breach, coordinationis, in the grand scheme of humanitarian action, of anything butmarginal or secondary importance. As this monograph indi-cates, coordination entails, beyond technical aspects that arecomparatively easy to understand and address, a host of majororganizational, administrative, budgetary, and political di-mensions. Coordination is in sum about the optimal use ofresources and accountability for them.

Coordination in its various aspects has been a recurringtheme of the case studies published by the Humanitarianismand War Project over the past five years. In this study, AntonioDonini places in historical perspective the challenges reviewedearlier in such crises as the Persian Gulf, Central America, theformer Yugoslavia, and the Sudan. Few readers will take issuewith his thesis that as the complexity and multisectoral dimen-sions of crises have increased, so too has the challenge ofcoordination.

Humanitarian emergencies in the post-Cold War era haveindeed become more politicized, more militarized, and moreinternal to member states of the United Nations than theirpredecessors of pre-Cold War or Cold War days. Conse-quently, coordination now requires not only orchestrating anarray of humanitarian efforts but also situating them properlyin relation to political and military factors and actors.

Donini examines two emergencies firmly rooted in theCold War jousting of the superpowers—Afghanistan andMozambique. His third case analyzes the recent eruption ofthe emergency in Rwanda, albeit with the international re-sponse situated firmly in the post-Cold War internationalpolitical climate and affected by Somalia, Bosnia, and otherrecent experiences. He defines coordination and then reviewsthe dynamics and the results of “orchestrating the policies of

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mercy” in each setting. The Afghanistan response precedesthe creation of the UN’s Department of Humanitarian Affairs(DHA) in 1992; the Mozambique and Rwanda responses en-gaged DHA, which provided useful analytical comparisons.

The fact that he devotes considerable time to the Afghani-stan experience fills a gap in existing analyses. In doing so, heconfronts us with the longer-term perils of the politicization ofhumanitarian relief efforts, suggesting lessons that have notyet been learned, a casualty of diminished international inter-est as that civil war lost its strategic importance. While histreatment of the issues in Mozambique and Rwanda is morelean, he points us in the direction of other studies that provideadditional information and analysis.

Publication of the study at the half-way mark in the firstpost-Cold War decade comes as the sequence of major emer-gencies continues, but with the prevailing ad hoc approach tocoordination having less to recommend it. Some policymakersand practitioners certainly still approach every crisis as unique.However, more actors are persuaded that, despite idiosyn-cratic elements and the special chemistry of each crisis, thereare recurring problems requiring more consistent and struc-tured treatment. Certainly the broader international commu-nity has less tolerance for reinventing the humanitarian wheelwith each new emergency.

The study presents the approaches taken by the interna-tional community, principally the United Nations, to coordi-nation in each of the three settings. It seeks to identify lessonsto be learned that will assist the progression from a “businessas usual” approach to one more suited to the conflict-ladensettings in which human need is increasingly set.

Donini’s approach situates the UN’s coordinating effortsprincipally in relation to UN organizations on both the politi-cal-military and on the humanitarian-development sides ofthe world organization. He highlights one of our project’srecurrent findings: that the differential agendas, timetables,and personnel of UN peace operations and humanitarianactivities seriously question the current penchant for integrat-ing aid efforts into peace operations. Such integration mayinvolve greater risks to the humanitarian enterprise than thepractical benefits that accrue.

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While focusing on the United Nations, Donini’s analysisalso accounts for interactions between the UN and the bevy ofnongovernmental organizations that are a regular feature ofmajor emergencies these days. The author does not raise theultimate question that has surfaced in some of our otherworks: whether in internal armed conflicts the United Nationscan be expected to serve as the focal point for orchestratingthat broader constellation of humanitarian activities. Thatquestion, however, is one that readers may wish to ponder infollowing his review of the issues.

We are fortunate to have Antonio Donini lead us throughan analysis of these three conflicts. As a United Nations officialwho served in Afghanistan in Operation Salam, he draws onhis own personal experience as a practitioner in the 1980s.Serving more recently on the staff of the UN Department ofHumanitarian Affairs, he was able to take a closer look atMozambique and Rwanda. During a sabbatical from his UNlabors that he spent at the Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute forInternational Studies in 1994-1995, he was able to make returnvisits to each of the three countries. His text draws on new aswell as earlier research and on dialogue with colleagues atBrown University.

As indicated at the outset, coordination is critical to effec-tive humanitarian action. In previous case studies, the Hu-manitarianism and War Project has emphasized the contribu-tion of lead agencies in orchestrating the policies of mercy. InOperation Lifeline Sudan, the United Nations Children’s Fundplayed that role, as did more recently the United Nations HighCommissioner for Refugees in the former Yugoslavia.

The present volume offers an informed analysis of thestrengths and weaknesses of the coordination effort in threemajor crises, the second and third of which placed the UN’sDepartment of Humanitarian Affairs in a key role. We arepleased to share this monograph with our widening circle ofreaders. As with its predecessors, we welcome comments, whichhelp to inform our ongoing reflection on the issues raised.

Larry Minear and Thomas G. WeissCodirectorsProvidenceJanuary 1996

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This monograph is the product of a happy set of circum-stances for which I will never cease to be grateful. After twentyyears as a UN bureaucrat, I was fortunate enough to beawarded a nine-month study leave through the United Na-tions/Academic Council on the United Nations System(ACUNS) sabbatical leave program. The program has sincebeen cut to three months and I was the last to benefit from thefull period, which makes me feel a bit like a Mohican.

I wish to express my gratitude to the individuals andinstitutions that made this possible: Patrizio Civili, in theexecutive office of the secretary-general, who encouraged meto submit my application and agreed to my release; the jointACUNS/UN selection committee and the UN Office for Hu-man Resources Management for selecting me; the Thomas J.Watson Jr. Institute for International Studies and the codirectorsof the Humanitarianism and War Project, Larry Minear andThomas G. Weiss, who provided me with the congenial re-search environment and with the nickname of “UN bureau-crat in residence;” and the staff of the institute, in particularSue Miller and Melissa Phillips.

Thanks are also due to Peter Hansen, UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, who was one of the initiatorsof the UN/ACUNS sabbatical program, and to his colleaguesShaukat Fareed and Ed Tsui for having given me the opportu-nity to travel to Rwanda and Mozambique as part of DHA“lessons learned” missions. Special thanks to Norah Nilandfor taking the initiative of launching these missions and for hersolid advice and critical comments throughout the gestationprocess of this study.

The assistance provided by UN and other colleagues in thefield is also gratefully acknowledged: Martin Barber, AlexThier, Mohammed Mao, Sherjan Mayar, Jolyon Leslie (espe-cially for his beautiful garden in Kabul), Ghani Massudi,Magda Ninaber, Sikandar Pirdad Khan, and many other formercolleagues in Pakistan and Afghanistan; and Felix Downes-Thomas and Charles Petrie and their respective staffs in theDHA offices in Mozambique and Rwanda for their time, advice,support, and often complicated logistical arrangements. Thanks

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also to the special representatives of the secretary-general,Aldo Ajello in Mozambique and Shahryar Khan in Rwanda,for making time available in their busy schedules.

Though the responsibility for the final output is minealone, I benefited considerably from the useful and oftencritical comments on the draft chapters and their revisionsprovided by Jarat Chopra, Cindy Collins, Chantal Lobato,Larry Minear, Barney Rubin, and Thomas G. Weiss. Larry’senergy in refining the text and clarifying my often tortuousthought processes is most gratefully acknowledged. RonnieBuenaventura helped with the typing of the draft at variousstages and averted the consequences of a couple of near fatalcomputer crashes. Fred Fullerton and Amy Langlais saw thetext through its final editing and layout.

Finally, a word of thanks to my family and especially toVioletta, who had to put up with my absences and who knowsabout humanitarian issues about as much as I know howdifficult it is to grow up as a teenager.

Antonio DoniniNew York, December 1995

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PART ONE

INTRODUCTION

As it struggles through the first decade of the post-ColdWar era, the international community is confronted with anunprecedented increase in the number of internal conflictsand complex emergencies. With some 120 active wars andmore starting each year than are ending, the world is a muchless safer place than ten years ago. Never since the end ofWorld War II has conflict-related displacement reached suchlevels. Fifty million refugees and internally displaced persons,or one in every 115 living human beings, require assistance.Tens of millions more do not show up on the statistics, such asthe direct and indirect casualties of conflict and violent orforgotten crises. More than 90 percent of the casualties arecivilians.

Respect for humanitarian norms, in particular for thefundamental right of victims to receive assistance, has inrecent years been tenuous at best. However, 1994, the year ofgenocide in Rwanda, will be remembered as a watershed inthe annals of brutality. The ruthless, sudden, and massivescale of the violence, the manner in which it was orchestratedand perpetrated, the fact that the international communitywas unwilling to prevent it, and that nothing has been done sofar to address its causes or to bring those responsible forgenocide to justice—all this has deeply affected the humani-tarian community. Rwanda has challenged the very conceptsof humanitarianism. The shadow of genocide is likely to havean important impact on how humanitarians look upon futurecrises, and perhaps even on the shape of the internationalinstitutions available to respond. Can neutrality still be theguiding hand? For many, a system that results in maintainingan equanimous impartiality between the victims and theirexecutioners is in dire need of reform.

The end of bipolarity and the increase in the number ofcrises have fueled a parallel and, until recently, exponentialgrowth in UN peace operations. The military have become afrequent feature in the environment in which humanitarianagencies operate. Working with or close to the military has not

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always been easy, as cultural and operational differences havebeen the source of friction on both sides. This has had animpact on the activities of the UN humanitarian organizations,both at the institutional and conceptual levels, and on practicalcoordination on the ground. Despite efforts to reconcile politi-cal and peacekeeping goals with the imperatives of humani-tarian assistance, there is still widespread concern amonghumanitarian agencies about the appropriateness, and thecosts, of mixing soldiers and relief.

Thus, the context of humanitarian assistance is rapidlychanging. The purpose of this study is to take stock, from ahumanitarian viewpoint, of developments on the coordina-tion front in complex emergencies, to analyze various modelsof UN coordination, to assess their strengths and weaknesses,and to identify lessons that can be learned from recent practi-cal experience. The study draws on the experience of threediscrete coordination situations, each with specific character-istics. Afghanistan is an emergency with roots in the Cold War,where there is an ongoing humanitarian program, a relativelystrong UN humanitarian coordination body, and a very lim-ited and separate UN political presence. Mozambique, also inmany ways an orphan of the Cold War, saw the humanitariancoordination function as an integral part of the UN peaceoperation until that operation terminated, at which time thecoordination function also ceased. In Rwanda, the large-scalehumanitarian effort and the UN coordination mechanismswere largely separate from UN political-military presence.These three approaches should provide clues to the mosteffective mechanisms for orchestrating the policies of mercy,both in their own right and in relation to the political-militarysphere.

Methodology

The material for this study was collected from three typesof sources: a review of the recent literature on the countriesand of UN documentation pertaining to the three coordinationentities; interviews at headquarters and in the field with UNagency, donor, NGO, and government representatives; andfield trips by the author to each of the countries. It should be

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noted that while much has been written on the three countriesfrom historical, economical, and anthropological perspectives,the literature on the effectiveness of humanitarian aid, andspecifically on coordination, is very limited, particularly if oneexcludes internal UN and agency documents, which tend to bemore descriptive than analytical.

Documentation is particularly weak in the case of Af-ghanistan. Journalistic accounts of travels with the mujahidinand analyses of the implications of the Soviet invasion andwithdrawal abound, and scholarly publications also haveconcentrated on military and political issues. By and large,however, both have ignored the role of humanitarian assis-tance, despite the fact that this assistance was provided bywestern donors, first to NGOs and later through the UN,totaling several hundred million U.S. dollars a year for over adecade.1 This gap is perhaps a reflection of the extremelypoliticized context in which humanitarian assistance was pro-vided.2 A special effort therefore was made to document theUN’s coordination role in Afghanistan. This, and the author’sfamiliarity with UN coordination in that country, where heworked in a humanitarian capacity, explains why this casestudy is more detailed than the other two.

The available literature on Mozambique is more balanced,perhaps because, unlike Kabul, access to Maputo alwaysremained possible to Western researchers and journalists dur-ing the war years. The economic predicament of the Front forthe Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) regime, which wasforced to abandon its socialist ideals to secure the support ofthe West, the impact of donor-driven aid strategies, and therole of NGOs have been well-documented. Whether commis-sioned by donors or undertaken by independent researchers,studies on the peace process, the reintegration of demobilizedsoldiers, and the effectiveness of humanitarian assistance alsohave started to appear.

The tragedy of Rwanda has resulted in a veritable cottageindustry of books and studies on genocide, its causes, andimplications, but also in down-to-earth attempts to documentand evaluate the effectiveness of the military and humanitarianinterventions of the international community. The most ambi-tious of these is a multidonor evaluation study of emergency

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assistance to Rwanda that is to be published in 1996.3 TheHumanitarianism and War Project also has a review forthcom-ing.4 Comparing notes with the researchers involved in thisand other studies was particularly helpful.

While the review of the literature provided importantbackground information, the substance of this study stemsfrom interviews and field trips to those countries. The authorwas fortunate to participate in a mission tasked to assess theeffectiveness of UN coordination mechanisms in Rwanda andfielded by the Department of Humanitarian Affairs of theUnited Nations in September 1994. The mission traveled toKigali, where it met with key UN humanitarian and politicalstaff, government officials, UN system and donor representa-tives, ICRC, and several NGOs. It traveled to Beira and visiteddemining activities and projects for the reintegration of re-turnees in the southern provinces of the country. This missionresulted in an internal report for DHA.

Thanks to support from the Humanitarianism and WarProject, the author was able to travel to Pakistan and Afghani-stan in April-May 1995. In addition to conducting interviewswith representatives of UN organizations, the European Union,donors, and NGOs in Islamabad and Peshawar, he visitedJalalabad, Kandahar, Kabul, and Herat, where he met withlocal authorities, UN organizations, and a cross-section ofNGOs that were implementing UN- or EU-funded projects.

Unless otherwise indicated, the information in this mono-graph is current as of the date when it was collected, althoughan effort has been made to monitor developments since thevisits. It should be clear, however, that the purpose of thisstudy was to draw lessons of wider relevance to other coordi-nation situations, rather than to provide a precise or up-to-date chronology of events in the three case studies.

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THE CHALLENGES OF COORDINATION

Lifting Inhibitions

The context in which humanitarian assistance is beingprovided is rapidly changing. The wave of internal conflictsthat has been unleashed, more or less directly, by the end of theCold War and by the dissolving of the control mechanismsinherent in superpower rivalry is but one of the parametersthat define the new environment where humanitarian actorsare compelled to intervene. In many ways, it is interventionitself that should be seen as the new defining element in thepost-bipolar world, rather than conflict, which of course ex-isted throughout the previous era, whether in the form of warsby proxy or in resistance to superpower hegemony. Thus,recent years have witnessed a kind of double lifting of inhibi-tions that had been largely suppressed by the Cold War’s rulesof the game: the inhibition to wage war and the inhibition tointervene.

From Jaffna to Jalalabad and from Banja Luka to Butare,civilians are paying the heaviest price of contemporary war-fare. They are pawns, hostages, and objects of conflict, if notthe deliberate targets of violence. In such brutal internal con-flicts, the traditional concepts of “military” and “civilian” tendto lose their meaning. The military often no longer take oraccept instructions from political leaders. Looting is the corol-lary to warlordism just as violence against civilians is thecorollary to the breakdown of even the smallest commondenominator of the functioning of societies. The lifting of theinhibitions makes the contexts in which humanitarian actorsprovide assistance more volatile and unpredictable, as well asmore dangerous. Armed bandits are not the best interlocutorswith whom to discuss humanitarian norms and freedom ofaccess to victims.

Humanitarians, too, have lost their inhibitions. Thechanged context has made humanitarian intervention, that iswithout taking sides (or, more precisely, taking the side of thevictims), easier to advocate and more palatable for the interna-tional community (and for the purse-holders in donor coun-tries). This context includes the frequent absence of visible or

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understandable ideological stakes with which to identify it,but perhaps more importantly, it also includes the lifting of theshackles that constrained diplomacy in the Cold War era. Italso has facilitated intervention of the military variety—withknights in blue armor—in support of humanitarian objectives.When major crises erupt, the issue is no longer whether tointervene but what form the intervention should take.

Thus, war and intervention in its various guises wouldseem to be the key characteristics of our confusing new world.Although these may well be the most visible innovations,other structural changes have accompanied the demise of theold order and the turbulent search for a new one, or at least thesearch for a road map for troubled times. The environment inwhich structural breakdown and emergencies occur, and thewider environment of North-South relations, has been radi-cally changed.

To begin with, the international community, in its re-sponse to crises, has lifted many inhibitions concerning sover-eignty. It is now clear that sovereignty is no longer sacrosanctif it ever was—in a world dominated by superpowers, respectfor sovereignty was at best relative. 5 While the members of theinternational community have been loathe to codify criteriafor intervention, in practice interventions have occurred thatwould have been unthinkable only a decade ago. Some inter-ventions (as in northern Iraq) have been conducted over andabove the objections of formal members of the internationalcommunity; others (Somalia) simply have imposed them-selves as the natural course of action in situations where themain elements of statehood had disappeared. In many ways,a taboo has been lifted: states are no longer reluctant to call aspade a spade, and the imperatives of Realpolitik no longerdiscourage the denunciation of human rights violations.

As for the market mechanism, it is debatable if it has eversuffered from any inhibitions. Its limits were dictated byideological containment and political barriers rather than bymoral qualms. It is interesting to note the increasing extensionof market mechanisms to areas protected up to now: that is,North-South relations, and in particular providing humani-tarian assistance. For 45 years, overseas development assis-tance and its junior cousin emergency aid were well within the

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realm of States.6 The end of the Cold War emboldened Westerngovernments, and the dysfunctionalities inherent in workingthrough governments have led to the application of Reagan-Thatcherist precepts in conducting international affairs. Theinvocation of privatization and of civil society often functionas a smoke screen for the imposition of political conditionality.The result has been an extraordinary explosion of privatesector intervention in the Third World, most visible in theprovision of relief.

Perhaps the most significant innovation in recent years ishow much in weak Third World societies NGOs have takenover state functions in areas such as health and education, aswell as the bulk of the delivery of relief services in faltering orfailed states. For better or worse, a contract culture has emerged,with media and dollar-hungry NGOs competing for the finiteresources of the international community. In structural andideological terms, “development” has ceased to function as amobilizing myth for the Third World. The only remainingoperating system is the market mechanism and for many it isthe rewards of economic “trickle-down” that are mythical. Inpractical terms, the NGO community in the North has ben-efited significantly from the fact that with the end of super-power confrontation the imperative of political state-to-statesupport between governments North and South has all butdisappeared. It remains to be seen if this is to be equallybeneficial for the victims of conflict, for local coping mecha-nisms in crisis-affected countries, and for longer-term self-reliance.

A related trend that is shaping the environment in whichhumanitarian actors operate is how extensively resources andattention are being diverted from development to relief. Theexponential growth of disbursements for humanitarian assis-tance is unquestionable: from barely $845 million a year in1989 to close to $5 billion in 1995.7 With the collapse of theSoviet bloc, the number of claimants for development aid hasincreased dramatically as the Newly Independent States got inline for development assistance.8 Donors, however, tend tofocus on the short term. Funds are generally available to savelives in emergencies, but seem to be more difficult to come byfor recovery and the reconstruction of livelihoods. Moreover,

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the combination of privatization and diversion of develop-ment resources to relief is likely to mean more political condi-tionality rather than less. For the donor, the reorientation ofbudgetary priorities toward quick-fix emergency relief pro-vides an easy way to be selective and flex political muscleswhen apportioning the residual development assistance funds.Here again, past inhibitions are gone.

As for the United Nations, for a brief historical moment,both member states and the secretariat felt free to fly. After 40years, the heavy lid of the Cold War was lifted and theorganization’s langue de bois9 gave way to more open forms ofexpression. The ideals of the founding fathers seemed to cometo life after decades of formalism. During the year that pre-ceded and the two years that followed the publication of thesecretary-general’s Agenda for Peace in June 1992, much seemedpossible. Until then, UN regimes for peacekeeping, humanrights, and humanitarian and development activities had beenkept in separate if not watertight compartments. The SecurityCouncil, when not deadlocked by crossed vetoes, dealt withsecurity and not with humanitarian questions. But issuessuddenly refused to remain in neat compartments. The newwave of emergencies became complex, mixing the political,the military, and the humanitarian. For a brief moment, a newworld order seemed within reach, leading Northern leaders tobelieve that crises could be treated with more or less coherentand integrated approaches to problem-solving. The interven-tionist approach became the new gospel; this implied that thehumanitarians should jump aboard the moving train. Afterfailure in Somalia and quagmire in Bosnia, a more sober (andeven somber) approach seems to prevail, as evident from thesecretary-general’s Supplement to the Agenda for Peace (issued inJanuary 1995). The enthusiasm for peace operations peaked in1994, when a record number of 80,000 blue helmets weredeployed. Extreme caution is likely to be exercised in thefuture.

It is with these contextual considerations in mind that thisstudy looks at the coordination of humanitarian assistance incomplex crises. The changes for the humanitarians have beenboth qualitative and quantitative. The escalation of needs hasprovoked a quantum leap in the response capacity of the

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international humanitarian brigades. But it is the qualitativechanges, especially the implications of working in conflictsituations, that are the major defining factor in the new envi-ronment. Under the simpler regime of the Cold War, humani-tarian actors in internal conflict situations were few. Only theICRC and a handful of NGOs were able to circumvent sover-eignty and work in areas controlled by forces hostile to recog-nized governments. UN organizations were almost exclu-sively confined to government-held territory where theyworked with or through the official channels. Working cross-border into rebel territory or cross-line in and out of govern-ment areas was out of the question. Working on both sides,despite the practical problems this entails, has become thenorm rather than the exception, even for the UN. This hassubjected UN relief organizations to many new problems,ranging from negotiating access for staff and relief commodi-ties with warlords and de facto authorities to working with oralongside the military. Humanitarian space often has beendifficult to safeguard. For UN staff, mostly unaccustomed toworking outside government frameworks, the learning curvehas been steep and the price paid high.

The Conceptual Framework

As already noted, this study is primarily about coordina-tion, a term that is much used, abused, and misunderstood.Few knowledgeable persons would dispute that the effectiveprovision of humanitarian assistance requires that duplica-tion, waste, and competition among agencies be avoided.However, agreement on the institutional, administrative, andoperational dimensions of coordination is another matter.Some observers would argue that emphasis on coordinationadds a bureaucratic layer that hinders the speedy response tohumanitarian needs or results in “coordination for the sake ofcoordination.” Others call for strong leadership, clear func-tional responsibilities, and a “coordination as management”approach. Given the decentralized nature of the UN humani-tarian system, the best that can be obtained probably lies half-way between command and consensus. For the purposes ofthe discussion here, we adopt the following definition of

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coordination used elsewhere by the Humanitarianism andWar Project:

Coordination is the systematic utilization ofpolicy instruments to deliver humanitarianassistance in a cohesive and effective manner.Such instruments include: (1) strategic plan-ning; (2) gathering data and managing infor-mation; (3) mobilizing resources and assuringaccountability; (4) orchestrating a functionaldivision of labor in the field; (5) negotiatingand maintaining a serviceable framework withhost political authorities; and (6) providingleadership. Sensibly and sensitively employed,such instruments inject an element of disci-pline without unduly constraining action.10

In simpler times, it was axiomatic that UN agencies wouldcoordinate their particular functional sector of competence.When crises were seen primarily as one-dimensional, therewas less of a need for multisectoral coordination. If the prob-lem was one of refugees—for instance in El Salvador in theearly 1980s—UNHCR was in the driver’s seat. If the problemwas drought and famine—as in the Sahel—the World FoodProgramme (WFP) and UNICEF bore the brunt of the reliefeffort. In some cases, when there was a clear need to provideleadership to a joint UN effort, one organization would bedesignated as “lead agency,” for instance UNICEF or WFPduring certain phases of the effort to provide assistance tovictims of conflict in insurgent-held territory in southernSudan.

In exceptional cases, because of the magnitude of theproblem (famine in Ethiopia in the mid-1980s) or because ofspecific political considerations (UN relief operation on theThai-Cambodian border) “special” coordination mechanismswere established. Although more or less effective in address-ing large scale humanitarian needs, these entities were basi-cally ad hoc, built around the specific requirements and char-acteristics of the crisis with minimal effort or perceived needto systematize or institutionalize procedures, either in the

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given crisis or for replication elsewhere. Two good examplesof special coordination entities that “reinvented the wheel”11

are the United Nations Border Relief Operation on the Thai-Cambodian Border (UNBRO) and UNOCA, the coordinationentity for Afghanistan. Two prominent UN personalities whoalso played a role in these examples were Sir Robert Jackson,who headed UNBRO, and Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, formerhead of UNOCA.

The need to systematize UN coordination arrangementsfor the provision of humanitarian assistance started to be feltacutely only in recent years. The failure of the UN system tomount a rapid and coordinated response to the exodus ofrefugees from Iraq into Jordan in early 1991 triggered seriousdebate within the donor community, and ultimately led to theadoption of General Assembly Resolution 46/182 in late 1991and the establishment in 1992 of the new UN Department ofHumanitarian Affairs. At the same time, the realization thatthe international community was confronted increasingly witha new type of complex, conflict-related emergency in whichhumanitarian agencies began to interact for the first time withUN-supported peace operations reinforced the perceived needfor coordination.

The magnitude of the problem of humanitarian coordina-tion is illustrated by a simple comparison. In the 1970s and1980s there were only one or two major emergencies, mainlythose that were one-dimensional (i.e. drought or refugees),which needed to be addressed each year and required theestablishment of a special coordination body for humanitarianassistance. Typically, in the mid-1980s, these would have beenUNBRO and the Office for Emergency Operations in Africa.Ten years later, the number of complex emergencies requiringUN coordination entities exceeds 15 in most years.12 Anothertelling indicator is the number of persons displaced by con-flict. The tally of refugees and internally displaced persons(IDPs) increased from approximately 12 million in 1983 toabout 50 million in 1995.

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The Coordination Package

Forging a working agreement of “coordination,” as ap-plied to emergencies requiring large-scale humanitarian assis-tance, has proved a complicated and time-consuming under-taking. The establishment of DHA and of the Inter-AgencyStanding Committee (IASC)—in which all UN agencies in-volved in the provision of humanitarian assistance are repre-sented, as well as ICRC, the Federation of Red Cross and RedCrescent Societies, and the major NGO coordination bodies—has facilitated a process of policy review and clarification ofroles and responsibilities. Definitions of key concepts such as“simple” and “complex” emergencies have been agreed uponas well as terms of reference for humanitarian coordinators inthe field. Definitional work and policy clarification, however,are ongoing processes that are likely to continue to occupyinteragency consultations for years to come. This notwith-standing, it would seem that the modalities of coordination incomplex emergencies now can be identified more easily.

Generally speaking, coordination situations fall into thefollowing broad categories:

• coordination by command—coordination in which strongleadership is accompanied by some sort of authority,whether carrot or stick;

• coordination by consensus—coordination in which lead-ership is essentially a function of the capacity to orches-trate a coherent response and to mobilize the key actorsaround common objectives and priorities. Consensus inthis instance is normally achieved without any directassertion of authority by the coordinator;

• coordination by default—coordination that, in the ab-sence of a formal coordination entity, involves only themost rudimentary exchange of information and divisionof labor among the actors.

Given the present state of play in the UN system, coordi-nation by command is currently not a realistic option. Carrots

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and sticks are not acceptable elements in a coordination mecha-nism. Donors and UN organizations appear to be hostile to thenotion that a coordination body should have at its disposal anysizable amount of unearmarked funds as well as the authorityto disburse or redistribute such funds to implementing part-ners. As the case of the UNOCA experience in Afghanistanwill show, considerable resources initially were put at thedisposal of the coordination body, which was somewhat of ananomaly in the annals of coordination. The other studies willdemonstrate, however, that a small, even minimal, amount ofresources can go a long way in facilitating the work of coordi-nation in the field. Coordination cannot rely solely on person-alities, goodwill, and intellectual leadership. The availabilityof resources, and in particular of some locally usable funds,provides some much needed oil for the coordination process.

In most recent complex emergencies, DHA has exercisedwhat has been described as coordination by consensus. Itshould be pointed out, however, that the quantum of consen-sus seems to vary over time. In Rwanda, it was high at thebreaking stages of the crisis, when all actors turned to the DHAcoordination office for information and advice, but starteddecreasing shortly thereafter as UN agencies and NGOs estab-lished their presence on a surer footing. A similar situationoccurred in Afghanistan, where the need for active coordina-tion ebbed and flowed with the fluctuating levels of insecurityin the country. In Mozambique, the strong UN political pres-ence somewhat overshadowed DHA’s coordination role in thehumanitarian arena. Again, the consensus tended to shrinkwith time. Coordination by consensus, the studies indicate,may be a process of diminishing returns.

Probably some coordination by default would occur evenif DHA or another designated coordination body did not exist.UN organizations and various NGOs would at least shareinformation and attempt to avoid duplication. However, thecase studies and experience elsewhere clearly point to thesignificant advantages of a common framework for identify-ing priorities and for agreeing on a division of labor, whetherat the operational level in the field—between humanitarianpartners at headquarters—or for mobilizing resources andinteraction with the donor community. From this perspective,

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the Consolidated Appeal Process (CAP), which was formal-ized with the creation of DHA, has resulted in a significant andvisible improvement in the collective organization of the inter-national community’s response to crises.

Perhaps the best way to describe the role of DHA in thethree situations discussed in this study—and elsewhere—is asan advocate and facilitator. Advocacy involves the ability toprovide a global vision of the problem, intellectual and strate-gic leadership, and the capacity to engage in humanitariandiplomacy. At the international, national, and local levels,DHA provides the linkages and the necessary interaction withthe political and, where relevant, the peacekeeping, humanrights, and other components of the UN effort. Improvementsare still required, especially to ensure that the various actorswithin and outside the UN system fully understand the man-dates of the humanitarian agencies. Also, the improvementsensure in all but extreme circumstances (that is, when UNactors operate without the consent of the warring partiesunder Chapter VII of the UN Charter), that assistance isprovided on the basis of a humanitarian consensus of allparties involved. Even under Chapter VII operations, how-ever, DHA must ensure that the victims are the priority andthat humanitarian space is safeguarded.

Being a facilitator implies that DHA, which normally hasno direct operational responsibilities, provides a frameworkand a range of services (outlined below) that allow humanitar-ian relief agencies to operate under the best possible condi-tions. It does so even where it has been given operationalresponsibilities, as for demining and the internally displacedin Afghanistan. Wherever it functions, DHA supplies thesoftware for coordination to occur.

The reluctance to utilize a common software has by nomeans disappeared, either in the wider international humani-tarian community or among UN relief agencies. Individualagencies, whether UN organizations, bilateral donors, or na-tional and international NGOs, often have their own agendas.Host governments and/or local de facto authorities may be infavor of a strong coordination function. In an ideal scenario,governments should be responsible primarily and be providedwith the resources for coordination (while UN organizations

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would maintain only secondary coordination mechanisms).In failed states, this is obviously not possible. Yet even inconflict situations, outside intervenors and coordinators shouldbe aware of the need to preserve and nurture local and nationalcoping mechanisms.

The case studies show that the roles of the coordinationentity vary from situation to situation and evolve over time.These roles also are not known sometimes or deliberatelymisconstrued. Across different situations, some standardiza-tion of key functions and procedures is taking place (in par-ticular through the IASC). More needs to be done, however—perhaps through the development of a “package” or “turn-key” approach to coordination—by clearly identifying thefunctions and services that DHA can and should provide anddeveloping the capacity to make these available.

Based on the case studies experience, the typical coordina-tion “package” of services entails:

(a) a clear definition of the mandate of the coordination entityand of its interactions with the other humanitarian andpolitical actors involved in emergencies. Ideally this shouldbe published in a booklet and widely distributed. It shouldsummarize humanitarian policy and procedures and in-clude the standard terms of reference of the UN humani-tarian relief coordinator, of special representatives of thesecretary-general (SRSGs) and other key UN players (e.g.,the UN force commander), and a narrative description ofhow these functions interact;

(b) a clear definition of the essential services that DHA and itsfield offices can provide. While activities would vary fromsituation to situation, these might comprise:

• overall advocacy (including humanitarian diplomacyat the political and human rights level);

• leadership and strategic planning in cooperation withother humanitarian and political actors;

• the preparation of consolidated appeals for resources;

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• interagency coordination at the headquarters level,liaison with donors and other actors;

• consolidated reporting on the use of funds;

• monitoring and ex-post facto evaluation.

(c) a clear definition of the “coordination package” of servicesto be made available in the field. Typically, the mainfunctions and services to be performed by DHA in-coun-try, so that the wheel need not be reinvented each time,are:

• gathering and dissemination information, preparingsituation analyses;

• a capacity to remain one step ahead in understandingwhat is going on in the country and to ensure that thehumanitarian dimension forms part of a comprehen-sive unitary UN approach to the problems of thecountry, and, when required, to the spill-over of theproblem in neighboring countries;

• liaison with the government and de facto authoritiesat the central and local levels in order to facilitate thework of UN agencies and NGOs;

• focal point for security clearances and security infor-mation in liaison with the UN designated official forsecurity;

• a forum for information-sharing, strategic planning,and, where appropriate, crisis management for UNagencies and NGOs;

• a forum for joint programming on specific sectoraland geographical issues;

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• monitoring and reporting, e.g. preparation of consoli-dated reports on the evolution of the situation everythree or six months;

• a network of field offices in the key areas of thecountry where a local liaison and coordination pres-ence is required;

• the latest communications technology for the UNagencies and NGOs.

(d) a clear understanding of how these services can or will beprovided (i.e. in-house vs. turnkey agreements with spe-cific donors).

(e) a clear definition of the type of staff, including the mix ofUN and non-UN staff, with model job descriptions for thefunctions and tasks to be performed on the ground.

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AFGHANISTAN

Kabul

PAKISTAN

IRANPersian

Gulf

Tehran

Islamabad

Map by Gregory Kazarian.

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PART TWO: CASE STUDIES

AFGHANISTAN: HUMANITARIANISM UNFETTERED

To Hedayatullah Ahmadiwho believed in coordination,

and Tony Bullard,who believed in Afghan resilience.

True humanitarians,may their memory live on.

Humanitarian assistance to the victims of conflict in Af-ghanistan spans the 15-year period that saw the demise of theCold War order and the emergence of a new world disorder.The starting point is the December 1979 Soviet invasion. Thebloody struggle that ensued left more than one million—mostly civilians—dead. It produced one of the largest exo-duses of population since World War II, resulted in massivedevastation of the physical infrastructure and social fabric ofthe country, and, ultimately, the near total breakdown offunctioning state structures. Midway into the period, theGeneva Accords of April 1988 opened the way for the Sovietwithdrawal and for the launching of an ambitious UN hu-manitarian assistance program. The end of the story, sadly, isstill open. In 1992, the Soviet-supported Najibullah regimecrumbled, riven by internal shifts of allegiance and weakenedmilitarily. The common objective of the resistance and of itsexternal backers had been achieved, albeit by default ratherthan by military victory. However, the glue that kept thevarious mujahidin parties and forces more or less together inan untidy alliance immediately dissolved.

Long before the term gained popular usage, Afghanistanhad started exhibiting all the features of a failed state. With thefall of Najibullah, what little remained of the state of Afghani-stan disintegrated. A new phase thus began in April 1992when the jihad against the Soviet invaders and their localpuppets gave way to a brutish struggle for power, the stake ofwhich was the capital, Kabul. Shifting alliances, the prevalenceof ethnicity over politics, and the seemingly inextinguishable

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supply of weaponry have taken a heavy toll. In the last twoyears, more people have died in Kabul than in Sarajevo—some15,000 deaths, mainly civilian, have been recorded. The south-ern half of the city has been reduced to a pile of rubble. Morethan 300,000 of its inhabitants have been forced to flee and seekrefuge in makeshift camps near Jalalabad. Those who remainface the hardship of an intermittent economic blockade, fre-quent artillery and rocket assaults, and the constant dangers ofmines and unexploded ordnance, which make reconstructiona perilous undertaking.

As the fighting for Kabul continues—even in failed statesthe “capital rule” applies—it obscures the startling reality thatlarge parts (perhaps 80 percent) of the country are experienc-ing a period of unprecedented stability. Two thirds of theAfghan refugees in Pakistan, and a slightly smaller proportionof those from Iran, have returned to their homes. Conditionsin many parts of the country are propitious for rehabilitationand recovery and much is going on, whether spontaneouslywith local resources or with outside help. Although a sem-blance of normalcy prevails in these areas, the future shape ofAfghan society and of the balance of power therein is aquestion mark.

War is still very much on the agenda. The recent wave ofbloodletting (1994-1995) is what remains of the state and itssymbol, the capital, but it is also about a new deal in thedistribution of ethnic cards. Indeed, fighting is mostly limitedto the fault lines between ethnic groups. The relative strengthof these has been altered by war and displacement. Most of therefugees in Pakistan were from the majority Pashtoon ethnicgroup, whose kings and leaders had ruled the country for 250years. For them, taking refuge among their cousins on theother side of the Durand Line, which separates Afghanistanfrom Pakistan (see map), and which they considered largelysymbolic in any case, was the logical thing to do. For the mainminority ethnic groups—Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, whose geo-graphical base is in the center and the north of the country—it was more difficult to migrate to Pakistan or Iran, where forethnic and linguistic reasons they also would be likely to feelill at ease. These groups therefore became numerically stron-ger in relative terms and took advantage of this new reality to

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challenge the claim of Pashtoon supremacy in running thestate.

Alliances were not stable. Sudden and opportunistic shiftshave occurred, but a new picture is emerging. On the onehand, there is an increasingly fragmented tribal Pashtoon beltin the Afghan provinces neighboring Pakistan, where clan-

and tribe-based alliances seem to ebb and flow.13 On the otherhand, more homogeneous ethnic groupings inhabit the lesstribalized central and northern provinces. Language also seemsto have become an important defining factor. Kabul itself, alargely Pashtoon speaking city before the war, appears nolonger to be part of the Pashtoon belt: war and populationmovements have turned it into a Persian-speaking Tajik and

Source: Olivier Roy, The Lessons of the Soviet/Afghan War, AdelphiPaper 259, (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies,1991): 7. Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press.

Ethnic Distribution in Afghanistan

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Hazara city, (perhaps explaining why Pashtoon commandershave had little qualms about rocketing it from the surroundinghills).

The net result of this changing landscape is the possibleimplosion of Afghanistan as a unitary state.14 It often has beennoted that until the late 1970s Afghanistan was a tribal societyin which the state was in only nominal control of the country-side.15 However, while state structures were tenuous andcontrol was certainly nominal, provinces were not indepen-dent principalities. Limited and increasing interaction didoccur before the war through patron-client relationships, tax-collection, the gradual extension of a national educationalsystem, and the building of roads, dams, and other infrastruc-ture.

Fifteen years of war have changed dramatically the con-text of these interactions. Behind the manifest war to oust theSoviets was perhaps a more profound struggle between tradi-tion and modernity. This was the struggle between the closed,traditional power structure of the khans and the maliks (tradi-tional tribal leaders and landowners) who felt threatened bythe Westernized and Sovietized elites of Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif, and, to a lesser extent, the other cities. Before the war,the country was opening up through foreign investment,infrastructure development, and technical assistance projects.Traditional power structures and culture slowly started toevolve. The jihad against the Soviets and the Peoples Demo-cratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) regime papered over thedialectics of tradition and modernity. The first acts of resis-tance resulted in the destruction of thousands of schools andadministrative buildings, and the killing of hundreds of teach-ers. The symbols of communism were being attacked, but onealso can argue that this was fundamentally a rural revoltagainst urban threats to the functioning of a tribal society.

Another dimension needs to be added to this complexpicture. Communism, or national-communism as it mightmore appropriately be called, is no longer a variable in Afghanpolitics and society. As a program for change, it has now beenreplaced by its mirror image: the quest for an Islamic funda-mentalist revolution. The programs of the two opposite revo-lutions had much in common: a strong role for the state, a

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centralized and detribalized society, a more or less coherentideology, and even a “vanguard” party. The leaders andcadres of both PDPA and Hekmatyar’s Hezbi Islami, the mostradical and the most ideologically structured of the Islamistparties, come from the same socioeconomic background:detribalized, urban, middle-class, and Pashtoon.16

Against this background, one thing is certain: picking upthe thread of development and nation building where theywere left off before the war is out of the question. The tradi-tional leadership of the rural areas—tribal aristocracy and oldlandowning families—has been displaced. New and compet-ing elites are emerging: local commanders of the resistance,traditional clergy, and educated middle class activists of theIslamist parties. Moreover, language (Pashtoon vs. Persian),religion (Sunni vs. Shia), and, of course, ethnicity are powerfulvehicles of segmentation of society. This bleak picture isaccentuated further by the combination of the Kalashnikovculture that has now ruled Afghanistan for 15 years and thepoppy culture that has thrived on the lawlessness in largeparts of the country. Finally, the destabilizing effect of externalinvolvement in Afghan affairs, not least through the provisionof humanitarian assistance, needs to be understood to fullyappreciate recent history and its implications for the future ofthe country.

The roots of the humanitarian assistance programs inAfghanistan are planted firmly in the Cold War context.Before the Geneva Accords of April 1988, UN agencies wereconfined to providing humanitarian assistance to refugees inPakistan and Iran and development assistance through theKabul government to areas under its control. The strictures ofsuperpower rivalry did not permit otherwise because it wasout of the question for UN development or relief agencies towork officially in mujahidin-controlled areas. At the time, theonly agency to work quietly and officially on both sides wasthe ICRC, which carried out its traditional medical and protec-tion activities. NGOs had a freer hand, however. Encouragedby western governments and by the emotional reactions ofpublic opinion to the Soviet intervention, ad hoc committeeson Afghanistan—with constituencies in countries such asFrance, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, Germany,

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etc.—were established in the early 1980s and started operatingcross-border from Peshawar providing assistance, (particu-larly medical) to mujahidin held areas. The double absence ofUN agencies and of NGOs with impeccable relief or develop-ment credentials was a distinguishing feature of the begin-nings of the cross-border humanitarian effort. Another uniquefeature was how much assistance was provided through, andto, military commanders. Thus humanitarian assistance in theearly and mid-1980s was parallel to and became inextricablylinked with U.S. covert operations and, to a lesser extent, ofother western governments to provide military assistance tothe mujahidin.17 It is in this peculiar context that the UNinitiated activities to provide and coordinate humanitarianassistance to the victims of the conflict.

UNOCA: A New Approach to Coordination

Soon after the Geneva Accords of April 1988, a majorcoordinated assistance program, Operation Salam, waslaunched by the United Nations. Sadruddin Aga Khan wasappointed coordinator by the secretary-general and a specialentity—the United Nations Office for the Coordination ofHumanitarian and Economic Assistance Programmes relatingto Afghanistan (UNOCA)—was established with its head-quarters in Geneva. An appeal was launched for over a billiondollars. At a pledging conference in New York in October1988, several donors made large and sometimes unearmarkedpledges totaling some $900 million. The USSR surprised theinternational community by pledging the equivalent of $600million in kind, while Japan pledged over $100 million. Thehopeful expectation at the time was that, after the withdrawalof the Soviet troops, a military or political settlement wouldsoon be in place, refugees would return, and reconstructioncould begin in earnest.

Although peace remained elusive and the refugees inneighboring countries did not return, UNOCA and the hu-manitarian activities that it coordinated continued to attractsubstantial donor attention during the next two to three years.The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold Wardramatically changed the equation, however. Afghanistan

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edged off the international community’s radar screen, reflect-ing both declining strategic interest of the country and frustra-tion with the continuing civil war. Nevertheless, UNOCA’scoordinating functions were felt to be sufficiently importantand successful for this body to be maintained, despite thedecline in international interest and funding.

UNOCA, or UNOCHA (United Nations Office for theCoordination of Humanitarian Assistance to Afghanistan) asit is now called, is currently the longest standing UN body forthe coordination of humanitarian assistance in a protractedcrisis situation. At the time of its establishment, it was aninstitutional innovation. Previous efforts in similar settingshad been coordinated either by a lead agency drawn from theranks of UN organizations or by a special UN program withdirect operational responsibilities (such as UNBRO, the UNBorder Relief Operation on the Thai-Cambodian border). Sevenyears later, UNOCA/UNOCHA, remains a unique frame-work that has introduced original operational concepts andmodalities, and has facilitated the delivery of large-scale hu-manitarian assistance to a war-torn country. In recent years, asa result of the success of the demining programs that it man-ages, it has provided some of the preconditions that allowedfor the return of over two million refugees from neighboringcountries and has maintained the framework for a wide rangeof humanitarian and rehabilitation activities.

At the outset, the task of the coordinator was to orchestratea massive international response to the needs of the fivemillion refugees and over one million internally displacedpersons expected to return home, and to start the reconstruc-tion of the devastated country. The original mandate of UNOCAwas:

(a) the central coordination of the various components of theaction undertaken within the UN system on behalf of thesecretary-general;

(b) the monitoring of operations in the context of an inte-grated UN program of humanitarian and economic assis-tance while implementation remained the responsibilityof the agency concerned;

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(c) discussion and negotiations with all concerned parties,when necessary, as the spokesman for the UN system;

(d) direction and organization of special tasks not within themandate of any given UN agency;

(e) adoption of a flexible and geographically decentralizedapproach to meeting humanitarian and economic needson the basis of a realistic assessment of implementationand absorption capacity area by area.18

The coordinator also was given a strong role in mobiliza-tion of resources. To ensure the development and implemen-tation of a coherent relief program and the timely mobilizationof resources, the secretary-general established an AfghanistanEmergency Trust Fund to be administered by the coordinator.He also was entrusted with the corresponding duty to monitorimplementation by agencies and to report back to donors onthe use of funds.

UNOCA’s task was by definition short term. UNOCA wasestablished as an office within the UN Secretariat, with thecoordinator reporting directly to the secretary-general. Theinitial appeal was for an 18 months period; subsequently,UNOCA was kept on a short lease of life that was neverextended by the UN for more than one year at a time. Despiteits temporary nature, the establishment of UNOCA, with itshigh-profile coordinator, was perceived as a threat in someparts of the UN system. The fact that it had, at least initially,considerable unearmarked resources at its disposal com-pounded distrust. Many persons, particularly in UNHCR andUNDP, felt that the appointment of a special coordinator wasunnecessary and that the traditional “lead agency” approachwould have been sufficient. That view was particularly strongin UNHCR, both in Geneva and in the field, and was the causeof much friction with the nascent UNOCA. Further frictionresulted from the fact that Sadruddin Aga Khan, himself aformer high commissioner, chose his key collaborators fromwithin UNHCR and pressured UNHCR to release them.

UNOCA immediately ran into another problem that oftenhas plagued ad hoc coordination bodies, as will be seen in

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Rwanda: an ill-defined institutional framework. Difficultiesarose with the UN administration in New York over theprerogatives of the coordinator to appoint and promote staffand to commit unearmarked funds. The staffing situation wasa particularly serious stumbling block. Because of its time-limited duration, UNOCA could only offer short-term con-tracts to often inexperienced outsiders or rely on secondmentsfrom other UN agencies (with the individuals usually selectedby the releasing agency rather than by UNOCA). The resultwas that often inexperienced staff in the field were trying tocoordinate the work of seasoned humanitarian professionalsfrom sister agencies. The lack of training and experience wasa major handicap when setting up and administering newoffices in the field. The turnover rate of UNOCA staff was alsoinvariably high. In its first year of operation, the UNOCA fieldoffice in Kabul had at least four different heads. This did notraise UNOCA’s standing in the eyes of its counterparts.

Moreover, the establishment of a UNOCA field presencewas in itself a tortuous process. The initial assumption of theUN secretariat in New York was that UNOCA should havebeen a purely liaison and coordination entity situated inGeneva so that it could conveniently handle relations withdonors and convene interagency meetings. At first, the admin-istration opposed the idea of a field presence. When in-countrypresence seemed warranted, it then placed a number of bu-reaucratic hurdles in UNOCA’s way.

In any event, there were sound political reasons for ini-tially establishing the headquarters of UNOCA in Geneva. Asin the case of Rwanda, placing the headquarters in the capitalof a country at war would have given the wrong politicalsignal for a humanitarian operation. Islamabad and Teheranwere also out of the question. In reality, however, the seniormanagement of UNOCA traveled only rarely to the field, andwhen they did it was mainly to Pakistan. When Benon Sevan,who was the secretary-general’s political representative inAfghanistan and Pakistan, replaced Sadruddin at the end of1990, the emphasis of coordination gradually moved to thefield, and the office in Geneva assumed a liaison function. Inthe meantime, UNOCA offices headed by chiefs of missionhad been opened in Kabul, Islamabad, Teheran, and later also

30

in Termez, on the border between the then Soviet Union andAfghanistan.19

When the Department of Humanitarian Affairs was cre-ated in 1992, UNOCA began to report to the head of DHA andno longer to the secretary-general. Although UNOCA initiallyremained a separate entity, it has since been progressivelyintegrated into DHA. In 1993, its name was changed toUNOCHA. This change formalized the distinction betweenresponsibility for the coordination of humanitarian assistance(UNOCHA) and for long-term rehabilitation (UNDP). Thatdivision of labor had become particularly nebulous at the time.UNOCA, at least formally, had retained responsibility for thecoordination of economic assistance programs, a task that innormal circumstances falls within the remit of UNDP. Accord-ingly, subsequent UNOCHA appeals were limited to life-sustaining activities.

Institutional Relationships

UNOCA’s institutional visibility evolved over time as theplight of Afghanistan occupied a smaller and smaller place onthe international community’s list of priorities. In 1988, whenAfghanistan was at the top of the list, the coordinator was ahigh-profile, full-time advocate of the Afghan cause. This wasparticularly useful in fund-raising, but it also involved aconsiderable amount of advocacy and humanitarian diplomacy.In his trips to the region and to the capitals of donor govern-ments, Sadruddin often was able to hold meetings at the headof state level. Although not always liked because of his con-tacts with the Kabul regime, he also commanded respect fromthe leaders of the resistance. His mandate precluded him fromplaying a direct political role, yet he was nonetheless animportant political player, especially in the initial monthswhen the concept of UNOCA had to be invented and “sold” tothe political and military actors on the ground. Well aware thathe could call the secretary-general on the phone at any time, theexecutive heads of UN agencies were cautious not to get in hisway if coordination bottlenecks arose.

For the first two and a half years of UNOCA’s existence,the purely political track arising from the Geneva Accords and

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aimed at reaching a political settlement was kept separatefrom the coordination of humanitarian assistance. The secre-tary-general’s personal representative (PRSG) operated prin-cipally from Islamabad, shuttling frequently to Kabul (andNew York), while the coordinator was mostly in Geneva.There was little interaction between the two and no deliberateattempt to link the political and the humanitarian. In fact, itwas deliberate policy to keep them separate: during this initialperiod of UNOCA’s existence, the Cold War rule of watertightcompartments still applied. In many ways, this policy was anadvantage since it allowed UN relief agencies to developprograms on a need-driven, nonpartisan basis, an approachthat has proved difficult in subsequent complex emergenciessuch as Bosnia and Somalia.

In 1991, after Prince Sadruddin’s resignation, UNOCAand the office of the secretary-general in Afghanistan andPakistan were placed under the authority of the same person.This obviously improved the levels of communication be-tween the two offices, but from a substantive point of view, thetwo tracks continued to be separate, with no deliberate effortto incorporate humanitarian assistance as an element in thepush for peace. From a humanitarian perspective, this was anadvantage. Given the complicated and fractious Afghan po-litical context, the only way for UN relief agencies to operatecross-border and cross-line and to avoid accusations of sup-porting one side was to stress at all times the neutral, nonpolitical,technical, and humanitarian nature of their work. Directlylinking the political and humanitarian mandates would havemade movements around the country and the delivery ofassistance far more difficult and more dangerous.

As mentioned above, a parallel separation occurred be-tween the humanitarian and the economic development rolesof the UN. In 1988, the idea had been to link activities address-ing immediate humanitarian needs to longer-term economicdevelopment programs. These are now separate. The firstappeal was divided into two phases and included both imme-diate relief needs and longer-term reconstruction activities.The justification was that UNDP-funded activities were seento be supporting the Kabul government and that it was there-fore necessary to develop a mechanism for economic assistance

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independent of government structures.It should be noted that UNDP was ill-suited to operate in

a civil war context. This was because both institutionally andin terms of the background of its staff its points of contact werewith Afghan ministries in Kabul. In fact, the UNDP staff inKabul initially viewed with great suspicion the activities orga-nized cross-border into mujahidin-controlled areas by theirUNOCA and other UN agency colleagues based in Pakistan.This suspicion reflected the lack of familiarity among theKabul development staff with the work being done by thehumanitarian agencies. Also a factor was institutional resis-tance to the idea that UNOCA should have wider coordinationfunctions beyond the purely humanitarian issues. Also atwork were Kabul and Pakistan biases because UN actorsunderstandably were influenced somewhat by their relation-ships with their local counterparts. The suspicions eased gradu-ally as contacts between both sets of UN colleagues increased.But the fact remains that the institutional relationships be-tween UNDP and the humanitarian coordination structurewere strained by a hazy division of responsibilities and occa-sional backbiting. Moreover, at least in the first years of itsoperation, UNOCA had considerable unearmarked funds atits disposal, while the UNDP development resources wereessentially frozen, which further compounded the situation.

Such difficulties underscore the need for strong regionalcoordination in humanitarian crises that have a spillover effectin neighboring countries. When UN development agencies areunable to operate or their activities are dramatically reduced—as was the case in Afghanistan, and later in Rwanda—it makessense for the humanitarian coordination body to perform suchfunctions. This was the mandate that the international com-munity had given to UNOCA, but it was one that the bureau-cracy (both in UNDP and to some extent UN headquarters)was reluctant to acknowledge.

The security issue was an example of this. Normally theUNDP resident representative is the designated UN officialfor security. When cross-border missions began from Iran andPakistan in late 1988, UNOCA was given initially the respon-sibility for the security clearance of missions to areas outsidegovernment control. In 1990, when cross-line missions were

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initiated from government-held towns into mujahidin areas,responsibility for all missions to any part of Afghanistanreverted to the UNDP representative in Kabul. This wassymptomatic of a wider issue, which was the unwillingness ofthe highest levels of the UN secretariat in New York, and ofcourse in UNDP, to establish clearly UNOCA’s overall coordi-nating mandate across the UN system in Afghanistan. Whilethis system-wide mandate was readily accepted by the UNorganizations working cross-border from Pakistan—whichwas also the seat of UNOCA’s de facto main office—and tosome extent from Iran, support among UN organizations inKabul was lukewarm at best. Authority and leadership of acoordination entity are immediately sapped if agency part-ners put its role in doubt. This reinforces the need for a clearand accepted institutional framework.

An additional factor in the tension was that humanitarianagencies are more comfortable in conflict situations. ICRC inparticular, but also UNHCR, are able to maintain a clearmandate and profile, as well as corporate effectiveness, whetherdealing with governments or insurgents. Experience in Af-ghanistan confirms that UN development agencies are notinstitutionally at ease in working without official governmentcounterparts. Interacting with nonstate actors—at best, defacto civilian authorities, at worst, warlords—is not some-thing that comes naturally to UN officials who are accustomedto dealing with state bureaucracies. Kabul-based normal de-velopment programs and the emergency programs of thesame agency being conducted cross-border from Peshawar orQuetta often had different reporting lines. An “us vs. them”attitude did not facilitate coordination. Sometimes Kabul-based staff were reluctant to meet or speak to their Peshawarcounterparts for fear that this would jeopardize their relation-ship with the government. In the case of the World HealthOrganization (WHO), for example, the representative in Kabulreported to the WHO regional office in Alexandria, while theWHO Peshawar team reported to the emergency office atWHO headquarters in Geneva. When Geneva decided toappoint a medical coordinator to work both in governmentand in mujahidin areas of northern Afghanistan, the WHOKabul representative, who did not favor working in areas

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outside government control, made the life of his junior col-league so difficult that the latter was forced to resign.

Another complicating factor is that the dividing line be-tween humanitarian assistance and development activities isnot written in stone. It shifts with the nature and evolution ofcrises. In 1991-1992, when it seemed that peace was at hand,UNDP became more assertive in formulating and initiatingrehabilitation programs. It appointed a fully-fledged residentcoordinator in Kabul to replace its interim official and waspoised to take over, and talks on an exit strategy for UNOCAwere initiated. However, when the struggle for Kabulreescalated, and the system once again was confronted withmassive needs for relief both in the city and for the exodus ofthe displaced persons fleeing from the fighting, the locus ofcoordination naturally shifted back to UNOCA/UNOCHA.With respect to the IDPs, UNOCHA at the time was evenrequested by UNDP and the agencies to become operational insetting up and managing camps near Jalalabad. The donorsalso manifested their preference. Despite pressures to transferthe reins of coordination to UNDP, they consistently chose tocontinue funding the emergency components of the appealsfor Afghanistan such as food aid, demining, and repatriation,but were much more reluctant to respond to longer-termneeds. When they did respond, it was by channeling fundsthrough NGOs rather than UNDP. Donors indicated by theirdeeds rather than by their statements that a humanitariancoordination function was still required.

The Concepts

Operation Salam

In order to provide it a distinct image and a greatervisibility, Sadruddin Aga Khan decided to give the inter-agency effort for Afghanistan the name “Operation Salam”(Operation Peace) and its own logo and flag with a calligraphicrendition of “Salam” in Islamic green. The UN and the agen-cies were not consulted on this choice, which, in fact, violatedthe UN flag code. Many felt that it was a mistake to shun theUN crest and UN blue. Since the Operation Salam flag also

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bore a resemblance to the flags of some resistance parties, itcreated some confusion in the field. Despite the coordinator’swishes that they be used by all UN agencies, the OperationSalam name, symbol, and flag were rarely used in practiceother than by UNOCA itself. The lack of consultation on theseissues was one of the first causes of friction between UNOCAand its sister agencies. The deviation from the blue rule did notencourage a sense of ownership on their behalf. In any event,the UN has been more cautious since this experience: allsubsequent coordination operations have used the UN flag, asdoes UNOCHA today.20 UNOCA also tried to encourage theuse of terms such as “Salam missions” for the first interagencycross-border assessment missions inside Afghanistan and“Salam Mobile Units” (SMUs) for the first attempts to estab-lish a more durable presence in mujahidin areas. However,these terms also soon fell into disuse.

Humanitarian Consensus

This phrase was used to describe the agreement among allparties and groups in Afghanistan that humanitarian aidshould be allowed to reach those in need regardless of politicsand geography. During his first visit to Kabul shortly aftertaking office, the coordinator obtained the formal agreementof the prime minister that UN international staff would beallowed free movement in all parts of the country, includingfrom neighboring countries, directly to areas outside govern-ment control. This was important because without such anagreement, it would have been impossible to convince themujahidin and their political leaders to allow UN agencies tooperate in their territory based on the UN’s priorities andneeds assessments (rather than submitting to local and politi-cal pressures as the NGOs had often done) and to move staffand commodities cross-line when it was more convenient todo so.

A significant breakthrough was achieved in 1990-1991.After much hesitation, UN teams comprising internationaland Afghan staff and having traveled overland from Pakistan,finally agreed to make contact with their UN colleagues ingovernment-held towns such as Faizabad or Lashkargah.

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While the latter routinely had been crossing the lines, it waspsychologically more difficult for the Peshawar teams, whowere suffering somewhat from “pro-muj” biases, despite thefact that the UN offices in the cities offered amenities such aswarm showers and functioning toilets, luxuries unheard of inflea-ridden mujahidin bases. In any event, this reinforced thefeeling among the staff and their Afghan counterparts thatthere was but “one UN.”

Humanitarian Encirclement

The necessary complement to the “humanitarian consen-sus” was the principle that humanitarian assistance to land-locked Afghanistan should be delivered through all its neigh-boring countries. The concept was important but, for politicaland geographical reasons, little was delivered through Iran.The UN could use the most logical and cost-effective route,which meant that areas of Northern Afghanistan would beserved by rail from Finland or Leningrad via the so-called“Salam Expresses” to Termez on the then Soviet-Afghan bor-der and then by truck to Mazar-e-Sharif or even Kabul. Therewas initially considerable hostility from NGO and mujahidinquarters to the notion of assistance being channeled throughthe Soviet Union. This resistance weakened progressively asthe UN was able to show that the northern routes were moresecure and ten times cheaper than using pack animals over theHindu-Kush mountain range. This route also ensured thatareas of northern and western Afghanistan that had receivedvery little or no assistance during the war years compared tothe provinces bordering Pakistan obtained a more balancedshare of resources. Indirectly, the encirclement approach alsoreinforced the feeling that all UN staff, wherever they werelocated, were all part of “one UN” program.

Zones of Tranquillity

In 1989-1990, when continuous fighting in many parts ofthe country limited the areas to which UN staff could travel,the coordinator promoted the idea of “Zones of Tranquillity”(ZOTs) to describe those areas that appeared to be safe for UN

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staff to work there. The concept was not particularly well-accepted by UN agencies who resented that UNOCA shoulddeclare where they should work and was derided by theNGOs. The publicity involved in declaring an area tranquilwas sometimes sufficient for it to become the target of unnec-essary attention, igniting a flare-up of fighting. The conceptwas dropped quietly and replaced by a more flexible andeffective approach to sectoral and especially provincial jointplanning coordinated by UNOCA.

Adapting to Change

UNOCA/UNOCHA’s coordination role ebbed andflowed. At the outset, given the profile and visibility of thecoordinator and the respect he commanded in and beyond theUN system, UNOCA’s role was much more than coordinationby consensus. The coordinator had significant carrots at hisdisposal: direct access to the highest levels in the UN and thesystem; support from both superpowers and from the majordonors; support from the Kabul authorities; benign accep-tance by the mujahidin leaders; and continuing interest fromthe media. Above all he had resources, thanks to unearmarkedcontributions and from the Soviet contribution in kind, to anextent that has not been repeated since—perhaps purposely.Donors and agencies were wary of coordination entities thatappeared to be too strong. In his first year in office, there weregreat expectations on all sides and the coordinator was the keyactor. His prominence overshadowed even the profile of thepolitical UN. This encouraged a certain arrogance of UNOCAstaff vis-à-vis their agency colleagues and the NGO commu-nity. Relationships soured from time to time and were under-cut also by the apparent aloofness of the coordinator, whoseldom traveled to the field. This was tempered to some extentby UNOCA’s ability to be ahead of the other organizations inthe information and intelligence curve. The coordinator hadmade it a point of surrounding himself with some of the bestexperts on Afghanistan, including those with extensive expe-rience and personal contacts in mujahidin areas, whom hedeployed to lead the first “Salam Missions” to Afghanistan.For several years UNOCA’s capacity to “break new ground”—

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that is, to develop local contacts in areas as yet untouched byUN assistance—was an asset to the system as a whole. Noother agency could fulfill this function.

However, as the presence and programs of UN organiza-tions became more structured and as its resources shrunk,UNOCA started to lose its function of indispensable interlocu-tor. Some contributions to activities of individual UN organi-zations started bypassing the consolidated appeal process.Many European NGOs began receiving direct contributionsfirst from the EEC and later the EU. In some sectors, inparticular health, the EU became the de facto coordinatingbody, particularly for NGO activities conducted fromPeshawar. UNOCA or UNOCHA, as it had then become,accordingly shifted the emphasis of its role to advocate andfacilitator on general issues and to direct coordination ofprograms for which no other agency had a mandate (such asdemining) or was unwilling to assume responsibility (theinternally displaced). It also continued to provide importantservice functions such as a framework for the consolidatedappeal and for reporting, the management of the UN aircraft,a 24-hour radio watch, and a network of staff houses aroundthe country, etc.

Coordination in Action

Prior to opening the UNOCA office in Islamabad in Octo-ber 1988, there was no field coordination of UN activities inAfghanistan beyond what the UNDP office in Kabul was ableto do and that was limited to development activities within theshrinking continues of government-held areas. NGO cross-border activities from Pakistan (there were none from Iran)were self-coordinated, if coordinated at all. Many projectswere implemented and monitored by remote control. Ac-countability was low on the priority list of most NGOs andtheir Western backers. Furthermore, there was no structuredhumanitarian interface for working with the resistance. Un-like other insurgent movements, for example the Eritrean andTigrean liberation fronts that had relatively competent reliefprofessionals and sophisticated structures for the provision ofassistance through which the NGOs and even the ICRC had to

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deal, the resistance parties and fronts based in Peshawar hadno “humanitarian wing.”21 The first attempts of UN agenciesto work cross-border grew out of their refugee programs. Forexample, after the Geneva Accords, UNHCR started to test thewaters inside Afghanistan by mounting data collection mis-sions and very small-scale rehabilitation projects implementedby NGOs in priority areas where it was expected that refugeeswould return.

The establishment of UNOCA provided a boost to thesefledgling activities and raised considerable expectations. Highprofile interagency Salam Missions led by UNOCA weremounted to various parts of Afghanistan. These were fol-lowed by more technical missions where one could undertakedetailed needs assessments and identify potential local imple-menting partners. To a large extent the UN agencies relied onUNOCA’s capacity to identify appropriate contacts and openup new areas to UN assistance. The planning process andprioritization of areas to be covered and activities to be under-taken were by no means rational: as always much in Afghani-stan depended on security, logistics, and access. Nevertheless,UNOCA established a forum, within which to act as an advo-cate and facilitator, to discuss sectoral and geographic priori-ties, often prodding some of its more reluctant UN sisteragencies. In addition to the habitual functions of a coordina-tion body—the convening of regular interagency meetings,briefings for donors and NGOs, networking with local au-thorities, the preparation of consolidated appeals and reports,the collection and dissemination of information on local con-ditions, etc.—UNOCA was able, especially in its early years, toplay a more proactive role in the shaping of the overallhumanitarian response than has occurred in similar situations.This was due primarily to its access to unearmarked resources.

The most distinguishing features of UNOCA’s role aredescribed in the following paragraphs.

The Soviet Pledge

The Soviet Union pledged 400 million rubles in kind toUNOCA. This was a sizable amount, valued somewhat artifi-cially at the time at $600 million. The Soviet Union had never

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before made such a large contribution to a UN operationalprogram. Once the pledge was made, it became clear that theSoviets did not have a very clear idea of how they would fulfillit.22 Commodities were released in Termez for dispatch toMazar-e-Sharif, Kabul, and elsewhere on the basis of negotia-tions between the Soviet government and UNOCA. The listwas impressive: items ranged from heavy bulldozers andwater pumps to powdered eggs and galoshes. Items in highdemand, such as heavy duty trucks, blankets, or stoves, whichcould be absorbed easily by the relief effort, were sometimesdelivered at an incredibly slow pace presumably because theywere also in high demand at home. Other items, often unus-able, arrived unannounced. The most useful commoditieswere those that could be monetized, such as large consign-ments of sugar and smaller amounts of wheat and diesel oil.These were sold by UNOCA to the Afghan government. Thecurrency generated by these transactions gave UNOCA-Kabulthe much needed flexibility to finance local projects. An inter-agency project committee was established to oversee theirdisbursal that was often combined with WFP food for workprojects.

By the time the USSR ceased to exist, goods valued at only150 million rubles out of a total pledge of 400 million had beenreceived. However, this contribution and the innovative use ofit provided a much needed balance to the contributions of theU.S. and Japan in particular, which initially could be used onlycross-border from Pakistan, i.e. in the mujahidin-held areas.There were no such restrictions attached to the Soviet com-modities. Had UNOCA not existed, the imbalance in interna-tional assistance favoring insurgent-held areas would havebeen even more pronounced.

An important drawback of the utilization of the Sovietpledge was the difficulty in maintaining accurate financialrecords. Commodities would arrive in Termez without ac-companying documentation. Sometimes it was difficult todetermine if the consignee was the Afghan government orUNOCA. Controls in the warehouses in Mazar were inad-equate. UNOCA and agency staff distributed commodities asthey saw fit, sometimes without even informing each other.Later it proved difficult to reconcile the records. The Soviet

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pledge also was the source of protracted and animated ex-changes with the UN financial services in New York thatinsisted that the contributions be recorded as income andcentralized controls be exercised over their use. This led tomore administrative hassles that culminated in allegations ofmismanagement that were leaked to the press.

Despite these problems, the responsibility for managingthe Soviet in-kind contributions enabled UNOCA to breaknew ground in northern Afghanistan. This was true both interms of access to new areas and in devising innovativeprojects such as the “food for bazaar” scheme that involvedreleasing wheat from warehouses in government-held townsto private traders who made equivalent amounts available atan agreed subsidized price in mujahidin areas with a fooddeficit. The local funds generated by the scheme would then beused for community rehabilitation projects. For many months,well before WFP and the other UN agencies appeared on thescene, UNOCA had been delivering food aid cross-borderfrom the Soviet Union and cross-line from Mazar to areas witha food deficit, which had seen little or no foreign assistance forover a decade.

A significant feature of the Soviet pledge was the provi-sion that goods from the Soviet Union or from third countriescould be transported through Soviet territory free of cost.UNOCA, with help from WFP, organized “Salam Expresses”that carried wheat and other relief commodities from Europe.As a senior official involved in this effort noted: “It is hard toimagine UNDP or UNHCR in a lead agency capacity shippinglarge quantities of food through the Soviet Union directly tomujahidin areas of northern Afghanistan.” UNOCA’s office inTermez on the border with Afghanistan was the first UN officeever in the USSR to be headed by a non-Soviet citizen. Thesame observer concluded that “It may not be an exaggerationto say that this operation, combined with a unique joint projectto tackle a plague of Moroccan locusts, may have averted aserious famine in parts of the north.”23

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Afghanization

When the UN humanitarian effort got under way at theend of 1988, the only available implementing partners for theUN were government departments in the cities and a diverseassortment of expatriate NGOs based in Peshawar. One char-acteristic of these NGOs was their tendency to employ highlypaid internationals to perform tasks that could have beencarried out by Afghans. Because of the highly politicizedenvironment and fears of undue pressure from mujahidinparties, it was also difficult for Afghans to become seniormanagers in NGOs. UNOCA therefore made it a policy toencourage and facilitate the development of Afghan NGOs. In1992, it started registering Afghan NGOs as a service to UNagencies and also encouraged the establishment of an AfghanNGO coordination body, whose objective was to encouragelocal capacity-building.

Although the record has been checkered, the wisdom ofpromoting the development of local implementing partnersbecame evident when many of the international NGOs startedleaving for other theaters. In addition to the NGOs involved indemining already mentioned, large parts of the rehabilitationactivities of the UN’s Office of Project Services (OPS), FAO,and the food for work projects of WFP are now implementedby Afghan NGOs.

The direct UN encouragement to the creation of indig-enous NGOs that were not fully “dedicated,” i.e., exclusivelyfunded by UN sources, led to the establishment of manysemiautonomous hybrids. Some NGOs were deliberately es-tablished by UNOCA and later UNDP to act as implementingpartners in humanitarian programs. Others were simply en-couraged to come into existence to compete for UN resources.Others still tended to germinate spontaneously. UNOCA’spolicy of “Afghanization” resulted in the rather generousdistribution of resources (cash, vehicles, office equipment) tonascent groups that were to act as implementing partners. Thiswas done partly to encourage local self-reliance and a shifttoward civilian reconstruction rather than military pursuits,and partly to undercut the hold that external NGOs had oncertain areas. The idea was that the provision of such seed

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resources was the ticket to be paid to enter areas where accessfor the UN was difficult and where humanitarian needs werenot being met. This policy often ran into trouble because someof these nascent groups were “briefcase” or “vest pocket”NGOs with little or no implementing capacity. Others werenot true NGOs at all but mere fronts for military/politicalentities. Institutional support to one group in one valley wasnaturally perceived as divisive and contentious by groups inthe neighboring valleys. This situation was by no meansunique to Afghanistan.24 The record of Afghanization is mixed.While UNOCA developed creative ways to extend relief deliv-ery, some of the mechanisms for doing so ultimately mirroredthe politicized international NGOs. This was the exact oppo-site of what had been sought.

Demining

The fact that UN headquarters agreed that it should dealdirectly with the issue of landmines, which fell outside themandate of the other UN agencies, was a godsend for UNOCA’svisibility. More importantly, it led to the establishment of aunique and innovative program that is generally regarded ashighly successful. The demining program transformedUNOCA into a major actor in cross-border operations andadded credibility to it’s overall coordination role. Moreover,thanks to the mine awareness training for refugees in Pakistanand to the visible evidence that minefields were being clearedin priority areas for refugee return, the program had a directand positive impact on repatriation.

Given the impossibility of setting up a national or govern-ment structure to address the mine problem in a fragmentedand war-torn country, UNOCA first set up facilities to trainAfghan deminers in Pakistan. This was done with the help ofmilitary experts provided by several donor countries and withlogistical support of the Pakistani army. The initial conceptwas that large numbers of Afghans needed to be trained so thatthey could clear their land and villages when they repatriated.Several thousand deminers—mostly former mujahidin com-batants—were trained. The courses were taught by militaryexperts provided by France, Turkey, the United States, Italy,

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and other Western nations, and interpreted by the members ofthe Pakistani army. The initial community-based approachwas revised later in favor of a more professional one wheretightly supervised and disciplined teams would clear mines aspart of a structured plan.

Rather than employing these deminers itself, which as acoordination body it was not mandated to do, UNOCA drewup the terms of reference and created from scratch severaldedicated Afghan NGOs to implement the program. Theseorganizations were fully funded by the UN and staffed byAfghans with a small number of expatriate consultants, mainlyfor planning, monitoring, and quality control purposes. Over-all coordination was provided by UNOCA’s demining pro-gram officers. This resulted in the creation of a Mine ClearancePlanning Agency, which decided on the areas and the prioritytasks to be performed and provided essential quality control.Several regionally-based mine clearance agencies followed,each responsible under the supervision of the planning agencyfor deploying mine clearance teams on the ground. Training inPakistan started in February 1989. The first mines were clearedfrom Afghan soil in 1990 and work expanded rapidly. In 1991,as civil war still raged in parts of the country, the UN em-ployed more than one thousand Afghan deminers through thededicated NGOs it had established. By mid-1995, this figurehad risen to over three thousand. The overall cost was in theorder of $20 million annually.

UNOCA’s mine awareness campaigns followed a similarapproach. International NGOs initially were contracted todevelop a strategy, publicity materials, and training modules.The emphasis was on raising the awareness of potential re-turnees in refugee camps. The program was subsequently“Afghanized,” with several regionally-based organizationsproviding training and deploying mine awareness teamsthroughout the country. In government-held areas, this wasdone through the Afghan Red Crescent Society, but using acommon methodology.

The demining program that continued as of late 1995 wasstill managed by UNOCHA from Pakistan. For various rea-sons, the Iranian authorities were reluctant to have mineclearance training activities conducted in their country. In

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1994, an agreement was finally signed with the government ofIran for the establishment of mine awareness programs forrefugees preparing to repatriate from Iran. Without a viableand acceptable government structure, the overall coordina-tion of the program was provided by UNOCA/UNOCHA,with the understanding that this would be transferred to thegovernment when conditions so permitted. This complex, on-going, multimillion dollar program represents an unique ef-fort to address a dramatically real problem and encourage asmuch national self-reliance as local conditions could carry. Byand large it is considered a success story, whose luster isenhanced by the slowness of the UN to mount similar effortsin other conflict and post-conflict settings. It is the componentof the UN Afghan program that the donors have funded mostconsistently and generously.25

Relationships with NGOs

When UNOCA arrived on the scene in Pakistan at the endof 1988, it found a flourishing cottage industry of cross-borderprograms implemented by a bewildering number of NGOsfinanced by a maze of bilateral grants from donor countries.This was an outgrowth of the massive involvement of NGOsin providing relief to refugee camps in Pakistan, often, but notexclusively, under contract with UNHCR, WFP, and other UNbodies.26 Many NGOs started with refugee programs and thenextended their operations to areas inside Afghanistan.27 Mostof these activities were carried out under a veil of secrecy bothfor security reasons and because it was technically illegal tocross the border. Some activities were the work of a shady castof characters. Peshawar, and to a lesser degree Quetta, wererife with spies, adventurers with privileged inside connec-tions, go-betweens claiming to represent mujahidin command-ers, and resistance leaders anxious to convince well-meaningNGOs to come and work in their areas.

Cross-border activities suffered from a number of peculiarand sometimes negative characteristics that, to be fair, wereoften an extension of problems that had plagued refugeeprograms in Pakistan. First, the context was extremely politi-cized. The competing political agendas of the mujahidin parties

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resulted in competing pressures on humanitarian programs.Assistance, even if it was labeled humanitarian, often sup-ported the military effort of the mujahidin and was providedto or through military fronts. Delivery was conditional on theagreement of local Pakistani authorities who controlled bor-der access and their counterparts in the Pakistani army intel-ligence (ISI) who chose the beneficiaries. It was difficult for anNGO to work without the sponsorship of a party or com-mander (and ISI decided which resistance parties should getwhat share of military, and, indirectly, humanitarian assis-tance).

An NGO working in valley A under the control of acommander belonging to party X was in a certain sense ahostage to the commander. Should the NGO decide to shift toneighboring valley B under the control of party Y, whereperhaps the needs were greater, it might face expulsion, hi-jacking of commodities, death threats, or worse. NGOs alsowere often jockeying for position to get into the “good areas”under the “good commanders” who might be more effectiveas implementing partners or have access to a good publicrelations network extending beyond Peshawar to Paris, Lon-don, or Geneva. The result was all but transparent. NGOssponsored (or were sponsored by) particular areas and spe-cific commanders.28 NGOs, even the most reputable ones,were heavily infiltrated by resistance party agents (and by theISI). Most agencies concealed this, although it was understoodby all that there was a kind of unofficial quota system for thehiring of Hezbi-Islami and Jamiat staff in particular.29 Thus,cross-border assistance projects and the offices of the NGOs inPakistan suffered at a minimum from political pressures andoften from what can best be described as “Mafia terror tactics”as well.30 Such pressures led to frequent “tribal” squabblesamong NGOs. As one commander put it, mirroring what theNGOs said about the resistance parties, “It’s so hard for themujahidin to deal with the NGOs, because there are so manydifferent ones. They are so fragmented, and they are alwaysfighting among themselves.”31

Second, accountability was sketchy at best. Donors werenot particularly concerned with cost-effectiveness since one ofthe major objectives of their support was to assuage public

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opinion back home and embarrass the Soviets. Certain coun-tries, the U.S. in particular, prohibited their citizens fromtraveling inside the country, and some donors discouragedcross-border missions. These were difficult to organize andsometimes dangerous, given the risks of land mines, internecinemujahidin conflicts, and Soviet or Afghan army offensives. Asa result, project activities were seldom monitored, and whenthey were, it was often by Afghan staff. Delivery was affectedby conflicts among groups and by widespread corruptionboth in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Food aid, medical supplies,and agricultural equipment often were looted or hijacked forransom. One observer estimated that “less than half of theoverall assistance designated for Afghanistan is believed tohave gotten through to the intended recipients.”32 While thisfigure may be high and impossible to verify, it is true that thecomplicated web of complicity that united resistance partyleaders—the ISI, Pakistani border guards, bona fide mujahidinand nondescript bearded bandits—resulted in siphoning offlarge quantities of commodities, especially food aid, whichwas easier to “monetize.”33 This writer can attest that spotchecks in Kandahar province in the summer of 1989 showedthat several education projects financed by a very major West-ern donor existed only on paper.

Relief agencies often kept quiet about abuses, fearing abacklash from donor governments and retribution from localgroups or individuals. The situation improved somewhatwhen the UN agencies started working or contracting NGOsto work cross-border. UN international staff could visit projectsites, but more importantly, since an increasing number ofNGOs were relying on the UN for funding, it was easier toimpose more transparent criteria for selecting projects, moni-toring, and accountability. UN agencies themselves also werenot immune to political pressures from resistance parties andPakistani authorities to give priority assistance to a particulargroup or area. Refusing to comply often meant that access topriority areas would be denied. Hence, there was reluctantacceptance that certain entry “tickets” had to be paid.

Third, because the overwhelming proportion of refugeesin Pakistan originated from the Pashtoon belt in the southeast-ern and eastern provinces bordering Pakistan, and because

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their leaders (and their Pakistani godfathers) had a vestedinterest in supporting these areas and access was easier, thePashtoon provinces received a disproportionate share of hu-manitarian assistance. It is within these provinces that NGOsdeveloped their privileged relationships. It also was difficultfor NGOs, and later the UN agencies, to extend assistance toareas such as Badakhshan (a mainly Tajik province that bor-ders what is now Tajikistan) or the central provinces ofHazarajat. Despite the fact that these were chronic food deficitareas where needs were always high, they were inaccessibledue to logistical and political obstacles. Even when UN aidagencies adopted a strict “no-leapfrogging” approach (i.e.moving from area A to area C without catering to the real orperceived needs of the commanders in area B), Pashtoonparties and commanders were not keen to see aid directed totheir Hazara (Shia) or Tajik (Persian speaking) counterparts.This led to overserving some Pashtoon areas and to the emer-gence of a culture of dependency. Even routine tasks, such ascleaning irrigation canals or karez (underground canals), whichnormally would be undertaken spontaneously by the wholevillage, were left undone while “waiting for the Comiteh tocome” (i.e. the NGO).34

It is against this background that UN agencies appearedon the scene at the end of the 1980s. Given the implementingcapability of the established NGOs and their knowledge oflocal conditions, UNOCA and also UNHCR, which had initiatedsmall-scale reconstruction projects in areas of potential refu-gee return, had little choice but to encourage UN agencies towork through them. At the same time, UNOCA strived toprofessionalize these implementing partners by insisting onmore transparent criteria and procedures and by providinglimited assistance to NGO coordination mechanisms.

These mechanisms among the NGO community and theUN have become more structured in recent years as a result ofmushrooming complex emergencies and of the parallel growthin the number of actors involved in them. In complex emergen-cies and in situations of internal conflict, there is often noestablished government or its geographical coverage is lim-ited. A variety of NGO coordination arrangements have beentested over the years. In some situations, the chemistry and

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composition of the NGO community allow it to take the leadin coordinating its own activities and in providing a frame-work for interacting with the UN. In other situations, as in thecase of Rwanda, the UN can provide a forum for UN/NGOcoordination.

In the case of the cross-border programs relating to Af-ghanistan, there were 150 or so international and local AfghanNGOs operating out of Pakistan that developed a structuredcoordination framework with two regional bodies. These werethe Agency Coordination Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR) forprograms originating from the northwest frontier provinceand the Southwestern Afghanistan and Baluchistan AgencyCoordination (SWABAC) for NGOs operating out ofBaluchistan. There was also a coordination mechanism forIslamic NGOs, the Islamic Coordination Committee (ICC), butthese agencies were weakened greatly when funds from theArab world largely dried up after the Gulf war. The burgeon-ing Afghan NGOs soon established their own coordinationmechanism, the Afghan NGO Coordination Body, or ANCB.Despite the great variety of these indigenous organizations—which ranged from vest pocket, to private contractor, to a fewreputable groups—the work of ANCB never developed be-yond the basic exchange of information.

ACBAR, however, was much more than a forum forexchanging information. There was a paid secretariat, a num-ber of geographical and sectoral committees such as health,agriculture, and education, which to some extent ensured abetter division of labor, and some coherence in procedures andstandards such as local salaries. Many NGOs did their ownthing, however, and the Islamic NGOs tended to ignore ACBARaltogether. Yet, when UNOCA appeared on the scene, it founda reality that it could not ignore and it did not attempt to takeover responsibility for coordination of NGOs aggressively. Inspecific sectors, it even worked within frameworks estab-lished by the key NGOs. For example, in the agriculturalsector, one NGO, the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan,had far more competence and staff, including former seniorgovernment technicians and managers, than the UN agencieswhose staff were considered to be the new kids on the block.Although much of the funding came from EU and UN sources,

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the Swedish Committee successfully mounted and coordi-nated a multimillion dollar locust and sunn pest control pro-gram in the provinces of northern Afghanistan, a task the UNwas initially unable to do or even to monitor.

It is widely held that the appearance of UNOCA as afunding body resulted in some improvements in the quality ofNGO cross-border activities. UN funding of NGO projectswas conditional on some degree of professionalism and ac-countability. Transparent criteria for selecting projects weredeveloped, and a UN interagency committee for reviewingproject proposals was instituted. This made it easier to refuserequests from “truck-by-night” organizations and to insist onproper monitoring. UNOCA also held regular meetings withthe NGO coordination bodies and gave them some institu-tional support so that they in turn could encourage moreprofessionalism among their members.

Another factor that indirectly fostered a higher degree ofprofessionalism was the appearance on the Afghan scene,after the Soviet withdrawal, of an increasing number of NGOsthat were not particularly committed to taking sides in theAfghan conflict. Oxfam, for one, which had stayed away fromPeshawar, sought contacts in Hazarajat and Badakshan wherevery few NGOs were working. It became the first NGO to putinto practice UNOCA’s notion of humanitarian consensus byaccepting to fly into and work out of government-held townsunder UNOCA’s sponsorship. Oxfam was also the first toestablish an office in Kabul in the spring of 1991 and tomaintain good working relationships with both the govern-ment and the opposition. There was a hue and a cry among thePeshawar NGOs. But the merits of using the UN logistics innorthern Afghanistan for storing commodities or releasingfood, or traveling on a UN plane rather than spending weekson bad roads or crossing the mountain ranges with convoys ofdonkeys, soon became self-evident. For some NGOs, workingcross-line under UNOCA auspices provided an opportunityto distance themselves from the Peshawar biases and the webof conditionalities that Pakistan-based activities entailed.

The relationship between the diverse NGO communityand UNOCA and other UN agencies was never easy. At first,the UN was accused of propping up the Najibullah regime,

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then of having a Big Brother attitude when it became animportant source of project funds. Reciprocal accusations ofamateurism and lack of understanding of the complexities ofAfghan society were rampant. There was fierce competitionfor resources among NGOs. Despite serious efforts to harmo-nize salaries for local staff, NGO salaries for Afghan projectpersonnel operating out of Pakistan were often three to fourtimes higher than the salaries the UN paid local staff recruitedand working inside Afghanistan. Aid agencies and their staffwere always on the lookout for competent staff and better jobs.

After the fall of Najibullah in the spring of 1992, when theenthusiasm of the first few weeks gave way to increasingdespondency because the war had not ended and seemedunlikely to do so, the situation changed somewhat. Fundingstarted to dry up for Western and some Islamic NGOs. UNOCAwas able to raise new funds only for areas such as demining inwhich there was little room for foreign NGOs or for veryspecific programs such as the Kabul emergency program orrunning the camps for the internally displaced in Jalalabad. Bythe end of 1993, the U.S. had decided that Afghanistan was nolonger of strategic interest and abruptly left the scene, creatingformidable problems for its NGO implementing partners. Asan example, USAID had been supporting hundreds of healthclinics throughout rural Afghanistan. Supplies and some train-ing were being provided by Management Services for Health(MSH), an agency that functioned more as a private contractorthan as an NGO. This created a real emergency: supplies driedup, salaries were no longer paid, and activities no longer couldbe sustained. UNOCHA, UNICEF, and WHO were strappedfor cash and in no position to pick up the slack. Disaster wasaverted only because European NGOs appealed successfullyto the European Union for funds.

The point here is that in those areas where donors weresupporting their national NGOs—especially in health, educa-tion, and agriculture—it was very difficult for the UN to raisenew money. UNOCHA had lost its coordination edge in thesesectors. Indeed, the local EU office in Peshawar took on adiscrete role in coordinating the work of NGOs, particularly inthe health sector, which was supported by UNICEF, WHO,and the governmental authorities. In this instance, even an

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effective UN coordination mechanism was unable to copewith a sudden and sharp reduction in resources.

Working for Peace in Afghanistan?

Looking back on the past seven years of humanitarianassistance to Afghanistan provided largely under UN aus-pices, and to the previous six to eight years of bilateral cross-border assistance implemented by NGOs, it is legitimate toask: what has been the impact of this assistance, worth billionsof the international taxpayer’s dollars, on the country and onthe society? Has humanitarian assistance, misguided or not,worked for peace or fueled the war?

At the beginning of this chapter, we noted thatAfghanistan’s future as a unitary state was by no means aforegone conclusion. Most observers would agree that in-creased fragmentation of Afghan society has been a tangibleproduct of the war. Has humanitarian assistance played a rolein this process, and has UNOCA/UNOCHA fueled or moder-ated it? The fact that NGOs often worked under the thumb ofa particular commander undoubtedly has resulted in varyingdegrees of fragmentation at the local level.35 Often NGOs, andsubsequently UN agencies, failed to see, or chose not to see, theway in which relief activities were manipulated for politicalmotives. Working with a commander or local shura (council)inevitably lent legitimacy to the local counterpart. The identi-fication of the best counterpart or of the most representativeauthority in Afghanistan is a particularly difficult process intimes of peace, let alone in times of war, when traditional elitesand emerging warlords are fighting for power at the village ordistrict level. NGOs and UN agencies could fill pages withexamples of how apparent authorities were really only thefirst line of defense for the hidden ones, and of how easy it wasfor the organization eager to disburse its funds to settle for lesswatertight local implementing arrangements.

A graphic example demonstrates the point. To encouragereturn of refugees, the UN had identified repairing and clean-ing irrigation systems as a key priority. Canal or karez cleaningprojects therefore had a good chance of being funded. In onedistrict of Paktika province, the UN, with NGOs as implementing

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partners, had funded for two to three years of food for workprojects for the cleaning of several dozen karezes. This programhad been worked out through innumerable meetings with thelocal shura. Everything seemed in order until one day a groupof angry—and armed—villagers stopped two UN vehiclesand forced the unfortunate occupants to a protracted “tea-break” in which they were interrogated and threatened. Ac-cording to the villagers, only one tribe’s karezes had receivedattention, since the visiting aid workers had bothered to dealonly with the shura of that tribe. Indeed, when the karezes wereplotted on a map with the help of a GPS system, this turned outto be the case. Assistance had fueled discord in the commu-nity, but the coordination body and the implementing agen-cies were often slow in understanding this.

The politicization of humanitarian assistance has alwaysbeen a strong factor in Afghanistan. However, its fungibilityhas not been sufficiently stressed. The provision of humanitar-ian assistance to military actors, in Afghanistan as in other civilwar situations, frees resources that would otherwise need tobe utilized to support the civilian population.36 Food or medi-cal assistance provided by the international community freescommanders to concentrate on “other” matters. Food aid, inparticular, lends itself to manipulation since it involves acommodity that can be easily monetized or consumed bycombatants. The liberal distribution of U.S. wheat to resistancecommanders encouraged a disrespect for a commodity that isnormally valued highly in Afghanistan. Strong pressures of-ten would be put on UNOCA and WFP to provide food aid inresponse to needs that were debatable or directly linked to thewar effort. On several occasions, the UN was asked by USAIDor the ISI to preposition food in areas surrounding govern-ment-held cities such as Kandahar or Khost to lure the civilianpopulation out of these cities so that the offensives againstthem could be stepped up. The UN invariably declined or atleast resisted, but there was often a fine line to tread since theimplicit message was “if you don’t help us in Khost, we won’tlet you into Hazarajat,” where the needs were greater.37 Ofcourse, the government was equally manipulative. Despitethe fact that the UN had made it clear that assistance would beprovided only on the basis of its own needs assessments, there

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was often pressure to address the unassessed needs of certaingroups in government-held towns if free passage was to beallowed for deliveries to mujahidin areas.

In any civil war, it is difficult to insulate humanitarianactivities from partisan politics and the war effort. This wasespecially difficult in Afghanistan since a large part of the“humanitarian” community—most of the NGOs and theirbilateral supporters—had in fact taken sides. Although thecivilian population in the government-held cities sufferedfrom the effects of the war, none of the NGOs based inPeshawar felt a humanitarian imperative to provide aid tothese innocent victims.38 Only the ICRC and, later, the UNagencies were consistently present on both sides. Indeed,spurring the UN agencies to be operationally impartial was akey function and success of UNOCA/UNOCHA. Many expa-triate old hands employed by NGOs had “gone muj” inappearance, dress, demeanor, and even values. UN staff werenot immune from a certain penchant to indulge in mujahidinwar stories or occasional sessions of target practice.

More fundamentally, however, there was no consciousand substantial effort by the humanitarian organizations topromote a culture of peace. Because of the politicized environ-ment, the humanitarians usually operated in a political spaceinstead of actively promoting humanitarian space and respectfor humanitarian values. While this course of action may havebeen understandable but not excusable during the years of theSoviet invasion, the absence of a peace discourse remained adistinguishing feature of the Afghan scene well after theSoviet departure. NGOs and to some extent the UN did notmake reconciliation and confidence-building a manifest objec-tive of their humanitarian strategies. The emphasis was onassistance to meet the basic needs of the victims or at bestrecovery and reconstruction. Priority went to physical infra-structure and the rehabilitation of the economic base, whichare obvious prerequisites for a return to normalcy. But assis-tance stopped there.

In fact, there seems to be a kind of lingering taboo amonghumanitarians about raising the issue of peace. As far as thiswriter is aware, there has been only one attempt in the aidcommunity to address the issue directly. In April 1994, at theinitiative of the Norwegian Refugee Council and one of its

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Afghan staff, an NGO seminar on peace and reconciliationwas convened. The subject was felt to be so controversial thatmany NGOs declined to attend. The UN itself was representedat a low level.39 The initiative, in the Afghan context, wasundoubtedly positive and courageous, but has had little prac-tical results. Another telling example of the permanence of theculture of war can be found in the primary school textbookscurrently in use in Afghanistan.40 The page reproduced belowis representative of many others conveying the same messageand thus needs no comment other than to point out that thesetextbooks were provided by the USAID-financed project of theUniversity of Nebraska at Omaha and paid for by U.S. taxpayers.

Humanitarian activities have played into the fragmenta-tion of Afghanistan society rather than promoting reconcilia-tion, representing a failure of the UN system and of theinternational community as a whole. The Cold War had shapedthe context of cross-border assistance, but this does not explainwhy, half a decade after its end, humanitarian actors have beenunable or unwilling to tackle the consequences of this originalsin. Aid organizations were equally not self-critical abouthuman rights issues, including women’s rights.41 NGOs tendedto apply double standards, chastising the Kabul governmentfor its “massive violations of human rights” and sparingnothing to document them, but they remained largely silent

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about the atrocities committed by the mujahidin—whetheragainst government soldiers, fighters of rival groups, or inno-cent civilians. The problem was compounded by the officialUN human rights machinery, which, with biannual trips of thespecial rapporteur to the region, did not seek any real interac-tion with the humanitarian agencies (or with the political UN).

Often NGOs—and occasionally even the UN—went outof their way to be accommodating on women’s rights issues,accepting, without even testing it, the conventional wisdomthat it was not possible to go against the grain of tradition in anIslamic society. In areas where the little education availablewas limited to boys, relief agencies felt that they could not domuch to promote girls’ education. Bans on expatriate womentraveling to certain areas often were accepted at face value. Inmost cases, when the UN made it clear that it could not acceptsuch discriminatory behavior and that women colleagueswere just as essential in delivering humanitarian assistance astheir male counterparts, the bans were lifted. Indeed, expatri-ate women often were considered “honorary men!” UN agen-cies and NGOs were similarly spineless in confronting theissue of poppy cultivation: the tacit ground rule was that itshould not be explicitly raised. Although all UN-funded projectagreements with NGOs contained a “poppy clause”—i.e.assistance would be withdrawn should there be evidence ofpoppy cultivation—it was seldom invoked.42

With the benefit of hindsight, the spinelessness of UNorganizations and the lack of leadership in human rightsissues by the UN coordinating body appears as a strikingexample of Cold War tunnel vision. Fortunately, UN coordi-nation entities recently have become more aggressive on hu-man rights issues in other theaters43 as well as in Afghanistan.44

Other less visible changes are taking place. A three weekvisit to Afghanistan and Pakistan in the spring of 1995 by thiswriter confirmed how much freer the humanitarian actors feltto confront some of the issues mentioned in the precedingparagraphs. NGOs in particular were more open about themanipulation of humanitarian assistance. Four major interna-tional NGOs, without prompting, commented on how difficultit had been to sanitize their organizations from infiltration ofresistance party activists and more generally from the racketsand threats of various external godfathers.45 Enthusiasm for

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the “muj cause” has definitively been weakened by the con-tinuing infighting inside the country. Some of the more mili-tant “pro-muj” NGOs had withered away for lack of funding.Generally speaking, the NGOs seemed to be a more profes-sional community, with strengths and weaknesses similar tothose that one would encounter in other emergency settings.UN agencies also appeared less defensive when discussing theimpact of humanitarian assistance. Even government authori-ties and local leaders were much more candid in discussing thedangers and complexities of the situation.

This new reflective spirit was summed up by a seniorgovernment official who began by lamenting that both thepolitical and the humanitarian UN were keeping the Kabulauthorities at arms’ length for fear of legitimizing them, andresisting calls to strengthen the presence of UN humanitarianorganizations in the city despite the relative calm that pre-vailed. He concluded that such an approach had seriousramifications. “We Afghans need to be watched. We cannot beleft to settle our problems alone” (alluding to allegations ofhuman rights violations by government forces) “The UN hasto be present here, even if it does not work directly with thegovernment, it can work at the local level and promote peaceat the local level.”46

Positive examples of indirect peace building also deserveto be highlighted. Demining is an obvious success story. It hasfacilitated a return to normal conditions in many parts of thecountry and signaled that the time had come to return topeacetime occupations. Thanks to UNOCA’s mine clearanceand mine awareness programs, travel in many parts of thecountry has become easier and safer; large tracts of agricul-tural land have become safe to cultivate; innumerable irriga-tion systems are now in operation; and hundreds of thousandsof houses in villages and towns have been declared free frommines and safe to reconstruct. Moreover, the physical evi-dence that demining was taking place in potential refugeereturn areas and the mine-awareness campaigns in the refugeecamps were potent elements in the decision of refugee familiesto return home. The constant collaboration between UNOCA/UNOCHA and UNHCR on this matter contributed to thereturn of close to three million refugees to their country.Finally, because the program is run by Afghans, it can be

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handed over easily to a national organization when the timecomes. Moreover, all involved can be justifiably proud of theprogram, which is an additional important psychological in-gredient in an eventually emerging culture of peace. In theminds of the ex-mujahidin who constitute the bulk of the3,000-strong demining force and whose livelihood dependson finding and destroying mines, and in the minds of much ofthe civilian population around the country, jihad (holy war)against the Soviets has been transformed into jihad againstmines.

Other indirect examples of “working for peace” also shouldbe mentioned. The provision of improved seed and fertilizeras well as other agricultural needs, particularly pest control, hadan obviously beneficial impact on life in the villages and eased thedependence on and tutelage of military commanders. Thepatient work undertaken by UN/OPS to identify and oftencreate shuras at the district level, and to act as overseers andimplementing partners for rural infrastructure rehabilitationprojects, also had a similar effect, especially in areas where therewas a total breakdown of civilian administrative structures.47

Another example is the immunization campaigns that werecoordinated by UNICEF and implemented by NGOs and localpartners. These campaigns were predicated on a humanitarianconsensus that the vaccinators could get through to targetareas, regardless of politics, and that, if needed, a cease-firewould take effect so that they could carry out their work.

Peace, however, has remained elusive. One may askwhether the cause of peace could have been advanced by amore direct synergy between the political and the humanitar-ian UN. This is a difficult question and not only because theUN efforts to bring peace to the country have not been success-ful. In the wake of the Geneva Accords of April 1988, whichhad been the result of the work of the secretary-general and hisspecial envoy, Diego Cordovez, a separate coordinator forhumanitarian and economic assistance to Afghanistan wasappointed. This reflected the prevalent understanding in theCold War climate that the political and humanitarian tasks ofthe UN basically should be kept separate. These were broughtcloser together in a situation of proximity rather than integra-tion when, after Prince Sadruddin’s resignation in December1990, the secretary-general put Benon Sevan in charge of both

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the political and the humanitarian tracks. The offices remainedseparate and there was little cross-fertilization between thetwo components beyond basic exchange of information.

For the humanitarians, being associated with the ratherdistant UN peace process was more of a nuisance than an asset.It was often a painstaking process to convince mujahidincommanders, little versed in the subtleties of internationaldiplomacy, that UN humanitarian agencies had to operate ina neutral and impartial manner and that their largesse wouldnot be distributed according to political needs (for instance, asU.S. food was distributed). UN humanitarian staff were underinstructions (to be fair, not always respected) not to talkpolitics with their mujahidin or government counterparts,despite frequent requests to do so. “Integration” of aid activi-ties into the UN’s political negotiations was not really anoption. Being too close to the political negotiations would havehindered the movements of humanitarian staff and assistancecross-border and cross-line. Movement was possible onlybecause all sides usually recognized that UN aid was beingprovided on the basis of a “humanitarian consensus.”48

This is perhaps the fundamental lesson of UNOCA/UNOCHA. Much can be achieved in addressing humanitarianneeds in conflicts if the humanitarian space in which theassistance is provided is clearly defined and purposely safe-guarded. Entering into a political discourse with belligerentsis a risky exercise for humanitarians. Negotiations on access tovictims or the assessment of needs in conflict situations arebest conducted by humanitarians based on humanitarian con-sensus rather than by UN political staff that may be perceivedas having ulterior motives, i.e. the manipulation of humanitar-ian assistance to achieve political goals. Indeed, UNOCA/UNOCHA’s ability to safeguard such humanitarian spacethroughout its seven years of existence may well be its singlemost positive achievement. Of course, the humanitarian agen-cies fully understood that the context was eminently politicaland that arm-twisting was to be expected, but it was importantfor the humanitarian UN to be seen as capable of resisting suchpressures. Tying the delivery of assistance to support to thevarious incarnations of the UN peace plans would have al-tered fundamentally the delicate balance on which the provi-sion of humanitarian assistance was predicated.

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United Nations Map No. 3706, November 1992.

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MOZAMBIQUE: HUMANITARIANISM UPSTAGED

Until the lions have their historians,History will always be written by the hunters.

African proverb

Humanitarian assistance has been a fact of life inMozambique since the early 1980s. During the early post-independence years, the FRELIMO government launched anambitious program of modernization in pursuit of a socialistmodel of development. Despite some initial successes on thesocial and economic fronts, the government soon found itselfhard beset by the Mozambique National Resistance (RENAMO)insurgency49 and devastated by unusually severe spells ofdrought.

The destabilization strategy of RENAMO and its externalsupporters took a massive toll. An estimated one millionpeople died from the combined effects of war, famine, anddisplacement. Ninety-five percent of the victims were civil-ians. The infrastructure, including facilities such as schoolsand clinics, was deliberately targeted and shattered. Morethan 70 percent of all schools and 50 percent of all clinics weredestroyed, forcing teachers and medical personnel to flee fromthe rural areas,50 where much was reduced to extremely primi-tive conditions. Isolated settlements eked out a living withouttrade or modern manufactured goods, sometimes even with-out clothing, education, or health services, and suffered fromconstant insecurity.51 The war involved widespread violenceagainst the civilian population. Indiscriminate killings andmutilation of civilians were central to RENAMO’s strategy ofterrorizing the local population in order to force it to leavecontested areas. Systemic rape of civilian women by RENAMOcombatants have been documented.52 Government forces werealso responsible for indiscriminate violence, albeit on a lesssystematic scale.53

The combined effect of war and drought (1982-1983) led tothe near collapse of the agricultural sector. Food became a

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scarce or nonexistent commodity in large parts of the country,with the majority of the population bordering on famine. Thedestruction of rural society, the forced displacement of popu-lation, the requisitioning of food and labor by the warringparties, and the blocking and looting of relief supplies createda “wholly artificial food crisis” that persisted for the best partof a decade. Natural causes, such as drought and floods,played only a “secondary role in the calamity.”54 As a result,close to one third of Mozambique’s 16 million inhabitantswere uprooted, 4.2 million were displaced internally, and 1.5million became refugees in neighboring countries.Mozambique had become one of the poorest countries in theworld. In addition to the terrible cost that this represented forits population and economy, the crisis spilled over into thefront-line states. The spillover was caused by the direct burdenof the influx of refugees and their impact on the economy andthe environment, and by the disruptions and lost opportuni-ties for development caused by the war in Mozambique.

Faced with insurgency and economic collapse on theinternal front, dwindling foreign aid from the Soviet bloc, andoutright hostility from its southern neighbor, the FRELIMOgovernment had little choice but to abandon progressively itssocialist objectives. As of 1982, it started seeking the politicaland economic support of the West. Both were granted oncondition that the government move toward a market economy.Mozambique joined the World Bank and the IMF in 1984; theprocess culminated in 1987 in a debt rescheduling agreementand the adoption of a structural adjustment program.

By 1991, when it was again suffering from a severe drought,Mozambique had become one of the most aid-dependentcountries in the world.55 Foreign aid accounted for an astro-nomical 78 percent of the GDP, or $57 per capita, in a countrywhere the per capita GDP was only $80. In 1991 its debt burdenwas $4.7 billion, more than four times the country’s GDP.56

Some 60 percent of the population were living in absolutepoverty and needed food aid,57 while Mozambique producedless than 10 percent of its food requirements.58

Throughout the 1980s, various attempts were made tostop the war and end the suffering of the Mozambican people.South Africa and Mozambique signed in 1984 an agreement

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terminating Pretoria’s support to RENAMO in exchange forMaputo stopping all assistance to the ANC. While Mozambiquecomplied, it seems that South Africa did not: RENAMO steppedup its campaign threatening large tracts of Tete and Zambesiaprovinces in 1985 and 1986. By 1987, as the war became moredestructive, it was increasingly clear that neither side was in aposition to win.

In the late 1980s, the first tentative steps toward a negoti-ated settlement were taken. With the help of neutral media-tors, a series of preliminary contacts resulted in direct talks inJuly 1990 between the government and RENAMO in Rome.The Community of St. Egidio, an Italian Catholic NGO, of-fered the venue, the nonthreatening atmosphere, and themediation that allowed the talks to come to fruition. A partialcease-fire was announced in December 1990, and in October1991, the first protocol of the General Peace Agreement (GPA)was signed. Additional protocols provided the basis for atransition to a multiparty state, demobilization, and UN su-pervised elections. The final round of negotiations, with UNparticipation, led to the ratification on October 4, 1992 of theGPA by both parties.59 On October 15, 1992, Aldo Ajello, thenewly appointed SRSG arrived in Maputo, the first step towardthe establishment of the United Nations Operation in Mozambique(ONUMOZ) and the deployment of UN peacekeepers.

Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance: The 1980s

The international aid community had been involved in theprovision of humanitarian assistance to Mozambique sincethe early 1980s. As the war widened, external relief actorsdominated both the policy and the mechanisms for reliefdistribution. The number and influence of NGOs, which actedprimarily as subcontractors for major donors, increased sub-stantially. In 1970, there were seven NGOs operating in thecountry; by 1985, the number had grown to 70, and to 180 in1990. It has continued to increase since.60

As the involvement of external humanitarian actors in-creased, the government’s ability to control the content andform of their activities declined. Government structures hadbeen established in the early 1980s to combat floods and

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drought: the Department for the Coordination of NaturalCalamities (DPCCN), which was part of the National PlanningCommission, was responsible for preparedness, planning,and coordination of relief. However, as external funding in-creased, the struggle to control and influence its use intensi-fied. This resulted in an aid war in which agencies fought togain a dominant position and to use their funding as leverageon government policy.

The mushrooming relief program prompted reorganiza-tion on several fronts. In April 1987, the ministry of coopera-tion outlined a new structure for handling the crisis. Designedto avoid a division between relief and development activities,the National Executive Commission for the Emergency (CENE)included the ministries of agriculture, health, transport, trade,and defense and was chaired by the minister of cooperation.Day-to-day coordination was organized through the emer-gency operations committee, a forum that met weekly. Itincluded donors, UN agencies, and NGOs, and was both adecisionmaking and troubleshooting mechanism.

A coordination forum was established within the UnitedNations system in 1984 under the responsibility of the UNresident coordinator. In February 1987, a more formal struc-ture was set up. The UN resident coordinator was appointedUN Special Coordinator of Emergency Relief Operations andthe office of UNSCERO was created. This new mechanism wasstaffed by UNDP personnel and was perceived as a UNDPentity. Like its predecessor body, it suffered from intenseinteragency rivalries that did not allow for consolidated plan-ning, as each agency insisted on a lead role in its particularsphere of activity. The relief programs of both WFP andUNICEF, for example, had grown considerably and neitheragency was anxious to acknowledge that UNDP, best knownfor its development credentials, could assume a coordinationfunction. UNSCERO did, however, provide a forum for thecoordination of relief and negotiation of access to RENAMO-held areas as the peace negotiations unfolded. In the monthspreceding the establishment of ONUMOZ (from July to De-cember 1992), UNSCERO convened weekly meetings with thegovernment, RENAMO, ICRC, and WFP representatives toreview relief distribution schedules and related issues.

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A review of the literature and interviews in Mozambiquein December 1994 leave the lingering feeling that, during theyears that preceded the peace accords, the extensive anddeliberate use of external NGOs by donors as an alternative togovernment structures had greatly weakened such structuresand, more generally, the indigenous capacity to cope withemergencies. Furthermore, the creation of parallel structures,many of which were temporary and ad hoc mechanisms,added to a level of dependency that would later complicate thedifficult process of regenerating civil society and providing asocial and economic environment conducive to development.

Donor concerns about corruption and disagreements withFRELIMO policy and political orientation were obviously partof the equation. These concerns were reflected in the donorcommunity’s concerted determination to be in charge and toensure that the government adopted laissez-faire economicpolicies. The importance of ensuring that relief effectivelymeets the needs of intended beneficiaries is obviously a para-mount consideration for donors. Effectiveness, however, isalso linked to the long-term impact of relief activities. In theMozambican context, political considerations shaped the pro-cess because the Cold War was not yet over. The systematicweakening of indigenous structures appears to have been oneof the main features that accompanied peace consolidation.The establishment of UNSCERO, which the government didnot favor since it felt that the existing government structure,CENE, should have been strengthened, was a relatively minorelement in this process compared to the establishment ofONUMOZ. The various committees created by the GPA gavethe donor community an unprecedented and active role in themanagement of the peace process and in policymaking. The“Group of 5” (France, Italy, the United Kingdom, the UnitedStates, Portugal, and the OAU—Germany joined the grouplater) functioned, in the SRSG’s own words as a “StandingCommittee,”61 which, through its weekly meetings, “managedthe peace process.” The role and functioning of the humanitar-ian component of ONUMOZ, i.e. the United Nations Office forHumanitarian Assistance Coordination (UNOHAC), shouldbe seen in this context.

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UNOHAC’s Establishment: A Tortuous Process

The talks in Rome emphasized political issues; they didnot include a humanitarian window. It was July 1992 beforeboth parties agreed to a “Declaration of Principles” on provid-ing humanitarian assistance. The principles, which were de-veloped with the assistance of UNHCR, WFP, and ICRC,stipulated that the provision of humanitarian assistance wouldbe impartial, without discrimination, and that both partieswould respect the safe passage of humanitarian goods andpersonnel. RENAMO and the government also agreed not toseek a military advantage from humanitarian operations.

Elements of the peace agreement that were of direct andimmediate concern to the humanitarian community includedthe repatriation and return of refugees and of the internallydisplaced, the launching of a demining program, and thereintegration of demobilized soldiers. The return of thoseuprooted by war was closely linked to the issue of mines,which were a constant hazard to relief convoys and thereforeto the return of displaced persons, and which delayed theopening up of RENAMO-held areas. The reintegration of war-affected groups also was linked to demining and how muchbasic services and infrastructure could be regenerated particu-larly in areas affected by returnees. In mid-December 1992, aspecial donors’ conference was held in Rome, at which some$300 million was pledged for humanitarian activities.

From the outset it was clear that progress on the differentelements of the peace agreement could not be achieved inisolation from one another. The need to maintain forwardmovement on all fronts was essential to the overall success ofthe mission. In October 1992, DHA dispatched an assessmentteam to Mozambique to determine modalities and require-ments for humanitarian action and their linkages to the largerpeace package. Other options besides the integration ofUNOHAC into ONUMOZ were considered at the time, i.e. theestablishment of a separate body for the coordination of hu-manitarian assistance, as had been done in Afghanistan orAngola. The decision to integrate was made ultimately in NewYork at the political level. The fact that UNSCERO was per-ceived as part of UNDP and the need for the recently constituted

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DHA to establish its image may have been factors in thedecisionmaking process.

Given the existence of UNSCERO, the need to reorient thebulk of humanitarian assistance to rehabilitation and longer-term development, and the relatively short life-span ofONUMOZ (initially one year at the signing of the peaceaccords), there are many people who felt that it would havebeen far more effective to strengthen UNSCERO and enlargeits mandate to incorporate the new elements of the peaceprocess. A competing school of thought held that there wasmuch to be gained from being an integral part of ONUMOZ,that it was difficult for those who had been in-country a longtime (and working directly with the government) to suddenlybegin working with RENAMO, and that UNSCERO was un-able to overcome a long history of interagency rivalry.

With the benefit of hindsight, it appears that the advan-tages of integration were far smaller than the disadvantages,as we shall see below. Actually, integration existed only onpaper: UNOHAC was treated as a distant cousin by ONUMOZ.Resources and services seemed to be poorly shared (for ex-ample, UNOHAC had trouble in getting access to ONUMOZflights and office space outside Maputo, and was never pro-vided with walkie-talkies or radio equipment). More funda-mentally, ONUMOZ was institutionally and culturally a po-litical operation that had little time for and little understand-ing of humanitarian issues and of the contribution of these tothe peace process.

UNOHAC Objectives, Structure, and Staffing

UNOHAC was established in December 1992 and wasimmediately operational in the sense that it had a budget, corestaff, and facilities, and was able to commence planning itsoverall program. UNOHAC described its task as “to overseethe international humanitarian effort called for under theGeneral Peace Agreement...” and saw itself as “distinct fromother UN agencies operating in Mozambique.”62 Its functionswere:

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• coordinate, with the government and RENAMO, emer-gency activities and humanitarian programs of UN agen-cies, bilateral donors, and NGOs;

• ensure speedy delivery of emergency commodities andeliminate duplication of effort;

• gather, evaluate, and disseminate information on hu-manitarian programs and provide regular updates ofunmet and additional needs;

• maintain a comprehensive database on donor contribu-tions, commitments, and expenditures and track theprogress of programs;

• advise on the use of humanitarian aid with special empha-sis on the reintegration of returning refugees, the inter-nally displaced, demobilized soldiers, and vulnerablegroups; and

• manage trust funds established by the UN for demobiliza-tion, demining, and for RENAMO.

With a staff of 24 international professionals in Maputo, 10field officers and a number of UNV field assistants, togetherwith 15 support staff, UNOHAC’s organizational structurewas not lightweight. It included an Assessment and PlanningUnit, an Information Management Unit, a Field Unit thatcomprised the staff posted in the provincial capitals, separateunits for Mine Clearance and Reintegration of DemobilizedSoldiers, and the Director’s Office, which dealt also with themanagement of trust funds. In addition, several organiza-tions, including UNHCR, WFP, and WHO seconded staffmembers to the UNOHAC office.

While some functions performed by UNOHAC appearedto be well accepted and understood, such as the preparation ofstatistical information and regular situation reports on hu-manitarian activities, the coordinating and facilitating role ofthe majority of its field offices and other aspects were morecontentious. As one observer put it, “The UN humanitarian

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assistance program was dogged by controversy.”63 The veryneed for UNOHAC was challenged by many in the UN, donor,and NGO communities. Some people perceived the programas arrogant, overstaffed, bureaucratic, and ineffective. It alsowas seen as incapable of developing good working relationswith the other players with little information exchange, fewmeetings, and decisions taken without consultation. The de-gree of animosity was unusual.

UNOHAC appeared to be over-staffed, compared to simi-lar DHA operations elsewhere. This was perhaps due to theunusual fact that some 16 professionals posts were fundedfrom the ONUMOZ budget (that is from assessed contribu-tions, while normally humanitarian coordination offices arefinanced from extra-budgetary resources on which donorshave a tighter control), a reality that will be difficult to repeatelsewhere. The secondment of agency staff to UNOHAC wasalso the cause of considerable problems since there was a basicmisunderstanding as to their role. In UNOHAC’s view, thesestaff were to become integral parts of the office structure ratherthan simply be liaison officers. The agencies resented this lossof control over their personnel. The individuals themselveswere caught in the middle and placed in a very uncomfortableposition. Decisionmakers need to take a more critical look atthe criteria for the staffing and the functions to be performedby UNOHAC-type offices. In addition, they need to look at therecurring problem of the quality of staff, given the difficultiesfor temporary offices to attract the best available talent, whichis often working for established UN agencies.

UNOHAC and Coordination

One of the most striking characteristics of the interna-tional community in Mozambique at the end of the ONUMOZera was how much it was divided against itself. The one areaof UN activity that was not persistently criticized by non-UNactors was the SRSG and his role in keeping the politicalprocess on track. The acrimonious nature of the aid commu-nity contrasted dramatically to the good will and opennessof Mozambicans who had suffered a brutal war and incred-ible hardship. Their enthusiasm for peace and capacity for

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reconciliation was a major factor in the many achievements forwhich the international community takes credit.

It was difficult after the event to determine why relation-ships within the aid community, and particularly among UNsystem entities, were so divisive. Also, what were the respec-tive roles of personalities and of institutional issues in this?Clearly this situation had major implications for the way inwhich programs were organized and coordinated. This, inturn, had major implications for Mozambican authorities andthe country’s indigenous capacity. Not only did national plan-ning authorities have to contend with an unruly aid commu-nity that had the leverage to define how resources would beutilized, they also often found themselves assuming responsi-bility for events that the government had a minimum part inshaping.

UNOHAC set about defining its task and organizing itsprogram in a manner that indicated its awareness of theimportance of capacity-building and moving out of an emer-gency-driven program as quickly as possible. The first monthsof UNOHAC were devoted to ascertaining the status of exist-ing programs, additional requirements, the amount of fund-ing available, and the intended use of pledged funds. As notedby UNOHAC’s first director, consensus was needed “on whereto draw the line between humanitarian assistance and reha-bilitation along the development continuum.”64 Relief wasdefined as the distribution of food and nonfood relief items(such as clothing, shelter items, and household utensils) andrehabilitation as activities falling under the rubric of reintegra-tion, which essentially meant the restoration of basic infra-structure and services. This definitional work resulted in thepublication of the Consolidated Humanitarian AssistanceProgramme (CHAP), covering the period April 1993 to May1994.

The extent to which meaningful impact on capacity-build-ing could be achieved in one or two years as the country wasundergoing a radical transformation is questionable. How-ever, it was obviously important not to diminish existingcapacities and to ensure that programs took account of post-UN peace mission realities when the level of external interestand support was likely to decline. A difficult balance between

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short-term relief and longer-term rehabilitation had to befound. The perception by many people (donors in particular)was that especially in the initial months, UNOHAC spentexcessive and precious time focusing on long-term needsrather than in addressing immediate needs related to consoli-dating the peace process. This preoccupation with develop-ment was perhaps due to the personal background of the firstdirector of UNOHAC who had served previously as a seniorUNDP official. In the words of the SRSG, “UNOHAC was tooinvolved in the elaboration and planning of medium and long-term programs...(it) went beyond the scope one might con-sider appropriate, given UNOHAC’s mandate and in thecontext of the time-bound plans for the implementation of thepeace accord.”65

Donors, multilaterals, and NGOs had a long history ofoperating in Mozambique, and from all accounts had littleenthusiasm for a coordination entity that was generally seenas superficial and unnecessary and was resented for theoverarching role it wanted to assume. Also, programs weresomewhat conditioned by donor pledges at the Rome confer-ence in December 1992. The activities that fell under theUNOHAC umbrella were those outside established mandatesand regular agency activities, namely demining and reintegra-tion of the demobilized combatants and IDPs. UNOHACrecognized the need to expand operations in RENAMO areasand to integrate and unify services as one of its importantresponsibilities. As in Afghanistan, however, donors pickedand chose from items identified in the consolidated appeal.Certain sectors were more fully funded than others. Thesectors in which UN organizations, UNHCR in particular,received priority attention were those that had clear-cut re-sponsibilities and those in which the donors wished NGOs tobe the main implementors, especially health. The impressionis that UNOHAC was left with the residual sectors and meagerfunds to manage. The lack of consistency in the allocation ofresources in emergencies is obviously not peculiar to theMozambique setting.

Although UNOHAC literature strongly emphasizes rein-tegration and highlights the importance of regenerating basicservices and agricultural production, the bulk of actual

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programming in the sense of identifying and defining needsand formulating project activities was the direct responsibilityof the agencies concerned. WFP considered itself responsiblefor all food aid requirements and maintained its own coordi-nation arrangements with the relevant authorities. It is stan-dard practice for WFP and UNHCR, for example, to developa joint understanding of their respective roles in terms of thefood component of a repatriation scenario. Similarly, much ofthe rehabilitation of basic infrastructure was undertaken byUNHCR through the organization of Quick Impact Projects(QIPs). These were generally implemented by NGOs, withlittle or no involvement by UNOHAC in identifying needs andallocating resources.

In other words, coordination expectations were not met.Joint planning and coordinated programming regarding col-lective review by UN agencies of needs and allocation ofresources to areas with the most acute need did not occur inMozambique. By and large, agencies decided unilaterally onthe shape and content of their programs in line with theirimmediate objectives. QIPs, for example, focused on areaswith a high concentration of returnees, although the endproduct was designed to benefit entire communities.

It was difficult to establish why UNOHAC’s role wasperceived so differently from all sides. A universal themeamong bilateral donors, multilateral agencies, and the NGOcommunity was that UNOHAC had become an entity untoitself, particularly at the central level. UN agencies and donorsrepeatedly indicated that UNOHAC tried to usurp the role ofexisting mechanisms as if it were an agency with superiorpowers of authority vis-à-vis entities that, in their eyes, had themandate and expertise to do what they had been doing andwould continue to do after the demise of UNOHAC. Manyparties felt that the role of such a short-lived coordinatingmechanism should have been to act as a facilitator in bringingthe various parts of the aid community together, to shareexperiences, and to develop common strategies for a programthat was greater than the sum of the individual inputs.

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Institutional Problems

The establishment of ONUMOZ at the end of 1992 was thefirst signal that Mozambique was finally emerging from adecade of devastation. Peace was within reach at last and itwas clear to all actors that swift and effective action on thehumanitarian front was an important element in the peace-building process. Such action was based on a clear under-standing and commitment to common objectives and on theUN’s leadership in mobilizing all the players toward thecommon goal. In Mozambique, as elsewhere, coordination bycommand in a humanitarian community—where mandatesare sacred covenants and the prevailing organizational cul-ture does not put a premium on working together—was not aworkable proposition particularly in the absence of any sig-nificant carrots. Leadership and the capacity to orchestrateactivities could be attained realistically only through facilita-tion and the performance of service functions for the UNsystem as a whole. As experience in Afghanistan and Rwandaindicates, the best form of facilitation occurs when partici-pants feel that they are part of the process and have some senseof ownership.

This does not seem to have been the case in Mozambique.Consultation, quite apart from ownership, was a rare occur-rence. For the most part, UNOHAC was seen to operate in anivory tower and did not consult or contact agencies unless itneeded information. At the central level, it appears that eventhough various attempts were made at the outset to instituteformal consultative mechanisms between UNOHAC and themain UN humanitarian players, such as technical workinggroups and a Project Approval Committee, these were discon-tinued. It is difficult to ascertain why UNOHAC was unable togalvanize the humanitarian community in Mozambiquearound its mission. Unlike the normal practice in the Afghani-stan, Rwanda, and in virtually all recent complex emergencies,there were no regular interagency coordination meetings andlittle formal or informal contact among colleagues. Moreover,there were neither regular meetings with donors nor with keyNGOs, although such meetings had been regularly convenedunder the UNSCERO regime. At times it seemed that there

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was a situation of reciprocal, deliberate, and not necessarilybenign neglect between UNOHAC and the rest of the humani-tarian community.

Things were smoother at the provincial level. The Provin-cial Humanitarian Assistance Committees (HAC), which metregularly and were chaired by the UNOHAC field officers,were one area of collaboration and consultation that waswidely appreciated. Some actors felt that the HACs shouldhave been in place before the organization of CHAP; othersthat the quality of the HACs varied. Nevertheless, there wasmuch positive commentary on the role of HACs in trouble-shooting, identifying priorities, organizing a division of labor,and bringing the government and RENAMO into consultationat the operational level with the aid community. In this sensethe HACs performed a most useful indirect peace-buildingfunction. In the provinces, relations appeared to be much morecordial than in Maputo. The reason for this was perhapsbecause the UNOHAC officers were younger, or because theywere often much more experienced in Mozambican affairsthan their “greener” agency counterparts. UNOHAC officersseemed to perform effective coordination and “focal point”functions. For once, there also seemed to be universal agree-ment on this among relief actors in Mozambique.

The need for close interaction between the humanitarianand the political-military aspects of the GPA were a major partof the rationale for making UNOHAC an integral componentof ONUMOZ. However, as already mentioned, relations be-tween UNOHAC and ONUMOZ did not appear to havebenefited greatly from either the institutional linkages or thephysical proximity of their offices. In the opinion of the widerUN and NGO community, UNOHAC was unable to exertinfluence on ONUMOZ nor extract additional benefits for thehumanitarian actors that normally would have been madeavailable elsewhere. Being completely overshadowed by thesize of ONUMOZ and the prestige of the SRSG, UNOHAC wasunable to push the humanitarian agenda onto center stage. Ashumanitarian needs were more ongoing than the immediatepeace process, this had implications (as we shall see later) onthe exit strategy of the humanitarian presence and on long-term recovery prospects. Within ONUMOZ, the perspective

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that UNOHAC did not appreciate fully the facilitating role ofhumanitarian assistance in the overall peace process was quiteprevalent. From the ONUMOZ perspective, UNOHAC wasbureaucratic, too involved in paper work, and did not appre-ciate the need to accommodate the high political content of theONUMOZ mission. The two entities seemed simply to coexistside-by-side: the SRSG did not appear to need or wish to bringUNOHAC senior management into the ONUMOZ internaldecisionmaking process. UNOHAC was unable or was reluc-tant to avail itself of the prestige and visibility of the SRSG.Both parties probably would agree that there was very littlesynergy between the two components but would disagree onwhy this was the case.66

Both the government and RENAMO registered cautioussatisfaction with UNOHAC while expressing concern aboutthe long-term outcome of UNOHAC-initiated activities. Oneminister was especially vocal on this. He commented that“rivers of money were being spent to pay for outsiders” in thewake of the peace process. He regretted that UNOHAC wasnot more active in explaining the government’s policies andconcerns on the dependency issue to the donors. Anotherhigh-ranking government official expressed similar views:NGOs were being utilized by the donors “as an alternative tothe government.” It was going to be very difficult to “get theseprograms back.” He felt that UNOHAC could have played animportant advocacy role on this issue, but it had not. Thesecomments must be seen in the context of the government’sprevailing view of ONUMOZ as an overpowering politicaland military machine that had forced it to abandon some of itsnational prerogatives in the pursuit of peace. It felt particu-larly hurt because this process was predicated on the legiti-mization of RENAMO, which the government viewed as amovement of “armed bandits” rather than as an indigenouspolitical force, and on the acceptance of a number of conditionsfor the running of the elections that were imposed fromoutside.

An example of a failed opportunity in which UNOHACwas unable to set the appropriate institutional stage andprovide much needed leadership was the demining program.Unlike Afghanistan, where, as we have seen, the UN was

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firmly in the driver’s seat both in the conception and in themanagement of an original and extremely crucial program, inMozambique the demining effort was plagued with concep-tual, managerial, and administrative ills. Despite the fact thateverybody recognized the magnitude, the high priority of theissue, and its direct bearing on the peace process, very littlehappened on the ground for many months. Without firstdemining, refugees and internally displaced would be reluc-tant to return, and it would be difficult to instill a sense of peaceand normalcy. UNOHAC was unable to express a sense ofurgency and leadership, but ONUMOZ did not seem inter-ested in taking over the function. Bureaucratic delays and turfbattles between the various concerned UN entities in NewYork and in Maputo compounded the problem.

The subcontracting process was tortuous. This involvedmoving trust fund monies from DHA in Geneva to UNDP inNew York and selecting implementing partners, whether theywere private companies such as Lonhro or NGOs such asNorwegian People’s Aid (NPA) or the British charity HaloTrust. This took over a year. It was widely held that impropri-eties in the bidding procedures occurred.67 The environmentin Mozambique was complicated by the need to get both thegovernment and RENAMO “on board” through protracteddiscussions in the cease-fire commission. It is also true that onthis, as on many other issues, the donors were most opinion-ated: while UNOHAC favored the creation of a governmententity that eventually would take over the program, the do-nors wanted at all costs to avoid the establishment of “anothercorrupt parastatal” reminiscent of the command structures ofthe previous Marxist era. They preferred to advance the causeof their NGOs and private companies who were vying forlucrative contracts. The net result was a major embarrassmentfor all concerned and increased risk for the population on theground. Even the SRSG had to admit, repeatedly, that the mineclearance program had been a “disaster.”68

It was not possible in the short time spent by the author inMozambique to look in depth at the interactions between thehumanitarians and the military. It did seem, however, that anopportunity for synergy had been missed. The UN militarypresence was both overpowering and narrowly defined.

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Interviews with the field commander and his staff and obser-vations on the ground indicated that the military appeared tobe in a separate world, mostly well-protected in massivecompounds with little interaction with the humanitarian com-munity or the local population. When incidents occurred, suchas the regular instances of criminal behavior by demobilizedsoldiers in the Beira corridor, they tended not to intervene oronly within the strict confines of their mandate, with littlesensitivity toward humanitarian needs. The UN civilian policecomponent (CIVPOL) was in theory the one with the mostpotential for interaction with the humanitarian organizationsbecause its role was to patrol and create a sense of normalcyparticularly in the rural areas. There was, however, nearunanimity concerning its ineffectiveness in terms of its abilityto interact with the local populace, its problem-solving role,and its unwillingness to go out of its way to investigate allegedpolitical or human rights violations.

Relationships with NGOs

In Mozambique—and the same is true to a lesser extent inother countries where major UN peace consolidation opera-tions have been organized—the government was obliged tosurrender temporarily elements of sovereignty as a conditionfor the peace process to come to fruition. As we have seen, thedonors and the relief community were quick to fill the vacuum.The policies, with a particular emphasis on privatization andthe market, were set by the donor consortium, and implemen-tation was deliberately placed in the hands of the myriadNGOs. Government entities, such as the CENE trucking fleetfor the delivery of humanitarian assistance, were deliberatelybypassed because they were perceived as corrupt. They werebeing replaced by private companies, including companiesfrom industrialized countries. Relief agencies, and especiallyNGOs—some with larger programs than those of the largestbilateral donor—became the chief providers of public welfareand an important source of employment.69 Health care outsidethe capital and the main cities became largely an NGO mo-nopoly. The same applies to a lesser extent to other socialservices such as care for unaccompanied minors, war widows,and the disabled.

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While the shift from government ministries to privateimplementors or service contractors may well be part of aworld wide trend toward the privatization of aid delivery,70

the situation in Mozambique seemed particularly problematicto the outside visitor in December 1994. Interviews withgovernment officials and even some NGO representativesconfirmed the deliberate policy of the donor consortium. Asone observer put it, privatization was “the price the govern-ment had to pay” to be saved from the RENAMO insurgency.Although the privatization of relief and emergency aid is notan unusual occurrence, how much this affected the develop-ment process in Mozambique certainly is. Several authorshave described how this process was affected in the 1980s.71

The process has progressed to the point that it is likely to havea durable negative impact on the prospects of national self-reliance in the foreseeable future.

In the short term, one of the immediate manifestations ofthis process is how much government structures had beenweakened directly by the siphoning off of the remainingcompetent government professionals, from deputy ministersto drivers, attracted by the lure of the higher and dependablesalaries paid by the outsiders.72 In a country where civilservants are irregularly paid salaries averaging $10-$12 amonth, they cannot resist the call of the new missionaries andtheir contract culture.

The situation seemed more serious at the provincial thanat the national level, perhaps because the payment of salarieswas more intermittent there. Provincial offices and commis-sions for development planning, rural services, and reliefdistribution in some cases had shrunk to the point of nonexist-ence. Their technical capacity and ability to maintain govern-ment priorities when discussing project proposals with theoutsiders was limited. For an already overstretched govern-ment, to keep tabs on the myriad activities of NGOs repre-sented an onerous burden. When it failed to do so, NGOscould fault the authorities for having lost all control and moveinto the vacuum. Senior government officials at the central andprovincial level expressed serious concern about this issue.Even some NGO representatives recognized that the expatri-ates were “arrogant” and that some NGOs were “runningamok in the most extraordinary way.”73

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In developing countries, NGOs obviously can play animportant role in the delivery of services. Many seek to avoidthe difficulties mentioned above and make it their policy topromote only activities that are sustainable in the long term.Nevertheless, the situation in Mozambique was character-ized by what seemed to be a deliberate attempt of the donorcommunity to weaken the government rather than to pro-mote a healthy balance between state and civil society activi-ties. If NGOs were directly implicated in this process, so, too,were the governments that provided them with the necessaryresources.

What was the role of the UN, particularly its coordinatingmechanism, in all of this? Did it advocate and promote self-reliance in its dealings with the government and with thedonors? Regrettably it did not, by all accounts. Long-termissues were discussed early in the life of UNOHAC, but werescarcely a consideration for ONUMOZ that had by definitiona shorter horizon. As the traditional advocate of nationalplanning and institution building in developing countries,UNDP saw its role overshadowed by the political preemi-nence of ONUMOZ. More specifically, the UN system inMozambique seems to have caved in to the formidable pres-sures of the donors and of the NGO lobby in-country and athome. Instances in which funds pledged to the UN relief effortby bilateral donors were in effect tied to implementation by theNGOs of the relevant donor country were common. Some, likethe Italians, had no qualms about this creative use of multilat-eral funds. Others were more discreet. But the pressure todisburse funds through NGOs was the overriding consider-ation and relegated issues such as accountability and impact tosecondary status. UN organizations, in particular UNHCRwith its QIPs, were not immune from this process: rapiddisbursement through expatriate NGOs often seemed totake precedence over longer-term sustainability. The bol-stering of local talent, whether in the government or in thefledgling indigenous NGO sector did not appear to receivehigh priority.

UNOHAC apparently had not attempted to cultivate arelationship with the NGO community to influence it or atleast to discuss program priorities. Meetings were not heldregularly in Mozambique. This contrasted to Afghanistan and

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Rwanda, where coordination meetings with the NGO com-munity were frequent and where NGOs contributed directlyand indirectly to the overall humanitarian effort, for example,through consultations and even joint programming that re-sulted in a healthy interchange on what needed to be done andhow. Some exchange of information occurred and this was fedinto the consolidated reporting done by UNOHAC.

Much more interaction took place between the local HACsand the NGOs active in the province. However, there was littleor no policy dialogue between UNOHAC and the NGO com-munity. Interviews with NGO staff indicated that the levels ofinteraction with UNOHAC and the basic knowledge of itsfunctions were minimal. While UNOHAC’s role in the prov-inces was generally recognized as useful, especially in offeringa framework in which NGOs could make contact withRENAMO, several commented on UNOHAC’s lack of fore-sight with respect to the transition to the post-ONUMOZphase. The feeling was that the UN political process hadallowed the initiation of a number of projects and coordinationstructures that then were abandoned lackadaisically. Cer-tainly, UNOHAC did not have the reputation of being achampion on self-reliance issues, either with the NGOs or withthe government.

Moreover, with about 250 members on the ground in late1994, the international NGO community was a diverse andfractious universe. Attempts to organize NGOs through acoordination body had gone through ups and downs over theyears.74 By all accounts the current entity, Link, provided onlyvery basic services to its NGO members. Not all NGOs weremembers, and few considered its small secretariat as anythingmore than a letter-box. Certain NGOs, such as the MSF Federa-tion in the health area, had stronger sectoral coordinationmechanisms. It should be emphasized that some NGOs werequite critical of the general impact of the community onlonger-term development prospects and that others alsoworked with the government to strengthen local and nationalcapacities. But these self-critical NGOs were very much in theminority.

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The Exit Strategy

As part of ONUMOZ, UNOHAC’s purpose and existencewas tied to the election calendar. After the elections were heldsuccessfully, ONUMOZ quickly started to disband. Apartfrom the problems that this created for the economy and thepeople of Mozambique, ONUMOZ did not seem to have anexit strategy other than “vote and forget.” As the Germanambassador to Maputo put it: “ONUMOZ did not have anafter-sales service.”75 Tens of thousands of Mozambicans de-rived their livelihood directly or indirectly from the UN peaceoperation. The sudden departure of the reassuring presence ofthe many hundreds of white UN vehicles, aircraft, fortifiedcompounds, and attendant clientele added to the existingclimate of uncertainty. The lack of a UN political presence tosupport the peace consolidation process may have had asimilar negative effect. The impact of the sudden withdrawalof the ONUMOZ humanitarian component needs to be dis-cussed briefly.

The implicit contradiction between UN political and hu-manitarian mandates exists somewhat in all UN peace opera-tions, and Mozambique was no exception. The political man-dates derive from the Security Council’s decisions, and repre-sent the political consensus of this body when they are made.The Security Council’s vision is necessarily time-limited andshort-term. UN humanitarian mandates theoretically areshielded from the political process: they derive from theimperative to provide succor in emergencies, a process moreconnected with a country’s ongoing need to rebuild its owncapacity and shape its own future. In the case of Mozambique,emergency humanitarian needs preceded the creation ofONUMOZ and were addressed, albeit imperfectly, throughUNSCERO. Although they may have evolved over time, suchneeds still existed after the departure of ONUMOZ, sincerecovery and rehabilitation are long-term processes that ex-tend far beyond the election calendar. Ideally, emergency andrehabilitation activities should have folded, more or lessseamlessly, into normal development programs.

As the SRSG himself said, “the culture of peacekeeping”aims at getting the job done in a short period of time; this is

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quite the opposite to “the culture of development which hasinfinity as its target date.”76 The justification for an exit strat-egy distinct from the peace process could not be more clearlystated. While reputable development planners set specificgoals for realization short of infinity, the SRSG is accurate innoting a fundamental difference in political and humanitariantime frames. The integration of UNOHAC into ONUMOZ andlinking the former’s calendar to the latter’s were stronglycriticized by government officials and by some of the UNagencies. Donors, however, seemed to be less concerned withthe issue.

UNOHAC’s life span was so short that its more durableactivities were exceedingly vulnerable to its abrupt termina-tion. Three specific problems in the impact of a politicallydictated exit strategy on emergency and rehabilitation activi-ties deserve attention:

• UNOHAC itself did not seem to be on top of the problem:no strategy was prepared beforehand for a smoothhandover. Such a strategy would have required extensivediscussions among all concerned. At the time of the visit inDecember 1994, major loose ends remained. These in-cluded the uncertain future of the database and sophisti-cated information system that UNOHAC had established(the spoils of which the government, the World Bank, andUNDP seemed to fight over), the future of the deminingprogram, and the abrupt disappearance of UNOHAC’sfield presence that was strongly valued by the govern-ment, UN agencies, and NGOs.

• From a longer-term perspective, ONUMOZ in generaland UNOHAC in particular seem to have given littlethought to the extremely sensitive nature in Mozambiqueof any strategy to move from relief to rehabilitation todevelopment. An early and unplanned withdrawal istantamount to saying that “the emergency phase is over,so now back to development as usual.” Emergencies arenot “aberrations” on the linear highway to development:they are part of the society—the economy and the socialfabric—of the places where they occur.77 While peace may

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have prevailed in Mozambique, the state, and the civilsociety, national and local coping mechanisms had allbeen affected seriously by the war and the ensuing peaceprocess. By taking over some governmental functions,ONUMOZ itself was seen as weakening sovereignty.Donor-driven projects implemented by myriad NGOswere dangerously weakening national and local capabili-ties. Consequently, it might have been wiser to maintain aUNOHAC presence post-ONUMOZ, or at least to ensurethat whichever UN body would take over its residualfunctions had a proper strategy and capacity for dealingwith such institutional and dependency issues.

• In a more general sense, the Mozambique experiencedemonstrates the need for humanitarian activities—i.e.the humanitarian component of a multifunctional peaceoperation—to be the subject of more careful planningfrom the outset rather than being considered as a mereafterthought by UN political planners. This lesson hasspecial relevance in the context of the current interdepart-mental efforts to improve coordination among the UN’spolitical, peacekeeping, and humanitarian departments.Since Mozambique was not a breaking emergency, there isno reason why careful planning could not have takenplace. A better situation analysis of the conditions in thecountry might have shown that existing national struc-tures possibly could have been strengthened, rather thanimposing a skewed delivery system for humanitarianactivities and their coordination that was time-limited andheavily influenced by the agenda of donor governments.Lacking this analysis, the description of the Mozambiqueexperience as “humanitarianism upstaged” seems appro-priate.

The Question of Integration versus Insulation

As already noted, UNOHAC and the humanitarian activi-ties it was mandated to coordinate did not seem to benefit fromthe association with ONUMOZ. UNOHAC also seems to havesuffered from the fact that ONUMOZ—like other UN peace-

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keeping operations—had a heavy military bias. The variouslegal instruments under which ONUMOZ operated (e.g. theStatus of Forces Agreement), and that regulated its relationswith the government, did not take into account the humanitar-ian tasks of UNOHAC (e.g. relations with NGOs, tax exemp-tion for the importation of vehicles, and commodities forhumanitarian needs, etc.). There were also cultural tensions orincompatibilities between the peacekeepers and the humani-tarians. In Mozambique, as elsewhere, the UN military forcestended to protect themselves in fortified bases surrounded byrazorwire with heavily restricted and tightly controlled ac-cess. Being part of ONUMOZ, the UNOHAC provincial of-fices were naturally placed in these compounds. This is not thebest environment for offices whose tasks require that they inter-act and generate a dialogue with the humanitarian players,NGOs, other elements of the civil society, and local authorities.

The SRSG attributed ONUMOZ’s success to its “politicalflexibility,” and “[r]ules and procedures were adapted to thereality in the field and appropriate decisions taken on thespot.” However, “the same freedom was not given toUNOHAC.”78 At the time of the visit, the senior managementof UNOHAC had little interaction with the SRSG and his innercircle. More fundamentally, however, tying UNOHAC toONUMOZ’s short-term political mandate obfuscated the factthat the humanitarian calendar was much more long-term.This became especially evident in the winding-up phase, andarguably that a better transition should have been calculatedat the initial planning stage. The integration of UNOHACwithin the ONUMOZ structure also reinforced the perception,which was nearly universal in Maputo outside ONUMOZ,that the “political UN” was not sensitive to the longer-termperspective of the “development UN.” The SRSG’s sights wereconsistently on the political process. Taking away UNSCEROfrom UNDP created widespread resentment since it was per-ceived as having at least the merit to initiate indirectly thereconstruction process by helping to open up RENAMO areasto humanitarian assistance. The arrival of the SRSG was per-ceived as the imposition of a “viceroy” on the UN agencies andon their preexisting activities. No institutional role was fore-seen for the resident coordinator in relation to the SRSG. As

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one UN official said, “neither the resident coordinator nor anyof the agency representatives were given first fiddle functionsvis-à-vis the SRSG. They were all treated like juniorbottlewashers.”79

Conclusions

All observers agree that ONUMOZ was a success. Elec-tions were held. War was replaced by politics. The vast major-ity of refugees and IDPs returned to their homes. Above all,there was a manifest and strong desire in the leadership andamong the elite of the country, as well as in the population atlarge, to turn the page on the war years and on the culture ofwar. These changes are no small achievement. Unlike Af-ghanistan, where war is still very much on the agenda of themany leaders fighting for power, the overwhelming sensationin Mozambique is that the war is over. Unlike Rwanda, whereas we shall see the peacekeeping component of the UN’s effortwas a failure, the UN military forces in Mozambique by andlarge carried out their tasks successfully.

The challenges of rehabilitation and reconstruction nowlie ahead. It is difficult so soon after the conclusion of theONUMOZ/UNOHAC experience to assess the impact of theUN’s humanitarian efforts in support of the peace process. Atthe time of writing, many demobilized combatants were stillreceiving monetary subsidies as part of the ONUMOZ assis-tance package. When the subsidies run out after a period up to18 months, there is a potential danger of destabilization andrekindled conflict.80 Already there are reports that highwaybanditry is on the increase. As long as ONUMOZ peacekeep-ers patrolled the main roads, the situation was under control.The wider effects of the UN’s humanitarian programs, andthose of bilateral organizations and NGOs working outsidethe UN framework, on the rehabilitation of Mozambicaneconomy and society will become apparent only in the years tocome. Perhaps after the passage of time, the impression of amajor opportunity slipping through the interstices of ill-con-ceived coordination mechanisms will be confirmed.

It is apparent already, however, that a major weakness ofUN coordination in Mozambique during the crucial peace

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consolidation period was its inability to promote national andlocal self-reliance as a policy objective. It was unable to act asa broker between donors and the government so that all actorscould identify with and support a strategy geared to augment-ing national capacities. The “political UN” did not factor thisdimension into the peace consolidation process and the “hu-manitarian UN” failed to be an effective advocate for thetransition process. As a coordination body, UNOHAC shouldhave been more proactive on this issue. Moreover, it shouldhave worked in close collaboration with UNDP, which wouldin any case “inherit” the transition process and the souredrelationship with the government upon the departure ofONUMOZ. Despite considerable hand-wringing, the UN re-mained on the sidelines as the People’s Republic ofMozambique was being transformed into what has been termedthe “Donors Republic of Mozambique.”81

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United Nations Map No. 3717 Rev. 2, June 1994.

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RWANDA: HUMANITARIANISM IN DOUBT

Men are accomplices to that which leaves them indifferent.

George Steiner,Language and Silence82

The Cruelest Months

The coordination of humanitarian assistance in Rwanda ismarked by the shadow of genocide. Unlike Afghanistan andMozambique where the emergency was protracted, if notcreeping, the Rwanda crisis was sudden, violent, and over-whelming for the international humanitarian community.From April to July 1994, the people of Rwanda suffered atragedy of unprecedented magnitude.83 In terms of the num-ber of victims, the suddenness with which it occurred, and itslasting consequences, the crisis is not comparable to any othercalamity in recent memory. The humanitarian needs it gener-ated have tested severely the capacity and resourcefulness ofthe relief community. The Rwandan crisis also has raisedimportant questions—as yet unanswered—on the root causesof the conflict, on the long-term impact of humanitarian assis-tance, and on the manner in which relief is provided.

In a terrifying three-month period a significant proportionof the minority Tutsi population and many Hutus perceived asmoderates were massacred. The estimates of the combineddeath toll of genocide, war, and displacement range from500,000 to one million—an unprecedented proportion—andperhaps as many as 95 percent of the victims were civilians. Inaddition to the physical violence and destruction, the collec-tive trauma of genocide has rent the social fabric. It haunts thefamilies of the victims as well as the hundreds of thousands ofpeople who participated voluntarily in, were coerced into, orhaplessly witnessed mass killings.

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In the months following the establishment of the newgovernment, there have been periods when a thin veneer ofcalm presented the illusion of a slow return to normalcy. Therealso have been outbursts of brief and sudden violence, affect-ing in particular the internally displaced, which are remindersof the volatility of the situation. It is unrealistic to assume thatRwandan society can be patched together simply through theprovision of assistance by the international community toovercome the physical devastation of warfare and to revivethe preexisting economy. Rehabilitation of essential facilitiesand a functioning government are definitely a priority. How-ever, a viable process of recovery and reconciliation seemsimpossible until the reality of genocide and its effects onsociety have been addressed.

For the outsider, what has occurred in Rwanda defiesexplanation in conventional terms. Civil society has beenshattered and the very possibility of the coexistence of itsdiverse elements still seems in jeopardy. The forces that boundthe social fabric together—all too imperfectly, as events pain-fully demonstrated—have been severely eroded if not com-pletely destroyed. At the time of writing 18 months after thegenocide, it is difficult to see how a culture of peace can emergein the near future if the societal mechanisms that made thetragedy possible are not understood and addressed fromwithin. Whether the causes of the conflict are traced to ances-tral fears, power, class, identity, ethnicity, or a subtle mix ofthese, or to the economy and a struggle for resources, there isan obvious need to identify the underlying sources of tensionand the realities that exacerbated them. For the internationalcommunity, this means answering some difficult questionsabout the ways in which development—the external appear-ances of which were clearly visible and measurable by conven-tional standards in Rwanda before the war—was a factor innot mitigating, or worse in contributing to, the catastrophe.

Given the violent political culture that continues to thrivein the refugee camps and in certain segments of the populationinside Rwanda, the apparent lack of a sense of guilt on the oneside and, understandably, of an unwillingness to seek a politi-cal compromise on the other, no one can rule out furtheroutbursts of violence. Acts of retribution and the inclination to

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take the law into one’s own hands have spread. The risk thatthis will become unspoken policy cannot be excluded, espe-cially if formal judicial procedures that demonstrate that geno-cide is unacceptable and that those responsible will be heldaccountable are not introduced. Acts of violence by theRwandan military against the internally displaced (witnessthe tragic incident at Kibeho in April 1995), the forceful appro-priation of land and property, and the miserable state ofRwandan prisons are flashpoints that signal the possible fu-ture deterioration of the situation.

The aftermath of the genocide has major implications forthe United Nations and for the manner in which humanitarianassistance is orchestrated. The Rwandan government is in aprecarious position. At this writing, it seemed to rely increas-ingly on its military arm to maintain control and to protectitself from incursions from the guerrilla breeding grounds inthe refugee camps in Zaire and Tanzania. A massive destabi-lization of the country, and of the whole region, cannot beruled out if the Zairian authorities trigger a sudden andchaotic movement of refugee return. The government hascalled, so far with scant success, for the mobilization of theinternational community both for the investigation and docu-mentation of the genocide and for the monitoring of thehuman rights situation on the ground. Unfortunately, notmuch has been done and the credibility of the United Na-tions—in the eyes of the government, the NGO community,and the public at large—is dangerously low. Human rightsmonitors have been deployed belatedly, but their work andthe parallel work to collect evidence and document the geno-cide has not yet reached the critical mass required to demon-strate that the international community is serious in address-ing the issue. The government is also keen to show its legiti-macy and sovereignty over the national territory and is in-creasingly concerned that the presence of UN troops maypresent a threat to both. Accordingly, it has asked the SecurityCouncil for and has obtained agreement on troop reduction.At the end of 1995, the remaining 1,800 UNAMIR troops maybe withdrawn altogether.

Moreover, the government has not received the means toestablish its authority. Indeed, the international community

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still seems to be in a quandary about whether to give theRwandan regime some legitimacy through the provision oftechnical and financial assistance. Human rights violations bygovernment troops against internally displaced persons andindividual acts of violence against returnees are likely tofurther dampen the enthusiasm of traditional bilateral donors.The European Union is not inclined to go beyond purelyhumanitarian assistance. The other main donors have balkedfor many months.84 The only structured force, with someresources and capacity to administer and control territory, isthe battle-hardened army. Failure by the international com-munity to support the formation of a functioning administra-tion at the central and at the local levels and to support theregeneration of civil society adds to the risk of authoritarianism.

The former Rwandan leadership is still essentially intactand is endowed with important assets. It also controls acaptive refugee population through a combination of admin-istrative structures and sheer terror tactics, which obviouslyaffects the evolution of the situation. Despite encouragementsin this direction from the UN, donors, and human rightsgroups, the authorities in Kigali have been unable or unwillingto enact confidence-building measures that are essential ifrepatriation is to occur. Moreover, how the humanitariancommunity provides assistance and protection to the refugeesand the strategic choices that are made concerning the dis-placed may have dramatic implications on the evolution of theoverall situation. The question is whether to continue to pro-vide them with assistance in camps or shift the focus of therelief effort toward their areas of origin in order to encouragea flow away from the camps.

The United Nations Response to the Rwanda Crisis

The international community—more specifically the UNand the relief agencies—faced a cruel dilemma in Rwanda. Ina matter of months, a country many people considered amodel, with good performance on the main developmentindicators, turned into a bloodbath. Genocide was followed byone of the largest and potentially the most destabilizing dis-placements of population the world has witnessed in recent

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times. After initial and unforgivable delays and disorganiza-tion, and spurred by the “media effect,” the operational mightof the West and the gritty determination of the humanitariansswung into action. Despite the cholera epidemic in Goma,succor was provided, and refugees and IDPs were fed andprovided with basic assistance. The dying stopped.

The knee-jerk reaction was to provide a quick fix, and itwas a costly Band-Aid at that: more than $1 billion andperhaps as much as over $2 billion were spent on humanitar-ian assistance and on using military assets to support the effortduring the first year of the crisis.85 The root causes of theproblem were glossed over. The root consequences of theresponse—i.e., the type of assistance provided and its ef-fects—were not considered. The illusion that Goma was aqualified success, at least from a purely operational and tech-nical point of view, resulted in the sense that assistance met theimmediate needs of the Rwandan refugees. From a longer-term point of view, it now has become clear that only thesymptoms of the problem were addressed. The internationalcommunity responded to the obvious need of providing foodand shelter to refugees in the predictable manner, by fixing thepopulation in camps. The response was refugee-driven andthe modalities were basically logistical. Critics have challengedsince the pertinence of a response that ignored the causes of theproblem and did not even distinguish between needy refugeesand their unrepentant, armed, and heinous leaders.86

It is not practical to attempt an analysis of the decisions ofthe international community, as expressed in various SecurityCouncil resolutions, not to take action to stop the genocide asthe situation in Rwanda deteriorated in April 1994. A strongperception persists in many NGO and some United Nationscircles that the international community, and therefore theUN, failed Rwanda and its own values by letting genocideoccur. This original sin has had a lasting effect on the way theUN humanitarian coordination effort was established andwas perceived. While the immediate needs of the refugees andthe internally displaced were undoubtedly met—in part un-der pressure to avoid a second failure—it is legitimate to askwhether the UN system overall has addressed coherently theRwanda crisis in terms of institutions or operations.87

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As in other complex emergencies, the humanitarian di-mension of the Rwandan crisis was linked inextricably to thepolitical and military dynamics that shaped it. Responding tothe humanitarian imperative in this context posed particularchallenges. Developing a response that safeguarded the hu-manitarian space essential for the provision of relief assistancein a contested and volatile situation was no easy task. From theoutset, humanitarian assistance in the Rwandan context suf-fered because the dimensions of the response overshadowedthe incapacity of the international community to prevent thetragedy or even meaningfully to consider its causes and con-sequences. Humanitarian assistance, however effective, can-not be a substitute for action necessary to address the rootcauses of conflict. One is left with the impression that reliefbecame an end in itself, and perhaps contributed to a stalematethat ultimately worked against a process of healing and recon-ciliation.

The downing of the plane that killed the presidents ofBurundi and Rwanda on April 6, 1994 unleashed a wave ofterror that put Rwanda at the center of the world’s headlines.However, while this constituted an unexpected turn of eventsthat effectively derailed the Arusha Peace process, it needs tobe noted that, in terms of crisis management, a limited UNhumanitarian response capacity did exist in-country or wasbeing built-up as the crisis unraveled. A Humanitarian Unitwas in place at UNDP in Kigali; a Disaster Management Teamhad been initiated under the chairmanship of UNDP; andUNHCR had offices in Kigali and Goma, where limitedprepositioning of relief supplies had been organized in antici-pation of an inflow of up to 50,000 refugees.

The levels of street violence in Kigali and the direct attacksagainst UN peacekeepers in the immediate aftermath of theplane downing led to the withdrawal of UN agencies, with theexception of the core UNAMIR military. Agencies such asICRC and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) maintained a pres-ence in Kigali throughout. Even though operational activitieswere severely constrained by fighting, these two organiza-tions decided not to evacuate in order to maintain a sense ofsuccor and external concern during the most terrifying days ofviolence.

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The decision of DHA to reestablish a UN humanitarianpresence in and around the country as early as April 9 was awelcome development. Yet it is justifiable to ask why options,such as “digging in” within the relatively secure UNAMIRcompound, were not considered to avoid the necessity ofwithdrawing staff, only to immediately commence negotia-tions for their return. In any event, DHA’s stimulus responsewas a vast improvement over previous situations. The firstinteragency meeting in Geneva to deal with the Iraq/Kuwaitrefugee crisis was convened three weeks after refugees startedpouring into Jordan.88 In the case of Rwanda, DHA startedcoordinating three days after the presidential plane was shotdown. Staff were quickly on the scene and the DHA on-the-ground coordination mechanism, the United Nations RwandaEmergency Office (UNREO), was formally established onApril 18. After consultation between DHA and UN systemrelief agencies, a humanitarian coordinator was appointed.89

In terms of field level coordination, it was decided initiallyto make Nairobi the hub of operations while maintaining arotating presence of UNREO/DHA staff in Kigali, wheremobility was severely constrained for security reasons. TheUNREO presence in Nairobi as a backup to and channel ofcommunication with Rwanda greatly facilitated the develop-ment of a consensus on priorities among donors and thehumanitarian community. As in the case of Afghanistan, therewere significant advantages in not locating the central coordi-nating office in a capital or geographic area dominated by oneof the warring parties in the civil war. The opening of severalUNREO field offices facilitated cross-border and cross-linecommunication and the provision of assistance. Also, as inAfghanistan, the Rwanda experience indicates that a balancedfield presence had obvious advantages not only in terms offacilitating day-to-day operations, but also in safeguardingthe image and concept of impartiality of the coordinationbody.

Most observers agree that the UNREO coordinating struc-ture was effective in generating a consensus on an overall planof action and its implementation. However, the original divi-sion of labor between the humanitarian coordinator for Rwandaand the UNHCR special regional envoy was unclear. Originally,

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it was envisaged that this would be one structure, i.e. that theUNHCR regional envoy would double up as DHA regionalcoordinator. Unfortunately, this merging of the coordinationfunctions did not occur. Once the UNREO office moved toKigali, the reality of a somewhat artificial division of laborbetween an internal (DHA) and external (UNHCR) coordina-tion structure produced a looser framework and tunnel visionon both sides. This division of responsibilities worked againsta comprehensive and coherent UN response. The need forunity of purpose in the coordination of the overall UN effortwas not well served by the looseness of the DHA-UNHCRrelationship in the early weeks of the emergency. With thebenefit of hindsight, it is regrettable that a humanitariancoordinator was not appointed at the outset of the crisis tooversee all aspects of the Rwandan emergency, including theexodus to neighboring countries. UNHCR appeared to besolely in charge outside Rwanda, which reinforced the im-pression that the response was “refugee-driven” and workedagainst a region-wide approach to the crisis.90

The UNREO Framework for Coordination

An intriguing feature in Rwanda in the first months of theemergency was the lack of understanding among UN systemorganizations of the role of DHA, the parent UN Departmentof UNREO. Many interviews revealed that while the role ofUNREO was perceived as positive and even essential, therewas a general impression that this was more the result of localrealities, a happy mix of personalities in UNREO and in thehumanitarian agencies on the spot, than of a clear mandateand terms of reference. Some of the most extreme examples ofconceptual confusion were within UNREO itself: several staffmembers were unaware that UNREO was part of DHA. Acomparison with the more established UN relief agencies inthe Rwandan context, especially UNHCR and UNICEF, onlyreinforces this point: DHA clearly lacked a visible profile anda recognizable brand name. UNREO itself was clearly visible,however, but more in its own right than as part of DHA.91

More importantly, the perceptions and expectations ofwhat the UNREO office was or should have been doing varied

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widely. There was no clear or common understanding of what“coordination” meant. Coordination relied very much onflexibility and improvisation, which in itself is not necessarilya bad thing, provided the ground rules are understood by alland the coordination body is seen as operating as a team. Thissense of overall direction seemed to be lacking at times, andthe staff on the ground seemed more preoccupied with gettingon with whatever they perceived as the most urgent task athand than with reflecting on the nature and finality of theirwork.

Three main factors appear to have put the UNREO officeat the cutting edge of coordination and helped maintain itthere during the most acute phases of the emergency (April-September 1994):

• the personality of its key staff member who managed to“anchor” the NGO community, and to some extent the UNorganizations, around the UNREO office. His leadership,strategic thinking, and positive interaction with all theactors, including UNAMIR and government officials, ef-fectively provided the backbone for the coordination ef-fort;

• the role of the office in providing general and strategicinformation on the evolution of the humanitarian situa-tion in the country and its ability to mobilize the interna-tional resources around specific objectives (e.g. the suc-cessful containment action in the southwest to preventfurther movements of displaced persons across the borderinto Zaire at the time of the withdrawal of OperationTurquoise); and

• the turn-key communications facilities and logistic sup-port provided by the Swedish Support Team (SST) toUNREO itself as well as to NGOs. This proved to be animportant and most visible asset that became operationalthe moment it got off the plane. The resources available tothe Swedish Team—staff, vehicles, communications, ba-sic office supplies, even food and medical support—offsetDHA’s lack of resources and cash. Without the SST, UNREO

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would have been crippled and the entire humanitarianeffort would have suffered accordingly.

Coordination by command was out of the question in theRwandan context. Moreover, UNREO had few resources at itsdisposal that would have allowed it to impose coordination.But UNREO, as advocate and facilitator in the crucial monthsof the crisis, was able to have an important leadership role inshaping the response of the international humanitarian com-munity. Its role can be defined best as a successful example ofcoordination by consensus. Situations requiring coordination,however, rarely remain stable over time. Needs change as anemergency moves from a breaking phase, where massiveassistance is needed and the means are mobilized, to a moreroutine delivery and consolidation phase. During the firstmonths of its existence, UNREO was at the crossroads be-tween diverse and sometimes conflicting interests and priori-ties. Most of the NGO traffic and a significant quantity of theUN traffic stopped at UNREO to collect information, espe-cially information on traffic conditions on the roads ahead. BySeptember 1994, however, some of the actors in Rwanda werestarting to perceive UNREO as a bottleneck or a traffic jam. Thevalue added might no longer be worth stopping for. In fact, theconstruction of alternative routes by the key UN organizationswho had beefed up their staff and their information gatheringmechanisms was well under way.

As in other coordination situations, the DHA office inRwanda was viable and effective as long as it remained “aheadof the curve” in terms of access to better information on theconditions in the country, contacts with the political leaders atthe central office and especially at the local level, and capacityto be an advocate vis-à-vis the donor community, NGOs, orthe media. Inevitably, as crises stabilize or are resolved, coor-dination activities need to respond to an evolving situation.The questions that the coordination body and the UN systemmust ask are: when is the point of diminishing returns reached?And at what point does a structure such as UNREO becomeneither necessary nor viable? In deciding to maintain a DHApresence in Rwanda beyond the acute phase of the emergency,this consideration was apparently weighed with another that

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was equally important: what level of contingency presenceshould be kept in place in case the situation deteriorated eitherin Rwanda and its spillover areas or in Burundi?

Institutional Problems in Coordination

Unlike Mozambique where, in theory at least, the humani-tarian coordination function was fully integrated into thepeacekeeping operation. Yet, as we have seen, integrationoccurred with little meaningful cooperation between the play-ers. In Rwanda, the UNREO office was separate but notinsulated from the SRSG’s office and UNAMIR. The relation-ship between the humanitarian and political arms of the UN inRwanda evolved over time and was fraught with institutionaluncertainties. However, despite the lack of clarity in the defi-nition of the various mandates (or perhaps because the fuzzydefinition of roles allowed more flexibility on both sides), thenature of the interaction between these key players was gen-erally good.

Role of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General

Rwanda provides a typical example of institutional confu-sion and lack of clarity on the roles of and the relationshipbetween the humanitarian-development and political-mili-tary arms of the UN. The human rights component in Rwandawas more clearly defined, but the slow pace of deployment,lack of visible action, and the negative implications of this forRwanda’s overall recovery also pointed to the need for stron-ger linkages and synergy between the various components ofthe overall UN effort.

The SRSG theoretically has overall responsibility for UNaction in a given country. However, in Rwanda he was thetitular head of an operation that was not grounded in anyclearly defined institutional framework that would have givenhim the authority to decide on a particular course of events.While he enjoyed greater prestige and leverage than the DHAhumanitarian coordinator, he did not have the clout of UNHCRthat has a well-established mandate, history, capacity to gen-erate the resources necessary to meet its responsibilities, and

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momentum provided by its operational presence. In any set-ting, the lack of clearly defined parameters is debilitating andfrustrating for an SRSG. In the Rwandan context, this wascompounded by a lack of understanding by the SRSG himselfof how the UN system operated and by the obvious need toforge ahead quickly and generate the conditions vital forpeace.

Some of the confusion can be attributed to the rapidevolution of events between early April and late July 1994 andto the fact that UNAMIR’s mandate did not keep pace withevents during this period. Originally set up as a peacekeepingoperation and then dramatically reduced when the events ofApril and renewed hostilities overtook its mandate, UNAMIRassumed an important role in providing protection to a smallbut significant number of besieged people and in assisting inthe provision of relief.

Massive population movements, including refugee flowsto neighboring countries, the launching of Operation Tur-quoise, and the cessation of hostilities in mid-July directlyaffected the role of UNAMIR. The effective disintegration ofthe Arusha Accords essentially annulled the SRSG’s role inshepherding a fragile peace process to fruition. Relief activi-ties, however constrained, were a major preoccupation duringthe April-July period. But as the humanitarian dimension ofthe crisis moved center stage and the reality of a victoriousarmy minimized the significance of political negotiation, therole of the SRSG became increasingly unclear.

The office of the SRSG seemed to be best suited to nurtur-ing the political process, as generally defined by the SecurityCouncil, and lacked the capacity and operational authority toidentify and prioritize needs or to oversee the allocation ofresources in spheres of activity beyond the immediate politicalarena. The SRSG also could play an important role in ensuringharmony between the different components of a peace-con-solidation package and could use the influence of his office topush for prompt action on key programs. Examples of suchpositive interaction between the political, military, and hu-manitarian efforts in Rwanda included the collaborative effortof all in the southwest, with the departure of French forces, toavert further population movements into Zaire. Examples of

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unilateral and uncoordinated action that had a negative im-pact on other UN programs included the airdrop by UNAMIRover refugee camps around Goma of leaflets recommendingrefugee return without prior consultation with UNHCR orDHA.

The Rwandan experience highlights the importance ofclearly defined terms of reference and full familiarity with UNsystem mandates and capabilities on the part of the SRSG.Conversely, humanitarian agencies must know when andhow the SRSG and his office can be called upon for operationalassistance or political and institutional support.92 In this con-nection, it is important that the SRSG is aware of the specificmandates of individual agencies, the type of advice and sup-port these agencies can provide to his office, and the need tosafeguard the integrity of humanitarian agencies. To the ex-tent that SRSGs play an influential part in political and diplo-matic negotiations, safeguarding integrity is important.

The issue of how much the SRSG and his office should beinvolved in the day-to-day coordination of humanitarian ac-tivities was the source of some confusion. As stated already,

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the SRSG, as the most senior UN official in the country, can bea powerful advocate on humanitarian as well as human rightsissues. He can play a useful role in humanitarian diplomacyand flag emerging issues to UN headquarters and the SecurityCouncil. A primary function of the SRSG in the relief sphere isto ensure that humanitarian considerations receive equal bill-ing with political and military concerns and, conversely, toensure that humanitarian assistance is not manipulated politi-cally. Humanitarian practitioners in Rwanda, as inMozambique, felt that the SRSG and his office should not beinvolved operationally in the day-to-day functioning of thehumanitarian coordination office. Indeed, there are distinctadvantages in maintaining the DHA identity operationallyseparate from that of the SRSG. It is understood that on policyissues involving the UN as a whole, the SRSG should act as thesecretary-general’s spokesperson.

Moreover, while the placement of UNAMIR humanitar-ian liaison officers in the UNREO office and the regular partici-pation of the UNREO deputy coordinator at UNAMIR brief-ings served a useful purpose, the same cannot be said for theHumanitarian Cell in the SRSG’s office. The rationale forhaving half a dozen civilian humanitarian officers in theSRSG’s office is not self-evident, given the high risk of dupli-cation or of giving conflicting signals. Precisely this kind ofduplication occurred in September 1994 when the SRSG’soffice undertook to prepare a Rwanda Emergency Normaliza-tion Plan (RENP) with little or no consultation with UNREOand other relevant UN organizations. Conversely, the per-sonal participation of the SRSG in coordination meetings,whether interagency or with NGOs, was seen by all as positive.It ensured not only that he was perceived as the overall UNleader in the country, but also that his concern for humanitarian-ism and for joint strategic planning was backed up in practice.

Interaction with the Military

The UNAMIR presence in Rwanda was an importantfeature in the day-to-day life of the humanitarian community.The military provided essential services to UN agencies,bilaterals, NGOs, and even to the media ranging from security

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to logistics (transport of humanitarian commodities, fuel,communications, medical support, and free access to UNAMIRair services). In addition, the military shared information andprovided direct delivery of assistance. While UNAMIR’s con-tribution was generally appreciated, there were mixed feel-ings in the humanitarian community about the profile to beadopted and the degree of operational intimacy to be main-tained in dealing with the UN military. The prevalent feelingwas that extreme caution should be exercised by humanitarianorganizations in placing themselves under a military umbrellaexcept when overwhelming security considerations dictatedotherwise. Another view argues that it is to the military’sadvantage to keep their profile and image distinct from thoseof the humanitarian agencies.

For cultural and institutional reasons, the military inRwanda and elsewhere is not the best suited to deal with civilsociety. UNAMIR, as with all military establishments, tendedto cut itself off from society by setting up heavily fortifiedcompounds wherever it went. Razor wire and bunkered in-stallations conveyed a message and image that were inescap-ably tied to security (i.e. “don’t mess with us”) and were verydifferent from that which humanitarian agencies projected orwould have liked to project. Therefore, too close an associationor a shared location with the military is likely to impedeinformation gathering and the development of fruitful rela-tions with civil society, especially those sectors of society thatare most vulnerable. The military also have their own estab-lished procedures and sometimes cultivate their aloofness.93

Conversely, the military should do their job and notimpinge on the humanitarian sphere unless there is a clearunderstanding of what has to be done and how. This wouldhave avoided undertakings such as the “psyops” initiative todrop leaflets on Goma, encouraging the return of refugeeswithout prior consultation with UNHCR or DHA. In sum, thedistinct roles and mandates of the UN military and humanitar-ian components should be clearly understood. DHA shouldtake the initiative in ensuring that SRSGs and UN field com-manders are fully briefed on the specificity of humanitarianmandates (priority to the victims) and that this is widelydisseminated and respected along the chain of command.

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While the role played by UNAMIR was undoubtedlyuseful to the humanitarian agencies, UNREO’s coordinationmandate did not extend directly to the tasks with humanitar-ian implications undertaken by UNAMIR. Because exchangeof information appeared to be good, thanks in part to thepresence of UNAMIR liaison officers in the UNREO office andcordial relations, the military and humanitarian lines of com-mand and control were basically separate. This contrastsgreatly with the coordination functions performed by UNHCRin Zaire vis-à-vis the several military contingents providinghumanitarian assistance to refugees.

In addition to interaction with UNAMIR itself, the hu-manitarian agencies in and around Rwanda often were in-volved in innovative forms of partnership with the military.While the deployment of French troops under OperationTurquoise was a more classical political/military interven-tion, the service packages negotiated by UNHCR, with severalnational military contingents to provide specific kinds ofassistance to refugees in the camps around Goma, however,broke much new ground. These included instances wheremilitary assets were placed under the direct control of hu-manitarian agencies. For example, uniformed British troopsfrom the corps of engineers were assigned to UNHCR to set upwater and sanitation systems in the Goma refugee camps. Inanother example, Irish military engineers (clad in NGO T-shirts) were performing similar functions under the commandand control of an Irish NGO, Goal.

In many ways the Rwanda experience was a kind oflaboratory for military intervention.94 A wide range of ap-proaches were implemented at different times that entailednew types of relationships, and in some cases partnership withthe humanitarian organizations. This in turn created newchallenges for coordination, both for UNREO inside Rwandaand for UNHCR in and around Goma.

UNAMIR was deployed initially in support of a peaceprocess with no direct humanitarian role. After April 1994,and especially after July, this changed drastically when theUN blue helmets’ main role became the provision of securityand logistical support to the multifaceted humanitarian effortin Rwanda. They provided a reassuring presence to some

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extent but had no peace to keep. When confronted with serioussecurity incidents and human rights violations as in Kibeho,UNAMIR was unable or unwilling to intervene. OperationTurquoise did not have a humanitarian mandate. In fact, itsmandate was unclear from the start and seemed to respondprimarily to geopolitical considerations. It did, however,have a direct impact on the humanitarian situation in thesouthwest, injecting stability and averting further refugeeexodus to Zaire. The U.S. Operation Support Hope, whicharrived a full month after the French troops, was explicitlyhumanitarian. Distinct from both UNAMIR and OperationTurquoise, Operation Support Hope aimed directly at allevi-ating the plight of refugees in Zaire and was fully under U.S.control. It was successful in saving lives, but the cost—inflatedby sophisticated water purification systems, airlifts, and thelike—was inordinately high (estimated by some at more than$1 billion).95

By comparison the service packages arranged by UNHCRwith a variety of national contingents, which included airportservices, road repair, site preparation, sanitation, water man-agement, and provision and distribution of fuel, appear tohave been more cost-effective. These involved relatively smallcontingents from Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Australia,the Netherlands, Ireland, Israel, and Japan that worked underthe coordination of UNHCR, the lead agency for assistance torefugees, outside the ambit of UNAMIR. As Minear andGuillot conclude in their analysis,

The fact that governments exercised the op-tion to pick and choose among elements of theUnited Nations to support in this particularcrisis made it arguably more difficult for theworld body to attract the full range of assis-tance needed. Weighing peacekeeping func-tions in volatile settings against humanitariansupport roles, fewer governments committedtroops to the tougher security assignments,opting instead for the lower risk, higher vis-ibility, and undiluted command and controlarrangements the service packages afforded.96

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Coordination between UN humanitarian organizationsand the military took several different forms in the Rwandancontext. Inside Rwanda, UNREO basically coexisted withUNAMIR. The chains of command were separate and interac-tion was limited to exchanging information, logistical sup-port, and delivery of humanitarian commodities. OutsideRwanda, UNHCR’s coordination role was much more proac-tive, especially as far as the service packages were concerned.Even in the case of Operation Support Hope, the U.S. military,after some initial confusion, became part of the UNHCR-orchestrated response.

The broader question here is whether the use of troops inhumanitarian settings should be seen as something trulyexceptional, justifiable only as a stopgap measure in the mostextreme circumstances. In this case, cost is not a primaryconcern, nor whether the military are destined to become aregular feature in the world’s humanitarian regime and theirpresence should be factored therefore into UN coordinationmechanisms. Experience in Rwanda highlights theunwieldiness of the military to function as a humanitarianinstrument when troops or military assets do not fit into theoverall plan of a humanitarian effort. From a humanitarianpoint of view, there is an inherent risk in the militarization ofhumanitarian assistance97 and, as in Somalia, for the reliefagenda to be driven by extraneous considerations whetherthey are military or political. Rather than using the military fortasks for which they are not mandated and not trained, and forwhich they often lack the cultural sensitivity, should theinternational community not provide the humanitarians withthe wherewithal to do their job?

The UNDP Factor

As explained above, when Kigali was overpowered byviolence in early April 1994, the United Nations developmentorganizations and their coordinating body, UNDP, quicklyleft the scene. A few days later, the humanitarian agenciesappeared, first with brief missions or a rotating staff presenceand then with the establishment of UNREO and with morepermanent offices in Kigali and in various field locations.

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Naturally enough, development work ground to a halt. UNDPand the development agencies only started reappearing inearnest in September. However, this is not the place to discusswhether the functional separation between relief and develop-ment roles (which often results in a kind of revolving doorsyndrome) is the most appropriate response to complex emer-gencies, and particularly to complex emergencies of a longerduration. It also should be noted that the cultures of develop-ment and relief are very different, and more importantly, theskills required of emergency practitioners are not normallypossessed by their developmental counterparts.98

The tensions played themselves out in Rwanda in select-ing the humanitarian coordinator. As in other settings, theprocess proved contentious, involving difficult negotiationsat the highest level in New York between UN and UNDP, aswell as with the key humanitarian actors. To avoid suchconfusion, it is important that the coordinator positions haveclearly defined terms of reference that reflect the nature of thetask to be accomplished. For example, coordination require-ments vary depending on whether a UN or regional peace-keeping mission is involved and on whether the humanitariansituation is “silent” or “violent.” Although generic terms ofreference for humanitarian coordinators have been agreedupon in the IASC, it is as yet unclear if there is sufficientconsensus for their practical application on the ground.

In any event, coordination of a major emergency is a full-time job requiring specific expertise. The Rwandan crisisillustrates the impossibility of combining coordination func-tions with other responsibilities. It is unrealistic to expect thehumanitarian coordinator of a complex emergency to assumealso the functions of a UNDP resident representative. Combin-ing the two functions is also difficult. In the transition phase,the focus moves from acute emergency to rehabilitation andcapacity-building. While emergencies are often understood interms of phases, these generally do not occur in a sequentialmanner. There are often stops and starts in the transition torehabilitation, and new problems as they arise are invariablytime-consuming.

There is also the problem of primary organization ofallegiance. UNDP, which does not have a long tradition in

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coordinating relief, is perceived by many people as beingprimarily committed to its development role. This may havenegative implications for the day-to-day coordination of hu-manitarian programs. Indeed, this was the case in Rwanda: assoon as the “breaking phase” was over, the resident represen-tative, who was still also the humanitarian coordinator, wasseen as concerned primarily with the UNDP agenda. In addi-tion, UNDP headquarters, through the emissaries it sent to thefield, made it very clear that the UNDP profile should beraised. Also, a concern was the perceived lack of visibility ofUNDP on the ground, where vehicles with UNREO logosoutnumbered those with UNDP logos.

In Rwanda, DHA and UNREO benefited from UNDP’sconsiderable support in which it provided premises and ve-hicles as well as financial and administrative support. Some ofthe key UNREO staff held UNDP contracts, at least in theinitial months. The first humanitarian coordinator, himself aUNDP staff member, was often caught in delicate reportingconundrums as he was at the same time the UNDP residentrepresentative. This was especially true when UNDP decidedthat it should start asserting its development profile. Agree-ment between DHA and UNDP remained elusive upon thedeparture of the first humanitarian coordinator—despiteDHA’s insistence that the same individual, with documentedexperience in coordination of emergency assistance, shouldcontinue to hold both positions. DHA therefore appointed oneof its own staff as humanitarian coordinator, and UNDPsubsequently appointed a resident representative.

Thus the situation in Rwanda was brought in line with thatin Afghanistan and Mozambique, where the DHA (emer-gency) and UNDP (development) coordination mechanismswere distinct. Many people argued that the positions shouldbe merged and that there should be only one coordinator.Indeed, the UN interagency agreements stipulate that thisnormally should be the case (with the UN resident coordinatoracting as humanitarian coordinator and reporting to DHA onhumanitarian issues).

The experience in the studies of the three countries showsfor various reasons that especially in large scale on the suddenonset of emergencies, UNDP officials with development

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credentials are not the best suited to carry the heavy anddemanding role of coordinators. In many cases, UN and non-UN humanitarian agencies have expressed their preferencefor the appointment of a humanitarian figurehead to the post.Consequently, the institutional tug of war between humani-tarian and development coordinators is likely to continue.Occasionally, as happened in Rwanda upon the appointmentof the second humanitarian coordinator, it can become un-pleasant. UNDP cut off its support to UNREO and relationsbecame temporarily strained.

Relationships with NGOs

UNREO was universally acclaimed as having constitutedan extremely important and useful mechanism for the NGOcommunity, both in facilitating NGO action and in enablingthese agencies to coordinate their activities with the UN andother bodies. Logistical and other support provided byUNAMIR, and UNREO’s role in facilitating this, also ap-peared helpful and eased the coordination task.

Regular biweekly coordination meetings, to which allNGOs, bilaterals, and UN agencies were invited, were con-vened by UNREO. These were well-attended, often with stand-ing room only. The pleasant and business-like atmospherewas a welcome departure from more turbulent or fractiousgatherings witnessed in other humanitarian emergencies. Thesemeetings went well beyond information sharing. Prioritieswere discussed and to a large extent informal decisions weremade concerning load sharing and possible future areas ofconcentration.99 The local relationship between UNREO pro-vincial offices and NGOs seemed to be equally productive.

The UNREO coordinating structure was appreciated byNGOs that viewed it as supportive and participatory “light”rather than an authorization approach. The facilities (meetingplace, rendezvous point, bulletin board, pigeon holes for allNGOs, and access to satellite communication equipment) andwelcoming atmosphere of UNREO were also major factors ingenerating a positive relationship and facilitating a collectivehumanitarian endeavor. Such facilities, support, and leader-ship-through-consensus were appreciated doubly in the acute

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eye-of-the-storm period when resources were scarce andprompt action was required to save lives and avert furthercatastrophe.

The location and accessibility of the UNREO office waskey to its success. Some UNAMIR personnel indicated that itmight have been preferable to have all UN emergency-relatedoffices in one location. However, the open-house ambiance ofthe UNREO office probably would have been difficult tomaintain in the heavily guarded UNAMIR compound. Physi-cal distance from UN military compounds also helped insafeguarding the humanitarian identity of relief agencies.

The effectiveness of the UNREO coordination role vis-à-vis NGOs is suggested by the fact that NGOs themselves didnot feel the need to establish their own coordination body.While the creation of such a body was considered when anICVA mission visited the area in August 1994, most NGOswere not interested. Instead, an international NGO staffer wasseconded to UNREO. Over time, UNREO structures and coor-dination mechanisms played a less significant role for NGOs asthe transition was made from acute emergency to ongoing careand maintenance and initiation of rehabilitation activities.

As a number of NGOs (more than 120 were recordedduring the peak period) departed the scene as funds dried up,it was probable that the services and facilities provided byUNREO would be less in demand by those NGOs that re-mained. Because the need for coordination would continue,larger NGOs would rely increasingly on their own resourcesand develop stronger linkages with UN agencies as theyfocused on particular sectoral and geographic areas.

While the overall contribution of NGOs to the humanitar-ian effort in and around Rwanda appears to have been unques-tionably positive, notwithstanding a few instances of “cow-boy” or “media-hungry” agencies, the longer-term impact ofthe delivery of an overwhelming proportion of humanitarianassistance through external NGOs needs to be better under-stood. Like other relief actors, NGOs have varying degrees ofprofessionalism and capacity. The commitment of less well-established agencies is often vulnerable to media and publicopinion shifts back home. This creates problems of continuityand sustainability, especially as emergencies move into therehabilitation and development phase.

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Moreover, as in the case of Mozambique, the multiplicityof humanitarian (and development) actors creates a burdenfor fledgling government structures and breeds dependency,if proper safeguards are not introduced. Given the over-whelming nature and scale of the problems to be addressed,this was less evident in Rwanda than in Mozambique. Inemergency situations, NGOs often have a free hand and cutcorners, which in most cases simply means bypassing thegovernment in deciding what to do and how to do it. Inevita-bly, the point comes when the government will want to rein inthe NGOs. In Rwanda, the moment came in March 1995, whenthe government issued guidelines for working with NGOs.100

These guidelines were met with hostility by some NGOs whoresented the fact that they should be required to register, havetransparent budgets, and pursue identifiable activities. Somethreatened to leave. There is no easy answer to such problems.There is, however, a role for the UN, both in the coordinationbody and through UNDP, in advocating that issues of self-reliance in the broadest sense are not pushed aside in complexemergencies.

The Evolving Challenge of Field Coordination

It was not easy to ascertain how UN agencies actuallyperceived the role of DHA or how much they found theUNREO coordinating structure useful. There was at all levelsmuch polite reference to the importance of coordination andappreciation of the role played by DHA. Such comments oftenwere coupled with statements on the need to ensure that DHAdid not become another layer in the larger UN-systemdecisionmaking process. In general, it appears that during theNairobi-based phase of the operation, UNREO was better-positioned to generate an overall consensus on a collective andmutually-reinforcing response. During the early days of theGoma crisis, DHA presence and capacity to facilitate commu-nication and provide an overall perspective was greatly ap-preciated.

As UN agencies reestablished themselves, they naturallytended to be very much focused on their particular programsand mandates and less inclined to subordinate agency priori-ties to an overall coordination structure. There was an automatic

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tendency for each agency to assume a coordinating role in itsparticular sector or sphere of influence. This is not surprising,given the need for more detailed planning as programs be-come more structured. The challenge for the coordinatingbody is to be aware of the changing realities, while simulta-neously ensuring that decisions and strategies fit into anoverall recovery plan. As already mentioned, coordinationseems to be governed by the law of diminishing returns. If thecoordination body is perceived as hanging on when coordina-tion needs are greatly diminished, it will loose its credibilityand be seen as only an additional layer in the UN organiza-tional stratification.

Even in the acute period of emergency, while agenciesparticipated actively in information-exchange meetings andon security and other issues of common concern, there waslittle joint planning on the humanitarian front within the UNsystem. This was at best coordination by consensus in thatagencies informed one another of what they were planning. InRwanda, as elsewhere, instances of agencies taking initiativesthat affected the work of others without prior consultationoften occurred.

Conclusions

The first lesson of Rwanda is that complex emergenciesare precisely that: extraordinarily complex. Most observersprobably would agree that DHA’s response to the Rwandancrisis was commensurate to its complexity. Also, despite somelapses in management and in its internal chain of command,DHA was, broadly speaking, on top of things. This is espe-cially the case if its performance is compared to that in otheremergencies.

However, such examples point to the second major lesson:DHA’s managerial and institutional grip on the coordinationof humanitarian activities in Rwanda could have been stron-ger. UNREO’s strengths resided in its leadership and in theservices it was able to provide to the NGO community inparticular. Internal management was another story. Report-ing lines to DHA’s headquarters and the respective roles ofDHA in New York and DHA in Geneva were not clear.

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UNREO suffered from the absence of a rule book, coveringsuch basic administrative tasks as hiring and deploying staff,the management of funds, reporting requirements, and simpleoffice procedures (such as registry, filing system, secretarialsupport, rules for the use of vehicles and internal travel).Consequently, much was left to improvisation, resulting in theimpression that UNREO staff were dedicated and relativelyeffective but amateurish, especially if compared to those UNagencies (such as UNHCR, UNICEF, and WFP) that have well-oiled and time-tested procedures for rapid deployment inemergencies.

The Rwanda experience teaches that DHA should notattempt to compete with the more battled-hardened agenciesof the UN system. This is not DHA’s role because by definitionit is not operational. As advocate and facilitator, it shouldprovide the software that enables the humanitarian commu-nity to function better than if its constituent parts operated inisolation. However, and this is the third lesson, coordinationcannot be effective without a minimum of resources for thecoordination entity. A functioning office or provincial officecannot be established without vehicles, radios, walkie-talkies,and petty cash for hiring translators, cleaners, or watchmen, ifrequired. It is irresponsible to expect, as was the case in someof the UNREO provincial offices, that inexperienced stafftotally new to the UN system should open an office single-handedly and cover such expenses from their own pockets.

Specific recommendations made elsewhere include theneed for a package approach encompassing the main elementsof coordination; the need for a task force to guide and monitorthe coordination function from DHA headquarters and toensure interaction with other UN departments; transparentjob descriptions for the main actors; and a quick deploymentmechanism for staff.101 An additional area that requires imme-diate attention is that of the management of DHA’s ownresources. Flexibility and creativity are required, and themanagement culture needs to change to work toward thecommon objective of one DHA—one pool of resources. A defacto managerial separation seems to exist between the DHAstaff and resources assigned to natural disasters and those forman-made disasters. In the Rwandan context, this resulted in

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the reluctance to deploy experienced professionals and radioand telecommunications equipment to service the needs aris-ing from the latter in Kigali and Goma. More probably couldhave been done in Rwanda if the concept of the pool had beenunderstood and implemented earlier. Staff and other resourcesneed to be concentrated rapidly where they are most necessaryto meet the breaking needs of crises.

Given the extraordinary amounts of money that the inter-national community has devoted to the Rwanda crisis—over$2 billion during the first 18 months alone—the importance ofaccountability and learning from this experience is self-evi-dent. Seminars and studies on Rwanda are very much agrowing industry. This is borne out by the many studies on theRwanda emergency already cited. The major multidonor evalu-ation study, coordinated by a steering committee made up ofagency representatives, and costing over $1.5 million, is due tobe published in early 1996. The report’s results are likely toshape future humanitarian responses to humanitarian crises.It is important for UN agencies and DHA to capitalize on theirRwanda experience. It is to be hoped that such an unprec-edented attention to the effectiveness of humanitarian assis-tance will result in the identification of lessons to be learnedand, more important, to be applied. Given the magnitude ofthe devastation and of the humanitarian effort of the interna-tional community in Rwanda, the least to be expected is abetter understanding of the dynamics of complex emergenciesand greater accountability of those whose job it is to intervenein them.

Whither Rwanda?

One would like to think that peace is within reach inRwanda and that the combination of UN humanitarian andpeacekeeping activities has been an essential component inthis process. Unfortunately, at the time of writing this paper,the warning lights of further violence are still flashing. More-over, while it is obvious that international assistance has metmost of the needs of the refugees and the internally displaced,such assistance has been delivered through the leadership andthe administrative structures of the defeated regime, but in the

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refugee camps this assistance has not been an element ofreconciliation.

In the rush of the exodus from Rwanda, there were per-haps no alternatives to the operational choices made byUNHCR, and the massive manipulation of humanitarian as-sistance by the remnants of a genocidal regime is certain tohave long-term effects. The refugee crisis itself was largely theresult of a deliberate manipulation. This was important in thesense that the exodus, perhaps for the first time in history, wasorganized and planned on the assumption that the interna-tional community would rescue the refugees so that the geno-cidal leadership and the population it controlled could availthemselves of the fundamental human right to humanitarianassistance. Similarly, inside the country, the failures by the UNsystem and the international community at large to addressthe issues of genocide, of the reconstruction of the judicialsystem, of human rights monitoring, and of providing somelevel of support to extremely weak governmental structuresdo not bode well for peace and reconciliation. A large andexpensive Band-Aid has been applied to Rwanda, but thewounds are still festering beneath it.

Thirty years of efforts by external experts and untoldmillions spent in technical assistance and development aidhave left the root causes of conflict untouched. Contrary to theoft quoted maxim, peace, development, and democracy didnot go hand in hand in Rwanda. Given the fact that theinternational community was unable to prevent genocide, theleast it could do is ask itself why this happened and if themanner in which international development aid was providedand manipulated by a narrow-based regime did not exacer-bate divisions in Rwandan society and contribute to the prob-lem.

It is difficult for the concerned observer and certainly foranyone who has been involved in providing humanitarianrelief not to feel very strongly that the moral imperative ofcompassion must extend beyond the mere provision of assis-tance to the victims of genocide and displacement or to kick-start the economy so that Rwanda can return to developmentas usual. As a minimum, the international community mustensure that the mistakes of the past are not repeated. As

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maximum, durable, sustainable, and regional solutions to theproblems created by the politics of hatred must be sought.Root causes must be addressed and the more profound ethicalissues cannot be ignored. Humanitarian assistance alone willnot solve the problems of failed states or of failed develop-ment. Raising the issue of root causes will inevitably lead toquestioning other paradigms of the global system. Is there acollective international responsibility for the functioning ofthis system? If so, how can this responsibility be separatedfrom the issue of justice? Will it apply both in the strict senseof punishing perpetrators of genocide and other heinouscrimes and in the larger sense of the quest for a just approachto the problems of violence and poverty in areas of the worldthat seem to be increasingly marginal, strategically, economi-cally, and politically? If emergencies are not aberrations in alinear process but internal to the social, economic, and politicalstructures of societies, can we afford to remain indifferent vis-à-vis these structures? Is neutrality compatible with solidar-ity?102 In this context, some experts have argued convincinglythat after Rwanda it is no longer possible for humanitarians tomaintain an equanimous impartiality between victims andexecutioners.103

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PART THREE: CONCLUSIONS AND LESSONS FOR THE FUTURE

Putting the Victims First

The Rwanda crisis, like many other post-Cold War com-plex emergencies, has shown once again how difficult it is forhumanitarian concerns not to become pawns in a larger politi-cal game. The lack of consistency of the international commu-nity in addressing crises, whether political or humanitarian,and the institutional complexity of the United Nations systemare realities with which humanitarian agencies have to struggleand work. Relief agencies often find themselves at the cross-roads between politics and victims. Coordination plays acrucial role at this intersection. It must ensure that the humani-tarian traffic is not held up by politics. While the brazen law ofpolitics will sometimes overrule, humanitarians must none-theless make certain that the voice of the victims is heard.When political mandates change or are incompatible withhumanitarian objectives, it is incumbent on the humanitariansand on DHA as custodian of humanitarian principles in theUN system to point this out.

The three coordination case studies presented in thismonograph illustrate three distinct facets of the relationshipbetween humanitarian assistance and politics. The nature andintensity of the crises is undoubtedly different—and the mag-nitude of Rwanda overshadows the others—but a commonthread runs through them: the vulnerability of humanitarianwork to political demands and outright manipulation.

When crises are sudden and violent and when humanitar-ian needs are massive as in the case of Rwanda, it is particu-larly important to ensure that humanitarian principles, andthe humanitarian space in which the victims and the reliefagencies interact, are protected. This is a key priority for UNcoordination. In particular, DHA should ensure through ac-tive lobbying and dissemination of information that the speci-ficity of the mandates of the humanitarian agencies of the UN,but also of ICRC and the NGOs, is understood perfectly by allactors, whether at the Security Council level or at the level ofthe local warlord. In other words, while the quest for coher-ence and unity of purpose in the UN response to complex

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emergencies is a sensible objective, DHA should see to it thathumanitarianism is not utilized as a wedge to achieve politicalgoals.

Direct advocacy of humanitarianism is of course easiersaid than done. Relief agencies are aware that they are operat-ing in an eminently political context. Moreover, “raising theflag” of the humanitarian imperative too high may defeat thepurpose if it impedes access to victims. In Goma-like settings,difficult decisions with long-term implications have to bemade in a rapidly changing environment. The point here isawareness. Issues should not be brushed aside. Humanitarianagencies—and their coordination body is on the front line inthis—have a responsibility to the victims to discuss and tolearn and hopefully to improve their effectiveness.

This responsibility goes beyond daily survival. For hu-manitarianism to be effective, policymakers and practitionersmust make it a point to be aware of the implications andpotential consequences of their work. In this sense, coordina-tion is a much more complex and delicate undertaking thanorchestrating the response. While generating consensus is ofcourse essential, the policy of mercy, that is humanitariancoordination in the broader sense, extends upstream intopreparedness and policy development and downstream intothe reflective processes by which organizations learn fromexperience and apply this knowledge in the future.

There are also indirect approaches to the coordinationpolicies that need to be cultivated systematically: training ofUN and NGO as well as country staff on the specificity ofhumanitarian mandates, studies documenting success storiesand abuses of humanitarian aid, and the elaboration of policyguidelines on how to operate in conflict situations. There is apractical agenda here and addressing it will help in dissemi-nating a humanitarian culture and ethos. If the humanitarianactors are not convinced that it is necessary to push thisagenda, it is unlikely that they will be able to convince othersto do so. The formulation and implementation of guidelines ondo’s and don’ts on such issues as negotiated access, use ofarmed guards, negative implication of inappropriate assis-tance, and delivery methods will help to advance the cause ofhumanitarianism. The frank discussion of such issues “in

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theater” with implementing partners, sister agencies, UNpolitical representatives, and local authorities will be a power-ful expression of the UN’s determination not to compromise(or to do so only when the trade-off benefits the victims).

Another area deserving attention is the involvement of thevictims in the decisionmaking concerning their situation andthe best mechanisms to alleviate it. Too often it is taken forgranted that the outsiders know best, and coordinators are noexception here. Local coping mechanisms are disregarded ornot systematically supported. This adds to the risk of fosteringdependency and long-term unsustainability of programs. Un-like the development strategies of the 1970s and 1980s thatpromoted, or at least paid lip service to, self-reliance, the knee-jerk reaction of the humanitarian community often results ina rapid disbursement syndrome in which donors andimplementors are complicit. The availability of funds and theeagerness of agencies—in particular, NGOs—to tap into themare all too often the force that drives relief programs.

From Afghanistan to eastern Zaire, the contract culture isthriving. Projects and funding cycles focus on the short term.In narrowly focused programs, victims tend to be treated asobjects, as a caseload that needs to be fed, institutionalized incamps, or moved. The terminology stresses the passive char-acteristics of victims rather than their role as active subjectswith more or less sophisticated survival strategies, forms ofsocial organization, and rational decisionmaking processes.The three countries studied all offer examples of how relief—and the modalities of its distribution—carried the risk ofcreating dependency. In all three, and in many other settings,it can be argued that aid has weakened local coping mecha-nisms or that the massive and sometimes unthoughtful inter-vention of humanitarians has generated a culture of expecta-tion.104 Also, the UN coordination mechanism and, more gen-erally, DHA as custodian of humanitarian principles and asadvocate for the long-term perspective must ensure that pro-gram planning takes into account the larger context withinwhich humanitarian assistance is provided and that a balanceis maintained between outside intervention to meet life-sav-ing needs and the capacity of local populations to cope withcrisis. This is vital in the transition to recovery and development,

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as Mozambique demonstrates. A sense of ownership andultimately of self-reliance is essential. Recovery, the healing ofsociety after conflict, can only succeed if it is “illuminated fromwithin.”105

The Three Cultures

The issue of how much intimacy humanitarian activitiesshould maintain with the political processes of the interna-tional community on the one hand, and with the developmentagencies on the other, has cropped up repeatedly in this study.Following the demise of the old order and with the emergenceof complex crises, the temptation to integrate the responses ofthe international community has been strong. The experiencein Afghanistan, Mozambique, and Rwanda, however, indi-cates that complex issue linking and “integration” run intotheoretical and practical problems. From a theoretical viewpoint, while nobody would disagree that a coherent or unitaryresponse to crises makes eminent sense, the subordination ofthe humanitarian imperative to political/military consider-ations is clearly unacceptable. These considerations derivetheir legitimacy from Security Council decisions, which repre-sent the best available political compromise at a particulartime and which, where the banner of Chapter VII is hoisted,result in the abandonment of a cardinal principle of humani-tarianism—neutrality. The humanitarian imperative is non-political and categorical: the obligation to provide assistanceto victims. The mandates of humanitarian agencies, especiallythe protection mandates of ICRC and UNHCR, cannot bemixed with or subordinated to politics.

This does not deny that conflicts are messy, contextspolitical, and humanitarian actors subject to manipulationfrom warring parties or from the condominium of powers thatwant to push for peace and utilize humanitarian assistancewith this in mind. Humanitarians are not naïve about believ-ing that they can be insulated effectively from political ormilitary processes. Indeed, the case studies provide a numberof practical examples of positive or negative synergies be-tween the various components of UN activities in the threecountries. Mozambique is a practical demonstration of the

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problems resulting from the integration of the coordination ofhumanitarian activities within the command structures of aUN peace operation. Rwanda points to the advantages of aseparate identity for the humanitarian effort. The level ofinteraction between the humanitarian coordination body inRwanda and UNAMIR was generally good in the sense that itwas provided with equal billing within the overall frameworksupervised by the SRSG. In Afghanistan, the two tracks werealmost completely separate and the case is made that this infact facilitated the provision of humanitarian assistance in awar-torn environment.

There are also valid institutional reasons for not mixingUN politicos with relief and with development. Peacekeepingmissions are short term by definition. Their motto is “assistand forget.” This is sometimes their strength, as in Mozambique,because the time-limited approach helped to push the peaceprocess to fruition. Humanitarians—and even more so thedevelopment set—are in for the long haul. While it is essentialfor the three cultures to understand each other’s mores andvalues, placing them into one mold is tantamount to a reductioad absurdum.

This being said, it is necessary that the relief and develop-ment cultures should intermingle more not only becauseultimately one has to hand over to the other, but also becausethe task of reducing vulnerability to crises demands that thosewho are most adversely affected are enabled to overcome theroot causes of their suffering. More importantly, misconcep-tions relating to the nature of complex emergencies need to belifted. Such crises are not aberrations in the linear process ofdevelopment. Internal conflicts that result in the breakdownof the social order and preexisting coping mechanisms areoften struggles over resources, while the economy and societythemselves harbor the roots of conflict. It is to be hoped—andhere again there is a role for DHA—that humanitarians anddevelopment activists will put their heads together to under-stand better not only the requirements of the transition fromrelief to post-conflict reconstruction, but also how the devel-opment strategies of the past, as in Rwanda, may have contrib-uted to the genesis of the crisis and to a downward spiral fromdevelopment to conflict to relief.

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Is Coordination Really Necessary?

It has been argued in the past (and to be fair, some in theUN system still argue) that the institutionalization of UNcoordination entities for humanitarian assistance adds a bu-reaucratic layer to a process that is basically self-regulating. Inother words, once agencies have clear mandates and the turfproblems between adjoining sectors are ironed out, humani-tarian agencies should get on with the job of providing assis-tance. Information exchange and the fact of being neighbors inthe same operational theater will ensure that sufficient coordi-nation-by-default will occur.

This is a short-sighted view, if not a self-serving one. Theexperience from the three case studies in this monograph, andfrom many other settings as well, point to at least two funda-mental reasons why coordination must be actively (somewould say aggressively) pursued. Reasons include the volatil-ity of crisis environments and the multiplicity of actors. Post-Cold War crises are no longer simple affairs of single cause orsingle response. The political, military, human rights, andhumanitarian dimensions, as well as the economic and devel-opment implications, now all come together like an accordion.Someone must ensure that all the actors—the traditional UNagencies, the ICRC, the myriad NGOs, and the local authori-ties—know how to read from the same sheet music, even ifthey do not necessarily dance to the same tune. Put differently,a coordination entity is essential to orchestrate the manage-ment of the various inputs and programs so that all the actorscan fit into a coherent and effective response. As the experi-ence of Afghanistan, Mozambique, and Rwanda demonstrates,this is a task that no single agency or lead agency can under-take. Moreover, the increasing realization that effectivenessand accountability go hand in hand is an additional argumentfor a nonoperational entity that sets standards and guidelineswhile eschewing vested interests in program implementation.

The fundamental lesson of Afghanistan, Mozambique,and Rwanda is perhaps that more rather than less coordina-tion is required. In the continuum from coordination-by-defaultto coordination-by-consensus to coordination-by-command,the Afghanistan experience ranks closest to coordination-by-

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command. This resulted from strong leadership and the avail-ability of some unearmarked resources, at least in the initialyears, which allowed UNOCA/UNOCHA to do more thansimply plead for consensus among humanitarian partners. Acoherent program and consistent priorities were actuallyshaped. Leadership, personalities, knowledge of the terrainand of the local actors, and a small carrot, i.e. a small amountof catalytic funding, made this possible.

The Rwandan coordination experience was one of strongconsensus (but minimal, if any, command), at least during thefirst six months of UNREO’s existence. As UN agencies be-came more organized, the level of consensus decreased, whichwas a factor that contributed to the decision to close theUNREO office and to transfer residual humanitarian coordi-nation functions to the resident coordinator at the end ofOctober 1995. Unlike Afghanistan, UNREO’s responsibilitywas limited to humanitarian needs inside the country and didnot cover the coordination of humanitarian assistance in thethree neighboring countries, and, consequently, also weak-ened its consensus building efforts.

Mozambique ranks lowest on the scale among the threecase studies, that is, somewhere between coordination-by-consensus and coordination-by-default. Because UNOHACwas overshadowed by ONUMOZ and because its existencewas never really accepted by some of its UN agency counter-parts, it was never able to generate strong consensus in thehumanitarian (and development) community in Mozambique.As an integral part of ONUMOZ, UNOHAC is related to itsfailure to achieve coordination-by-consensus. This is an im-portant lesson for future reference.

The UNOCA/UNOCHA coordination mechanism wasthe strongest of the three, but is not presented here as a model.UN humanitarian coordination entities must be adapted tocircumstances, and these will differ from emergency to emer-gency. Moreover, the present institutional setup in the UNhumanitarian system is by no means carved in stone. Essentialas it may be in theory and in practice, DHA is still somewhata concept in search of a commitment. The donor communityhas yet to make up its mind as to the best possible shape of theUN humanitarian enterprise and is holding back on measures

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that would allow DHA to achieve strong consensus and somecommand in orchestrating a coherent response to complexemergencies.

The only possible and as yet untested alternative to thepresent setup is the consolidation of the main elements of theUN relief system—UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP, and DHA—intoa single agency. Although this has been advocated in differentquarters, the implications of such a change have not beenworked out. These implications are likely to be wide-rangingespecially for those organizations—UNICEF and WFP in par-ticular—with dual development and relief mandates.106

Some Recommendations to Strengthen Coordination

Sweeping reform in the UN humanitarian system is un-likely in the short term. Thus, increasing the effectiveness ofthe existing coordination capabilities becomes more urgent. Akey lesson of the country studies is that the nature and magni-tude of the crises that confront the international communityrequire some systematization of humanitarian coordinationmechanisms. Amateurism and adhocracy—i.e. reinventingthe coordination wheel at every new crisis—is as disrespectfulto the victims as it is bad management. The components of apackage approach to coordination have been described al-ready in Part I. There are encouraging signs that this missionin a box concept is gaining wider currency in the UN system.Problems, however, remain.

Regrettably, a culture that puts a premium on a sharedapproach to problem solving is still lacking in the UN system.As advocate and facilitator, DHA should take the lead inpointing out to its partners, including donors, the synergiesthat result from joint action and the repercussions of “going italone.” The issue of the appointment of humanitarian coordi-nators and particularly the cumbersome process of getting thekey agencies and UNDP on the same wavelength is an ex-ample of unnecessary irritant, which should be solved.

This leads to another lesson, repeatedly stressed in thismonograph, that coordination in the three case studies hasbeen mainly by consensus. DHA and the humanitarian coor-dinator can provide the software but they cannot force the

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agencies to use it. DHA’s credibility would be well-served bya limited dose of coordination by command, both in terms ofsome unearmarked funds and in terms of leadership andauthority on the ground. It is recognized that this is a particu-larly difficult and contentious area, but the donors (and thegeneral public) cannot forever claim that the UN is ineffectivein coordinating emergencies, while at the same time refusingto give it the means and resources to do so. A crippledcoordination body lacking leadership and the respect of theother actors defeats the purpose of coordination.

There follows another major lesson: DHA cannot be ex-pected to coordinate effectively if it does not have access to amodicum of its own resources to hire local staff, open fieldoffices, make local purchases, and even engage the services ofimplementing partners in a limited way. DHA cannot rely onUN bureaucracy. It should be granted the flexibility that onlyUNHCR and to some extent UNICEF have in the UN system,but also that flexibility that many organizations such as ICRC,some bilateral agencies, and countless NGOs have outside it.Such flexibility allows agencies to quickly divert personneland funds (including cash) to breaking emergencies, movesupplies and equipment, recruit staff locally, and sign lettersof understanding with implementing partners, all with aminimum of bureaucracy. DHA needs to lobby for and obtaina similar capacity based on post-facto controls rather than onthe fetishistic respect of outdated rules and regulations. Moreimportant, as mentioned above, DHA needs a carrot, howeversmall, to act as a catalyst and generate momentum on specificpolicy initiatives.

In a post-conflict scenario, the UN system obviously hasan important role to play in both facilitating interaction withgovernment and local authorities, while also assisting thegovernment to develop the capacity to launch rehabilitationprograms and other activities essential for peace and stability.Given the lead time required by development agencies tocommence operations, and their inclination to focus on capac-ity-building programs that do not necessarily address theimmediate needs of dislocated and vulnerable groups, there isa role for a coordination mechanism that facilitates a transitionand maintains momentum on a recovery trajectory. The presence

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of an operational peacekeeping force providing security, lo-gistics, or other support for the provision of humanitarianassistance, and the need to ensure harmonious interface be-tween the military and the humanitarian community, alsounderlines the continuing need for an impartial coordinationbody.

In terms of lessons that can be derived from recent expe-riences, it is important that the coordination body and DHAare aware of and respond to the changing requirements of thehumanitarian community as a crisis evolves; structures andmechanisms that were useful at the peak of the crisis will needto be phased out or adapted as their utility decreases orbecomes redundant. The three case studies demonstrate thateffective coordination obeys the law of diminishing returns.The transition process is not necessarily linear: the motto of thecoordination entity should be “adapt or die.”

There is much unnecessary and unhelpful discussionamong UN agency representatives in the field as to whether ornot the coordinating entity is or should be “operational.” It isunclear what is understood precisely by this term, but itappears that much of the concern and discussion centersaround the fear that DHA will start encroaching on the man-dates and will duplicate the activities of existing UN “opera-tional” agencies. DHA’s inability to articulate its role and toclearly define the nonpassive nature of its coordinating func-tion partly explains the hesitation and distrust of sister agen-cies. Given the types of tasks DHA is required to perform tomeet its responsibilities, it should be able to explain the neces-sity of activities such as monitoring and data collection, whichare essential to its coordinating role and that it is normally notdirectly involved in the actual implementation of specificprojects. In other words, it is operational in so far as thecoordination of complex emergencies is a dynamic activity,but it is not an implementing arm of the UN in the sense thatUNICEF or WFP are.

Given the present state of play in the UN system, it isunreasonable to expect that DHA will become a majorimplementor of programs. As we have seen above, instancesin which DHA has become operational are limited to areaswhere no other UN body had a mandate and a capability such

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as demining in Afghanistan, and to exceptional situationswhere it was expressly requested by sister agencies to take onan implementing role such as with the internally displacedpersons in Jalalabad. As a rule, the more DHA operationalfunctions in the field are perceived as a service to the entirehumanitarian community (for example, the 24-hour radiowatch and operating the UN airplane in Afghanistan) or to thepopulation at large (demining), the more they will be ac-cepted. Treading on the turf of others, or worse, telling themhow to run their programs, will only raise the adrenaline levelsboth in the field and at headquarters.

DHA’s ability to have a positive impact is partly linked toits image and the confidence it inspires within the humanitar-ian community and the larger UN system. It needs to developa profile that is consistent throughout all operations for whichit performs a coordinating function. This includes utilizing astandard acronym and logo that is easily recognizable (e.g.DHA-Rwanda or DHA-Afghanistan).

As in all emergencies, the three case studies in this mono-graph indicate that a high proportion of aid workers andmedia personnel are brand-new to the relief scene and haveminimal understanding of how the different components ofthe UN function. From this perspective alone, it is importantthat DHA has an identity that explains its role and facilitatesits task of coordination both at the ground level and globallyin the sense of advocating the humanitarian agenda (e.g., atotal ban on landmines) vis-à-vis public opinion.

It is equally important that DHA should operate as oneprogram and that it projects the same message and image at alllevels of activity. The fact that some UNOCHA, UNOHAC,and UNREO staff were unfamiliar with DHA’s constitutionand the tasks it is required to perform at the interagency(IASC) and international level is disquieting. As a first step, asmentioned in Part I, DHA should put together a concise, butbrief, information package that should be handed to all staffmembers, however short-term. Such an information kit alsocould be used to brief personnel and colleagues not familiarwith DHA but who interact with it.

The studies also have stressed the crucial importance ofinformation and analysis. In each case, the coordination office’s

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capacity to be ahead of the curve in terms of understandingfast-changing events and country contexts was greatly valued.In Afghanistan, the coordinator made it a point to tap the bestavailable academic talent, including historians and anthro-pologists, to guide his first steps. In Mozambique, theUNOHAC office had a team of experienced old Mozambiquehands that prepared situation and other reports. In Rwanda,UNREO might have benefited from the presence of a Rwandaspecialist or an anthropologist. In the initial months the infor-mation collected and distributed by UNREO was crucial forthe overall shaping of the humanitarian effort.

Many other coordination and housekeeping issues areraised in the case studies. Most are self-explanatory and neednot be referred to here. However, a few of the most importantlessons deserve to be recalled:

• When a crisis has a cross-border or regional dimension,DHA should, as a rule, set up a regional coordinationstructure. This is most important to avoid differences ofperception or biases among the relief community. Asexperience in Afghanistan and Rwanda shows, a “goodUN—bad UN” syndrome can easily set in. That is, localauthorities in one location, and even UN staff, may lookwith diffidence or suspicion on activities conducted byUN agencies from other locations, especially if there is apolitical or military demarcation in between. As indi-cated, there are also advantages in not placing the mainoffice of the coordination body within the territory of onewarring party at least during the phases when the emer-gency breaks or until a humanitarian consensus develops.

• The quality of staff working in humanitarian emergenciesis uneven. Many do not have relevant prior experience.Serious problems arise with staffing coordination officesthat are by definition short term. It is important to have theright mix of staff at the right place and at the right time. Inaddition to a cadre of experienced humanitarian coordi-nators, DHA would be wise to invest in training staff forthe key support functions in coordination offices such asthe administrative and financial officer, information officer,

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NGO liaison officer, and senior secretary. A system needsto be developed that emphasizes both quick deploymentand quality. Skills, competence, prior UN field experi-ence, and good judgment must combine into one—thatrare bird, the facilitator. Trained and competent staff willmake the difference between a happy-go-lucky coordina-tion outfit and a coordination mechanism that is at thecutting edge of the response to complex emergencies.

• DHA, being part of the UN secretariat, suffers from aculture of bureaucratic control that impedes rapid deploy-ment, flexibility in using funds, and handling cash. Rou-tine tasks such as renting offices, hiring local staff, trans-lators, or security guards, which must be done quicklywhen a coordination presence has to be established in anemergency, must be simplified. DHA must be given thesame flexibility that UNHCR, UNICEF, and countlessNGOs already have. A culture of accountability, built ondelegation of authority and retroactive controls, needs tobe fostered.

• The crucial importance of information gathering, analy-sis, and dissemination already has been mentioned. Theneed for proper reporting, specifically consolidated re-porting on the use of funds, but also reporting on theevolving social and economic conditions of the areas ofconcern, is also essential. Feedback to donors is crucial forcontinuing support to the evolving needs of a coordina-tion office.

• Coordinators should not lose sight of another lesson:ultimately their objective is to work themselves out of ajob. An exit strategy should be developed early so that itcan be carried out smoothly and understood by all actors.DHA should capitalize on its strengths—the services thatit can provide to the relief community and local authori-ties at the field level as well as to the international commu-nity, including donors—and not on its weaknesses, i.e. theperception that it is a redundant layer in the responsesystem.

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• The final lesson relates to evaluation. It is worthwhile inthe early stages of a complex emergency to build anevaluation study into the planning of the operation.107 Infact, it may be necessary to plan for two distinct studies: aprocess or management review to be conducted a fewmonths after the emergency phase of a crisis begins (andsubsequently if the crisis is long-term) and an in-depth, ex-post evaluation. DHA also should advocate the systematiccollection of evaluation materials, ranging from the comple-tion of routine end of mission reports by all key staffinvolved in a coordination exercise to the preparation ofstructured questionnaires to elicit assessments from DHA,agency, NGO and local beneficiaries, and the constitutionof a data bank of interviews and videos documentingspecific coordination situations. Mechanisms for the con-structive use inside and outside the organization of thewealth of material arising from humanitarian and peace-keeping operations also need to be developed. A researchprogram on the memory of complex emergencies, usingsuch materials as video interviews of key actors or writeups of their experience, could provide the basis for thework of researchers and historians for years to come. Sucha project might well be undertaken by outside researchinstitutions.

Thus, DHA should take the lead in documenting, and inencouraging others to document, the strengths and weak-nesses of the humanitarian response to complex emergencies.This is key to charting the road ahead, which is likely to be atroubled one, given the growing disparity between escalatinghumanitarian needs and the finite resources of the interna-tional community. In this sense, DHA has the potential ofbecoming a reflective institution. Practical insights are neededon what works and what does not in the orchestration of theresponse. Comparative analyses of the challenges confrontedin different settings can be particularly useful in learning howbest to guarantee access to victims, to safeguard humanitarianspace, and to shield victims and practitioners from partisanpolitics and manipulation. Moreover, DHA can help in ensur-ing that humanitarians do not lose sight of the forest because

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of the trees. Improving effectiveness of the response is anessential task. It can be a thankless one if more is not learnedabout the root causes of conflict and if more is not done totackle these causes.

The Calculus of Pain

This study has attempted to highlight, on the basis of ananalysis of three distinct humanitarian settings, the impor-tance of coordination of humanitarian assistance in complexemergencies. The extent to which such coordination has be-come an essential fixture of the international landscape is a sadreflection on the state of the post-Cold War world. With thecollapse of ideologies, alliances, states, and societies, internalresource wars are inflicting an increasing toll on the civilianpopulation of large tracts of the Third and of the formerSecond World. The nature of warfare is also changing. Whilein the past technological innovation and numbers of casualtiesseemed to be positively correlated, the relationship is nowbeing reversed. Relatively simple and cheap weapons—theassault rifle and the antipersonnel mine—are wreaking greaterhavoc. It is paradoxical that the genocide in Rwanda, compa-rable in this century in violence and intensity only to theHolocaust, was achieved through the use of a simple agricul-tural implement—the machete. Simple, silent, but nearlyequally as deadly, scorched earth policy, or the manipulationof famine as a tool of war, has made a tragic come-back.

In a sometimes unholy alliance, the ethics of solidarity andhard-nosed Realpolitik contribute to shaping the response ofthe international community to internal conflicts and result-ing humanitarian needs. Indeed, response is the operativeword. Development, the lost paradigm of the Cold War de-cades, contained in its very essence a design for structuralchange. Humanitarian assistance, the defining paradigm ofour cowardly new world, is fundamentally reactive, if notaltogether passive. The gray sun of humanitarianism is but adim light: reliance on humanitarianism as the sum total of ourresponse to a plague of suffering bodes ill for the future.

Coordination is ultimately about saving lives. The effec-tiveness of humanitarian assistance is judged by the quantity

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of mercy and the amount of suffering averted. The humanitar-ian imperative dictates that all victims have the same funda-mental right to assistance. Realpolitik, however, imposes tri-age: the quality of mercy extended to Sarajevo is fundamen-tally different from that provided to Kabul. Too often humani-tarian assistance is a fig leaf for political inaction, a Band-Aidon a festering sore, a costly recipe for the containment of crises.Too often it borders on appeasement. Until the root causes ofcrises are tackled, there is little hope that such imbalances willbe redressed.

The quality of mercy is indeed strained, and will remain sounless we meet the challenge of the coming decades. We needto question the conventional wisdom and naïveté of the knee-jerk response to crises. It is necessary to look beyond thehorizon of humanitarianism, to reappraise root causes ofcrises and the nature of North-South relations in their evolvingcomplexity. Issues of justice and solidarity, however difficultto raise, must not be avoided. It will be necessary to take a hardlook at the strategies and at the very concept of development.Complex emergencies and development policies are not unre-lated, but the linkages between the emergence of the formerand the failure of the latter have yet to be explored seriously.The North and South are complicit in this failure, which isperhaps the starting point from which to unravel the knot ofroot causes.

As unsatisfactory as this situation may be, we must notlose sight of the humanitarian imperative that nonethelessremains categorical. The importance of safe-guarding humani-tarian space and nurturing the conditions that will allow it to bemaintained, whether in conflict situations or in the face ofpolitical pressure, cannot be overemphasized. Not to ensuresuch protection is to become a party to the calculus of pain. Thefact that there has been much erosion and that relief programsare usurped for partisan purposes ought to provoke greater,not lesser, commitment on the part of those convinced of thevalue of humanitarianism and to carve out the space necessaryfor it to operate. Power politics will not disappear. Until theinternational community gives itself the means to tackle theunderlying causes of poverty and underdevelopment, whichoften combine in lethal internal resource wars, humanitarian

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assistance will continue to be required to alleviate the suffer-ing of victims and to staunch the flow of events that furthersuffering will exacerbate.

There is no reason to believe that pain should be theinevitable burden of the human condition. The provision ofhumanitarian assistance in complex emergencies is not an endin itself. Its moral justification must extend beyond the meretasks of keeping victims well-fed and protected. It must en-compass the search for justice and durable solutions. This is atall order. Progress will be slow and tortuous, but humanitar-ians are not believers in the inevitability of suffering. “It isnecessary to cultivate the quiet art of disbelief. It is necessaryto act quietly and disbelievingly, out of that compassion whichis the only credible motive for any actions to change theworld.”108

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Notes

*From Khalilullah Khalili’s Quatrains (Sausalito, Calif.: AfghanCultural Assistance Foundation, 1989). Ustad Khalili was Afghanistan’smaster poet and man of letters from the mid-twentieth century to hisdeath in 1987.

1The main sources utilized are quoted in the respective chapters.2This author has been able to identify only one source, a 15-page

article published in 1990, that deals specifically with the question ofhumanitarian aid and its impact (Helga Baitenmann’s article on thepoliticization of humanitarian assistance quoted in note 27). There are,of course, several hundred sources on Soviet intervention and with-drawal, the Soviet-backed regime, the resistance, the fragmentation ofthe country, etc.

3Joint Evaluation of Emergency Assistance to Rwanda, The Inter-national Response to Genocide: Lessons from the Rwanda Experience (forth-coming).

4Larry Minear and Philippe Guillot, Soldiers to the Rescue: Humani-tarian Lessons from Rwanda (Paris: OECD, forthcoming).

5See Jarat Chopra and Thomas G. Weiss, “Sovereignty Is NoLonger Sacrosanct: Codifying Humanitarian Intervention,” Ethics andInternational Affairs 6 (1992), 95-118.

6Such aid was even within the realm of the head of state. AsGeneral de Gaulle noted, France’s relationship with Africa was hisdomaine reservé much in the same way as the country’s nuclear policy.

7See United Nations, Report of the Secretary-General, “Strength-ening the Coordination of Humanitarian and Disaster Relief Assis-tance of the United Nations,” document A/50/203, June 14, 1995,para. 23. The figure for 1995 is projected.

8For a review of the claims of Georgia on international humanitar-ian assistance, see Neil MacFarlane, Larry Minear, and Stephen D.Shenfield, Armed Conflicts in Georgia: A Case Study in HumanitarianAction and Peacekeeping, Occasional Paper #21 (Providence, R.I.: WatsonInstitute, 1996).

9 “Bureaucratese” would be the best approximation with which totranslate this term, unless the Orwellian “newspeak” is preferred.

10Larry Minear et al. United Nations Coordination of the InternationalHumanitarian Response to the Gulf Crisis, Occasional Paper #13 (Provi-dence R.I.: Watson Institute, 1992): 3.

11UNOCA’s structure and procedures were partly derived fromthose of the special UN Office for Emergency Operations in Africa(OEOA). Some key staff had worked in both offices.

12Major complex emergencies with DHA-supported coordina-tion offices in 1994 were Afghanistan, Angola, Rwanda, Mozambique,Sudan, Liberia, Somalia, Haiti, Northern Iraq, and former Yugoslavia

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(where UNHCR performs lead agency functions). “Minor” complexemergencies requiring lighter coordination structures (often workingout of UNDP offices or from UN “political” offices) were Azerbaijan,Abkhazia, Tajikistan, Burundi, and Sierra Leone.

13It is too early to tell if the Taliban movement, which has overruna large swath of Pashtoon territory from Herat to the outskirts of Kabul(in the spring and summer of 1995), is a durable phenomenon orwhether inter-Pashtoon rivalries and tribal allegiances will againprevail.

14See Barnett Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan. State Forma-tion and Collapse in the International System (New Haven: Yale Univer-sity Press, 1995).

15The cardinal work on Afghan history and society is LouisDupree, Afghanistan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980, firstedition 1973). For the anthropological perspective of traditional soci-ety, see Pierre Centlivres and Micheline Centlivres-Démont, Et si onparlait d’Afghanistan? Terrains et textes 1964-1980 (Neuchâtel: Editionsde l’Institut d’Ethnologie; Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences del’Homme, 1988). Among the many works on Afghanistan since theSoviet invasion, the best introductions to the underlying currents ofwar and resistance are Olivier Roy, L’Afghanistan: Islam et modernitépolitique, (Paris: Seuil, 1985). Translated as Islam and Resistance inAfghanistan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), andBarnett Rubin’s book quoted in the previous note, which also containsan exhaustive bibliography.

16Hezbi Islami has a “Leninist structure.” See Olivier Roy, TheLessons of the Soviet/Afghan War, Adelphi Papers 259 (London: Interna-tional Institute of Strategic Studies, 1991): 57.

17Soviet-made weapons were delivered through third parties(China, Egypt, Israel) to the Pakistani ISI (military intelligence), whichcontrolled the pipeline to the resistance parties. This was done tomaintain “plausible deniability” of any U.S. involvement. See Rubin,The Fragmentation of Afghanistan, chapter 9. See also Roy, The Lessons ofthe Soviet/Afghan War, 31-32.

18From Operation Salam (UNOCA), First Consolidated Report(Geneva: United Nations, September 1988): 10-11.

19A recurrent theme of the findings of the case studies of theHumanitarianism and War Project has been that basing humanitarianoperations in the capital cities of countries experiencing internalconflict has undermined the UN’s ability to provide impartial assis-tance on all sides. A recurrent recommendation, as in the project’sstudies in Liberia, Georgia, former Yugoslavia, and the Sudan, hasbeen that humanitarian operations be therefore based outside theconflict area.

20There is one exception to this: in Somalia at the height of the

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Chapter VII operation, UN relief agencies, notably UNICEF and WFP,fearing they would become targets of pro-Aidid militias decided todistinguish themselves from the UN flag by reversing it and printingtheir agency logos in blue on a white field.

21On the coordination role of these liberation fronts vis-à-visNGOs, see Mark Duffield and John Prendergast, Without Troops andTanks. Humanitarian Intervention in Ethiopia and Eritrea (Lawrenceville,N.J.: The Red Sea Press, 1995). The UN was largely absent from thecross-border scene.

22In the original breakdown of the pledge, 50 out of 400 millionrubles were identified as the value of 14 military camps to be handedover to the UN upon the departure of the Soviet troops. It later becameclear that the Soviet government had failed to consult its Afghancounterpart on this idea, which was just as well, since it was difficultfor the UN to find a way to use these run-down facilities.

23Martin Barber, Director UNOCHA, personal communicationwith the author, May 1995.

24In Somalia, the UN also tended to “spawn” colonies of clients.It has been noted that in Mogadishu in 1994 there were an estimatedone thousand “local NGOs set up by Somalis to channel foreign fundsinto worthy projects....By the end of its mission, the UN was easily thebiggest employer in Somalia...supporting, according to some esti-mates, a hundred thousand people in Mogadishu,” William Finnegan,“Letter from Mogadishu. A World of Dust,” The New Yorker (March 20,1995).

25UNOCA/UNOCHA’s mine clearance and awareness programshave been evaluated independently several times, in particular by theUN itself and the EU, and generally have recognized their effective-ness. In terms of costs, demining in Afghanistan also comparesfavorably with other UN efforts elsewhere. The cost per mine de-stroyed is approximately $220, according to an interview with theUNOCHA demining program manager in Islamabad in May 1995.

26 An observer noted that there were 75 foreign NGOs with officesin Peshawar at the end of the 1980s—among them, 43 from Europe and14 from North America. In addition to the expatriate staff, these NGOsemployed some 6,000 local Afghans and Pakistanis. See MarvinWeinbaum, Pakistan and Afghanistan, Resistance and Reconstruction(Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1994): 59. In 1991-1992, when theNGO presence peaked, their total number was well above 150, includ-ing Islamic and Afghan agencies. On the basis of a survey, HelgaBaitenmann concluded in 1989 that 265 NGOs had been directly orindirectly involved in the Afghan crisis. Helga Baitenmann, “NGOsand the Afghan War: the Politicization of Humanitarian Aid,” ThirdWorld Quarterly 12, no. 1 (January 1990).

27Refugee camps were controlled by Pakistani camp managers

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who interacted with refugee camp leaders, or maliks, for the runningof the camps and the distribution of relief goods. Both sets of playerswere widely held to be corrupt. The Afghan camp leaders “were oftencalled ‘ration-maliks’ for their ability to get people on their ration listsand to offer other favors.” These lists were grossly inflated as maliksoften controlled several hundred pass-books. See Weinbaum, Paki-stan and Afghanistan.

28A map showing the location of NGO projects—e.g. healthcenters—and their concentration over the years would easily bear thisout.

29In 1989-1991, this was not a subject NGOs would discuss, evenif prodded.

30Hedayatullah Ahmadi, a young Afghan staff member in theUNOCA Peshawar office, to whom this chapter is dedicated, was avictim of this violent climate. He “disappeared” in 1989.

31Nawab Salim, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s spokesman, in a per-sonal communication from Barnett Rubin.

32Weinbaum, Pakistan and Afghanistan, 70.33In early 1990, after evidence emerged that ISI officials had

siphoned off wheat deliveries, the U.S. food aid program—valued at$30 million annually—was suspended.

34Before the war, karez cleaning was “like an annual feast in whichthe whole village participated,” observes Nancy Hatch Dupree in apersonal communication with the author in April 1995.

35“NGO funds have often exacerbated tensions among rivalparties...since each party has tried to lure them towards the areasunder their control, NGOs have often been drawn into the powerbattles of the parties,” Baitenmann, “NGOs and the Afghan War,” 73.

36NGOs “willingly or unwillingly supported a U.S. strategy oflow intensity conflict, supporting anticommunist forces with nonle-thal aid. The cross-border NGOs have been strengthening the base ofthe insurgency, enabling it to feed and legitimize the rebels with theirpresence. Their funds not only help support a relatively stable popu-lation that can feed the rebels, but also strengthen the commanders inthe area,” ibid., 73.

37The UN answer to such pressures was that it would only deliverfood on the basis of needs assessment conducted by its staff. Thiswriter participated in one such assessment close to the besieged city ofKhost in late 1989. The evidence showed only a few displaced families,which was unconvincing so that the UN agreed to deliver only asymbolic amount of wheat. Faced with stronger pressures elsewhere,agencies sometimes paid larger entry “tickets.”

38See Baitenmann, “NGOs and the Afghan War,” 70.39See Sultan Barakat, Mohammed Ehsan, and Arne Strand, NGOs

and Peace-Building in Afghanistan, Workshop Report, 3-7 April 1994,

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published by Norwegian Refugee Council, Norwegian Church Aid,and Post-War Reconstruction and Development Unit, University ofYork, 1994. On the workshop and its wider implications, see the reportby Mary B. Anderson, Afghanistan/Pakistan Project: Case Study (Cam-bridge, Mass.: The Collaborative for Development Action, Inc., 1995).

40These textbooks were in use in the schools at the IDP camps nearJalalabad in April 1995. The Kabul government has now agreed tochange the curriculum. Given the state of the country, this will be alengthy process.

41A rare example of soul-searching by NGOs involved a series ofdiscussions in the mid 1980s to review the politicization of humanitar-ian action during the Cold war. This was sponsored by InterAction,the US-based professional association of NGOs. See Larry Minear,Helping People in an Age of Conflict (New York: InterAction, 1987). TheAfghanistan experience is recapped at pp. 17, 28, 49, and 72.

42One of the most visible impacts of the UN drug abuse controlprogram (UNFDAC) in Afghanistan is the appearance along some ofthe main roads of metal signs with an anti-drug message in Pashto,Farsi, and English. Sometimes, as on the Jalalabad-Torkham road,these signs are in full view of blooming poppy fields.

43In southern Sudan, for example, Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS)staff working in rebel-held areas are actively promoting respect for theInternational Convention on the Rights of the Child and other basichuman rights instruments. The political-military authorities are infact required to sign a document containing the “ground rules” for thedelivery of humanitarian assistance that is based on the convention’sguidelines. Local “monitoring committees” also ensure that the distri-bution of humanitarian assistance is in consonance with the provi-sions of the convention (Interview with Philip O’Brien, OLS Coordi-nator, October 1995).

44After some initial hesitation, UNOCHA and the other UNagencies have taken a strong stand vis-à-vis Taliban attempts to curtailthe employment of women and girls’ education in areas under theircontrol (November 1995).

45Interviews in Peshawar and Kabul, April-May 1995.46Interview, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kabul, May 4, 1995.47See Mary Anderson, Afghanistan/Pakistan Project.48The lack of synergy between the two processes is reinforced by

the situation at the time of writing this paper. The peace process is nowcompletely separate from the humanitarian and rehabilitation track.There are now three UN offices with functions that overlap to someextent and that compete for the visibility of being the UN “supremo”for Afghanistan: the Office of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan(OSGA) that deals with the political process, UNOCHA, and UNDP.All three are operating by remote control from Pakistan, with only

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skeleton staffs in Kabul (or in Jalalabad in the case of OSGA).49The Mozambican National Resistance (MNR), subsequently

known as Resistencia Nacional Mozambicana, was created in 1977,only two years after independence from Portugal. It was the brain-child of the Smith regime in former Rhodesia, supported by Portu-guese businessmen and later backed and trained by the South Africanmilitary.

50Shaun Vincent, “The Mozambique Conflict (1980-1992),” inMichael Cranna (ed.), The True Cost of Conflict (Guilford: Saferworld,1994): 82.

51Human Rights Watch, Conspicuous Destruction. War, Famine andthe Reform Process in Mozambique, Africa Watch Report, July 1992, 3.

52Vincent, “The Mozambique Conflict (1980-1992),” 82.53Ibid.54Ibid., 5.55Africa Recovery Briefing Paper, “Mozambique, Out of the Ruins

of War,” United Nations Department of Public Information, no. 8(May 1993): 16; also World Bank Development Report, Washington,D.C., 1993.

56Ibid.57 Joseph Hanlon, Mozambique, Who Calls the Shots? (Bloomington,

Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1993): 38.58William Finnegan, A Complicated War, the Harrowing of

Mozambique (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992): 119.59For a discussion of the events leading up to the GPA and the role

of St. Egidio, see Cameron Hume, Ending Mozambique’s War. The Roleof Mediation and Good Offices (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Institute forPeace, 1994).

60Hanlon, Mozambique, Who Calls the Shots?, 64.61Interview with Aldo Ajello in Maputo in December 1994.62Interim Report and Hand-over Notes of the first Director of

UNOHAC, 1994.63Chris Alden, “The UN and the Resolution of Conflict in

Mozambique,” The Journal of Modern African Studies, 33, I (1995).64Ibid.65Aldo Ajello, “The Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance in

Mozambique in the Context of ONUMOZ,” in Jim Whitman andDavid Pocock (eds.), After Rwanda. The Coordination of United NationsHumanitarian Assistance (London: Macmillan, 1995).

66To be fair, ONUMOZ itself was fraught with controversy:“Bureaucratic wrangling, involving everything from in-fighting over‘turf’ issues to paralysis over procedures, played a significant part inthe character of ONUMOZ,” Alden, “The UN and the Resolution ofConflict in Mozambique,” 115.

67Interviews with donor representatives and NGOs, Maputo,

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December 1994. See also Alden, “The UN and the Resolution ofConflict in Mozambique,” 123; and Human Rights Watch/Africa,Landmines in Mozambique (Washington, D.C.: Human Rights Watch,1994): 80-83.

68Interview with Aldo Ajello, Maputo, December 1994; Alden,“The UN and the Resolution of Conflict in Mozambique,” 123. See alsoAjello, “The Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance in Mozambiquein the Context of ONUMOZ,” “the mine-clearing project was labeleda bad failure by both parties to the conflict and the internationalcommunity.”

69In 1994, World Vision became the single largest aid agency inMozambique with a yearly budget of $65 million, excluding food aid.

70For a discussion of this trend, see Antonio Donini, “The Bureau-cracy and the Free Spirits: Stagnation and Innovation in the Relation-ship between the United Nations and NGOs,” Third World Quarterly16, no. 3 (September 1995). See also, Nicholas Stockton, “NGOs,Subcontractors or innovators in unstable situations?” discussion pa-per presented at the international seminar on “Aid under Fire, Rede-fining Relief and Development Assistance in Unstable Situations,”Wilton Park, Sussex, U.K., April 7-9, 1995.

71In addition to the works by Finnegan and Hanlon alreadyquoted, see Reginald Herbold Green and Maria Mavie, “From Sur-vival to Livelihood in Mozambique,” IDS Bulletin 25, no. 4 (1995).

72For a critical analysis of the role of the “new missionaries” inMozambique, see Hanlon, Mozambique, Who Calls the Shots?

73Interviews in Maputo in December 1994.74This process is difficult in the best of circumstances. The task has

been compared to “herding cats” in Leon Gordenker and Thomas G.Weiss, “Pluralizing Global Governance: Analytical Approaches andDimensions,” Third World Quarterly 16, no. 3 (September 1995).

75Statement at an international seminar on Mozambique orga-nized by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in New York on March 27-28,1995.

76Statement by Aldo Ajello at the above-mentioned seminar;similar views were expressed in interviews in Maputo in December1994.

77Mark Duffield, “Complex Emergencies and the crisis ofDevelopmentalism,” IDS Bulletin no. 25 (October 1994), a special issueon Linking Relief and Development.

78Ajello, “The Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance inMozambique in the Context of ONUMOZ.” He adds: “In the imple-mentation of our mission, we often had a tall man to cover and a shortblanket available.” On the political side, when problems arose, “wemanaged to change the blanket; on the humanitarian side we had tocut the man because we did not have the authority to do otherwise.”

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79Interview in Maputo in December 1994.80For a discussion of the demobilization process see, Joao Paulo

Borges Coelho and Alex Vines, Pilot Study on Demobilization and Re-integration of Ex-Combatants in Mozambique, Refugee StudiesProgramme, Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford, 1995.

81Finnegan, “Letter from Mogadishu,” 176. Alden, “The UN andthe Resolution of Conflict in Mozambique,” 115, remarks that “Thestructures created by the Rome Agreement continued to give interna-tional donors an unprecedented and direct role in the conduct, man-agement and policy-making of the country.”

82George Steiner, Language and Silence: Essays on Language, Litera-ture and the Inhuman (New York: Atheneum, 1967): 150.

83It is assumed that the chronology of the crisis in its broad phasesis known to the reader. A detailed chronology is included in Minearand Guillot, Soldiers to the Rescue. Numerous books and studies havebeen published in the wake of the genocide. The most thoroughaccount of the massacres so far is the report issued by African Rights,Rwanda: Death, Despair and Defiance, (London, September 1994). Nu-merous studies on the humanitarian response to and the implicationsof the Rwanda crisis also have been issued. Among the latter, see RonyBrauman, Devant le mal. Rwanda, un génocide en direct (Paris: Arlea,1994); Alain Destexhe, Rwanda, essai sur le génocide (Bruxelles: EditionsComplexe, 1994); Colette Braeckman, Rwanda. Histoire d’un génocide(Paris: Editions Fayard, 1994). Amongst the former, the most relevantfor the discussion in the present chapter are: Guy Vassal-Adams,Rwanda. An Agenda for International Action (U.K. and Ireland: Oxfam,1994); Antonio Donini and Norah Niland, Report on the Coordination ofHumanitarian Activities in Rwanda (New York: UN Department ofHumanitarian Affairs, November 1994); the study by Minear andGuillot quoted above; and the major multidonor evaluation of theeffectiveness of the international community’s response to the Rwandacrisis which is due to be published in early 1996. Study I of the fourstudies that it will contain deals with the historical background andthe context of the events leading up to the crisis and includes a detailedbibliography. For a succinct introduction to the complexities ofRwandan society, see Jean-Pierre Chrétien, “Hutu et Tutsi au Rwandaet au Burundi,” and Claudine Vidal, “Situations ethniques au Rwanda,”both in Jean Louis Amselle and E. M’okolo, Au coeur de l’ethnie (Paris:Editions la découverte, 1985).

84In September 1994, a World Bank mission visited the countrywhen the government was in a most precarious position. To release$240 million of project funds, which had been frozen because of thecivil war, the bank asked the government not only to pay $4 million(which had grown to $5.5 million by the end of 1994) of arrears in loanreimbursements immediately, but also to present a budget and a

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stabilization plan with numerous other conditions.85The multidonor evaluation of Rwanda cited above places the

total cost at $1.4 billion in 1995 alone.86Recent studies have shown that the response in some cases was

technically inappropriate and not cost-effective. For instance, sophis-ticated water purification systems were installed by the U.S. militaryfor the refugee camps around Goma. These were expensive to run andclearly unsustainable since they relied on bowsers for the distributionof the water to the camps. Cheaper alternatives were locally available(e.g. the water from the lake, a bucket, and a few drops of chlorine).Similar points have been made with respect to the medical response orthe cholera epidemic.

87What follows is based on information collected during a fieldtrip to Rwanda in September 1994 as part of a DHA mission to assessthe coordination of UN humanitarian activities (see report quoted innote 5). Where possible, the information has been updated.

88See Minear et al., United Nations Coordination of the InternationalHumanitarian Response to the Gulf Crisis.

89For the breaking period of the emergency this position was heldby a UNDP staff member who also doubled up as UNDP residentrepresentative. In October 1994, he was replaced by a DHA official.

90This point was vocalized by some NGOs, in particular Save theChildren (U.S.).

91UNREO’s visibility did not please everybody. Visiting dignitar-ies from UNDP headquarters complained that the UNDP logo wasnowhere to be seen, despite the fact that UNREO was housed in theUNDP premises and was borrowing its vehicles.

92Randolph Kent, the humanitarian coordinator in Rwanda fromOctober 1994 onwards, while deploring the “lack of institutionalclarity” of the UN political/military and humanitarian roles, notesthat “the UN Humanitarian Coordinator who, although not part ofUNAMIR, was ultimately responsible to the SRSG, accrued no insti-tutional benefits from the SRSG’s structure,” Randolph Kent, “TheIntegrated Operations Centre in Rwanda: Coping with Complexity,”in Whitman and Pocock (eds.), After Rwanda.

93As Randolph Kent put it, “The principally military-orientedUNAMIR had its own standard operating procedures that ran essen-tially in a self-contained way; there was a planning office and estab-lished chains of command and, generally speaking, these did notincorporate procedures for external consultations,” ibid.

94The various roles performed by the military in Rwanda and inthe refugee camps in Zaire are analyzed in detail in Minear andGuillot, Soldiers to the Rescue. Mention should also be made of Study IIIof the forthcoming multidonor evaluation. See also Major GeneralRomeo Dallaire, “The Changing Role of Peace-keeping Forces: The

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Relationship between UN Peacekeepers and NGOs in Rwanda,” inWhitman and Pollock, After Rwanda. On the humanitarian/militaryproblematic, see also Hugo Slim, “The Continuing Metamorphosis ofthe Humanitarian Practitioner: Some New Colours for an EndangeredChamaleon,” Disasters 19, no. 2 (June 1995).

95Minear and Guillot, Soldiers to the Rescue, chapter 6.96Ibid., chapter 7.97On the militarization of humanitarian assistance, see Hugo

Slim, “Military Humanitarianism and the New Peacekeeping: AnAgenda for Peace?” and Antonio Donini, “Surfing on the Crest of theWave until it Crashes: Intervention and the South,” in Journal ofHumanitarian Assistance, University of Cambridge (U.K.), both articlesposted electronically in September 1995 (http://www.gsp.cam.ac.uk/jha.html).

98Slim, “The Continuing Metamorphosis.”99These meetings (the venue of which was later shifted from

UNREO to the Ministry of Cooperation and the frequency reduced toonce a week) were a must for visiting dignitaries such as the heads ofUN agencies and NGOs, ministers from donor countries, and the like.At least one head of state, the president of Ireland, is known to haveattended.

100Kent, “The Integrated Operations Centre in Rwanda,” notesthat “the Government felt very uncomfortable with the number ofNGOs that had descended on Rwanda at the end of the conflict.” Thetext of the legislation governing the activities of NGOs in Rwanda anda discussion of the role of NGOs are contained in Edward A. AdiinYaausah, An Analysis of Domestic Legislation to Regulate the Activities ofLocal and Foreign NGOs in Croatia, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, (Oxford:the Refugee Studies Programme and the Centre for Socio-Legal Stud-ies, University of Oxford, 1995).

101Donini and Niland, Report on the Coordination of HumanitarianActivities in Rwanda.

102Duffield and Prendergast, Without Troops and Tanks, concludesthat “The notion of neutrality requires thorough critique. Solidarityrather than neutrality has to be the guiding hand.”

103See Populations in Danger 1995. A Médecins sans Frontières Report,MSF, 1995; also Alex de Waal and Rakiya Omaar, HumanitarianismUnbound, African Rights, 1995.

104In Afghanistan local groups were adept at learning “Aid speak.”When it became known that UN agencies (and NGOs) would not workwith military commanders but only with “shuras” (councils) of localelders or “grey beards,” shuras started sprouting like mushrooms inevery district. Local “Aid speak” specialists were most artful ingenerating project documents. When word spread that shuras wereno longer sufficient and that independent local reconstruction bodies

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were the appropriate partners, these conveniently appeared. As oneobserver in Jalalabad put it: “all the metal signs of local NGOs andreconstruction bodies in town would go a long way in covering theroofing needs of the internally displaced....”

105Peter L. Berger, Pyramids of Sacrifice. Political Ethics and SocialChange (London: Basic Books, 1974): 216.

106See Erskine Childers with Brian Urquhart, Renewing the UnitedNations System (Uppsala: Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, 1994), wherethe authors argue for a consolidation of the UN system relief agencies(UNHCR, WFP, UNICEF) into one single entity. Similar proposalshave been made by Gareth Evans, Cooperating for Peace (St. Leonards,Australia: Allen and Unwin, 1993); Oxfam in a paper circulated inJanuary 1995 (and now reposted in the electronic Journal of Humanitar-ian Assistance, Cambridge University, http://www.gsp.cam.ac.uk/jha.html), and in a nonpaper distributed by the U.S. delegation atECOSOC in July 1995. A more radical proposal for the international-ization of ICRC, or for the creation of a separate, non-UN organization,for the provision of emergency relief was made by James Ingram,former head of WFP, “The Future Architecture for InternationalHumanitarian Assistance,” in Thomas G. Weiss and Larry Minear(eds.), Humanitarianism across Borders: Sustaining Civilians in Times ofWar (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 1994).

107It is noteworthy that military institutions often acquit them-selves better in this regard than do civilian agencies. The U.S. troopsparticipation in the NATO force deployed in December 1995 toguarantee the Bosnian peace agreement included in their ranks anumber of military historians.

108Berger, Pyramids of Sacrifice, 256.

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ACRONYMS

ACUNS Academic Council on the United NationsSystem

ACBAR Agency Coordination Body for Afghan ReliefANC African National CongressANCB Afghan NGO Coordination BodyCAP Consolidated Appeal ProcessCENE National Executive Commission for the

EmergencyCERF Central Emergency Revolving FundCHAP Consolidated Humanitarian Assistance

ProgramCIVPOL Civilian PoliceDHA Department of Humanitarian AffairsDPCCN Department for the Coordination of Natural

CalamitiesECOSOC Economic and Social CouncilEEC European Economic CommissionEU European UnionFRELIMO Mozambique Liberation FrontGDP Gross Domestic ProductGPA General Peace AgreementHAC Humanitarian Assistance CommitteeIASC Inter-Agency Standing CommitteeIBRD International Bank for Reconstruction and

Development (World Bank)ICC Islamic Coordination CommitteeICRC International Committee of the Red CrossIDP Internally Displaced PersonIMF International Monetary FundISI Inter-Services IntelligenceMNR Mozambican National ResistanceMSF Médecins Sans FrontièresMSH Management Services for HealthNGO Nongovernmental OrganizationNPA Norwegian People’s AidOAU Organization of African UnityOEOA Office for Emergency Operations in AfricaOLS Operation Lifeline Sudan

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ONUMOZ United Nations Operation in MozambiqueOPS Office of Project ServicesOSGA Office of the Secretary-General for AfghanistanPDPA Peoples Democratic Party of AfghanistanPRSG Personal Representative of the Secretary-

GeneralQIP Quick Impact ProjectRENAMO Mozambican National ResistanceRENP Rwanda Emergency Normalization PlanSMU Salam Mobile UnitsSRSG Special Representative of the Secretary-

GeneralSST Swedish Support TeamSWABAC Southwestern Afghanistan and Baluchistan

Agency CoordinationUN United NationsUNAMIR United Nations Assistance Mission in

RwandaUNBRO United Nations Border Relief OperationUNDP United Nations Development ProgrammeUNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for

RefugeesUNICEF United Nations Children’s FundUNOCA United Nations Office for the Coordination

of Humanitarian and Economic AssistanceProgrammes relating to Afghanistan

UNOCHA United Nations Office for the Coordinationof Humanitarian Assistance to Afghanistan

UNOHAC United Nations Office for HumanitarianAssistance Coordination

UNREO United Nations Rwanda Emergency OfficeUNSCERO United Nations Special Coordinator of

Emergency Relief OperationsUNV United Nations VolunteersWFP World Food ProgrammeWHO World Health OrganizationZOT Zone of Tranquility

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ABOUT THE HUMANITARIANISM AND WAR PROJECT

Day in and day out, from Yugoslavia to Somalia, Chechnyato Rwanda, Angola to Haiti, civil strife inflicts widespreadhuman suffering. Even where bloodshed has abated, as inCambodia, El Salvador, and Mozambique, tensions and theawesome task of rebuilding war-torn countries remain.

How can the international community better protect thosecaught in national and regional conflicts? How can it moreeffectively assist nations to turn the corner on violence andbecome productive societies? Can aid become an effectiveforce for the resolution of conflicts? Must humanitarian actionawait the request of warring parties or, with the ebbing of East-West tensions, can humane values form the new cornerstoneof international relations?

These are questions being addressed by the Humanitari-anism and War Project. The initiative is an effort by an inde-pendent team of researchers based at Brown University anddrawing on the expertise of scholars and practitioners fromaround the world to assist the international community chartits course in the post-Cold War era. The co-directors of theproject are Thomas G. Weiss, Associate Director of the WatsonInstitute and Executive Director of the Academic Council onthe United Nations System; and Larry Minear, Senior Fellowat the Watson Institute and the Project’s principal researcher.

During the first phase (1991-1993), the project was co-sponsored by the Refugee Policy Group (Washington, D.C.),and support was provided by two dozen practitioner organi-zations and interested foundations. These included four gov-ernments (Netherlands, United Kingdom, United States, andFrance); six intergovernmental organizations (UNICEF, WFP,UNHCR, UNDP, DHA/UNDRO, and the UN Special Pro-gram for the Horn of Africa); ten nongovernmental organiza-tions (Catholic Relief Services, Danish Refugee Council, theInternational Centre for Human Rights and Democratic De-velopment [Canada], International Federation of Red Crossand Red Crescent Societies, Lutheran World Federation,Lutheran World Relief, Mennonite Central Committee, Nor-wegian Refugee Council, Oxfam-UK, and Save the ChildrenFund-UK); and three foundations (Pew Charitable Trusts,

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Rockefeller Foundation, and Arias Foundation).The second phase (1994-1996) of activities has financial

support to date from: four governments (Australia, Nether-lands, United Kingdom, and the United States); eight inter-governmental organizations (UNICEF, UNDP, UN Volun-teers, United Nations University, International Organizationfor Migration, OECD Development Centre, European Com-mission Humanitarian Office, and the Department of Hu-manitarian Affairs); seventeen nongovernmental organiza-tions (American Red Cross, Catholic Relief Services, DanishRefugee Council, International Federation of Red Cross andRed Crescent Societies, International Orthodox Christian Chari-ties, International Rescue Committee, Lutheran World Fed-eration, Lutheran World Relief, Mennonite Central Commit-tee, Nordic Red Cross Societies [Finnish, Icelandic, Norwe-gian, Swedish], Norwegian Refugee Council, Save the Chil-dren-US, World Vision, and Trócaire); and three foundations(Pew Charitable Trusts, McKnight Foundation, and U.S. Insti-tute of Peace).

To date the project has conducted field research in theHorn of Africa, the Persian Gulf, Central America, Cambodia,the former Yugoslavia, Liberia, Rwanda, Georgia, Haiti, andChechnya in order to publish a series of case studies and policyrecommendations. In addition to journal articles and op-eds,the project has also published four books: Mercy Under Fire:War and the Global Humanitarian Community (1995); Humanitar-ian Politics (1995); Humanitarian Action in Times of War: AHandbook for Practitioners (1993, also available in Spanish andFrench); and a volume of collected essays by practitioners,Humanitarianism Across Borders: Sustaining Civilians in Times ofWar (1993). The project has also prepared a training modulewhich is currently in use by UN organizations.

During the present three-year phase, the project will carryout additional field research; complete a practical guide for themedia and humanitarian action; share findings and recom-mendations in conferences and training events; and continuean extensive array of publications.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Antonio Donini has worked for the United Nations at itsheadquarters in New York and in the field for more than 20years. He is chief of the Lessons Learned Unit at the UnitedNations Department of Humanitarian Affairs (DHA), whichprepares independent studies that assess the effectiveness ofinternational relief efforts in complex emergencies. Beforejoining DHA, he worked in the UN Joint Inspection Unit andin the executive office of the secretary-general. He has servedin and around Afghanistan from 1989 to 1992, where he wasdeputy chief of mission in the UN Office for the Coordinationof Humanitarian Assistance to Afghanistan (UNOCA) inIslamabad and chief of mission of UNOCA in Kabul. In 1995,he was awarded a sabbatical at the Watson Institute for Inter-national Studies, which allowed him to prepare this occasionalpaper. He is the author of several studies and articles onhumanitarian and UN coordination issues.

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