Methodology

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Strategic Criteria

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Humanitarian Intelligence

Considering the complexity of relief programs in armed conflicts, the criterion of the political awareness is finally what enables to appreciate the professional performance of an NGO. In fact, none of the other criteria is sufficient, taken alone, to identify the humanitarian character of a charity; therefore, we have to balance the different elements in our possession to evaluate the ethics of an organization.

 

Indeed, an NGO’s ideological involvement does not always imply dubious programs. A support to a guerrilla can turn out to be positive as long as it respects the laws of war in the Geneva Convention. For instance, among the various “humanitarian branches” of African armed movements, ERA (Eritrean Relief Association) and REST (Relief Society of Tigray) have distinguished themselves very well from empty shells like the SRRA (Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association), in Sudan, and they have sincerely sought to help people in need respectively in Eritrea and Ethiopia. In other words, an international NGO should not be judged negatively on its support to combatants but on its incapacity to appreciate the reliability of its local partners. The fairness of a political cause does not determine the humanitarian position of one of the parties at war: fighting the Islamic junta in power in Khartoum, in that case, does not turn the SRRA into the democratic apparatus of a guerrilla famous for its violations of Human Rights. In the same way, good intentions are no excuse for a humanitarian worker’s blindness.
 

The impossible political neutrality in the field, another of Aid Watch’s criteria, is not so much of a problem when it shows a real empathy with the victims. Politicisation is not always opposed to humanitarian goals if it means that international NGOs are to watch, testify, report, and lobby, in particular during multilateral negotiations on the protection of refugees, human rights, environment or the establishment of a court in charge of punishing crimes against humanity. Handicap International did much in favour of the treaty banning the use of landmines. Thanks to many petitions, Doctors Without Borders (Médecins sans frontières) managed to get a parliamentary committee to investigate the role of France in Rwanda; not to mention the active diplomacy of mediators like the Community of Sant’Egidio which helped to put an end to the civil war in Mozambique with the signature of a peace agreement in Rome in 1992.

 

The financial dependence on institutional backers is not a discriminatory criterion either, as we have seen: NGOs can diversify their public funds to avoid being the subcontractor of an imperial state, and they sometimes even give up official support when the pursuit of an aid operation is counter-productive for the victims. Moreover, the private funds from “donactors” who are deeply involved in the preparation of programs, are not untouched by conditions: some donors sometimes impose geographical or thematic constraints on a humanitarian project, which is a problem when they are mining or oil companies already parties to a conflict.

 

The absence of transparency, finally, is not automatically the sign of bad will, in particular when one thinks about the small third world associations, working without means. From that point of view, the capacity for an actor to be self-critical and to analyse itself constitutes without doubt the most deciding criterion in the matter. In emergency, only a few NGOs take the time to try, more or less empirically, to understand the local context and to adapt their programs in consequence. As the staff of an NGO changes frequently, and there is little “institutional memory”, learning the lessons from the past is not easy.