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Overseas Development Institute

HPG ReportH U M A N I T A R I A NP O L I C Y G R O U P

The Humanitarian Policy Group atthe Overseas DevelopmentInstitute is Europe’s leading teamof independent policy researchersdedicated to improvinghumanitarian policy and practicein response to conflict, instabilityand disasters.

Joanna Macrae, Sarah Collinson,Margie Buchanan-Smith, NicolaReindorp, Anna Schmidt, TasneemMowjee and Adele Harmer

HPG Report 12December 2002

Uncertain Power:

The Changing Role of Official

Donors in Humanitarian

Action

Notes on the authors

Joanna Macrae is the Coordinator of the Humanitarian Policy Group. Over the past decade, she has conducted awide range of research and evaluations concerned with aid in conflict settings.

Sarah Collinson is an independent consultant with a background in international relations and migration issues.She is a former Research Fellow in HPG.

Margie Buchanan-Smith is an independent consultant with extensive experience of humanitarian policy andresponse, including working as Head of Emergencies for ActionAid. She was formerly the Coordinator of theHumanitarian Policy Group.

Nicola Reindorp is head of Oxfam International’s New York office. Previously, she was a Research Fellow at HPGand spent five years as a policy advisor and lobbyist for Oxfam GB.

Tasneem Mowjee is an independent consultant. Her doctoral research was concerned with the implications ofchanging contractual relations between NGOs and official donors.

Anna Schmidt is a doctoral student in international relations at the University of California, Berkeley. She has aparticular interest in bilateral influences on international refugee policy.

Adele Harmer is a Research Officer with the Humanitarian Policy Group. Between 1998 and 2001, she workedfor the Australian aid agency AusAID, advising on policy and programming issues.

Humanitarian Policy GroupOverseas Development Institute111 Westminster Bridge RoadLondonSE1 7JDUnited Kingdom

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Overseas Development Institute, London, 2002

Photocopies of all or part of this publication may be made providing that the source is acknowledged. Requests forthe commercial reproduction of HPG material should be directed to the ODI as copyright holders.

Uncertain power: the changing role of official donorsin humanitarian action

Joanna Macrae, Sarah Collinson, Margie Buchanan-Smith, Nicola Reindorp,Anna Schmidt, Tasneem Mowjee and Adele Harmer

HPG Report 12

December 2002

Contents

List of acronyms 1

Executive summary 3

Chapter 1 Introduction 91.1 Elements of ‘bilateralisation’ 101.2 The changing role of donors in humanitarian action: forms, channels and systems 111.3 The study and an overview of the report 13

Chapter 2 The ‘bilateralisation’ of humanitarian assistance:the changing financing, contractual and management environment 142.1 Introduction 142.2 Trends in official humanitarian financing 15

2.2.1 Trends in aid flows 152.2.2 Concentration of donors 152.2.3 Concentration of spending 162.2.4 Disbursement channels: is humanitarian aid spending becoming more bilateral? 162.2.5 Summary 18

2.3 The new public management: a review of trends in Western public policy 182.3.1 Summary 20

2.4 The changing contractual environment 202.4.1 The development of donors’ humanitarian strategies 202.4.2 Changes in the requirements for project proposals 212.4.3 Defining the contract 222.4.4 ‘Contracting’ the UN: from earmarking to institutional management 242.4.5 Earmarking contributions and framework agreements 25

2.5 The changing managerial environment 272.5.1 Headquarters capacity and skills 272.5.2 Donors in the field: from operationality to policy definition and oversight? 282.5.3 Monitoring and results-based management 292.5.4 Summary 30

2.6 From fund-raising to donor relations: the implications of ‘bilateralisation’ for recipient organisations 312.7 Summary and conclusions 32

Chapter 3 The changing role of donors in the coordination ofhumanitarian action 333.1 Introduction 333.2 Coordinating humanitarian action: an overview 33

3.2.1 Donors and the coordination of development aid 333.2.2 Governance and humanitarian coordination 343.2.3 Humanitarian coordination structures in the UN 343.2.4 The EU and ECHO: a new force for multilateral coordination? 353.2.5 Herding cats?: the challenge of NGO coordination 36

3.3 Donor coordination in the field 36

3.4 Case-studies: coordination in Afghanistan and Somalia 373.4.1 Coordination structures in Afghanistan 373.4.2 Coordination in Somalia 383.4.3 Overall assessment: politicisation or political vacuum? 383.4.4 The impact on donor behaviour and decision-making 393.4.5 The impact on funding 403.4.6 The impact on humanitarian space 41

3.5 Donor coordination and international organisations: enhanced coherence or thebilateralisation of multilateralism? 423.6 Coordination among donors: the weakest link? 443.7 Conclusion 45

Chapter 4 Donors and accountability 474.1 Introduction 484.2 Accountability and government agencies 48

4.2.1 Definitions and types of accountability 484.2.2 The changing face of the public sector 494.2.3 The ministerial model of democracy 49

4.3 Accountability within the international humanitarian system: key trends and challenges 494.3.1 The drivers for change within the humanitarian system 504.3.2 Principles and laws 52

4.4 Internal accountability mechanisms 534.4.1 Management processes and monitoring mechanisms 534.4.2 Evaluations 544.4.3 Governance and advisory structures 55

4.5 Parliamentary oversight 564.6 National audits 584.7 Informal accountability: NGOs, academia and the media 604.8 Conclusion 61

Chapter 5 Uncertain power: conclusions and recommendations 635.1 From ‘bilateralisation’ to good donorship? 635.2 Active respect for international law and humanitarian principles 64

5.2.1 Defining the distinctive purpose of official humanitarian assistance 645.2.2 Linking aid and politics: the role of donor agencies in humanitarian diplomacy and protection 65

5.3 Commitment to needs-based programming 665.3.1 Linking resources with need 665.3.2 Responding to need: the role of donor coordination 66

5.4 Adequate, predictable and flexible funding 675.5 Checks and balances 68

5.5.1 Strengthening existing mechanisms of public scrutiny 685.5.2 The role of the Development Assistance Committee 685.5.3 Measuring success 695.5.4 Multiple accountabilities: enhancing the beneficiary voice 695.5.5 Donors as pushers and prodders 705.5.6 The role of humanitarian organisations 70

5.6 Conclusion 70

References 71

List of interviewees and respondents 76

Annex 1 79

Annex 2 80

List of figures and tables

Figure 2.1: Humanitarian assistance, 1990–2000 15Figure 2.2: Major bilateral donors of humanitarian assistance, 2000 15Figure 2.3: CAP contributions, 1994–2001 16Figure 2.4: ODA spent on refugees in DAC donor countries 17Figure 2.5: Official humanitarian assistance allocated to WFP and UNHCR 17Table 4.1: Key features of DFID, Danida and CIDA 47Table 4.2: Accountability and quality initiatives in humanitarian assistance 51

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Uncertain power: the changing role ofofficial donors in humanitarian action

Acronyms

ALNAP Active Learning Network for Accountability and PerformanceAPB Afghanistan Programming BodyASG Afghan Support GroupBPRM Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (US)CAP Consolidated Appeals Process (UN)CERF Central Emergency Revolving Fund (UN)CFSP Common Foreign and Security Policy (EU)CHAD Conflict and Humanitarian Affairs Department (DFID)CIDA Canadian International Development AgencyCSP Country Strategy Paper (EC)DAC Development Assistance Committee (OECD)DART Disaster Assistance Response Team (US)DEC Disasters Emergency Committee (UK)DFAIT Department for Foreign Affairs and International Trade (Canada)DFID Department for International Development (UK)DHA Department of Humanitarian Affairs (UN)DSG Donor Support Group (ICRC)ECOSOC Economic and Social Council (UN)ERC Emergency Relief Coordinator (UN)FPA Framework Partnership Agreement (ECHO)FSAU Food Security Assessment UnitGNP gross national productGPIS Standing Inter-department Working Party (EC)HAC Humanitarian Aid Committee (EC)HFWG Humanitarian Financing Working GroupHLWG Humanitarian Liaison Working GroupIASC Inter-Agency Standing Committee (UN)ICRC International Committee of the Red CrossIDC International Development Committee (UK)IGAD Inter-Governmental Authority on DevelopmentIMF International Monetary FundISP Institutional Strategy Paper (UK)IHL international humanitarian lawIOM International Organisation for MigrationMDG Millennium Development GoalMFA Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Denmark)MSF Médecins Sans FrontièresNAO National Audit Office (Denmark, UK)OAG Office of the Auditor General (Canada)OCHA Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN)ODA official development assistanceOECD Organisation for Economic Cooperation and DevelopmentOEOA Office for Emergency Operations in Africa (UN)OFDA Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (US)PAC Public Accounts CommitteePAGER Policy and Advocacy Group for Emergency Relief (Canada)PCM project cycle managementPCP Principled Common ProgrammingPPA Partnership Programme Agreement (UK)PQs parliamentary questionsPSA Public Service Agreement (UK)

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RBM results-based managementRCB Regional Coordination Body (Afghanistan)SACB Somalia Aid Coordination BodySCFAIT Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade (Canada)SCHR Steering Committee for Humanitarian ResponseUNDP UN Development ProgrammeUNDRO Office of the UN Disaster Relief CoordinatorUNHCR UN High Commissioner for RefugeesUNOCA UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian and Economic

Assistance Programmes Relating to Afghanistan

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Executive summary

The Kosovo crisis saw an unprecedented level of donorinvolvement in the definition and organisation of thehumanitarian response. In its aftermath, there has beenmuch whisper ing along the cor r idors of manyhumanitarian organisations that humanitarian response isincreasingly ‘bilateralised’. This phenomenon of‘bilateralisation’ is seen as including a number of elements:

● an apparent shift away from supporting multilateralhumanitarian action and towards NGOs;

● increased earmarking of contributions, and theconcentration of resources on highly visibleemergencies;

● an increasing donor role in the coordination ofhumanitarian action;

● tougher contractual and managerial regimes toscrutinise the performance of implementing partners;and

● increased donor presence at field level.

These changes in the management and financing ofhumanitarian assistance might be seen as technical and banalwere it not for the context in which they are taking place.

At one level, these shifts are presented as the product ofdonors taking much more seriously their responsibility toensure the effective and accountable use of public funds.Historically, humanitarian assistance constituted only a verysmall part of official development aid programmes, andattracted relatively little scrutiny and attention. As officialhumanitarian aid budgets have grown, and the complexitiesof programming in politically contentious and violentenvironments have become more widely appreciated, sothe ‘management lite’ approach to the funding of relief isno longer acceptable.

The increasing maturity of official humanitarian aid policymanagement has also coincided with a period when manydonor governments have been developing moreinterventionist approaches to the management of conflict,and seeking ways of linking their assistance programmeswith a wider effort to enhance international peace andsecurity.

Many operational agencies have questioned the motivesfor donors’ increased involvement in humanitariandecision-making. Is it, as most donors argue, a means ofenhancing the effectiveness of humanitarian action? Ordoes it mark a gradual encroachment on the politicalindependence of humanitarian organisations?

This report documents the findings of a study on thechanging role of donor governments in the managementof humanitarian assistance. It describes the multiple and

complex changes that have been subsumed under thecatchy, but misleadingly simple, label of ‘bilateralisation’;identifies the implications of this trend; and proposes anagenda that might be used to define ‘good donorship’ inthe humanitarian sphere.

The research for this study looked at a number of keyhumanitarian donors (the UK, ECHO, Denmark, Canadaand the US), through field research, interviews anddocumentary reviews. Chapter 1 identifies the key elementsof ‘bilateralisation’ and examines the factors driving thechanging role of donors in humanitarian action. Chapter2 assesses changes in the financing of humanitarianassistance, and in how this aid is managed. Chapter 3 looksin detail at changes in donor coordination, drawing onfield research in Afghanistan and Somalia. Chapter 4 reportson the accountability structures and mechanisms that applyto the case-study donors themselves. Chapter 5 identifiescommon themes and issues from this research, and makesrecommendations for the future.

Is humanitarian aid spending becoming‘bilateralised’?

Between 1990 and 2000, official humanitarian aid doubledin real terms, from $2.1 billion to $5.9bn. It also increasedas a proportion of total official development assistance(ODA), from 5.83% to 10.5%. A very small number ofdonors account for the bulk of humanitarian aid. The USdominates, providing around a third of such spending in1998–2000. Other consistently large donors includeCanada, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden,Switzerland and the UK. Together, these bilateral donorsaccount for 93% of official humanitarian aid. ECHO, amultilateral organisation that acts as a donor, is also a majorplayer; in 2000, it was responsible for approximately 10%of official humanitarian aid.

Although reporting on humanitarian aid is weak, existingdata suggests that there is a trend away from multilateralmethods of disbursing humanitarian assistance, in favourof bilateral channels. Between 1996 and 1999, the volumeof assistance channelled multilaterally increased by 32%compared with levels a decade earlier. By contrast, bilaterallymanaged expenditure increased by 150%, and in the caseof ECHO by 475%.

The picture is more complex and subtle than this headlinemight suggest. Part of the explanation for the apparent‘bilateralisation’ of humanitarian aid lies in the technicalpeculiarities of official aid reporting. ‘Multilateral’ aid hasa very particular meaning, referring only to aid that isunearmarked and channelled through multilateralinstitutions such as the UN and the World Bank. All other

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aid, including earmarked assistance to the UN, NGOs andthe Red Cross Movement, and funds spent by governmentsthemselves, is technically speaking ‘bilateral’ aid.

Trends in disbursement channels

It is important to distinguish between multilateral aid andaid given to multilateral organisations. While overall levelsof multilateral assistance have declined, the resourcesallocated to the major UN operational agencies – UNHCRand WFP – have remained relatively constant as a share oftotal official humanitarian aid. This is because donors areincreasingly earmarking their contributions to UNorganisations. They are doing this because of continuedconcerns over the UN’s performance, and regarding itsgovernance and reporting procedures, which are seen toweaken its accountability.

Earmarking can protect funds for activities that mightotherwise not secure adequate support; the US, for instance,has broadband earmarking in favour of Africa in itscontribution to UNHCR. More commonly, however,earmarking results in the concentration of spending onthe most visible crises. The Consolidated Appeals Process(CAP) is now used primarily as a mechanism to disbursefunding in high-profile emergencies, and has lost its abilityto act as a focal point for global resource allocation (Porter,2002).

Many official donors are reducing the share of their aidthrough multilateral channels simply because the growingrange of potential recipients means that they can. As anincreasingly strong NGO sector has emerged, so the pre-eminent position of the UN as a provider and coordinatorof humanitarian assistance has been challenged. NGOs arethus the key mechanism for the bilateralisation ofhumanitarian aid. Donors see them as much more flexiblethan UN agencies in anticipating and responding toconcerns regarding performance and accountability, forexample by developing codes of conduct and initiativessuch as the Sphere project, launched in 1997 by a group ofhumanitarian agencies to improve the quality andaccountability of disaster response. In addition, new actors,including military and paramilitary forces, are becomingimportant conduits for official humanitarian aid funds,particularly in situations of complex peacekeeping.

Historically, one of the arguments in favour of multilateralaid disbursement mechanisms has been that they promotea more equitable allocation of funds than bilateral methods.While evidence is lacking to support these theoreticaladvantages, existing data suggests that increasingly bilateralapproaches are not resulting in an equitable distributionof official humanitarian aid resources. For example, between1996 and 1999 the top five recipient countries were Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, unspecified formerYugoslavia, Israel and Iraq. The next five were Rwanda,Sudan, Afghanistan, Angola and Indonesia. The total volume

for these five was $1,388m, half the total for the top five,which was $2,725m.

Humanitarian aid and the new publicmanagement

The changing relationship between official donor bodiesand recipient humanitarian organisations is part of broaderdevelopments in governance and public administration indonor countries. These changes have involved a significantincrease in public service contracting, driven by concernsover the efficiency and effectiveness of public serviceprovision by the state. Arguably, the character of donorgiving to recipient organisations is now closer to a contract,in which funds are allocated to achieve a particularpredefined purpose. The humanitarian arena is perhapsparticularly sensitive to this shift. In contrast to the majordevelopment institutions, there are virtually no assessedcontributions for humanitarian assistance. The power ofdonors to influence the pattern of humanitarian responsethat flows from this essential financial dependence isamplified as they become more specific in theirrequirements of their partners.

The choice of partners

Prior to the 1990s, official humanitarian aid was managedby relatively small departments within governmentministries. The procedures in place for the allocation,monitoring and reporting of emergency aid were lightcompared with those that governed development assistance.This reflected an emphasis on rapid response, and the trustdonors had in the competence and integrity of theirpartners. The light management arrangements accordedpartners a high level of autonomy and independence; assuch, this was a practical expression of donors’ concern tomaintain the independent and apolitical character ofhumanitarian aid.

The expansion in the range of potential partners throughwhich official aid might be channelled has meant that ithas become more difficult for donors to identify whichagency is likely to be able to do the best job in any particularset of circumstances. Rather than assuming that others, inparticular the UN and the ICRC, will be able to defineneeds and organise the most effective response, donors areinvesting more in developing their own analyses of differenthumanitarian crises in order to inform their allocation ofresources. For example, ECHO has developed global plansthat seek to map out overall need and present a coherentstrategy determining the response.

These country-level analyses reflect donors’ increasingability to formulate humanitarian policy at a global level.Major donors, such as DFID and ECHO, have producedcomprehensive statements of their overall objectives forhumanitarian response and the principles that will guide

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this. These policy frameworks also emphasise issues suchas gender and the security of aid workers. Translating thesepolicy frameworks into practice requires a formalisationof the procedures by which specific proposals are appraised,contracts are defined and performance is monitored. Italso demands establishing and sustaining a global policydialogue with key operational partners.

Project appraisal and monitoring

The donors examined in this study have made considerableinvestment in providing more detailed guidance to theirpartners on how to apply for and manage official aid funds.These guidelines have sought to formalise the logic ofproject preparation by demonstrating clear linkagesbetween objectives, inputs and outcomes/outputs, so pavingthe way for performance monitoring. More policy-oriented goals have also been introduced, for instancemainstreaming gender and environmental protection issues,support for inter-agency coordination and an awarenessof the political impact of relief. Agencies view suchguidance as legitimate, and as broadly in line with theirown policy priorities; agencies too are using logical systems,such as logframes, to organise planning and management.

For donors, the utility of more detailed and thoroughapplication procedures will depend in part on the abilityto interpret and verify applications, and to monitoroutcomes. This in turn relies upon access to professionalstaff and resources. Many donors have invested significantlyin their own capacity in this area, at headquarters and inthe field. Both DFID and ECHO have relied in significantpart upon contract staff, as well as increasing the numberof their permanent civil servants to provide such capacity.It is an important, but as yet unanswered, question whetherdonors’ capacity to appraise and monitor contracts hasexpanded sufficiently, particularly given the increase indirect contracting with NGOs and in earmarked funding.

Donors’ accountability efforts remain focused on ensuringfinancial accountability, with much greater variationbetween donors in their capacity to invest in more policy-based and technical scrutiny. Meanwhile, results-basedmanagement in the humanitarian sphere remains in itsinfancy. At present, there are no universally acceptedperformance indicators, and donors are allowing theirpartners to define and monitor their own. While this allowsagencies a desirable degree of freedom in defining thecriteria for success, it will make it difficult to aggregateproject-based information, and so assess the overall successof a particular donor’s portfolio of humanitarian aidprogramming. As methods to formalise performancemonitoring evolve, it will be important to ensure that thisdoes not result in ‘perverse incentives’, discouragingagencies from engaging in high-risk activities and activitiesthat do not have easily quantifiable outputs, such asadvocacy, coordination and humanitarian protection. Giventhe diverse factors that influence success or failure in the

humanitarian arena, problems to do with the attributionof outcomes will also have to be dealt with. Securingimprovements in nutritional status, for example, relies notonly on the technical competence of implementingorganisations, but also on security, access and adequatefunding.

From projects to policy-based approaches

In addition to strengthening mechanisms to scrutiniseinterventions at the level of individual projects, donors areseeking to influence the global policy of humanitarianorganisations. Until the 1990s, donors had two key waysof channelling their aid: project-based approaches realisedthrough individual contracts and tightly earmarkedcontributions; and unearmarked contributions to globalappeals mounted by international organisations. The formerallows for tighter accountability and specificity, but isadministratively onerous and can lead to a fragmentedportfolio of funding. The latter is more easily administered,and provides the recipient with much greater flexibility.This may enhance effectiveness, but it also leads to problemsin accountability.

To achieve more accountable block grants, a number ofmajor donors have developed framework agreements withkey international organisations. These provide for an annualcontribution of funds, and formalise what donors expectin terms of their use. At one level, these agreementsconsolidate existing earmarking approaches; at another, theyrepresent a more formalised process of policy dialoguebetween donors and recipient organisations.

Framework agreements have been useful in enhancing thepredictability and timeliness of official contributions tointernational organisations, and have also increased trustand mutual understanding. This is sometimes reflected inincreased overall funding flows. However, some agenciesare concerned that such agreements are simply earmarkingin a new guise. By linking funding with donors’ objectivesregarding institutional reform and priorities, theseagreements are also seen as potentially underminingexisting formal governance mechanisms. The process ofnegotiating these agreements has proved time-consuming,particularly for senior management staff.

Whatever the merits of these concerns, there are strongreasons why such policy-based approaches to negotiationsover humanitarian aid funding are likely to continue, andwhy they might prove useful to recipient organisations.Used well, they can enhance the predictability of thedonor–partner relationship not only in funding terms, butalso in terms of defining their mutual expectations. If thesearrangements do continue, it will be important to ensurethat they are negotiated in a transparent fashion, and thatappropriate checks and balances are in place to ensure thatdonor priorities do not distort organisational objectives.Enhanced donor coordination, peer review and clarity from

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the partner agency itself regarding its objectives will bekey to achieving this goal.

Donors in the field

The past decade has seen a significant increase in donorpresence at field level, particularly from the major donors.The US has led the way, with ECHO and DFID closebehind. The precise remits of field staff vary considerablyfrom agency to agency. In broad terms, field offices providea means by which donors can develop a first-handunderstanding of need and of the operating environment,guiding the allocation of resources and providing for moresustained monitoring of partner agencies’ performance.Field presence is particularly important in highly visibleemergencies, where it provides immediate access toinformation as the crisis evolves. This can be shared withpoliticians and the media, as well as used to informprogramming.

Donors’ field staff can play an important part in monitoringthe overall aid effort. Their financial leverage can providemomentum for change, and assist in securing additionalresources to meet particular demands more quickly. Theirrole as ‘pushers and prodders’ is particularly welcome whendonors deploy experienced staff, who share professionalgoals and technical understanding with partnerorganisations.

The role of field staff in shaping the overall envelope ofresources, and in determining actual allocation, is a moredifficult and contentious question. Field staff act as animportant nexus in the decision-making process. On theone hand, they provide a focal point for operationalagencies to channel information to the donor, and soinfluence resource allocation. On the other, they are alsoconduits of donor policy, and thus have influence indetermining which agencies should be funded, and where.It is difficult to assess the net effect of this complexinterplay in ensuring the appropriate and timely allocationof humanitarian aid resources. The answer varies fromagency to agency, and between countries. Good field staffencourage coordination and provide a check on overallpriorities. In other cases, field staff are seen to havedisproportionate influence in interpreting humanitarianneed, and as being overly directive, potentially reinforcinga culture whereby agencies are seen as the executingagencies of donors’ set policy.

Donors as coordinators

In a small number of countries and territories – East Timor,Albania, Afghanistan and Somalia – donors have sought tobecome more engaged in the coordination of humanitarianoperations. This study reviewed in detail two coordinationstructures, the Afghan Support Group (ASG) and theSomalia Aid Coordination Body (SACB).

The SACB was formed in 1994, at a time when UNcoordination was weak, and Somalia had no recognisednational government. When the ASG was formed, in 1997,the ruling Taliban was not recognised by Westerngovernments. Thus, in both cases donor coordinationinitiatives were driven by the acute dilemmas donors facedin trying to provide assistance in the absence of a recognisedgovernment interlocutor, and amid concern regarding theUN’s ability to act as a proxy authority.

The shape of these bodies was markedly different. TheSACB was a standing forum with regular meetings, initiallychaired by the EC delegate based in Nairobi; the ASG metin different donor capitals around the world as the chairrotated. The SACB was a more direct competitor with theUN coordination structure, particularly in its early years,while the ASG was more supportive of the UN’s evolvingcoordination framework.

These important differences apart, a number of genericlessons emerge from these experiences. Both groups wereimportant in raising awareness among donors of the issuesfacing humanitarian organisations working in these difficultenvironments. On occasion, they translated donors’ financialmuscle into action. For example, the ASG overcame someUN agencies’ resistance to adopting the StrategicFramework for Afghanistan, which sought to enhancecoherence between political and aid responses, and betweenrelief and development efforts. They also provided a meanswhereby donors could meet and review their policies in amore collective way; for example, an informal grouping ofsome donors resulted in an agreement to extend thetimescale of funding in Afghanistan to encourage longer-term strategies.

However, these achievements are relatively modest, andcertainly fall far short of any promise to inform consensusin relation to overall strategy. Perhaps most striking is thenear-absence of any connection between these aid-specificbodies and efforts in the political domain, an area in whichdonors clearly have a major advantage as against theiroperational partners. Thus, there was no formal connectionbetween the ASG and the political grouping of nationsconcerned with the peace process, nor between the SACBand the East African Inter-Governmental Authority onDevelopment (IGAD). In both cases, there was in fact activeresistance to formulating common positions on politicalissues, including human rights. Donors’ ability to use suchforums to inform the political environment was furtherlimited by their lack of a field presence in-country; instead,the UN remained the primary mechanism for negotiatingaccess.

The only instance where a clearly political issue was tabledwas in relation to security assessments, which were in turnlinked to decisions regarding the deployment of funds andpersonnel. In Somalia, security issues were a major focusof attention in the SACB, and resulted in the adoption ofa code of conduct by which violations would be monitored

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and action, including the suspension of aid, could beconsidered. This proved contentious, with agencies accusingdonors of selective and unevenly informed interpretationof security concerns.

A final lesson to emerge from the study of donorcoordination is that it appears to have made little impacton the overall volume of aid allocated, or on donors’ choiceof sectors in which to invest. Overall volumes of aid didnot significantly increase because of greater donorinvolvement in coordination, nor were areas that thecoordination groups identified as priorities, such aslivelihoods, guaranteed to attract additional funding.

Accountable donorship

Official donors clearly exert significant influence over boththe size and the shape of humanitarian response, bothglobally and in specific countries. Decisions regardingwhich agencies receive official funding influence therelative mix of services populations receive, the degree ofemphasis on protection and the framework for coordinatingservice delivery. While donors have laid considerable stresson enhancing the accountability of their operationalpartners, relatively little attention has been paid to howdonors themselves are accountable for the impact of theirdecisions, both as funders and as policy actors.

Overall scrutiny of official humanitarian assistance remainslimited within recipient states, in donor countriesthemselves and internationally. Humanitarian assistance istypically provided in environments where governance isweak and contested, and is usually channelled outside ofpublic structures in recipient countries. This means thatthe mechanisms by which affected populations caninfluence the overall conduct of humanitarian operationsis particularly limited, as they cannot usually rely upontheir governments to ensure the equitable and appropriateuse of funds.

Internationally, there is no mechanism of global governanceto monitor and regulate the use of official humanitarianassistance. Forums such as the Development AssistanceCommittee (DAC) of the OECD seek to coordinateinternational aid policy, but have not explicitly examinedhumanitarian assistance. There is thus no consensusinternationally over what a good donor should look like,and no systematic documentation of good practice.

Donor countr ies themselves are equipped withmechanisms to ensure the accountability of governments,including donor bodies. Parliamentary oversight is theultimate form of democratic accountability. Evidencecollected by this study suggests that these mechanismshave proved relatively weak in scrutinising officialhumanitarian assistance. With the partial exception of theUK, in the cases the study reviewed very little attentionhas been paid to scrutinising humanitarian assistance,

either through parliamentary questions or throughparliamentary committees. This is explained by therelatively small amount of public funds spent on this area,by the lack of a constituency within donor countries toclaim such attention and by the fact that, on the whole,humanitarian assistance enjoys high levels of publicsupport. Audit offices are potentially more powerfulscrutineers of public policy. In contrast to parliamentarycommittees, they are insulated from the pressures ofpartisan politics and have more resources with which toundertake their investigations. However, to date auditreports on humanitarian assistance have been largelyconfined to issues of financial probity and the conductof specific operations, and have thus largely avoidedquestions of strategic accountability.

A number of donor and operational agencies have movedtowards systems of results-based management, and awayfrom traditional inputs-based planning and management.This technique aims to provide a means by whichorganisations can examine how their use of resourcesenables them to achieve their objectives. It should thusallow for more robust and routinised approaches toaccountable public policy. In addition to problems withthe definition of performance indicators, results-basedsystems rely upon a high level of self-reporting by partnerorganisations and donor bodies. This means that a capacityfor independent evaluation is important to verify therobustness of monitoring systems. However, with theimportant exception of Danida and ECHO fewindependent evaluations of donors’ humanitarian aidprogrammes have included assessments of the policies andprocedures of donors themselves. Given the importancedonors attach to ensuring a coordinated humanitarianresponse, it is striking that the joint evaluation of theinternational response to the Rwanda crisis, published in1996, remains the only example of a system-wideinvestigation into humanitarian response, including thatof donors.

Underpinning all of these obstacles to accountability andperformance is the fact that the objectives of officialhumanitarian assistance have become increasingly unclear.At its simplest, humanitarian aid is about meeting life-saving needs. However, over the past decade additional,sometimes competing, objectives have been incorporated,including promoting development and conflict reduction.As a result, the idea of humanitarian aid as a distinctiveform of assistance governed by principles of impartialityand neutrality is being gradually eroded. In particular, itsindependence from the foreign policy objectives of donorstates is under threat, both in principle and in practice.Switzerland and ECHO have legislation that governs theuse of humanitarian aid funds, and so safeguards againstundue political influence. The Danish audit office hasrecommended the adoption of legislation defining thepurpose of Denmark’s humanitarian assistance. The Britishgovernment has, however, rejected calls for similarlegislation in the UK.

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From ‘bilateralisation’ to gooddonorship

The increasing involvement of donors in humanitariandecision-making is both legitimate and appropriate. Donorsare custodians of public funds and are accountable, via theirparliaments, for the effective use of such funds. Furthermore,humanitarian action is not uniquely, or even primarily, theproperty of humanitarian organisations. Responsibility forupholding humanitarian law, including the responsibilityto assist and protect civilians, rests first and foremost withstates, not aid agencies.

The findings of this study suggest that it is inappropriateto concentrate policy debate on the bilateralisation offunding flows per se. Instead, we need to examine howthe objectives of official humanitarian aid are shifting,how the procedures by which such aid is managed areevolving and how good practice can be defined andmonitored. While there have been considerable effortsto define and measure good donorship in thedevelopment sphere, there has been little discussion, muchless agreement, as to what constitutes a ‘good’humanitarian donor. Establishing such an agreementwould be timely as aid flows in this area increase, andhumanitarian decision-making becomes more complexand sensitive. At the same time, the framework throughwhich donor performance can be measured is weak,undermining accountability and the trust necessary forpositive relations between donors and their partners.

Three core principles might provide the basis for such adiscussion:

● a commitment to international humanitarian law andprinciples;

● a commitment to needs-based programming; and

● predictable and adequate funding.

In operationalising these principles, donors might consider:

● committing themselves in domestic law to the impartialallocation of official humanitarian aid;

● reaffirming the independence of humanitariandecision-making from wider foreign policy goals;

● increasing investment in more robust systems by whichhumanitarian need can be measured, globally and inspecific countries, and the allocation of resourcesmonitored; and

● enhancing the predictability and adequacy of officialhumanitarian funding.

The predictability and adequacy of official humanitarianfunding could be improved through:

● encouraging the development of multi-year fundingarrangements;

● ensuring that, in major emergencies, additional andadequate funds are made available, and funds are notsimply reallocated from other ongoing crises;

● benchmarking OECD country contributions tohumanitarian action, by setting a minimum target forhumanitarian aid as a share of GDP or ODA, sodiversifying and expanding the funding base;

● enhancing the transparency of existing financialreporting systems, including removing donors’domestic spending on refugees; and

● deepening existing policy-based approaches to specificcrises, and to humanitarian aid funding globally.

If such guidelines were established, it would also beimportant to invest in systems to monitor adherence togood practice. Lessons from this study suggest a needto:

● enhance the capacity and engagement of parliamentarycommittees and audit offices in reviewing humanitarianaid programmes;

● ensure regular independent evaluations of donorprogrammes and system-wide evaluations; and

● strengthen the role of the DAC in developing andmonitoring humanitarian assistance issues, includingmore effective reporting of aid.

There is also a need for humanitarian organisations,individually and collectively, to maintain a criticaldia logue with the of f ic ia l a id community,demonstrating their leg itimacy as independenthumanitarian actors, based on their competence as wella s their mandates , and the inherent va lue oforganisational autonomy in enhancing the effectivenessof aid. Agencies have varied in their capacity to engagein and sustain such dialogue.

In taking forward this agenda, it will be important torecognise both its modesty and its significance. It is a modestagenda in that it is concerned with a relatively tinyproportion of global wealth, which is seeking to counterthe effects of much more powerful military, economic andpolitical interests in disaster-affected countries. It is asignificant agenda, in that the way in which the purposeof such funds is defined, and the ways in which they aremanaged, says much about the relationship between themost powerful nations and some of the most marginalisedpeople on the planet. It is thus not an issue of whether ornot donors should be involved in the management ofhumanitarian assistance, but why and how they choose touse their influence.

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‘Bilateralisation’ first entered the lexicon of humanitarianorganisations in 1999, in the grubby fields and precariousmountainsides of the Balkans. Alongside the well-knownflags of NGOs and UN organisations flew some less familiarones, belonging to donor states. They appeared on thevehicles and paraphernalia, not only of dedicatedemergency aid departments, but also of military andparamilitary personnel.

The Kosovo emergency made familiar what many havereferred to as the ‘bilateralisation’ of humanitarian action,but the phenomenon was not born there. Rather, theunprecedented level of donor presence at field levelmarked a new peak in a trend that had been under wayfor at least a decade. Instead of delegating responsibilityfor humanitar ian decision-making to specialistinternational organisations, donor governments werebecoming much more active humanitarian actors in theirown r ight. In Kosovo’s aftermath, humanitar ianorganisations have looked with unease at this apparentmove towards the ‘bilateralisation’ of humanitarian action,and the increasing proximity of official donors tohumanitarian operations and decision-making.

At the heart of this concern is the belief that the closerinvolvement of donors in humanitar ian action issymptomatic of a wider movement towards the unduepoliticisation of humanitarian response. This is seen by manywithin the humanitarian community to threaten the verybasis of independent, impartial and neutral humanitarianaction.

Agencies’ calls for donors to keep their distance fromhumanitarian action quickly confront three importantretorts. First, agencies do not have a monopoly onwisdom or competence in organising humanitarianresponse. Throughout the 1990s, assistance wasfrequently ill-managed. Poor performance led tointerventions that were at best technically ill-conceived,and at worst reinforced violence. Donor governmentsare not only or primarily providers of assistance – theyare states with responsibility for achieving internationalpeace and security, and protecting their domesticinterests. It is therefore legitimate that they should workto ensure that the aid programmes they supportcontribute to effective conflict management. Being‘smart’ humanitarian donors entails looking carefully atthe conditions under which aid is delivered, as well asscrutinising delivery procedures.

Second, governmental donors have a democratic duty to

their constituencies to ensure the effective use of publicfunds. The expansion in official humanitarian assistancebudgets has thus coincided with the increased scrutinyof humanitarian organisations. This has revealed manyweaknesses. The trust that underpinned the informalmechanisms governing donor–recipient relations for adecade has been damaged, calling for more formalmethods of scrutiny and the introduction of newmechanisms to enhance agencies’ accountability to theirfunders. Furthermore, donor governments have a dutyto respond to public opinion, and to be seen to do so.While writing cheques to international organisations maybe laudable, it lacks the visibility necessary in an age ofmedia-driven politics.

Finally, it can be argued that humanitarian organisationsdo not have a monopoly of responsibility for humani-tarian action. Indeed, discourse on humanitarian policyover the past decade has emphasised that the absence ofpolitical engagement, not inadequate assistance, is theprimary threat to populations suffering the consequencesof war and other forms of strife. Thus, for example, thejoint evaluation of the international response to thegenocide in Rwanda famously argued for much greatercoherence of humanitar ian, military and politicalresponses to such crises (Eriksson et al., 1996). Yet asWestern governments have intensified their political andmilitary engagement in many conflicts, and sought toplace their assistance within this frame-work, manycivilian humanitar ian organisations have becomesqueamish. They have been quick to accuse donorgovernments of politicising humanitarian action, butmuch slower in defining more precisely what kind ofpolitical intervention would be desirable.

The literature on humanitarian policy and practice hasburgeoned in recent years, but it has concentrated largelyon the performance of operational agencies, in particulartheir ability to navigate the complex political economiesof particular countries. Less attention has been paid tohow donors influence the quality and impact ofhumanitar ian operations through their choice ofdisbursement channels, and through the arrangements inplace to manage them. Equally, while there has been muchdebate regarding the performance and accountability ofoperational agencies, there has been relatively littlescrutiny of the ways in which donors are held accountablefor their performance as policy actors, and on occasionas service providers. Official donors are not the only, oreven the pr imary, influence upon the quality ofhumanitarian action, nor indeed are they its sole source

Chapter 1Introduction

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of funding.1 However, understanding the changing roleof donor governments as humanitarian actors has becomemore pressing as they have also become belligerents inseveral international conflicts. Events since 11 Septemberhave only reinforced the links between security and aidmanagement.

This study informs and contributes to the debatesregarding the changing role of donor governments inhumanitarian action, particularly in conflict-related crises.It describes the multiple and complex changes that havebeen subsumed under the catchy, but misleadingly simple,label of ‘bilateralisation’. It identifies the implications ofthis apparent trend, and proposes an agenda that mightbe used to define ‘good donorship’ in the humani-tarian sphere, which takes into account the concern forpublic accountability and the necessarily politicalimplications of humanitarian aid, while at the same timepreserving the distinctive and particular agenda ofhumanitarianism.

1.1 Elements of ‘bilateralisation’

Previous work by the Overseas Development Institute andothers suggests that there are a number of potentiallysignificant facets of ‘bilateralisation’ (Macrae and Leader,2000; Suhrke et al., 2000; Wiles et al., 1999). These include:

● an apparent shift by donors away from supporting theUN’s specialised agencies in favour of NGOs;

● the increased earmarking and concentration ofresources on highly-visible emergencies;

● an increasing donor role in the coordination of thehumanitarian sphere, both in specific countries andglobally;

● tougher contractual and managerial regimes to scrutinisethe performance of implementing partners; and

● an increased donor presence at field level to provideservices and monitor agencies to which funds havebeen provided.

Although the term ‘bilateralisation’ has gained currency,there are reasons to suggest that it has limited value in

explaining what is going on, or in helping to assess theimplications. ‘Bilateralisation’ is commonly understoodin relation to its opposite, multilateralism. Multilateralapproaches to aid, in other words channelling resourcesthrough the UN and the Bretton Woods institutions, havelong been advocated on the grounds that they provide away of ensuring equitable allocation according to need,not according to the interests of a particular state.Multilateralism has also been seen as a means to fosterthe coordination of aid. Thus, put simply ‘bilateralisation’can be understood as donors reducing the share of theiraid channelled through multilateral institutions in orderto exert influence more directly.

An extensive literature attests to a number of problemswith this approach, which too easily equates theinstitutional arrangements of multilateralism with thenormative ideal of an (altruistic) internationalcommunity. The work of multilateral institutions hasalways been prone to strong bilateral influence, and soit would be a mistake to identify any particular channelfor the disbursement of assistance with greater or lessindependence a pr ior i . Furthermore, while theadvantages of multilateralism may be significant, thesehave to be measured against the disadvantages. Theseconcern the effectiveness of multilateral agencies inachieving their objectives and remaining cost-efficientand accountable. Multilateral governing bodies,including those in the humanitarian sector, have beenpoor in delivering and coordinating assistance, andremain weakly accountable to their individual funders.Ironically, this weakness in accountability derives inpart from one of their strengths, namely the diversityof their membership.

Underpinning current debates regarding the apparent shiftaway from a multilateral approach to humanitarianassistance is a precarious interpretation of aid statistics.The Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of theOrganisation for Economic Cooperation andDevelopment (OECD) defines multilateral assistance onlyin terms of unearmarked contributions to multilateralorganisations. All other aid, including earmarkedcontributions to the UN and grants to the Red CrossMovement and NGOs, is by definition bilateral. Thus, asdiscussed in Chapter 2, there is a managerial question asto how aid is disbursed through the humanitarian system,and a normative question regarding the terms under whichit is disbursed.

Ultimately, the term ‘bilateralisation’ retains some analyticalusefulness only if it is understood not simply in relation tothe use of a particular funding structure, but more widely,as a way of describing the changing role of donors inhumanitarian action, and donors’ increased proximity tohumanitarian decision-making. Once these aspects of theproblem are understood, their normative implications canbe discussed.

1 There is unfortunately no accurate data on private funding forhumanitarian action. A report by the US government suggeststhat only 10%–15% of humanitarian aid funds come from privatesources. See Global Humanitarian Emergencies: Trends andProjections, 2001–2002 (Washington DC: National IntelligenceCouncil, 2001). However, a comparison between funding for UKNGOs from public appeals by the Disasters Emergency Committeeand the allocation of funds from the UK’s Department forInternational Development (DFID) indicates that the proportionmay be higher. For eight major emergencies, contributions throughthe DEC amounted to £150.5 million, compared with £193.4mfrom DFID. The DEC’s spending was higher than DFID’sparticularly in sudden-onset natural disasters.

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1.2 The changing role of donors inhumanitarian action: forms, channelsand systems

The ‘bilateralisation’ of humanitarian assistance can be seento reflect changes in the form of official humanitarianassistance, the systems by which it is managed and thechannels through which it is delivered (Cassels, 1998). Aidis designated as being for relief or for development, and isprovided in a number of different ways: for projects orprogrammes, and as loans or grants. The form of aid partlydetermines the channels through which it is disbursed. Itmay be provided direct to recipient governments, throughmultilateral organisations like the World Bank, theInternational Monetary Fund (IMF) and the UN, throughinternational organisations such as the InternationalCommittee of the Red Cross (ICRC) or InternationalOrganisation for Migration (IOM), or through non-governmental organisations. Different forms of aid, anddifferent disbursement mechanisms, require different systemsto manage and coordinate assistance.

Historically, humanitarian assistance can be seen asdistinct from development aid. This distinction is partlyto do with the particular ethics of humanitar ianassistance. Humanitarian aid draws its legitimacy froma belief in a shared humanity, which suggests a sharedentitlement to assistance and protection in circumstancesof dire need. In relation to armed conflict, this isinstitutionalised in international humanitarian law (IHL),and implies a ser ies of fundamental pr inciples ofhumanitar ian aid, such as impartiality (allocationaccording to need alone) and neutrality (not taking aposition with regard to the legitimacy or otherwise ofany particular political cause).

The distinctiveness of humanitarian assistance also stemsfrom the way in which developmentalist thinking hastypically understood humanitarian crises (Duffield, 1994).Developmentalism has long assumed that the path andoutcome of development are known, that the process ofdevelopment necessarily resembles the experience ofWestern developed states, and that it is inevitable (Pieterse,1991). In this framework, crises – whether caused byconflict or natural hazard – were seen as unfortunate buttemporary interruptions to an otherwise progressive process(Duffield, 1994). Thus, particular types of assistance otherthan developmental aid were needed to enable populationsundergoing crisis to survive until normal conditionsreturned, and ‘development’ could resume. According tothis view, relief aid was a largely technical task, requiringparticular competences, notably in logistics and health care.It acquired a special status not because its ultimate goalswere inherently different from those of developmentassistance, but because it demanded different inputs andmanagement systems. By design, and by default, thesesystems were much less onerous than those governingdevelopment assistance. This implied a high level of donor

trust in operational partners, and provided for a large degreeof independence and autonomy of action.

This view of the place and purpose of humanitarianassistance within the international aid system led to theemergence of particular types of specialist channels throughwhich aid was disbursed, and particular rules by which itwas allocated. Until the mid-1970s, the bulk of reliefassistance was disbursed bilaterally, from one governmentto another; in 1976, for instance, the European Commissiondisbursed 90% of its relief assistance in this way (Borton,1993). The bilateral character of aid located it firmly withinthe framework of foreign policy, particularly in the US. AsSecretary of State Henry Kissinger put it, ‘disaster relief isbecoming increasingly a major instrument of our foreignpolicy’ (Loescher, 2000). While foreign policyconsiderations clearly did not influence all disaster response,positioning assistance within this conceptual andmanagement framework provided a mechanism throughwhich foreign policy considerations could be played out.Access to victims of conflict was limited by the conditionsof sovereignty, which meant that governments in disaster-affected countries determined whether and when outsideassistance was permissible (Duffield, 1994; Jean, 1997). Therewere of course exceptions: the unique mandate of theICRC meant that it was virtually alone in gaining accessto all sides in a conflict. Most humanitarian actors, includingthe UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)and NGOs, remained largely confined to the periphery ofconflicts (Duffield, 1994; Jean, 1997).

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the architecture ofhumanitarian assistance began to change in significant ways.The emergence of new actors like Médecins Sans Frontières(MSF) signalled a new approach to humanitarian action,even in wartime. This challenged traditional conceptionsof sovereignty and the role of advocacy in humanitarianaction. While NGOs became more visible, some donorsbecame less so: in 1977, US President Jimmy Carterremoved political conditionality on humanitarian assistance,paving the way not only for an increase in overall aidfunding, but also making possible changes in the conditionsunder which it was provided (Jean, 1997).

One of the milestones in the process of change came withthe Ethiopian famine in 1984–85. Official aid poured intothe country, and was managed largely by the Ethiopiangovernment. The government was fighting a civil war inthe north, and this assistance was rapidly incorporated intothe military machine. If the recipient government was notto be trusted to use relief equitably, and the UN and ICRCwere unable or unwilling to negotiate access to enemyterritory, a new tool was required. This came in the shapeof a small NGO consortium, the Emergency Relief Desk,which was linked to the civilian arms of the rebelmovements in Eritrea and Tigray. The consortium provideda mechanism by which Western states could penetrate acomplex crisis without governmental consent. As Duffieldand Prendergast (1994) note, the decision by the US

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government and the European Commission to fund theEmergency Relief Desk marked not only the beginningof increased aid flows into northern Ethiopia, but alsosupport for an intervention that was effectively illegalunder international law. Donor governments wereinfluencing the shape of humanitarian response withoutnecessarily requiring the cooperation of either thegovernment in the recipient country or the UN. In sodoing, they were changing the balance of power in theEthiopian conflict.

During the 1990s, three key developments prompted afurther reanalysis of the channels through which relief aidwas disbursed, the systems by which it was managed andits relationship with traditional development aid. First, withthe end of the Cold War the determinants of internationalsecurity were reassessed. In 1992, the UN launched AnAgenda for Peace, which argued for a new definition ofsecurity that included social and economic factors,alongside diplomacy and defence. The concept of humansecurity underlined the importance of poverty alleviation,environmental management and good governance inreducing conflict. This paved the way for the mainstreamingof aid into the international security agenda (Macrae, 2001).As the decade progressed, so the discourse in this areabroadened, from an analysis of the role of developmentassistance in conflict prevention to an analysis of the roleof humanitarian assistance in conflict reduction (Macraeand Leader, 2000). This was driven in part by the absenceof development assistance in conflict-affected countries,and by a growing recognition that relief aid was beingmanipulated by warring parties.

Western governments thus sought to enhance thecoherence of their political and military responses toconflict and their aid responses, both developmental andhumanitarian (Macrae and Leader, 2000). This coherenceaimed to ensure not only that official aid was not fuellingconflict, but also in some cases to explore whether andhow such funds might be used to exert leverage over thebelligerents. In many instances, there was a thin linebetween ensuring the principled delivery of assistance, andwithholding or selectively providing humanitarianassistance in order to effect political change (Leader andMacrae, 2000). These new linkages between aid and politicalresponses also implied the need for donors to improvetheir analysis of conflict-related crises, and of the positionof aid within them. This necessitated a better understandingof events at field level, as well as more complexarrangements for monitoring partners’ work. To achievethis, donors increased their field presence and tightenedtheir reporting requirements.

These changes coincided with a move towards greaterinternational engagement with internal wars. Initially, thiswas associated with the deployment of military force inorder to protect humanitarian operations. By the end ofthe 1990s, and specifically in Kosovo in 1999, thisinterventionism had extended to the military enforcement

of a UN resolution to protect, not simply humanitarianassistance, but also human rights. In such crises, Westerngovernments felt a clear obligation to their ownconstituencies to provide, and to be seen to provide,humanitarian assistance. The visibility of humanitarianaid was important in legitimising military and politicalinterventions both to the domestic public in Westerndemocracies, and internationally. Thus, as Jean (1997)notes, states re-entered the humanitarian field in a muchmore direct way. Donors now required a visible fieldpresence, which would be able to coordinate assistance,military and political efforts, and which could respondquickly to the demands of politicians and the public that‘something must be done’. The ability to rapidly disbursefunds to a particular crisis became increasingly important.Tight earmarking of contributions to internationalorganisations provided one means of achieving thisvisibility.

The third development influencing donor practice in thehumanitarian field came from wider changes in Westernpolitics and public sector management. As described inChapter 2, if the 1980s was the decade of privatisation, inthe 1990s attention shifted to questions of effectivenessand accountability. Western democracies made intenseefforts to counter declining trust in government and publicadministration by applying new management techniques(O’Neill, 2002). Thus, the revolution in publicaccountability has seen the introduction of more elaboratesystems to monitor publicly funded activities, and to ensuretheir accountability.

In the humanitarian sector, concerns with accountabilityand effectiveness led donors to ask difficult questionsof the UN’s specialised agencies. In the eyes of donors,these agencies had failed to deliver on their mandates,resisted scrutiny and lacked effective and responsivegovernance structures. NGOs, by contrast, developed awelter of initiatives designed to improve their responsesto complex ethical and operational dilemmas, and tomeet donor concerns.2 Thus, the balance betweenmultilateral and bilateral disbursement channels wasrethought, with an increasing volume of humanitarianassistance being channelled directly through NGOs. The‘accountability revolution’ also prompted more generalchanges in the systems donors used to manage their aid.New forms of contract were developed, toughermonitor ing and repor ting requirements wereintroduced, and the number of evaluations undertakenin the field significantly increased (see Chapters 2 and4 of this report).

2 Thus, for example, the Code of Conduct for NGOs and the RedCross can be seen as addressing concerns regarding operatingprinciples; Sphere can be seen as a mechanism for measuringperformance; and the Humanitarian Accountability Project as away of addressing concerns regarding beneficiary consultationand agency accountability.

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A number of issues emerge from this analysis.

● First, it has become more difficult to describe reliefaid as having distinct objectives and principles. This isbecause the analysis of crises has changed; whereas inthe 1970s and 1980s major disasters werepredominantly viewed as acts of god, not man, theyare now routinely presented as more complex in theirorigins and dynamics.

● Second, the utility of humanitarian principles likeimpartiality and neutrality has been questioned, anddonors are again willing to include humanitarianassistance in the calculations that shape their politicaland military responses.

● Third, the institutional arrangements for managing aidare rapidly evolving. This is reflected at all stages of thefunding cycle, and extends from demands for morecomprehensive planning, monitoring and reporting,through to the introduction of new mechanisms toidentify and fund projects, new forms of contractingand new mechanisms for coordination. At the sametime, agencies working in conflict-affected countriescan now draw on a range of budget lines, includingdevelopmental and rehabilitation budgets, to financetheir work.

● Fourth, the range of channels through which donorscan disburse their funds has changed, both qualitativelyand quantitatively. The mushrooming of NGOs andthe arrival of new military and quasi-military actors inconflict situations have occurred at a time when thecomparative advantage of the UN is increasinglyquestioned.

1.3 The study and an overview of thereport

Ten researchers have contributed to this study over an 18-month period. The research looked at the policies andpractices of a number of key humanitarian donors: theUK, ECHO, Denmark, Canada and the US. Field researchwas carried out in Afghanistan and Somalia, together withdocumentary reviews and interviews with donor officialsand agency staff in donor capitals and at field level. Thisreport summarises and synthesises the key findings, whichare based on a series of background papers, separatelyavailable. Annex 1 provides a full list of the outputs producedby the research team.

The study looked at three facets of the ‘bilateralisation’phenomenon. First, it reviewed changes in the financingof humanitarian assistance and in the systems that are usedto manage this. The findings of this component of thestudy are reported in Chapter 2. Second, it looked at thechanging role of donors in the coordination ofhumanitarian assistance, and in their policies towardscoordination. This is the subject of Chapter 3. Since manyof the changes being advocated by donors have been drivenby a concern to improve the accountability of thehumanitarian system, the study also examined the evolutionof the mechanisms by which donors themselves are heldto account. Chapter 4 reports on this aspect of the work.The detailed methodology and scope of these differentelements of the research are described in each chapter.Chapter 5 identifies common themes and issues emergingfrom the different components of the study, draws lessonsfrom them and makes recommendations for the future.

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Chapter 2The ’bilateralisation’ of humanitarian assistance: thechanging financing, contractual and management

environment of humanitarian aid

2.1 Introduction

During the 1990s, a number of factors encouraged manyofficial donors to adopt a more hands-on approach to themanagement of humanitarian assistance. Donors and theUN made policy commitments to integrate humanitarianand political responses to complex political emergencies(Macrae and Leader, 2000). Calls for enhanced ‘coherence’between humanitarian, political and military action wereframed as an ambitious programme of international andcross-departmental activity to better manage conflict andits aftermath. This also reflected mounting concern thatrelief was doing more harm than good, fuelling the veryconflicts that donors were aiming to resolve.

From the mid-1990s, the complexities of defining andimplementing this maximalist interpretation of ‘coherent’responses to conflict have become clearer. As the decadeprogressed, the initial promise of using humanitarian assistanceas part of an integrated response to conflict worldwide gaveway, to be replaced by a much more complex and differentiatedapproach. There has been growing recognition thathumanitarian assistance can exert only limited leverage overconflicts. Thus, after a brief moment when humanitarianassistance became mainstreamed into the security agenda, itnow occupies a more marginal position. In this context, inthe majority of emergencies official donors are concentratingtheir efforts on more managerial concerns regarding theeffectiveness and accountability of humanitarian assistance,rather than on its strategic value. This is not to say thathumanitarian assistance has lost all political value and meaning,particularly in high-profile emergencies. In Afghanistan andSierra Leone, for instance, there have been attempts to integratehumanitarian action into a wider political and militaryresponse. However, the political value of humanitarian aidnow seems to lie primarily in enhancing the legitimacy ofinternational political and military interventions to domesticaudiences and to the populations of affected countries (Macrae,2002).

This policy shift has coincided with a number of significantchanges in the financing, organisation and managementof humanitarian assistance. These changes have beenintroduced in part as a means of operationalising thecoherence agenda, but also in response to the paralleldebates that emerged during the mid-1990s about theaccountability and performance of public policy, includingfor humanitarian assistance. These concerns have beensharpened by the increased funding donors are allocatingto humanitarian aid. Donors also now have a much wider

choice of mechanisms through which they can disbursetheir assistance. This is reflected in the significant expansionin the number and capacity of NGOs, and the emergenceof a new range of military and civilian actors from donorcountries able to implement humanitarian aid. The primacyof the UN as a global humanitarian actor has become lessclear. Its comparative advantage as a coordinating body, aswell as a provider of services, can no longer be assumed,but now has to be proved.

These diverse factors have all encouraged donors to engagemore intensively in humanitarian action. These drivers arepolitical, reflecting changes in the way donors are seekingto manage conflict-related crises, and the need to respondto electors’ demands to ‘do something’. They are alsomanagerial, and reflect donors’ need to use public fundsefficiently and effectively. In part, this means being able tochoose appropriately from an ever-larger range of potentialpartners and mechanisms through which they can be funded.

This chapter analyses how donors have responded to thesedifferent pressures to engage more closely in humanitarianaffairs. As noted in Chapter 1, the term ‘bilateralisation’reflects a number of changes in the form of official aid,the systems by which it is managed, and the channelsthrough which it is delivered. The form of official aid isshaped by the political context in both donor andrecipient countries. Historically, humanitarian assistancewas seen as a particular form of aid, governed by particularrules, which did not necessarily confer political legitimacyupon the government of the affected country. Donors’choice of a particular form of aid (relief, bilateral ormultilateral development, policy-based or project-basedassistance) reflects their global policy objectives and theiranalysis of how aid contributes to the developmentprocess. Thus, as fashions in development theory havechanged and circumstances in affected countries havealtered, so donors have increased or decreased theproportion of their aid channelled through the state inrecipient countries. Donors’ choice of aid instrument isalso affected by the degree to which they wish to engagewith the recipient state (Macrae, 2001). The greater theinternational legitimacy of a recipient country’sgovernment, the more bilateral and developmental thechannels of assistance are likely to be.

This research was concerned to understand the extent towhich humanitarian assistance remains a particular formof aid, with specific objectives and rules. Aware that differentforms of aid imply different choices in terms of the channels

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through which aid is disbursed, and the systems by whichit is managed, it also sought to analyse trends indisbursement channels and in donors’ management of theirrelationship with their operational partners. In order to dothis, the study examined changes in the financing ofhumanitarian aid, notably the apparent expansion in theuse of bilateral channels of disbursement. This analysis drawsheavily on a paper prepared by Judith Randel and TonyGerman (2002) for ODI, and is reported in Section 2.2.

To understand the systems through which humanitarianaid is managed, the study drew on the internationalliterature on public sector management and accountability.This suggests that the relationship between governmentsand the organisations they finance is determined not onlyby the volume of funding, but also by the formal andinformal arrangements that are used to govern therelationship. Section 2.3 introduces this wider literature asa prelude to more detailed discussion of changes in thecontractual and managerial environment of humanitarianassistance. This analysis, reported in Section 2.4, draws uponcase studies of selected donors, including the UK, ECHO,the US and Danida, as well as field research in Afghanistanand Somalia. In addition, documentary reviews andinterviews were undertaken in two UK NGOs (one verysmall, the other very large) to examine how donors’requirements of such organisations had changed. This isreported in Section 2.5. Section 2.6 examines theimplications of this analysis for recipient organisations, andSection 2.7 summarises the key issues discussed.

2.2 Trends in official humanitarianfinancing

2.2.1 Trends in aid flows

One of the reasons why donors are paying greater attentionto humanitarian issues is that they are spending more onhumanitarian aid, both in real terms and as a proportionof total official development assistance (ODA). In 1990,aid for humanitarian assistance was $2.1 billion. By 2000,it had reached $5.9bn (see Figure 2.1).

Figure 2.1: Humanitarian assistance, 1990–2000

As a share of overall ODA, humanitarian aid increased froman average of 5.83% between 1989 and 1993 to 10.5% in2000 (Randel and German, 2002).1 While humanitarianaid has increased, total aid flows have declined. In 2000,official aid amounted to $53.7bn, 12% lower than the 1992peak (Randel and German, 2002). Aid has also declined asa proportion of national wealth, from around half of theUN’s target of 0.7% of gross national product (GNP) inthe 1970s and 1980s to 0.22% of GNP in 2000 (Randeland German, 2002).

2.2.2 Concentration of donors

The bulk of humanitarian assistance is provided by a verysmall number of donors. Figure 2.2 shows the majorbilateral donors of humanitarian assistance in 2000. Thisdata excludes bilateral spending on domestic support torefugees, and so represents the amount available to supportinternational humanitar ian action as commonlyunderstood.

Figure 2.2: Major bilateral donors of humanitarianassistance, 2000

This means that changes in the policy priorities anddisbursement preferences of only a handful of countriescan have a considerable influence throughout thehumanitarian system. The US is the predominant bilateraldonor: its contribution exceeds that of any other by a factorof three or four. In the three years between 1995 and 1997,the US accounted for approximately 20% of total officialhumanitarian assistance. In 1998–2000, this had increasedto around a third. ECHO is also a significant donor body,with a humanitarian aid budget of some 500 million euros(around $490m) in 2000. (In official statistics, ECHOappears as a multilateral organisation, but it acts primarilyas a donor, funding the activities of other organisations.)

1 Total contributions to OCHA appeals for countries that wereaffected exclusively by natural disasters amounted to $311 millionin 2001. This compares with contributions of $2.1 billion to OCHAappeals in conflict-affected countries.

2,099

4,5484,190

5,086

4,5734,341

3,841

4,493

5,878

5,621

5,769

0

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000

6,000

7,000

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

US$

m

0 200 400 600 800 1,000 1,200 1,400

Japan

Denmark

Switzerland

France

Germany

Canada

Norway

Sweden

All other DAC donors

United Kingdom

Netherlands

United States

US$m

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Other consistently large donors are the UK, theNetherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Norway, Japanand Canada. The remaining OECD country donorsaccount for $240m, or just 7% of the total. Thisconcentration of donors is also apparent in the fundingfor specific agencies. Thus, the US usually provides at least20%–25% of UNHCR’s funding (UNHCR, 2001), andover half of the resources of WFP (Randel and German,2002). For UNHCR, six donors contribute 75% of funds(Lubbers, 2001a), while just three (the US, the EC andJapan) accounted for 75% of WFP’s relief resources in 2000(Randel and German, 2002).

2.2.3 Concentration of spending

Just as a handful of donors account for the bulk ofhumanitarian assistance, so official humanitarian aidspending is concentrated on only a handful ofemergencies. Porter (2002) notes that, in most years,contributions to the Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP)have been heavily concentrated on major crises (see Figure2.3). Randel and German (2002) show that, between 1996and 1999, the top five recipients of bilateral humanitarianaid were all political hotspots: Bosnia, Serbia andMontenegro, the former Yugoslavia (unspecified), Iraq andIsrael, which together accounted for $2,725m of officialspending. The next five – Rwanda, Sudan, Afghanistan,Angola and Indonesia – received $1,388m combined.Porter (2002) suggests that the following factorsdetermine the overall size of funding for particularcountries at any one time: donors’ foreign policies;historical relationships with a country or region;geographical proximity; opportunity (for example, theprospect of peace); ‘dumping’ of resources towards theyear end; and sustained media attention. There has,

however, been little empirical investigation into how thesedecisions are made.2

In the absence of an internationally-accepted mechanismenabling easy comparison between resource flows andhumanitarian need, the CAP is the nearest thing we have.However, its shortcomings are well-known, not least itsinability to provide a comprehensive assessment of needand a prioritised programme of response (Porter, 2002).Nonetheless, the data does suggest that existing mechanismsfor the disbursement of official humanitarian assistance arenot ensuring an equitable distribution of relief. While thishas apparently lost the power to shock, there is increasingunease over the humanitarian community’s inability tomeasure the impact of this failure on disaster-affectedcommunities. This is clearly a prerequisite in anyexamination of the impact of humanitarian assistanceglobally. It is also important in understanding how donors’choices of disbursement mechanisms are affecting the abilityof the humanitarian system as a whole to respond to needglobally. There is of course no guarantee that, left to theirown devices, international humanitarian organisationswould allocate official humanitarian resources evenly acrossthe world. However, it is questionable whether donors arehelping or hindering their operational partners in reachingthis goal.

2.2.4 Disbursement channels: is humanitarianaid spending becoming more bilateral?

There have been major changes in the mechanisms throughwhich official humanitarian aid is channelled. This reflectsthe significant expansion in the capacity of NGOs, theincreased engagement of military and paramilitary actorsin humanitarian action and in some cases the developmentof donors’ own operational capacity.3 It also reflects theadvent of new fund-raising mechanisms, such as the CAP.4

At first sight, bilateral assistance appears to be growingmuch faster than multilateral assistance. In 1996–99, thetotal amount of multilateral spending (that is, unearmarkedaid channelled through a multilateral organisation)

2 The Humanitarian Financing Working Group (HFWG) iscurrently undertaking such an investigation, and will report inspring 2003.3 At present, there are no easily accessible data that indicate thevolume of official humanitarian aid spending disbursed throughmilitary forces. Anecdotal evidence from Kosovo and Afghanistansuggests that the amount being disbursed through thesemechanisms is increasing. In addition, there have been cases, forexample US forces in Afghanistan, where the military has drawnon non-aid budget lines to undertake work that wouldconventionally be counted as ‘aid’, such as infrastructurerehabilitation. Again, there are no easily accessible figures thatquantify such spending.4 The CAP is not only or primarily a fund-raising tool; it is also atool for strategic programming. Porter (2002) notes the potentialtensions between these related but distinct functions.

Figure 2.3: CAP contributions, 1994–2001

34.4%Former Yugoslavia

36.9%Great Lakes Region



24.1%Sudan

43.8%South-ea ster n Europe

31.2%South-ea ster n Europe

16.0%North Korea

25.6%Great Lakes


29.3%Great Lakes

27.8%Great Lakes


13.2%Great Lakes

19.8%Great Lakes

14.1%SE Europe

40%12 remaining CAPs

34.9%11 remaining CAPs







0.0% 20.0% 40.0% 60.0% 80.0% 100.0%

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Largest Appeal 2nd Largest Appeal Remaining CAPs

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increased by 32% compared with 1988–89. In the sameperiod, bilaterally-managed expenditure (includingearmarked contributions to UN agencies, direct contractingto NGOs and donors’ own operations) increased by over150%; for ECHO, the increase was 475%. These headlinefigures are potentially misleading, however. The correlationbetween bilateral funding flows and increasing donorinfluence in decision-making is not straightforward.

Changes in the DAC reporting requirements are one reasonwhy the trend towards the bilateralisation of humanitarianassistance appears particularly pronounced. Since 1992,OECD countries have been allowed to include in theirreport on official humanitarian aid spending the amountspent on supporting refugees in their own country fortheir first year of residence. Most, though not all, countriesdo this; the UK, for instance, does not. As Figure 2.4 shows,the amounts involved are significant, and appear to beincreasing. Since 1992, nearly $8.5bn of ODA has beenspent in this way; in 2000, this accounted for 38% of bilateralassistance (Randel and German, 2002). Almost bydefinition, this spending is largely bilateral. It is certainlynot supporting international humanitarian assistanceorganisations in their work in disaster-affected countries.

Figure 2.4: ODA spent on refugees in DAC donorcountries

Increases in bilateral aid flows do not mean that less moneyis being spent through the UN; indeed, the share of resourceschannelled through the UN appears to have remainedrelatively constant over the past decade. (Figure 2.5 showsthe share of official humanitarian assistance (excludingrefugee aid spending) allocated to WFP and UNHCR, themajor UN operational agencies.) There are two reasons forthis: first, donors are increasingly earmarking theircontributions to multilateral humanitarian organisations; andsecond, spending through the UN has not always grown inline with increases in overall humanitarian assistance. Thus,the proportion that counts as multilateral (i.e., unearmarked)aid has fallen, from around 31% in 1989–93 to 25% in 1994–98. By the end of the decade, 11.67% of humanitarianassistance funds were given in the form of multilateralcontributions to UN agencies (Randel and German, 2002).

Looking at how this pattern plays out in relation tospecific donors is illuminating. In 1997–98, theDepartment for International Development (DFID)’shumanitarian assistance was divided relatively equallybetween bilateral aid (£94m) and multilateral aid (£92m,comprising £72m channelled through the EuropeanCommunity and £20m through UN agencies). Althoughits multilateral humanitarian assistance has remainedrelatively stable at around £85m–£100m, in 1999–2000DFID disbursed £221m bilaterally through NGOs, RedCross organisations and earmarked funding to UNagencies, more than double the £102m of unearmarkedassistance that went to multilateral agencies. Whiledistorted by the peculiarly bilateral response to the Kosovocrisis, this nonetheless shows that donors can ‘go bilateral’if and when they choose to do so. In the US, while overallfunding to multilateral humanitarian organisations hasnot declined in real terms, the proportion of resourcesthat go to multilateral programmes has fallen. Thus, theshare of the Bureau of Population, Refugees andMigration (BPRM)’s budget allocated to internationalorganisations (the UN and the ICRC) has declined, from92% in 1996 to 85% in 2001. In the case of ECHO, therehas been considerable volatility in the proportion of itsfunds channelled through the UN over the past decade.From a peak of 37% in 1992, contributions to UNagencies hovered at around 20% in the period 1998–2000.

At the same time, the direct contracting of NGOs by themajor donors is increasing. So, for example, the US Officeof Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) has increased theshare of its funding going through NGOs, from roughly60% to over 70%. In the UK, DFID’s humanitarian aidspending through NGOs more than doubled between2000 and 2001, from £33.5m to £75m, just as its overallspending on NGOs declined (Randel and German, 2002).In 1990, ECHO spent 27% of its funds through NGOs.By 2000, this had risen to 67%, compared with 20%channelled through the UN. Whereas direct contractingof NGOs by the major donors is increasing, UNHCR,for example, is reducing the number of contracts it has

Figure 2.5: Official humanitarianassistance allocated to WFP and UNHCR

0 0 0 0

997

1110

963

806

644 647

975

733

1361

0

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1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

US$

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with NGO partners. In 2000, such contracts accountedfor 44% ($311m) of UNHCR’s expenditure, comparedto 51% ($500m) in 1996.

2.2.5 Summary

This analysis suggests that:

● Official humanitar ian assistance has increasedsignificantly in real terms, and as a proportion oftotal ODA. Donor governments are usinghumanitarian assistance more than was the case inprevious decades, particularly in conflict-affectedcountries.

● A handful of donors are responsible for the bulk ofhumanitarian assistance.

● Official humanitarian resources appear to be heavilyconcentrated on a relatively small number ofcountries. This concentration does not necessarilycorrelate with humanitarian need.

● The amount of humanitarian assistance available foroperations at field level has not increased assignificantly as official data suggests. An increasingshare of resources is being allocated to spending indonor countries themselves.

● The share of resources allocated through the UNhas remained relat ively stat ic: multi lateralorganisations have not expanded their market share,either through multilateral or unearmarkedcontributions.

● Many donors are increasingly choosing to contractNGOs directly.

The weakness and complexity of the financial data meanthat, while it is clear that financial flows have become morebilateral in the narrow technical sense, the implications ofthis for the system as a whole are not clear. It is thereforeimportant to place this quantitative data alongside morequalitative changes in the managerial and contractualrelations within the international humanitarian system. Thisis the subject of the following sections.

2.3 The new public management: areview of trends in Western publicpolicy

The changing relationship between official donor bodiesand recipient humanitarian organisations is part of broaderdevelopments in governance and public administration indonor countries. While there are peculiarities in thehumanitarian sphere, these are not sufficient to explain allthe changes in the financial and management arrangementsin the sector over the past decade.

During the 1970s, there was growing concern amongpoliticians and their electorates that governments wereproving ineffective and costly providers of public services.During the 1980s, the governments of Ronald Reaganand Margaret Thatcher embodied a political and fiscalresponse to these concerns. In the US and the UK inparticular, government involvement in the direct provisionof public services was reduced. Services were privatised,and new relationships established between governmentsand providers, both commercial and voluntary. In additionto the political arguments supporting the promotion of amixed economy, the privatisation of service provision wasexpected to improve quality, efficiency and effectiveness.In particular, governments turned increasingly to thevoluntary sector to provide public services, arguing thatthe ethos of charitable organisations and their proximityand commitment to particular groups, such as the disabled,the elderly and children, gave them greater insight intotheir needs and more accountable ways of meeting them.By introducing competition between different privateproviders, these changes were also expected to yield cost-savings (Demone and Gibelman, 1989). However, whilethis approach drew heavily upon models of competitionin the private sector, the performance of public serviceproviders could not be judged solely or primarily in termsof profitability. This meant that new mechanisms to monitorperformance were required (Glynn and Murphy, 1996).

For voluntary organisations, the wave of governmentcontracts and funding that emerged during the 1980srepresented a significant opportunity. The scale of fundingand its relative predictability provided a means of expandingservice provision. It also enhanced the visibility andlegitimacy of voluntary organisations, and gave them moredirect access to public policy-making. However, there werealso potential costs. From an NGO perspective, theseincluded the practical implications of ‘scaling up’ activities,and how this would affect organisational culture; problemswith the slow disbursement of grants; and the hightransaction costs of the more formal application andreporting procedures associated with government funding.

A more fundamental question also emerged as to whetherincreased dependence on governments for funding wouldmean compromising the independence of the recipientagencies. Thus, for example, there have been concerns thatvoluntary organisations might be less willing to engage incritical advocacy and challenge a donor government’spolicy. Blau (1964) suggests that, as the volume of resourcesprovided to organisations increases, so the recipient willincreasingly accept the donor’s demands as legitimate.Conforming to the procedures for the award, managementand monitoring of public service contracts may requirevoluntary organisations to meet goals set for them bygovernment, rather than ones they have set themselves. Inother words, public service contracting, far from enablingdecentralisation and deregulation, may ultimately extendthe reach of the state (Edwards and Hulme, 1997; O’Neill,2002; Smillie, 1993; van der Heijden, 1987).

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It is not clear that increased dependence on official fundingnecessar ily compromises the independence of thecontracted organisation. Control over resources is only oneof several ways in which donor bodies may exert power.These include formal authority (that is, legitimate powerto which people submit voluntarily); control of decisionprocesses; control of knowledge and information; andthrough inter-personal alliances and informal exchanges.5

Thus, a series of intangible resources in addition to fundingis at stake: donors provide recipient organisations withinformation, political support and legitimacy, and give themaccess to the policy process. Personnel may also be aresource which flows in both directions between theorganisations. Organisations can defend themselves againstundue donor influence in a number of ways, for instanceby establishing independent networks, securing resourcesfrom elsewhere, increasing their organisational capacity andmoral authority and making independent claims toknowledge.

Smillie (1993: 30) notes that the precise proportion of anorganisation’s income from a governmental source is notthe pr imary issue; more important is ‘whethergovernments respect and value the independence of thevoluntary sector. Whether they see NGOs as an importantpart of civil society, or simply as inexpensive executingagencies, working in places they themselves cannot reach’.In other words, it is not only money that matters: thenature of the relationship between donor and recipient isalso important.

For the humanitarian sphere, a key question is whetherthere is a common understanding between actors regardingthe purpose of donor behaviour, the way in which donors’power is exercised, and how that is perceived andinterpreted by the agency. Conflicts arise when the goalsof one organisation are at the expense of another (Mowjee,2001).6 Molnar and Rogers (1979) divide such conflictinto two types: structural conflict, where there is an inabilityto establish or maintain the basic rules that govern therelationship, and there is a breakdown of trust; and operatingconflict, which occurs over expectations of a task orperformance of a role, and can be viewed as a continuousprocess of mutual adjustment and negotiation. The majorpoints of contention between donors and recipient

organisations have largely been confined to operatingconflicts, in which there is dispute regarding how particulartasks should be undertaken; outright structural conflicts,where there is fundamental disagreement over therespective rights and responsibilities of the different partners,have been rare.

Most analysts agree that trust is fundamental to thecharacter of the donor–recipient relationship. Fukuyama(1995) defines trust as an expectation of regular, honestand cooperative behaviour, based on shared normsamong members of a community. He argues that it isfundamental to economic relationships, as well as socialrelationships, and has a large and measurable economicvalue. This point has been well demonstrated by thesignificant falls in international stock markets in 2002following revelations of accounting irregularities in largecorporations such as Enron and WorldCom. In a seriesof lectures in 2002, the British philosopher OnoraO’Neill (2002) examined the proposition that there hasbeen a crisis of trust in public life, and explored themechanisms that governments have used to re-establishpublic confidence. In the wake of scandals over the poorperformance of professionals such as doctors, socialworkers and politicians, and continuing concernsregarding the mismanagement of public funds, there hasbeen a revolution in public accountability in parliamentsand related pillars of governance, such as audit offices,and in the processes by which governments allocateresources between departments.

The question of trust – or the lack thereof – seems tounderlie at least some of the recent transformations inhumanitarian aid. As described in Chapter 1, during the1990s there was arguably a breakdown of what Sako(1992) calls ‘goodwill trust’ in the humanitarian sphere.7

Assumptions that humanitarian organisations would ‘dothe right thing’ were challenged in a number of majoremergencies, and the role of humanitarian aid, and ofthe governments that were financing it, came undersignificant scrutiny. This, combined with pressures toaccount for the effectiveness of public spending moregenerally, has meant that there have been importantchanges in the contractual and management frameworkgoverning humanitarian aid spending, particularly for thelarger donors. The remainder of this chapter is primarilyconcerned with how different donors are applying thesenew contractual and management systems, and theimplications for humanitarian action.

5 This characterisation of formal power, like most discussions ofthe subject, is from the nineteenth-century German sociologistMax Weber. The importance of legitimacy in determining formalauthority is a recurrent theme in the literature. For example, Blau(1964) argues that the ‘legitimation of patterns of social conductand relations requires that common values and norms put thestamp of approval on them and reinforce and perpetuate them’.6 Mowjee (2001) uses theories of organisational relationships toexamine whether and how resource dependency affects thebehaviour of a receiving organisation. She notes that anorganisation’s independence is determined by three key factors:its level of access to resources from different sources; the objectivesof the organisation; and the degree to which there is agreementbetween donors and their partners regarding their goals.

7 Sako distinguishes between different types of trust that governsocio-economic relations: contractual trust is the expectation thateach partner will adhere to specific agreements; competence trustis based on each partner fulfilling its role competently toprofessional standards; and goodwill trust, which is more diffuse,refers to the mutual expectation of open commitment. Anindividual worthy of goodwill trust can be granted great discretionbecause they can be relied on to take initiatives and refrain fromtaking undue advantage.

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2.3.1 Summary

This analysis suggests that:

● The changing contractual environment within thehumanitarian sphere needs to be understood againstthe backdrop of wider changes in public sectormanagement in donor countries.

● These changes have involved a significant increase inpublic service contracting, driven by concerns overthe efficiency and effectiveness of public serviceprovision by the state.

● The increased availability of official funds has enablednon-governmental organisations to expand the scaleof their activities significantly, and in some cases togain increased access to public policy-making.

● It is not clear that increased dependence on officialfunding necessarily compromises the independence ofthe contracted organisation.

● Trust is key to the donor–recipient relationship. Wherethere are high levels of trust and a mutual understandingof goals, there is likely to be less reliance on formalcontractual relationships.

● Recipient organisations are not passive in managingtheir relationships with donors, and can respond toperceived threats to their independence andorganisational goals in a number of ways.

2.4 The changing contractualenvironment

As public and bureaucratic pressure to ensure the effectiveand accountable use of official humanitarian aid has grown,so donors have formalised many of the proceduresgoverning their financing of assistance in this area. Thissection examines changes in the contractual arrangementsbetween the case-study donors and the recipients of officialhumanitarian assistance. It looks at the development ofdonors’ own humanitarian strategies; changes in therequirements for project proposals and funding requests;and the various funding mechanisms donors use to definetheir financial relations with NGOs and the UN.

2.4.1 The development of donors’ humanitarianstrategies

Historically, most official donor bodies were largely reactivein their funding for emergencies, responding to proposalsfrom individual organisations and relying on their partnersto identify need, define strategies to meet it and developreporting structures. By providing unearmarkedcontributions to international organisations, donors alsoinvested in a relatively flexible global capacity to respondto various forms of crisis. However, as the complexity of

humanitarian decision-making has increased, and as thenumber of potential mechanisms through whichhumanitarian assistance can be channelled has expanded,so the larger donor organisations have developed their ownhumanitarian strategies, both globally and in relation tospecific crises.8 This formalisation of humanitarian planningreflects the significance of this form of aid as a share ofexpenditure, as well as an acknowledgement of theprotracted nature of many emergencies. In other words,the idea that emergencies are inherently unpredictable,short-term events no longer holds, at least in planning terms(it persists in the short length of project cycles). Thus, somedonors have increased their technical expertise, either in-house or through contracted staff, in order to guide theallocation of resources, prioritising different activities andareas of a country.

In the case of DFID, this follows a broader trend towardsdeveloping comprehensive Country Strategy Papers(CSPs) to guide the allocation of development assistance.Unlike CSPs, however, the strategy papers that relate tohumanitar ian assistance are not systematic; not allcountries or regions that are long-term recipients ofrelief aid have them. For example, there are papers forIraq, Myanmar and the northern Caucasus, but the paperfor Angola is still in development. In the case of high-profile crises such as Kosovo and Afghanistan post-11September, these documents form part of a government-wide policy strategy. Humanitarian strategies might bebetter classified (although not formally) as fundingguidance papers, as they are developed more asmechanisms to determine appropriate levels of DFIDfunding, rather than as strategic tools for humanitarianaction. In contrast to CSPs, these documents are notpublic, and partner organisations do not have access tothem. The Br it i sh government argues that i t shumanitarian assistance policy documents are not madepublic mainly for reasons of security.

ECHO’s humanitarian strategy for particular emergenciesis set out in Global Plans. These were introduced in 1994to ‘provide a coherent framework for action in a givencountry or region where the scale and complexity of thehumanitarian crisis is such that it seems likely to continue’(Official Journal of the European Communities, 1996).Since 1996, they have been required for all programmeswhere spending exceeds 100,000 euros. Global Plansinitially covered six- and 12-month periods, but since

8 Smaller donors such as Denmark continue to rely onmechanisms such as the CAP, and upon the knowledge andexpertise of their NGO partners. However, the recent evaluationof Danida’s humanitarian assistance recommended that theagency should enhance its capacity to define country-specificplans to guide its work, in cooperation with the diplomatic desksin the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (ETC UK, 1999: 44). In theNetherlands, the introduction of strategies to guide humanitarianaid spending grew as much from new legal requirements regardingthe contracting of private organisations as from a desire to increasethe strategic quality of Dutch humanitarian response.

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2002 there has been a provision for them to run for upto 24 months. Global Plans set the overall funding availablefor a particular country, and how these funds will be used.They enable ECHO to make one funding decision for acrisis, and no additional resources are allocated for a givenarea unless another emergency occurs. ECHO’s networkof field correspondents is particularly important informulating Global Plans, and it is at this level that ECHOhas invested most heavily in technical expertise. DraftPlans are reviewed by headquarters staff, and whenfinalised are presented to the Humanitar ian AidCommittee (HAC) for final approval.9 Thus, as well asaiding planning Global Plans fulfil an accountabilityfunction, providing a consolidated basis for presentingECHO’s strategy to the HAC.

Global Plans have enabled ECHO to streamline anextremely cumbersome administrative process for therelease of funds. For those included, the system works well,and helps to provide predictability. One NGO staff memberreported that:

Once you get into a sector with ECHO, you generallystay there … Theoretically, all you’re getting from ECHOis a six-month contract. Life would be an absolutenightmare if that was actually the case … it usually worksalright because one contract rolls into the next contractwhich rolls into the next.

These Plans have also, however, been controversialwithin the humanitarian community. The primaryconcern has been the lack of transparency in the processby which they are developed. Agencies cannotsuccessfully apply for funding once a Global Plan isapproved, nor is it clear how different organisations arecounted in or out of a Plan. Although in some casesfield correspondents have convened workshops forpotential partners, the views of partners are rarelysolicited, and ECHO only began providing partners withan overview of draft Plans in December 2001.Understanding the development process, at least untilrecently, has therefore relied upon informal mechanismsof consultation, particularly at field level. Since smalleragencies may not be able to invest time in developingrelationships with headquarters and field staff, they riskbeing disadvantaged.

In the US, USAID’s country strategies are formulatedby the mission, and often include provisions on disasterprevention, preparedness and mitigation planning.OFDA’s regional offices are seeking to develop regional

disaster response and mitigation strategies and tointegrate them within the mission country strategies,but in general OFDA focuses more on rapid reactionafter the fact. Since it has greater flexibility than otherdonors in resource mobilisation, OFDA does not facethe same external pressures to develop a formalisedplan.

2.4.2 Changes in the requirements for projectproposals

Donors are also formalising the procedures by whichagencies submit requests for funding. Until the mid-1990s,many donors did not require emergency aid projects toconform to pre-specified proposal formats. Agenciessubmitted proposals in their own formats, which varied intheir emphasis on contextual and programming analysisand in the presentation of budgets. The majority of donorsnow require their implementing partners to clearly presenttheir objectives, and how the proposed programme andinputs will serve to achieve them. There is increasedemphasis on argumentation, justification and quantitativeanalysis.

Not all donors have increased their reporting requirementsto the same degree, and not all donors demand the samedegree of formality and specificity. For example, ECHO’sguidelines for the completion of project proposals arerelatively tight. DFID’s are significantly morestraightforward and flexible, and recognise that not allquestions are necessarily relevant to all types of project.The differences between donors appear to be related totheir size (with larger donors able to demand and managemore information); bureaucratic culture (the EC, forinstance, has tight contractual procedures to which ECHOmust conform); and the political culture of a particularcountry (thus, in Denmark there is a far higher level ofsupport for aid than in, for example, the US). Where thereis a high degree of goodwill trust, as in Denmark, there arefewer pressures to establish more formal and complexcontractual and management arrangements.

Many donors emphasise the importance of logframes inproject planning; logframes became compulsory for allECHO projects in 2001, for instance, and are mandatoryfor all DFID-funded projects over £100,000. Both DFIDand ECHO are critical of ‘stable’ logframes, and stress theneed for rolling objectives because projects change duringimplementation. Both also require that any revisions tologframes and objectives are noted in interim reports. Bothdonors’ logframes follow a broadly similar format (seeHarmer (2002) for a detailed account), and both see theresponsibility of agencies as ending at the ‘results’ level,with the project purpose and overall objective beyond thecontrol of the implementing agency. Both donors alsodemand quantitative and qualitative performance indicators,as does the US. Thus, if a project proposal claims to reducemortality and morbidity, donors ask to what extent these

9 The Humanitarian Aid Committee comprises representatives fromall EU Member States. It meets monthly. Global Plans are usuallyagreed without amendments by the HAC, no Global Plan has beenrejected, and there is a widespread feeling that the degree of donorparticipation in the process is minimal. ECHO makes the point that itusually anticipates what would be acceptable to the HAC, includingensuring a broad and representative balance of implementing partners.

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will be achieved, and how this will be measured. OFDArequires that each project it funds is constructed as a seriesof discrete, measurable objectives, each with baseline dataand indicators for measuring performance and results.Project budgets are broken down by objective, althoughNGOs can also list separately cross-cutting expenses suchas staffing, office needs and institutional overhead.

Both DFID and ECHO also request informationregarding operational history, details of beneficiaries andevidence of needs assessment, a proposed workplan anddetails of any proposed local partner. DFID focuses onpolicy and strategy, such as dealing with marginalisedgroups, participatory practices, gender analysis and conflictawareness, and also emphasises the importance of riskassessment and value for money. OFDA also requestsinformation on relief–development linkages, communitycapacities and participation and coordination with otherorganisations. ECHO has sought to mainstream genderissues by requir ing partners to disaggregate theirprogramming and contextual analysis in gender terms.

According to NGO staff interviewed for this study, themajority of queries regarding project proposals concernedfinancial details, particularly in the case of ECHO. Differentdonors ask for different degrees of detail, and requireinformation to be presented in different ways (by resultsor by input, for example). NGO representatives noteddifficulties in striking the right balance between providingsufficient detail to ensure the rapid processing of theapplication, while allowing sufficient room for changes inprices, for example for drugs and food.

NGOs also reported delays in the response to proposals.One of the reasons given for the traditionally lightprocedures applied to the project application process inthe humanitarian sphere was that tougher requirementswould slow donors’ response rates – and thus eventuallythe overall response to emergency situations. Both ECHOand DFID have committed themselves to response timesfor informing partners of funding decisions. In rapid-onsetdisasters, DFID undertakes to respond ‘within hours’, andin other cases promises a progress report within three weeksof a proposal being received. In ECHO’s case, thecommitment is less specific. While ECHO was able toapprove a project quickly, the actual disbursement of fundswas often more problematic. In contrast, DFID was seenas slower in its initial response to applications, but moreflexible and faster in disbursing funds.

Neither DFID nor ECHO provides detailed feedback asto why proposals are refused. In the case of UNHCR’sapplications to ECHO, this has proved a particular sourceof frustration, with the agency seeing no improvement inthe rate of successful applications. One NGO reportedthat some proposals to ECHO had failed because theywere seen as too expensive, but no estimate was providedas to what would be a reasonable cost.

A significant difference between DFID and ECHO is that,whereas international organisations can draw on differentfunding streams for support from DFID (and indeed fromthe US and Danida), in ECHO’s case they have to conformto the same project format as NGOs. Arguably, ECHO’sprocedures are less adapted to the more programmatic andless visible activities of multilateral institutions, such ascoordination. Not only do UN programmes fit lesscomfortably with this style of proposal, but UNorganisations have also proved less willing to engage withproposal requirements. Similarly, in relation to the US, theUN has been unable to provide compelling evidence ofits success to challenge the widely-held belief amongpoliticians and the public that it is ineffective andchronically wasteful. This places the UN at a disadvantagefrom the start.

By formalising project proposals and introducing logicalsystems, donors are requiring funding applicants toestablish their objectives clearly from the outset, and tostate how different inputs and activities will contributeto meeting these goals. Donors are also seeking tostrengthen the evidence base on which humanitarianaction is founded. However, this seems to have had onlylimited impact in informing a more aggregated analysisof activities. The degree to which different elements ofproposals (narrative, activities, outputs and outcomes) arefollowed through at later stages of the project cycle variesconsiderably from donor to donor, with some emphasisingfinancial scrutiny, and others focusing more on thequalitative aspects of performance. Thus, more rigorousand professional application procedures may act more asa useful discipline for project applicants, than as the basisfor donors to review and monitor systematically andcomparatively the performance of particular agencies, andthe effectiveness of their overall intervention in aparticular country.

2.4.3 Defining the contract

The privatisation of welfare services in donor countries inthe 1980s was associated with a shift in the waygovernments provided financial support to non-governmental organisations. In particular, a distinctionemerged between ‘grants’ and ‘contracts’. While theliterature on public service contracting in the UK and theUS has highlighted the difficulties that this created forrecipient organisations, it has not offered consistentdefinitions of these terms. Nonetheless, it does highlight anumber of characteristics of these different types of financialarrangements. These include:

● Flexibility. While grants are flexible and easy to adaptto changing circumstances, contracts are governed byrules which might make them difficult to amend.

● Specificity. Grant terms are not specific about activitiesor quantitative aspects of the work to be undertaken

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by the recipient organisation. Contracts are usually speltout in detail, and try to cover the r ights andresponsibilities of the parties involved in alleventualities.

● Formality. Grant relationships are generally based oninformal communication, while contractualrelationships are governed by the formal terms of thecontract.

● Aims and goals. Whilst grant-givers and receivers usuallyhave a shared understanding of the goals they areworking to, this is not necessarily the case for partiesto a contract.

OFDA uses three funding mechanisms: grants, which arethe primary vehicle for implementing partnerships withNGOs, UN agencies and international organisations inemergency situations; contracts, which are intendedprimarily for private sector or highly specialised technicalactors in the procurement of specific goods and services;and cooperative agreements, which fall somewherebetween grants and contracts, and entail ‘substantialinvolvement’ between the donor and the recipient duringthe lifespan of the project (Stoddard, 2002). OFDA disbursesroughly 90% of its funding in the form of grants. Exceptionshave occurred when an emergency situation turns into arecovery effort, when OFDA turns to longer-termcooperative agreements.

ECHO’s contractual framework is the most complex ofthe donors reviewed. Its Framework Partnership Agreement(FPA), introduced in 1993, and repeatedly renegotiated,comprises three parts: a general contract with anorganisation; general clauses that apply to all projectssubmitted by the agency; and the operational contract,which covers individual project proposals as well asreporting. This standard format applies to all ECHOimplementing partners. The general clauses which applyto all projects consist of 33 Articles covering financial andoperational issues. An outline of the main Articles isprovided in Annex 2. By 2002, 214 NGOs had signed theFPA. The FPA has allowed ECHO to expedite the issuingof contracts to its implementing partners. However, itsprimary purpose is to ensure effective administrative andfinancial control, replacing the ‘easy informality’ that hadcharacterised funding relations in the past.

The history of the FPA is long, detailed and controversial(for a full account, see Mowjee and Macrae (2002)). Ofparticular concern has been the extent to which theCommission’s expectations of financial reporting can bereconciled with the desire to maintain rapid and flexibleresponses, and to react to ever-more complex policyrequirements. A sophisticated NGO lobbying network inBrussels – the FPA-Watch group – has provided the focusfor extended negotiations on the FPA between ECHOand its NGO partners. These negotiations led to agreementon a new FPA in 1999, and its further renegotiation in2001. Another round of negotiations is under way. In

addition to reiterating the centrality of financialaccountability, the revisions of 1999 and 2001 reflectedthe definition of humanitarian aid introduced in the 1996Council Resolution, including the importance ofimpartiality, as well as the eligibility criteria set out in Article7 of the Regulation. It also included three Provisions thatstate the general principles of partnership. The secondProvision is perhaps the most significant. This committedthe signatories to respect humanitarian principles; establisha link between relief, rehabilitation and development;involve beneficiaries in the management of relief aid; ensurethat any publicity presents disaster victims as dignifiedhuman beings; and take necessary measures for the securityof aid workers.

It is indicative of the FPA’s complexity and importancethat the process of renegotiation has attracted significantinterest, particularly from NGOs. However, a review ofthe minutes of meetings of the FPA-Watch group suggeststhat most attention has focused on legal and financialaspects. For instance, NGOs have complained about theabsence of a definition of ‘expatriate’ in the FPA, leadingto different interpretations by ECHO staff. Much lessattention has been paid to the implications of substantivepolicy debates.

The NGOs interviewed for this study had differing viewsregarding the advantages and disadvantages of ECHO’shighly formalised requirements compared with otherdonors. One official working for a larger agencycommented that ‘The FPA was fantastic. Finally, we knewwhat we were meant to do. Previously, there were verydifferent interpretations of the procedures. The FPAbrought clarity on both sides’. ECHO’s technocratic andprocedural preoccupations are seen as providing a bufferagainst political interference, and so enhancing thepredictability of ECHO funding. Arguably, this is reinforcedby the Regulation defining ECHO’s legal status, as well asthe distinctive competence of the Commission in relationto the EU and the Common Foreign and Security Policy(CFSP). The procedural complexity of the FPA also hascosts, however. The larger NGO interviewed estimatedthat negotiating a single amendment to an ECHO contractcost around £1,000 in staff time. For the smaller NGOwe examined, these high transaction costs outweighed thebenefits of political predictability compared with DFID.This was despite the fact that DFID’s decision to stopfunding in one country in 1998 meant halting a largecomponent of the NGO’s work, with considerableimplications for the organisation’s financial viability.

Aside from concerns about financial accountability, ECHOand other donors have found it difficult to translatesubstantial policy priorities into contractual terms,particularly in areas that are difficult to quantify. BothECHO and DFID have sought not only to establishmechanisms for the appropriate management of publicfunds, but also to influence the overall policy frameworkgoverning humanitarian action. In making this explicit,

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the basis is set for a new dialogue between donors andrecipient organisations on issues such as humanitarianprinciples, security management, the introduction ofprofessional standards and the involvement of beneficiariesin relief programmes. However, the interpretation of thesepolicy goals has at times proved contentious, for examplewith regard to US and British policy towards Afghanistanbefore 11 September, or the EC’s use of security assessmentsto govern funding in Somalia. In part, these difficultiesstem from the diversity of the humanitarian ‘system’, whichmakes it difficult to get partners, particularly NGOs, toagree to common programming values. Thus, for example,ECHO’s attempts to encourage human rights reportingand conformity to Sphere standards have met with fierceresistance, particularly from a number of francophoneNGOs.

Given these difficulties, it is perhaps not surprising thatdonors should elect not to include detailed programmingrequirements in generic contracts, preferring instead tomaintain some room for manoeuvre and to operate moreinformal criteria for reviewing NGO performance. Thiscan be seen as a visible commitment to preserving theindependence of their partners, with donors pulling backfrom making adherence to a strict policy framework aformal requirement. However, in the absence ofmechanisms by which to monitor partners’ adherence tokey policy objectives, it is unclear how donors can assessthe extent to which their funding is contributing to theachievement of these goals. In addition, the selectivescrutiny of certain conditions, for example over security,can undermine trust between donors and their partners.

2.4.4 ‘Contracting’ the UN: from earmarking toinstitutional management

Donors differ in how they fund the UN’s humanitarianagencies, according to their perception of the organisation’srole in humanitarian action. With the partial exception ofthe Scandinavian countries, the UN is increasingly seen asone actor among many, and its place in the humanitarianarena is not guaranteed. There are a number of importantpoints of contention between donors and multilateralorganisations working in the humanitarian field. Theseinclude the perception that the UN’s ability to reporteffectively for its use of funds is weak and its performancepatchy, and a belief that the mechanisms for change – theExecutive Boards and Committees – are unwieldy, politicaland slow. This has meant that UN agencies can be subjectto an unusually high level of scrutiny by donors. In theUS, the BPRM’s contribution to UNHCR is subject to aCongressional reporting requirement, designed to facilitateclose scrutiny of the US government’s contributions.UNHCR was also subject to a very public drubbing atthe hands of the UK’s International DevelopmentCommittee in 1999 (IDC, 1999a). This mistrust has formedthe backdrop for more detailed, technical discussions overfunding and contracting arrangements.

Of the four donors reviewed for this study, Danida remainsthe most committed to UN institutions in its orientation,and goodwill trust largely prevails. This is in part becausethe performance of multilateral humanitarian agencies hasnot yet attracted significant public or parliamentary scrutiny.Danida continues to allocate a significant proportion of itssupport to UNHCR through unearmarked funds, inaddition to responding to general appeals. It is also arelatively strong supporter of the CAP. Yet even withinDanida, there are signs that a more critical view of theUN’s performance is emerging.

In the UK, the overall policy, as laid out in the 1997 WhitePaper, is one of active multilateralism. The UK’s policygoals with respect to multilateral institutions andinternational organisations such as ICRC are formalisedand made explicit in Institutional Strategy Papers (ISPs).ISPs differ from one agency to another in their detail, buta number of key themes can be discerned. These includeefforts to bolster performance monitoring, accountabilitythrough results-based planning, reporting and evaluationactivities; strengthening emergency response capacities; andimprovements in security management. The 1997 WhitePaper made clear that DFID would be watching carefullythe extent to which its multilateral partners shared its goalof poverty reduction, and were able to contribute toachieving it. Thus, while the UK shares Denmark’scommitment to multilateralism in principle, DFID’sapproach to the UN is more conditional.

US policy towards the UN is less clear cut. The US isthe single largest supporter of all humanitar ianmultilateral and international organisations, yet itsforeign policy has been marked by a deep distrust ofthe UN. Although the level of scrutiny applied toUNHCR is particular to that agency, it is symptomaticof a wider political culture in which engagement withmultilateral organisations is highly conditional, andsometimes selective (Stoddard, 2002). The US positiontowards the UN can be seen as an expression of thewider tensions that have long characterised its foreignpolicy, namely its global ambitions to uphold and spreadparticular values, and a tendency towards isolationism.In addition, the bifurcated structure of US policy-making and the complexity of the legislative systemmean that positions are not always articulated clearly orconsistently (US government, 2000). These difficultieswork against US inf luence over the detai ledmanagement of UN organisations, and partly offset theinfluence achieved through very tight earmarking.

ECHO is probably unique in its approach to the UN.Contractually, ECHO’s grants to UN organisations are nodifferent from those for NGOs, and its approach is definedby the same complex legal framework that governs all ofthe EC’s grant-making procedures. At the same time, thereis a deep-seated view within the Commission and amongsome member states that the UN is an inefficient andexpensive middle-man in the contracting chain, and that

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it is preferable to go directly to NGO ‘suppliers’. Thetendency towards greater Commission ‘ownership’ of itshumanitarian programming can thus be seen as a reflectionof the Commission’s desire to promote the EU as aninternational actor in its own right.

Such ambivalence towards multilateral organisations ispossible because donors are no longer dependent solelyon them to disburse large volumes of funds quickly. Whileinter-agency mechanisms such as the CAP, in which theUN looms large, retain value for donors in absorbing surgesin funding, large transnational NGOs are now formidableplayers; in a 1997 report, UNHCR estimated that 20European and US organisations received 75% of the globalhumanitarian assistance channelled through NGOs(UNHCR, 1997). Porter (2002) notes that the total valueof all water and sanitation interventions presented in theCAP was probably less than Oxfam’s emergency budget,which is largely devoted to this sector. In addition, militaryand paramilitary actors may also call upon officialhumanitarian aid budgets (Barry, 2002; Macrae, 2002). TheEU, for instance, can draw upon a significant civilian andmilitary operational capacity, and so represents a new formof multilateral action which is potentially in directcompetition with the UN.

2.4.5 Earmarking contributions and frameworkagreements

Each of the donors reviewed in this study contributes tothe UN with varying levels of earmarking andcontractualism. Of the four, ECHO acts most ‘bilaterally’:all of its contributions to UN organisations are againstspecific projects (Mowjee, 2001). Its position is influencedboth by EC-wide regulations and procedures, and by itsown particular concerns regarding the UN as a partner.The US also has a long history of earmarking, and at least80% of contributions to UNHCR and WFP wereearmarked in 1999–2000 (Randel and German, 2002). Inthe same period, the UK earmarked approximately two-thirds of its contributions to the same agencies. This reflectsthe global trend described in Section 2.2 towards a declinein multilateral (unearmarked) contributions.

In itself, earmarking should not be understood as anegative development: donors may earmark theircontributions in order to encourage attention to areasthat might otherwise be under-funded, or to effectpositive change within recipient organisations.Earmarking can also enhance accountability. Thus, forexample, BPRM’s consistent and broad earmarking ofcontributions to UNHCR’s work in Africa has soughtto counterbalance the relative lack of attention to thatcontinent from other donors. Equally, DFID’s earmarkingof contributions to capacity-building within IFRC andprevention activities in ICRC protected work that hadtraditionally been affected when resources were tight(Wiles, 2002a; Wiles, 2002b).

That said, there are potential problems with earmarkingcontributions to multilateral agencies. First, the selectionprocess may not be neutral; donors may use resourcescoercively to ensure that their policy objectives are met,and these may or may not reflect need on the ground.Tight, project- and country-specific earmarking also makesfinancing less predictable and stable, particularly when amajor, visible crisis occurs. In the aftermath of 11September, rather than providing additional resources forthe Afghanistan crisis donors in effect reallocated resourcesthat might otherwise have been earmarked for otherregions, or left unearmarked. Like a ship whose passengersrun suddenly from one side to the other, such a ‘system’ isinherently unstable.

Randel and German (2002) summarise the potentialproblems with earmarking as follows:

● it does not necessarily lead to the equitable and efficientdistribution of resources;

● it reduces the flexibility of agencies to allocate resourcesto respond to changing needs and funding availability;

● it increases the administrative burden associated withmanaging contributions;

● it does not support core costs; and

● it encourages ‘cherry picking’, with stronger, morepromising parts of organisations singled out for support,while other less attractive services may be left tostruggle.

Many of these points apply particularly where very narrowearmarks are specified to the country or even project level.

More broadly, there is a debate regarding the degree towhich donors’ choice of projects and activities influencesthe whole of the multilateral project. Earmarking is seenby some, particularly within UN agencies and the G77group of developing countries, to contradict thegovernance structures that manage multilateral institutions.Donor governments are members of the same ExecutiveBoards of UN agencies that have encouraged the adoptionof unified budgets, and approved them. These same states,having agreed that the organisation should pursue an overallagenda, then proceed to select which parts of that agendathey will support, and which parts they will not. However,donor states resist any implication that approving a budgetconstitutes a responsibility to fund it (Lubbers, 2001b).

Framework agreements and related strategic dialogue canbe seen as an attempt to rationalise the process ofearmarking, and to link it more clearly with broader issuesof institutional accountability and performance. This reflectsa wider move away from project-based approaches to thepolicy-based approaches common in developmentcooperation. These agreements are usually valid for oneyear, but sometimes for up to three, commit the donor toproviding a minimum contribution to the organisation

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over a period of time, and articulate clearly the extent towhich this is to be earmarked against particular activities.In ‘return’, donors map out their expectations of therecipient organisation.

For donors, these agreements are important tools inenhancing the effectiveness of aid, and meeting theirmanagement and accountability needs. The UK’s ISPs, forexample, outline how DFID proposes to reach its povertyeradication targets, identify DFID’s policy objectives andits partners, and constitute one way in which to monitorprogress. They also provide a direct means ofoperationalising DFID’s Public Service Agreement (PSA)with the UK Treasury (this is detailed in Chapter 4). Theyare quasi-contractual in spirit and in fact; behind the mainISP document there are detailed annual action plans thatlink funding to specific activities, and continued supportis made conditional upon partners meeting key indicators.In the US, framework agreements such as that withUNHCR make explicit the government’s concerns aboutthe agency’s strategy, and provide benchmarks that, oncefulfilled, would lead to the lifting of the restrictionscurrently applied to funding, such as requirements regardingthe number of US personnel working for the agency. Thus,these agreements can be seen as an attempt to establishshared norms and goals, as well as defining keycompetencies that donors expect to see fulfilled.

The process by which these agreements are negotiated isalmost as important as the agreements themselves. Thesigning of framework agreements typically representsmonths of demanding discussion and analysis behind thescenes. In some cases, they have also built upon field-basedreviews of performance, as was the case in the preparationof DFID’s ISP with UNHCR. The negotiation processcan increase the goodwill trust between donor andrecipient, but it can also damage it, particularly if relationsare already poor. The preparation of the DFID–UNHCRISP, for example, coincided with a period when therelationship between the two organisations was at an all-time low, and funding had declined correspondingly. Insuch an environment, donor scrutiny can be seen asthreatening and inappropriate, particularly if such analysisis carried out by relatively junior officials. Equally, arecipient’s defensiveness and resistance can deepen existingmistrust.

These agreements can also have important benefits forrecipient organisations. The US framework agreement withUNHCR, for instance, was followed by a more timelyand additional disbursement of funds in late 2000 (Wiles,2002a). Similarly, DFID’s ISPs with IFRC and ICRC haveled to a significant increase in the overall funding availableto these organisations, both through the ISP frameworkand through additional earmarked funding (Wiles, 2002a;Wiles, 2002b).

While these benefits are recognised, some agencies alsosee these agreements as problematic. In 2001, UNHCR

declared a moratorium on further framework agreementsbecause of concerns that, as their numbers increased, sothey were likely to prove difficult to manage. Both ICRCand UNHCR have expressed concerns regarding theincreased workload associated with negotiatingframework agreements, particularly for senior staff (seeWiles (2002a); Wiles (2002b); and interviews conductedfor this study with UNHCR). These costs would meritcloser comparison with more conventional forms offunding. If, as the UK envisages, the initial phase ofintensive negotiation and tight scrutiny paves the wayfor re-establishing trust and creating positive change, thiswould enable management to become lighter and moreloosely earmarked, and the start-up costs of frameworkagreements may be offset in the medium term. Giventhe relatively small number of major donors, concernsabout the proliferation of donor agreements also beardiscussion.

In one sense, the proliferation of framework agreementshas led international organisations to see themselves asin a similar position to developing countries, facing abarrage of slightly different conditionalities on thedevelopment assistance they receive. If, as donors argue,framework agreements reinforce existing decisions madeby Executive Boards and complement agencies’ ownreforms, then the case needs to be made exactly howdonors’ demands are substantively different, and/or howtheir strategies for linking their funding to these changesmight impact negatively on recipient organisations. Atthe same time, agencies’ demands for the independenceof multilateral action to be respected retain a ring of moralauthority, particularly against the increasingly complexpolitical backcloth of contemporary humanitarianism.Framework agreements are a relatively recentdevelopment, and it is as yet unclear whether and howdifferent donors’ interpretations are affecting agencies’work, other than financially. Greater inter-agencydiscussion, combined with comparative analysis ofdifferent agreements, would inform a debate which atpresent is rather limited. In this respect, moves to increasedonor transparency with regard to internationalorganisations, for example by shar ing frameworkagreements and making them available on websites, areto be welcomed.

One important factor in relation to framework agreementsis that, because they provide a basis for consolidating corecontributions to an agency, rather than disbursing themthrough a wide range of more country-/activity-focusedwork, they may be seen as an all-or-nothing deal; in otherwords, there may be more to lose if the deal goes wrong.Robinson (1997) has made this point with regard to thepotential disadvantages to countries receiving developmentassistance if donors act in a highly coordinated way. Whiledonor leverage may increase in relation to a particular policyobjective, the recipient’s power is correspondinglydiminished. There may thus be organisational advantagesto fragmented donor engagement. Whether these translate

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into enhanced operational effectiveness is, of course, amatter for debate.

Finally, framework agreements are long on what therecipient organisation should do, but offer very little onwhat the donor governments might do, other than providefunds and monitor their use. Thus, with the partialexception of Sweden, which pledged to advocate onrefugee issues during its presidency of the EU in 2001,commitments regarding humanitarian diplomacy andprotection, for example, are absent. This reinforces theimpression that these agreements are designed primarilyas managerial tools, rather than as mechanisms to achievecoherent policy responses to conflict and disaster. There isin fact no evidence that recipient organisations have lobbiedfor them to be otherwise. While recipients have beenvociferous and careful in scrutinising the contractual andfinancial details that apply to them, they have been muchmore muted in seeking to formalise their expectations ofdonor governments.

Neither ECHO nor Danida has framework agreementswith UN humanitar ian organisations. ECHO isconstitutionally unable to provide programmatic funding,and is reluctant to untie these contractual knots. One reasonfor this reluctance is its pique at the UN’s ambivalentrecognition of its own status (Commission of the EuropeanCommunities, 2001: 7). As far as the UN is concerned, theCommission is an international organisation, and its statusin the programming and administrative organs of UNbodies and its external audit arrangements is conditionalupon the consent of the agency in question. AlthoughECHO is a major donor to the UN, it has very uncertainformal influence through its governing bodies. Thus, whilethe Commission has gained seats on the boards of FAOand WFP, the ECHO representative to UNHCR isaccorded only observer status. There is no consensus amongEU member states regarding the EC’s status in such bodies.In relation to UNHCR, for example, their views wereone of the obstacles to formalising ECHO’s role on theExecutive Committee.

This has led ECHO to channel more funding directlythrough NGOs. At the same time, it has also enteredinto a new process of strategic dialogue with UNagencies, including UNHCR. This has been facilitatedby the wider EC–UN consultation that resulted in theEC Communication on EC–UN Relations in 2001(Commission of the European Communities, 2001),and by the Article 20 evaluation, which encouragedECHO to strengthen dialogue with internationalhumanitarian organisations. This dialogue is still at anearly stage, and there has apparently been only slowprogress in moving the discussion away from technicalissues to do with contracting towards a more strategicagenda. The signs are, however, promising. UNHCRshared early drafts of its forward plans for 2002, andECHO has in the past two years been more open insharing its Global Plans.

2.5 The changing managerialenvironment

This section assesses some of the mechanisms the case-study donors have used to manage their humanitarianassistance once funds have been disbursed. It examines howdonors have increased their oversight capacity atheadquarters, and expanded their presence in the field. Italso describes how some donors are paying much greaterattention to management and monitoring techniquesdeveloped outside the humanitarian sphere, such as results-based management.

2.5.1 Headquarters capacity and skills

ECHO and DFID have significantly increased theircapacity to oversee the operations of others. They havedone so both by recruiting more staff, and by drawing inmore staff with a professional background in humanitarianoperations. It is difficult to quantify the precise extent ofthis increase because much of this expansion is ‘hidden’.Ceilings on the recruitment of permanent civil servantsmean that humanitarian aid departments have sought newand innovative ways of expanding their capacity, such asusing contracting organisations and individual contractors.

In the UK, Crown Agents, a logistics and managementcompany, has provided a range of services, known as CHAD-Ops. This unit was established in 1995, and by 2002comprised 26 core members (compared with DFID’s 20public servants), with the capacity to draw on additionalstaff as required. CHAD-Ops has expanded to include morepolicy-based work, and is involved in the day-to-daymanagement of DFID’s ISPs, in effect representing Britishgovernment policy in relation to international humanitarianorganisations. In the US, budget cuts throughout USAIDduring the 1990s have resulted in overall reductions inpersonnel levels. However, within OFDA specifically staffnumbers have remained static, and may have increased. Inaddition, there is a strong sense that there has been greaterprofessionalism and specialisation of skills within OFDA. InDanida, the evaluation of its humanitarian aid programmenoted that the rotation of personnel through the organisationevery three years hindered the development of a cadre ofstaff specialised in humanitarian issues (ETC UK, 1999). Itis the understanding of the research team that these rulesremain in place.

Despite the expansion and professionalisation of emergencydesks, anecdotal evidence suggests that concerns persistamong recipient agencies over the uneven experience ofdonor officials, unclear reporting lines, particularly betweenthe field and headquarters, and high staff turnover. Thiscontributes to the difficulties agencies face in building long-term relationships with donor agencies, and on occasionis seen to compromise the legitimate role of donors inscrutinising agencies’ performance.

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2.5.2 Donors in the field: from operationality topolicy definition and oversight?

There has also been a significant increase in the capacityof donors at field level. At the same time, however, themajority of donors appear to be moving away from directservice provision through their aid programmes. The heavyinvolvement of donors in service provision in Kosovo andelsewhere in the Balkans may thus prove an exception. Aparticular combination of factors promoted the extensivebilateralisation of operational response in that emergency,namely high political and media profile, relatively goodsecurity and accessibility. These have not been replicatedsince, and donors did not rush to establish a significantoperational presence in Afghanistan in late 2001.

The general move away from operationality is most notablein ECHO. In the mid-1990s, ECHO was spending asignificant proportion of its income through its ownoperations: 15.4% of its budget at its peak in 1994. By2000, this had fallen to just 1%. This is in line with therecommendations of the Article 20 evaluation andsubsequent discussion of ECHO’s role by the EuropeanCouncil and the European Parliament (Council of theEuropean Union, 2000; European Parliament, 2000;Franklin Advisory Services, 1999). The Council noted thatECHO does not have a rapid response unit with theoperational capacity to deal with acute emergencies, andthe Parliament was of the view that ECHO should notconcentrate on operational issues (Council of the EuropeanUnion, 2000).

DFID’s capacity to establish multi-mandated field officeshas grown significantly. In 1999 and 2000, CHAD-Opswas involved with intensive emergency response andrehabilitation operations in the Balkans, East Timor, Turkey,Sierra Leone and Mozambique. Its involvement in theseoperations included identifying projects (includingassessments of the field capacity of partners), collectinginformation and monitoring agencies to which funds hadbeen provided. In interviews, NGO staff noted CHAD-Ops’ increase in size and capacity in the field, and manyconsider it a threat to the work of their own agencies. ANational Audit Office (NAO) report in 2000 shows that,of a total UK aid expenditure in Kosovo of £110m,£46.3m was disbursed through CHAD-Ops in supportof direct service provision, services in kind and grants toother organisations. This exceeds the £42.7m that theConflict and Humanitarian Affairs Department (CHAD)disbursed directly to international organisations (NAO,2000).

The majority of donors are not significantly expandingtheir role in the direct provision of humanitarian assistancethrough their civilian departments. However, some areinvesting considerable energy in increasing their presenceat field level to undertake a range of planning, assessmentand coordination tasks. Field presence has clearly becomepolitically necessary. US interviewees in particular argued

that, because of media pressure and public scrutiny, it isincreasingly important for donors to find out for themselveswhat is going on in the field. This drive for information –and the political inadequacy of relying on informationfrom implementing partners – appears to be more powerfulthan concerns about performance per se. However, the closerproximity of donor personnel to those that they fund hasprovided ample opportunity to influence the nature andimplementation of programmes. This may open specificfunding windows, attracting agencies to work in particularsectors or geographical areas. But it may also affectoperational issues, as one interviewee commented withreference to the US: ‘We get people in the Budget Officetelling us what size truck we should be ordering. That’swhat happens when things get political’ (Stoddard, 2002d).

As discussed further in Chapter 3, the US government haslong had personnel on the ground with an assessment,oversight, liaison and reporting remit. The StateDepartment’s BPRM has deployed staff as RefugeeCoordinators ever since the Bureau was established in 1980,and OFDA has had field offices since the 1980s, principallyin Latin America and Asia and focused on training andpreparedness for natural disasters. OFDA also deployed staffon short-term missions to Africa, such as the Ethiopianfamine in 1984, but longer-term deployments did not occuruntil later in the decade, when personnel were posted toMozambique and Malawi to ‘deal with refugees’ in 1988.

USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios is pushing forgreater decentralisation of power to mission directors, butit is not clear what this will mean for ODFA personnel orBPRM Refugee Coordinators. Interviewees suggested thatthere is evidence of Washington seeking to exert greatercontrol over decisions on the ground. Some USgovernment officials argue that, without greater delegationof power, field-based personnel risk becoming yet anotherlayer of bureaucracy, particularly for implementing partners.From the NGO perspective, the introduction of DisasterAssistance Response (DART) teams has represented a majorchange in the funding relationship and programmingprocess (Stoddard, 2002d). Whereas NGOs used to cometo OFDA with funding requests, now NGOs will just asfrequently be approached by the DART team to undertakea specific project. The teams have enabled much morecommunication in the field at the project design stage.While in many instances this is seen as enhancing thequality of programmes, it also serves as a means by whichthe donor’s agenda and priorities can be realised.

ECHO’s field presence comprises some 70 correspondentsworking in 40 countries. The contractual nature of ECHO’srelationships with its implementing partners, and theemphasis on financial reporting and procedural compliance,mean that ECHO’s field personnel tend to see themselvesas more of a controlling than a facilitating presence.ECHO’s emphasis on efficiency and the push forimprovements in the performance of implementingpartners are both possible additional drivers for this.

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Interviewees at field level suggested that ECHO staff aregenerally more focused on the detail of contracts, whereasthe US has a team in Washington to assess budgets, enablingfield staff to focus on other substantive issues. The fact thatmany ECHO field personnel are former NGO officialsalso appears to produce the counter-intuitive effect of highlevels of micro-management and control.

As in the US, EU Member States have favoureddecentralising strategy-making away from Brussels (Brussetand Tiberghien, 2002). However, the limited role of ECHeads of Delegation in-country imposes restrictions ondecentralisation in ECHO. Their contractual status meansthat ECHO’s field coordinators occupy an ambiguousposition, and their colleagues in Brussels are neither boundto accept their recommendations, nor to consult them. Atthe same time, this ambiguity gives a good deal of room toindividuals on the ground to determine their own role inthe definition of ECHO’s programme and its coordination.

Of the four donors looked at for this study, Danida’s fieldpresence is the most limited. Exceptionally, thehumanitarian aid department established a presence at fieldlevel in Kosovo, with a small Steering Unit in Pristina.This is likely to remain in place until the end of 2003,when Danida is scheduled to pull out of the Balkans. TheSteering Unit meets with Danish NGOs in Kosovo everyfortnight. According to NGOs, its presence speeds up theapproval and processing of project proposals. It alsoencourages coordination between Danish NGOs. A postin Denmark’s Nairobi embassy covers Somalia, and overseesDenmark’s humanitarian and development aid programmein the country.

2.5.3 Monitoring and results-basedmanagement

In recent years, a number of donor and operational agencieshave moved towards systems of results-based management(RBM), and away from traditional inputs-based planningand management. Three of the four donor case studies(Danida is the exception) have adopted this approach inrelation to humanitarian assistance. The UN Secretary-General’s reform process has also embraced these ideas, ashave UNHCR and ICRC.

RBM emphasises results and impact in relation to thestrategic vision of the institution in question. Put simply, itaims to provide a means by which organisations canexamine how their use of resources enables them to achievetheir objectives. The framework is intended to inform andguide all stages of the programme timeline (planning,resource allocation, implementation and monitoring) andto allow a continuous comparison of the planned and actualeffect of the use of resources in relation to predefined resultsat the project, programme and institutional level. At thecore of the process is the notion of a results chain, with asuccession of observable cause and effect relationships and

a methodology for their assessment. The log frame is thestarting-point of this process, and is now firmly embeddedin the practice of the majority of donor organisations.However, the next stage, budgeting by results, is not widelypractised; with the exception of the US, all of the donorsexamined still expressed their budgets as a series of inputs.

At first sight, such systems are ideally suited to, and muchneeded in, the humanitarian system. Specifically, they couldprovide a concrete means by which to examine the extentto which the allocation of humanitarian resources has methumanitarian need. To date, however, establishing thiscorrelation has proved extremely problematic at all stagesof the project cycle. In part this derives from the fact that,in the humanitarian aid sphere, cause and effect relationshipsare highly complex. Nor is there consensus regarding whatconstitutes humanitarian need, or what the objectives ofhumanitarian assistance should be. For example, shouldhumanitarian action focus on life-saving support, or shouldit be investing in the longer-term protection of livelihoods?Should education and capacity-building be included inthe range of humanitarian action? Until such consensus isreached, the effectiveness of the humanitarian system,including donors’ inputs, remains extremely difficult toquantify using results-based approaches.

DFID’s monitoring is increasingly organised around theMillennium Development Goals (MDGs), which form thestarting-point for its Public Service Agreement. However,the MDGs are difficult to apply to humanitarian actionbecause they do not include particular goals forhumanitarian work. In turn, there is no mention ofhumanitarian action in the Public Service Agreement, soDFID’s spending on humanitarian assistance is measuredinstead through its contribution to poverty alleviation andconflict reduction. DFID has also tried to build on measuresdeveloped by its partners themselves. Thus, the Spherestandards, for example, promised quantifiable indicators bywhich agencies’ performance could be measured. However,although DFID has encouraged agencies to use suchstandards, it has not insisted that they do so and there islittle evidence that NGOs’ performance is routinelymonitored against these criteria. Instead, DFID has optedfor self-assessment, inviting its partners to score their workagainst objectives along a sliding scale of one to five, withone being the highest score. DFID has also developed anautomated management database system (PRISM) whichshould include a wide range of project information,including performance ratings and scores.

The European Commission’s approach to monitoring hasincluded introducing objectives and associated indicatorsin Global Plans. The Commission has also committed itselfto requesting indicators in projects wherever possible, andECHO has been considering incorporating these into itscontractual agreements. ECHO will verify if the objectiveshave been achieved through performance indicators, whichwill depend on information provided by the partner agency.Agencies will be responsible for defining their own

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indicators, and like DFID the emphasis will be on self-reporting. ECHO has also adopted project cyclemanagement (PCM).

In 1999, a ‘Project Appraisal Sheet’ or ‘fiche op.’ (short for‘fiche de suivi d’operation’) was introduced. Thisconsolidated the various tools that had been used indifferent parts of ECHO since 1996. The current fiche op.is used mainly to facilitate structured information exchangesbetween field and desk staff. It enables staff to see whathappened, why and when over the lifecycle of a project. Italso shows why ECHO decided to fund one part of aproject and not another. A fiche op. is started when ECHOagrees to a project proposal. The document has a frontpage for general project information, such as contractdetails, any modifications made to the contract, contactdetails for the partner organisation and an outline of projectbeneficiaries (number, type and location). Subsequent pagesprovide for summaries of the initial project appraisal by adesk officer, monitoring reports, contract modifications andfinal evaluation. Fiche ops. are also used to provideinformation to the ECHO hierarchy and to theCommission. They provide a structured and standardisedmethod of analysing projects and the recommendations ofdesk officers to decision-makers.

Project-scoring data for emergency humanitarian responseand reconstruction projects is likely to remain less usefulthan for larger and/or longer-term development projects.Nonetheless, pressure for the humanitarian community toconform to RBM is likely to increase, particularly fromnational audit offices (DFID, 2001; EC, 1997; NAO, 2002).The introduction of new techniques of knowledgemanagement such as ECHO’s fiche ops. may also quickenthe pace in this area.

2.5.4 Summary

The analysis in these sections shows that:

● Donors have responded to public and bureaucraticpressure to ensure the effective and accountable use ofofficial humanitarian aid by formalising many of theprocedures they use to finance and manage theirassistance in this area.

● Many of these tools rely upon consensus regardingthe definition of humanitarian need, the objectives ofhumanitarian assistance, methods of quantifyingperformance and assumptions about the attributionof change. Each of these elements is contested, makingit difficult to monitor the various stages of the projectcycle. A number of donors are working to address theseweaknesses, through tighter definition of indicators andproject management technologies.

● The UN has proved less responsive than NGOs to thenew demands for accountability and performancemanagement. This is partly because NGOs are by their

nature more flexible and adaptable. However, theirdevelopment of a range of performance- andaccountability-related initiatives since the mid-1990sindicates an urgent need to establish legitimacy. NGOsare also arguably more directly dependent on publicsupport than their UN counterparts, and so need todemonstrate greater accountability for their use ofpublic funds. And in the current increasinglycompetitive environment, NGOs have been quickerto see the benefits of complying with donors’ demands.

● There appears to be a trend towards more policy-basedapproaches to financing humanitarian action, throughframework agreements for example. There is a greatdeal of variation between different donors’ agreements,and agencies have greeted them differently. While thereis evidence that these arrangements have increased thevolume and predictability of assistance, there is littlecomparative analysis of their costs and benefits. Onthe one hand, such agreements might provide a basisfor re-establishing goodwill trust, but on the other theymay be seen as unduly bilateral tools that undermineexisting governance structures, and as administrativelyexpensive and time-consuming.

● Some larger donors are expanding their field presenceto enable their own analysis of need and to enhancetheir scrutiny of humanitarian organisations in the field.There are marked differences between donors in theobjectives and modus operandi of this field presence.

● Larger donors are assuming some of the rolestraditionally ascribed to multilateral organisations, inparticular the UN. They are playing an increasing rolein defining needs, monitoring service delivery andcarrying out field-level coordination. In addition, theincreasing complexity of some donor governments’overall crisis management structures means that theyare also leading multi-mandated operations, whichcombine civil, military and diplomatic measures.

Significant changes are taking place in the ways donors managethe disbursement of funding through the humanitarian system.These have been driven by concerns regarding aid effectivenessand visibility, particularly in high-profile crises. The ability ofmajor donors’ to scrutinise their partners, and to exert financialleverage over them by increasing the specificity of contractualarrangements, has increased. While this may have importantgains in terms of enhancing accountability and performance,it is difficult to draw generic conclusions regarding the costsand benefits of these approaches. This is because, while themajority of donors are ‘bilateralising’ their humanitarian aidprogrammes, they are doing so to different degrees and indifferent ways, reflecting their own institutional priorities andcultures. The absence of accepted norms for donorperformance or obvious mechanisms for donor coordinationin the humanitarian sphere means that it is difficult to identifyhow the initiatives of individual bilateral agencies contributeto enhancing the performance of the humanitarian system asa whole.

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2.6 From fund-raising to donorrelations: the implications of‘bilateralisation’ for recipientorganisations

Despite manifold changes over the past decade, somepersistent problems in relations between donors andagencies remain. These concern the predictability andoverall volume of funding, how to absorb surges in funding,and the rate at which funds are disbursed. These problemsare common to very large organisations, as well as verysmall ones. Nonetheless, changes in donor–recipientrelations seem likely to favour larger agencies, which arebetter able to invest in the human and technologicalresources necessary to ensure compliance with donorprocedures, and to sustain their relations at multiple levels:field, regional and in donor capitals. It is not only size thatmatters, however. Massive UN agencies such as UNHCRhave been slower than their NGO counterparts to investin analysing trends in donors’ behaviour and in establishingmechanisms to influence it. UNHCR’s sluggishness inestablishing a presence in Brussels, for instance, contrastswith the vibrant and numerous lobbying mechanisms opento NGOs, both in Brussels and nationally within EUmember states.

Organisations now talk less of ‘fund-raising’ and more of‘donor relations’. This shift in nomenclature is more thansemantic; it implies that those at the funding coal facenot only have to raise and account for funds, but alsomanage a complex set of relationships. To an extent, itwas ever thus. In UNHCR’s archives, there are dustycables dating back to the early 1990s recording complexcorrespondence between the field, Geneva and donorheadquarters negotiating the earmarking of contributionsand debating implementation strategies. However, whathas changed is that agencies have had to expand theircapacity to manage relations, both in establishing mutualunderstanding about overall objectives, and in negotiatingever-more complex procedures. This expansion issignalled in the growth in departments responsible forfundraising and their heightened profile in manyorganisations, and in the increase in the number of staffdedicated to such work. In the large NGO we studied,for example, capacity in this area had expanded from sixto 30 staff, reflecting both an increase in the volume offunds and the demands of managing new donorprocedures. In addition, the relationship betweenfundraisers and their operational counterparts appears tohave changed. In at least one agency, donor relations’ staffwere required to transmit donors’ queries regardingoperational practice, and there was a sense from somestaff that the fund-raising department was inappropriatelyscrutinising operational issues, rather than simplymobilising funding.

It is noteworthy that shifts in donor expectations have inpart responded to NGOs’ own concerns regarding the

performance and cost of UN agencies. NGOs havebenefited in cash terms from a switch away from multilateralinstitutions. Thus, although many associate thephenomenon of bilateralisation, particularly after Kosovo,with the ‘politicisation’ of humanitarian assistance, mostare aware that NGOs are a primary mechanism for thisbilateralism. While many NGOs working in Kosovo calledfor UNHCR to be strengthened and wish to see UNcapacity reinforced, particularly in protection andnegotiating access, some continue to see these agencies asdirect competitors for funding.

There are clearly genuine concerns within the donorcommunity to enhance performance and accountabilityin the humanitarian sphere. On the whole, there is anestablished bureaucratic routine, in which the rules arerelatively clear and consistent, if occasionally onerous. It ishere that accountability and performance have becomeformalised and mainstreamed into project management,and so are likely to be contributing to an overall effort byagencies to increase the effectiveness of humanitarianresponse. However, the key question is the extent to whichagencies change their objectives and working methods toconform to donor demands, rather than basing theirresponse solely on humanitarian need. In other words,agencies may elect to do (and offer to do) what can bemeasured, and what is valued.

There is a mass of anecdotal evidence to suggest thatagencies routinely adjust their requests for funding, andtheir assessments of need, depending on their estimate ofwhat the market can bear. It is much more difficult tomeasure how increasing donor managerialism will resultin certain types of activity or certain regions beingfavoured over others. For example, it is difficult to establishthe extent to which donor field offices appropriatelyencourage their partners to work in certain regions or incertain sectors. It is also difficult to predict whetherincreasingly tight contractual arrangements and anarrowing of performance indicators will encourageagencies to work in easier, lower-risk areas and activities,where there are no established mechanisms to monitorimpact. This is more likely to happen if humanitarianaction becomes incorporated into wider developmentobjectives and management systems.

Agencies are not passive in these debates; rather, theyhave been active in trying to maintain their independence,and many donors respect them for doing so. There is,however, a need for sustained discussion regarding thepurpose of humanitarian action, and subsequently of thenew management requirements. Clarity is also requiredregarding the criteria by which resources are allocated,and by which agencies are made accountable for theiruse. This kind of dialogue has become more pressing asthe objectives of humanitarian assistance have becomemore diffuse, and as donor organisations are becomingmore informed and assertive about their objectives forhumanitarian action.

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2.7 Summary and conclusions

One of the key messages to emerge from this analysis isthat the distinctiveness of humanitarian assistance as aparticular form of aid has become more difficult to discern.At a conceptual level, humanitarianism has become blurredas its objectives have expanded to include moredevelopmental and peace-building aims. This conceptualshift has played out at a managerial level. Whereas in thepast, the peculiar nature of humanitarian action – the needfor a rapid and independent response – justified lightmanagement by donor governments, this is no longeraccepted. Aware of their responsibilities as custodians ofpublic funds and as providers of significant volumes ofassistance, the major donors are now claiming a much moresignificant role in the definition and management ofhumanitarian strategy. In this way, the management ofhumanitarian assistance is becoming much more akin tothat in the development sphere, with tougher proceduresfor the appraisal and monitoring of projects.

In shaping humanitarian response, donors’ primary toolremains the power of the purse. Funding decisions anddisbursement choices remain the most important (but mostopaque) factors influencing the conduct of officially fundedoperations. As donors make these decisions, the newcomplexities of the public sector management, changes inthe operating environment and the increasing array ofpotential partners have required the introduction of newcontractual and management tools, which have regularisedand formalised relations with recipient organisations. Theseinclude new forms of contract and new techniques ofproject management.

The implications of these changes for the autonomy andindependence of recipient organisations are hard to assess.On the one hand, the general literature on the new publicmanagement suggests that, as the relationship between non-governmental agencies and government funding bodiesbecomes more contractual, so the independence of theseagencies comes under threat. Rather than a vehicle forincreased pluralism, these agencies become increasinglyincorporated into the state. On the other hand, anyassessment of the impact of changes in the relationshipbetween donors and recipients depends upon highlyqualitative judgements as to whether, in the name ofincreasing accountability and concern for performance, theautonomy of humanitarian actors is being undermined, andwhether that autonomy has an inherent value in terms ofthe effectiveness of these agencies. Given the diversity ofbehaviour of both donors and recipient organisations, theunevenness of response between countries, and the absenceof counterfactuals regarding specific decisions, it is probablyimpossible to reach a definitive answer as to whether andhow donors affect agencies’ operational decisions.

That said, some aspects of the relationship between donorsand recipients merit closer review. First, the high degree ofvoluntarism and unpredictability of official humanitarian

funding means that official donors have potentially greaterleverage over recipients than would be the case if there wasa greater proportion of assessed contributions and lessvolatility. Second, there are costs in increased donorengagement in humanitarian policy. The strengthening ofdonors’ roles in the management of humanitarian contracts,and the expansion in direct contracting of NGOs, suggestthat the costs to donors of managing these contracts arelikely to have increased. However, there is no reliableevidence regarding how effective donors have been inenhancing performance. Third, new forms of policy-basedcontracting potentially offer a means to establish a morepredictable and even funding base in the sector, and amechanism through which donors and recipients can discussand agree expected norms and competences. On the otherhand, these approaches may primarily represent a means fordonors to increase their control over recipient organisations.

Whatever the impact of donors’ increased involvement inthe management of official humanitarian aid, it clearly hasnot resulted in an equitable sharing of these funds. In otherwords, the sum of bilateral decisions is not demonstrablylinked to the sum of humanitarian need. Instead, currentarrangements, through earmarking and the selectiveinterpretation of contractual requirements, provide formuch greater control, if donors choose to use it. While theprimary source of donor influence remains the power ofthe purse, new managerial arrangements have nuanced thispower, and to a degree legitimised and normalised it. Thus,while donors share the concerns of their partners regardingaid effectiveness, they also have other agendas, and thesecan be furthered through managerial tools.

While the majority of agencies rightly welcome donors’renewed interest in the effectiveness of humanitarianassistance, they have been relatively sluggish in establishingthe checks and balances that might defend against unduedonor influence. Thus, for example, there is little sign ofinter-agency discussion regarding trends in donorbehaviour, nor have NGO fora paved the way forsubstantive discussions regarding rights and responsibilities.Instead, the focus has been on more technical and financialissues.

The major points of contention between donors andrecipient organisations have largely been confined to whatMolnar and Rogers (1979) have described as operatingconflicts, in which there is dispute regarding how particulartasks should be undertaken. Only rarely have outrightstructural conflicts emerged, where issues of fundamentalprinciple are contested. To date, there appears to have beenlittle effort to document and learn from these rare butsignificant episodes of conflict, and to translate them intoa set of principles that might be used to govern futurerelations. Such an effort would seem worthwhile, to maketransparent the behaviour of donors, and as a means bywhich recipient organisations could demonstrate how theytranslate a commitment to their beneficiaries into theirrelationships with donor states.

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3.1 Introduction

Over the past decade, as levels of humanitarian aid haveincreased and the number of agencies providing it hasmultiplied, so donors have become more involved in thecoordination of humanitarian action. They are doing thisat a global level, establishing new mechanisms to influencehumanitarian organisations, and in relation to specifichumanitarian operations. This shift has been partly drivenby the proliferation of agencies providing humanitarianassistance, particularly in high-profile crises. In this crowdedenvironment, donors have shown increased interest infunding NGOs, and funding to UN agencies has beensubject to greater earmarking, reducing multilaterals’ roomfor independent manoeuvre. The involvement of militaryactors or assets in the provision of humanitarian assistanceis an added facet of the coordination challenge, as is thedrive for humanitarian action to be coherent with otherpolicy responses to cr ises and complex politicalemergencies. These factors – the increased profile ofhumanitarian action, the proliferation of actors, the shiftingfortunes of bilateral and multilateral agencies and the pushfor policy coherence – are all aspects of the changing faceof humanitarian coordination.

This chapter documents the findings of a review of therole of official donors in the coordination of humanitarianresponse. The research focused on four donors: the US,the UK, Denmark and the EC, and on two recipientcountries, Somalia and Afghanistan. The four donors wereselected because they embody a broad range of fundingpreferences. Thus, the US favours a bilateralised approach,Denmark is a strong supporter of multilateral funding, theUK sits somewhere in between and ECHO is a multilateraldonor in its own right.1 The two country case studieswere chosen on the basis of earlier HPG research, whichfound that the donor coordination groups in both caseswere a significant innovation (Reindorp and Wiles, 2001).The case studies involved extensive interviews with donorpersonnel, UN staff and NGO workers, as well as a reviewof grey literature, including minutes of meetings, reportsand evaluations.

This chapter comprises four parts. Section 3.2 gives a briefhistory of donor and humanitarian coordination, and

Chapter 3The changing role of donors in the coordination of

humanitarian action

suggests that donors are seeking to enhance their inputinto the coordination of humanitarian action at both globaland field levels. Sections 3.3 and 3.4 examine theapproaches of different donors to coordination at field level,both in general terms, and in two specific cases – Somaliaand Afghanistan. Section 3.5 looks at the implications ofthe emergence of so-called ‘Friends of ’ groups. Section3.6 reviews donors’ efforts to enhance coordination amongthemselves, and Section 3.7 concludes the chapter byoutlining the key implications of this analysis.

3.2 Coordinating humanitarian action:an overview

3.2.1 Donors and the coordination ofdevelopment aid

The history of development aid yields a number ofinstructive lessons about donors’ involvement in aidcoordination generally. First, coordination does not comenaturally to donor governments; they have always neededstrong incentives or pressure to coordinate with oneanother. One of the earliest examples of post-war inter-governmental coordination – the Marshall Plan forEuropean recovery – was not purely voluntary, andassistance was made conditional upon regional cooperation.Recipients engaged in joint assessments of needs andsubmitted common requests to the US. They alsomonitored each other’s performance.

Second, donors’ performance in coordination has alwaysbeen subject to criticism, and throughout the post-warperiod donor governments have received frequent andurgent injunctions to coordinate their development aidpolicies more effectively. In the late 1960s, the PearsonCommission’s report on international development, Partnersin Development, took coordination as a key theme (Pearson,1969). A decade later, the Brandt Commission’s reportNorth–South: A Programme for Survival noted confusion andoverlap between different sources of development finance.The Commission pointed to the proliferation of agenciesboth inside and outside the UN system, and argued theneed for policies, procedures and programmes to be muchmore concerted and effectively coordinated (BrandtCommission, 1980). In the early 1980s, the OECD calledfor increased coordination. The report of the WorldCommission on Environment and Development (theBrundtland Report) of 1987 noted new imperatives andopportunities for international cooperation, and

1 The US is, of course, the primary funder of multilateralorganisations. However, it has a significant capacity and interestin shaping multilateral agendas. It does so through a high degreeof earmarking and scrutiny of contractual arrangements (seeChapter 2), and, as this chapter describes, through a strongpresence in the field.

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highlighted the weakness of international agencies incoordination. In 1999, a World Bank evaluation noted thatdonor policies and practices had actually hinderedcoordination, that governments in developing countriessaw no improvement in the coherence of donor activities,and that there had been only marginal improvements inconsistency and efficiency (Eriksson, 1999). An EC report,also in 1999, reached much the same conclusions (EC,1999).

Third, donors have relied on multilateral agencies to play akey coordination role. The World Bank’s Consultative Groupannual meetings, at which developing countries present theirplans, have been an important mechanism for coordinatingdevelopment assistance for individual countries. UNDevelopment Programme (UNDP) Round Tables haveserved the same function for some countries, often thoseemerging from conflict. However, while the practice ofdelegating coordination to a third agent has persisted, UNorganisations have been sidelined in favour of agencies moreclosely controlled by powerful donor governments. By thelate 1990s, the World Bank was chairing Consultative Groupsfor 60 countries, compared to 20 Round Tables convenedby the UNDP (Eriksson, 1999).

Fourth, donor coordination has expanded from an earlyfocus on mobilising aid resources to include moresubstantial policy coordination. This change is linked bothto increasing concerns about the effectiveness of aidprovision, and the significant increase in the number ofactors involved (Eriksson, 1999). Thus, the purpose of aidcoordination now includes harmonising donor policies andpractices; negotiating economic policy reforms at themacroeconomic and sectoral levels; and dialogue on a rangeof development-related issues (Eriksson, 1999). At thecountry level, efforts have increasingly focused onimproving coordination on World Bank-led initiatives suchas the Comprehensive Development Framework and itscorresponding Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, andSector-Wide Approaches.2 More recently, coordination hascentred around the Millennium Development Goals.

3.2.2 Governance and humanitariancoordination

The coordination of humanitarian action has changed insimilar ways to development aid, and is beset by many ofthe same problems. Yet between the two forms of aid, thereis a significant distinction in the role accorded thegovernment of the recipient country. In theory, if not always

in practice, states deemed fit to receive developmentresources are judged sufficiently legitimate and competentto be at the centre of coordination efforts. Withhumanitarian assistance, by contrast, aid is frequentlydelivered in response to emergencies created by a crisis ofgovernance, which means that there may be no legitimateor capable government with authority across a nationalterritory. In effect, humanitarian agencies and coordinatorswork around the government, or in its place. Thus,coordination arrangements, like the choice of aid formsand channels, are determined by, and a comment upon,the quality of governance in a particular setting. The choiceof coordination arrangements has symbolic power, as wellas operational consequence.

Despite assertions about the value and importance ofcoordinated humanitarian responses, none of the donorslooked at for this study actually has a policy oncoordination. Instead, donors tend to see it as a task formultilateral agencies, principally the UN.

3.2.3 Humanitarian coordination structures inthe UN

The first key innovations in humanitarian coordination inthe UN came in 1971, when General Assembly Resolution2816 (XXVI) established the Office of the UN DisasterRelief Coordinator (UNDRO) ‘to mobilise, direct andcoordinate relief ’. The move followed a number of high-profile emergencies: an earthquake in Peru in 1966, theBiafran war of 1967–71 and war and flooding in Bangladeshin 1971. The UNDRO was not a success, and during the1980s a ‘lead agency’ was sometimes appointed from amongthe principal humanitar ian agencies to coordinateemergency relief in situations of armed conflict (Righter,1995). Ad hoc coordination bodies were also established.These included the Office for Emergency Operations inAfrica (OEOA), which was set up in 1984 to coordinateresponses to crises in the Horn of Africa, and the UNOffice for the Coordination of Humanitarian andEconomic Assistance Programmes Relating to Afghanistan(UNOCA), established in 1988.

In December 1991, after 17 resolutions and decisionsseeking to strengthen disaster response, General AssemblyResolution 46/182 was passed. The Resolution recognisedthat the UN had a ‘central and unique role to play inproviding leadership and coordinating the efforts of theinternational community’. It led to the designation of anEmergency Relief Coordinator (ERC) to lead a newdepartment, the Department of Humanitarian Affairs(DHA). The Resolution also set up the Inter-AgencyStanding Committee (IASC), the CAP and the CentralEmergency Revolving Fund (CERF). At country level,the ERC was represented through Humanitar ianCoordinators. Under terms of reference agreed in 1994,coordination would ‘normally’ be assumed by the UNResident Coordinator in the affected country. However,

2 The Comprehensive Development Framework (CDF) waslaunched in 1999. It sets out key principles for development:ownership by the country concerned; partnership with thegovernment, civil society and assistance agencies; a long-termvision of need and of solutions; the equal treatment of structuraland social concerns; and an orientation towards results. PovertyReduction Strategy Papers, launched in 2000, seek to put theCDF principles into practice.

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the Humanitarian Coordinator might also be appointedseparately from the Resident Coordinator (or in a situationwhere there was no Resident Coordinator), or the localcountry director of a designated ‘lead agency’ might fillthe role.

The DHA was given inadequate resources and was unableto tackle the competitive tendencies of the UN operationalagencies, some of which were themselves g ivencoordination responsibilities from time to time. It was alsoside-tracked by its management of a plethora of small fundsfor programmes that fell outside other agencies’ mandates(UN Secretary-General, 1997; IASC, 1998). In 1997, aspart of his reform programme, UN Secretary-General KofiAnnan replaced the DHA with a new body, the Office forthe Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).OCHA was divested of the DHA’s operational activities,and given a more streamlined mandate focused oncoordination, advocacy and policy development. However,debates continued among donors and UN agencies aroundthe respective merits of the three so-called models ofcoordination (the Resident Coordinator as HumanitarianCoordinator; the Humanitarian Coordinator appointedseparately; and the ‘lead agency’ model). Work continuedwithin the IASC and the UN Secretariat to clarifyrelationships and responsibilities. The report of the UNExpert Panel on Peace Operations – the Brahimi Report– animated the debate on coordination, particularlybetween the UN’s humanitarian agencies and UN politicaland military personnel involved in complex peacekeepingoperations (Brahimi, 2000). Meanwhile, OCHA increasedits presence on the ground through the deployment offield offices, and began its own reform process. By mid-2002, OCHA was present in some 35 countries aroundthe world (OCHA, 2002).

Although donor governments ostensibly delegate thecoordination of humanitarian response to UN actors andagencies, their behaviour, particularly their fundingdecisions, still has a profound impact on how thesestructures work. Over the past decade, donors have madesome efforts to strengthen UN coordination activities. Inthe mid-1990s, for instance, ECHO, the BPRM and OFDAall channelled their funding through UNHCR, buttressingthe agency’s coordination role in the Ngara camps inTanzania (Borton, 1996). Donors have also at times takena keen interest in appointments to coordination posts, andhave in some instances asked NGOs to report on the UN’sperformance in coordinating humanitarian assistance.

Overall, however, while at a rhetorical level donors maintaintheir support for the UN’s unique role in humanitariancoordination, there is evidence to suggest that in practicethey are much more equivocal (Reindorp and Wiles, 2001;Minear at al., 1992). Both the DHA and OCHA havesuffered from inadequate funding and resources, whilefunding tactics have consistently confounded effectivecoordination by fuelling competition within the system;agencies vie with each other for funds, corroding

relationships and coordination at all levels (UNICEF/UNHCR/WFP, 1998: 4). Donor governments alsofrequently undermine coordination by making conflictingdemands of agencies. The DHA’s ambiguous mandateshackled it from the start, as donors insisted that it expandits operational presence into areas left unfilled by otherUN agencies. Its subsequent role in demining,demobilisation, natural disaster mitigation, logistics andtransport forced the DHA into a level of operationalitythat invited cr iticism from other agencies, andfundamentally compromised its capacity for coordination.OCHA too has struggled, with insufficient means, authorityor support (Reindorp and Wiles, 2001). Finally, as describedin Chapter 2, by choosing to contract NGOs directly, ratherthan channelling resources through UN bodies such asUNHCR and WFP, the leverage that UN agencies canexert over operational agencies is necessarily diminished.

3.2.4 The EU and ECHO: a new force formultilateral coordination?

The emergence of ECHO as a major actor in humanitarianassistance has had an important impact on the evolutionof humanitarian coordination. Even before ECHO wasestablished in 1992, steps were being taken to make theEuropean Commission a coordinator of the assistanceactivities of Member States, such as the intervention ofthe UK’s Overseas Development Administration innorthern Iraq in 1991. With the rapid growth of thehumanitarian aid budget and the appointment in 1995 ofa Commissioner specifically responsible for humanitarianassistance, pressure grew from Member States for greateraccountability and improved coordination in the field. Thisapproach was confirmed in 1996 with the adoption ofCouncil Regulation 1257/96 concerning humanitarianaid, and the EC Communication on Linking Relief,Rehabilitation and Development (COM96-153). TheEuropean Council pressed for a greater focus by ECHOon cooperation with the UN and the Red Cross, and theEuropean Parliament argued that ECHO should coordinateMember States’ emergency aid during major naturaldisasters.

Despite these ambitions, from the outset there has beenambiguity as to ECHO’s coordination role, both internallyand with external actors. Its mission statement refers tothe coordinated delivery of humanitarian assistance andprotection through partner organisations, but does notmake clear the requirements of implementing partners, orof ECHO itself (Brusset and Tiberghien, 2002). AlthoughMember States meet regularly with ECHO in the HAC,ECHO has no systematic procedures to facilitatecoordination either within the Commission or in relationto Member States’ humanitarian programmes. The UNand NGOs continue to secure funding for similar or relatedactions from several EC sources, managed by differentdepartments; both ECHO and DG Development, forinstance, provide significant amounts of aid to WFP. The

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need for improved coordination between different serviceswas highlighted by the Court of Auditors in 1995, andagain by an independent evaluation of ECHO’s activitiespublished in 1999 (Franklin Advisory Services, 1999).

ECHO’s coordination with other agencies and donors hasalso been difficult. According to the 2001 Strategy, its‘strategic or ientation will str ive for maximumcomplementarity and coherence with other key players’priorities’. In order to develop ‘a common vision andeffective division of labour’, ECHO began a ‘strategicdialogue’ about particular countries, themes and prioritieswith other major humanitarian players, both within theCommission and externally. However, ECHO’s GlobalPlans for funding long-term emergencies do not includecoordination strategies with other donor governments, andECHO’s efforts to raise the profile of its aid have maderelations with other actors difficult. ECHO does notcontribute to CAP appeals, and, as described in Chapter 2,its principal funding tool, the FPA, is designed to provideproject-based funding, not unearmarked, programmaticfunding for the UN and other international organisations.There have been individual efforts to address thesecoordination difficulties, including the Standing Inter-department Working Party (GPIS), set up November 1994to define the EC’s position with regard to UNHCR, butproblems have persisted. More recently, ECHO has soughtto broaden the basis for its engagement with internationalorganisations through more formal, planned dialogue. InNovember 2000, it initiated such a process with UNHCR.This has since been sustained, and has enabled the sharingof basic information, including ECHO’s Global Plans, towhich UNHCR did not formally have access.

3.2.5 Herding cats?: the challenge of NGOcoordination

The proliferation of NGOs, with their diverse and self-appointed mandates, non-governmental status and concernsabout independence, poses one of the key coordinationchallenges for the humanitarian system. Donors have showninterest in supporting coordination between NGOs. TheUS government, for instance, provides 60% of the fundingfor the Interaction Disaster Response Committee, anumbrella group set up to improve the coordination of USNGOs in emergency response, and has also subsidisedcoordination units in the field. OFDA claims to require‘its’ NGOs to coordinate, DFID requires NGOs to be‘constructive members of the community’, and Danidaencourages Danish NGOs to work together. Yet althoughall the donors looked at for this study expressed concernsabout the performance and quality of the NGOs they fund,none makes coordination a consistent or explicit part oftheir requirements of NGOs. No donor producedsystematic indicators of what effective coordination wouldlook like, and there was no evidence of a donorwithdrawing funding from an agency on the basis of alack of coordination with others.

This is not to say that donor pressure is necessary beforeNGOs coordinate with one another or other actorsinvolved in humanitarian response. NGOs often leadcoordination at sectoral level, and have been responsiblefor some highly coordinated, even integrated, operations.These have often gone beyond information-sharing toencompass joint advocacy, shared standards of action andeven mechanisms to ensure compliance to such standards,as in Liberia and Sierra Leone (Leader, 2000). Such effortsdo not necessarily involve the UN; indeed, some of thebest operational NGO coordination took place preciselybecause the UN was not present, as in Biafra, the Oxfam-led consortium for Cambodia in 1979–81 or theEmergency Relief Desk for Eritrea and Tigray in 1981–91 (Borton, 1994).

3.3 Donor coordination in the field

Shifts in donors’ involvement in coordination are mostapparent at field level. Yet here again, these changes havebeen gradual, and appear to be a response to particularevents, rather than the result of a considered policy. Thereare two main aspects to this change: the increaseddeployment of donor personnel in the field; and the use offormal field-based coordination mechanisms.

As discussed in Chapter 2, Danida has only a limited fieldpresence. Field-based staff are located in embassies, andfocus on Denmark’s bilateral development programme. Theonly exceptions are the Kosovo Steering Unit and a postat the Nairobi embassy covering Somalia. The SteeringUnit, which meets Danish NGOs fortnightly, encouragescoordination among Danish NGOs. The Nairobi-basedstaff member has been a key player in coordination amongdonors, the UN and NGOs.

By contrast, OFDA maintains large regional offices inAfrica, Asia and the Caribbean, whose staff members travelto emergency areas throughout their region, and theBPRM has 23 Refugee Coordinators in posts around theworld, attached to US embassies. OFDA’s Africa office hassought to be a focal point for contact with Coordinators,as well as other governments and humanitarian actors.Regional offices are credited with improving the perennialcoordination difficulties that dog the US aid bureaucracy;the US Interagency Review of US humanitarian assistanceof 2000 (the so-called Halperin Report) points to USgovernment personnel on the ground working toovercome the limits of their bifurcated structure, informingeach other of their funding decisions and undertaking jointmonitoring, for example in Afghanistan (US government,2000).3

3 OFDA field personnel and BPRM Refugee Coordinators havenot been consistently co-located, nor have BPRM personnel beensystematically included on DART teams.

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The EC experimented with field-level coordinationthroughout the 1990s. Among the first instances was theZagreb task force, which was set up in 1992 to supportUNHCR’s humanitarian aid to the former Yugoslavia. Itsaim was ‘to improve coordination on the ground,principally by facilitating the exchange of information onactions funded, between donors’. In practice, the respectiveresponsibilities of Member States and the EC were leftambiguous, and the task force had insufficient funds andreceived inadequate cooperation from donors (EC, 1999).In 1993, the EC established an ECHO cellule de crise (crisisunit) with the Rwandan government. Task forces werealso established in Liberia, Haiti and Guatemala. However,ECHO correspondents in the field continue to play a rolein coordination.

There are distinct differences in how the US and the ECapproaches coordination. For the US, the UN remains theprimary coordination mechanism in the field. US fieldpersonnel interviewed for this study see their function ascatalytic and service-oriented, both to headquarters, withthe provision of information and scrutiny of programmes,and to partners on the ground: ‘a pusher and prodder’, asone official put it. Thus, the Halperin Report points tothe importance of information flows to implementingpartners, and argues that ‘Embassies should be encouragedto share as much information as possible through regularbr iefings for all US implementing partners’ (USgovernment, 2000). Staff appear to see their role asfacilitative, although the tendency to focus on USgovernment implementing par tners can excludecollaboration with others, suggesting that monitoring ismore important than a more general approach to thecoordination of the overall relief effort. By contrast, ECfield personnel see coordination more as control. ECHO’sfield correspondents are often in a good position to observethe failings of UN coordination mechanisms, and can adopta more direct approach to coordination themselves, at leastwith ECHO’s implementing partners (Reindorp and Wiles,2001).

3.4 Case-studies: coordination inAfghanistan and Somalia

This section analyses the coordination mechanismsestablished by donors in Afghanistan and Somalia,principally the Afghan Support Group (ASG) and theSomalia Aid Coordination Body (SACB). In Afghanistan,additional coordination arrangements have emergedwith the US-led campaign, but these are outside thescope of this research, which was completed by the endof 2001.

3.4.1 Coordination structures in Afghanistan

Donors to Afghanistan formed the ASG following a UN-convened conference in Ashkhabad, Turkmenistan, in

1997.4 The meeting brought together key political andassistance players to discuss ways of making internationalefforts more effective, and specifically to explore measuresto reinforce the political and assistance processes. Theconference was also animated by the emergence of the Talibanin 1996. There were a number of concerns about theassistance project in Afghanistan. These included mandatecreep by UN agencies; patchy coordination, both amongUN agencies and NGOs; confusion as to the proper rolesof the UN’s coordinators of relief and development aid; andthe damaging effects on coordination of donors’ fundingpractices and their behaviour on UN Executive Boards.

The primary outcome of the meeting was a proposal forPrincipled Common Programming (PCP). As the namesuggests, PCP was an attempt by the aid community inAfghanistan to develop a joint programme guided by agreedprinciples and goals. At the same time, Dutch DevelopmentMinister Jan Pronk pressed donors to get involved with afield-based body. When the donors next met, in Islamabad,they called themselves the Afghan Support Group. Althoughterms of reference were never written, the subsequent six-monthly meetings held in various donor capitals provideda forum for dialogue on Afghanistan, with an emphasis onthe overall direction of the assistance effort.5 In the absenceof terms of reference, the management ‘troika’, comprisingthe previous, current and next chair of the ASG, hasprovided overall direction, and identified issues to beaddressed. Besides the six-monthly meetings, the ASG hasheld periodic meetings in Islamabad, as well as an annualmeeting to which representatives of UN agencies, the WorldBank and NGOs have been invited.

The emergence of the ASG coincided with a number ofother coordination developments. The most trumpeted wasthe Strategic Framework, a strategy and associatedcoordination architecture that sought to ‘reduce thedisconnects’ between the UN’s political and assistanceprojects. The Strategic Framework was devised inrecognition of the need for greater policy coherencebetween political and assistance efforts, and between reliefand more developmental interventions. It was also in parta response to the UN’s reassessment of its role andorganisational structure.6 Other coordination mechanisms

4 The principal donors to Afghanistan between 1995 and 2001were the US, Japan, the UK, Canada, the EU, the Netherlandsand Sweden. Neither the World Bank nor the IMF is involveddirectly in funding activities within Afghanistan, although the Bankmaintains a ‘watching brief’, operated through UNDP, and issuesperiodic analyses of the situation in the country.5 The ASG held its first six-monthly meeting in London (June 1998),followed by Tokyo (December 1998), Stockholm (June 1999),Ottawa (December 1999), Montreux (December 2000) and Berlin(December 2001).6 A 1995 UN-commissioned review proposed the idea of a UN-wide strategic framework. The Administrative Committee onCoordination selected Afghanistan as a test-case in April 1997. Adraft was produced in November 1997, and the final versionemerged in September 1998.

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include the Afghanistan Programming Body (APB), theoverall coordinating body for the realisation of PCP, withfive thematic groups reflecting the five pr incipalcomponents of the assistance effort set out in the finalStrategic Framework. Some of these groups further sub-divided along sectoral lines. Regional Coordination Bodies(RCBs), usually chaired by the UN regional coordinationofficers for the area, offered a forum to discuss cross-sectoralissues inside Afghanistan. A number of other ad hoccoordination structures were set up in the field or inIslamabad, with occasional donor participation. The threekey NGO coordination bodies – ACBAR, SWABAQ forthe south-west and Islamic Coordination – were all basedin Peshawar, before moving back to Afghanistan with thechange in regime at the end of 2001.

3.4.2 Coordination in Somalia

The origins of the SACB have become the subject of aform of folklore, which has it as largely the creation of theEC, seeking to wrest control from a discredited (and US-dominated) UN peacekeeping and aid effort. In reality,however, a more subtle combination of factors, actors andmotives were at work.

In December 1993 in Addis Ababa, the UN held the fourthin a series of meetings on the coordination of humanitarianassistance for Somalia.7 Chaired by the head of the DHA,the meeting brought together donor personnel, the UNand a disparate group of Somalis. At the margins of themeeting, a group of donor personnel – from the UK’sODA, USAID, SIDA, the EC and UN agencies, notablyUNHCR and UNDP – met to discuss possible waysforward. What emerged was a proposal to create analternative to the UN framework for supporting Somalia,to include donors, UN agencies and programmes, NGOsand multilateral and regional institutions and organisationsto coordinate various aspects of international aid. Theresulting declaration focused on three main elements:emergency needs; reconstruction and rehabilitation; andeconomic management and governance. Underlying thediscussions was the absence of a government interlocutorin Somalia. The external actors therefore sought legitimacyfor their interventions: unable to refer to a government,they would refer to each other.

The Somalia Aid Coordination Body was formed inFebruary 1994. Its Executive Committee was comparativelysmall, involving the US, the UK and Italy, and occasionallyFrance and Sweden, as well as representatives of the UNDevelopment Office for Somalia, UNICEF, WFP and the

UN Political Office for Somalia. Its structures have sincechanged, proliferated and consolidated. Today, it includes117 partner agencies, working through committees thatmeet mostly in Nairobi. These range from the most formal,the monthly meeting of the SACB Executive Committee,to small, sectorally-based working groups seeking toharmonise policy on issues such as cholera or the salariesof local staff. The SACB has no representation or permanentpresence in Somalia itself. Although there have been effortsto address this absence of field presence, formal coordinationstructures on the ground have remained minimal.

3.4.3 Overall assessment: politicisation orpolitical vacuum?

Any assessment of the coordination mechanisms inSomalia and Afghanistan comes with the caveat thatthese structures have changed over time. Both casestudies revealed that groupings develop and evolve, aprocess in which leadership and the degree ofengagement of key players is key. For the ASG, forinstance, the different approaches adopted by the rotatingchairs have had a significant impact on the perceivedproductivity of meetings. The body is widelyacknowledged to have been most effective in its earlystages, between December 1997 and May 1998, whenthere was a relatively high degree of consensus onprogramming priorities.8 This consensus appears to havecome under strain with the EC’s more dogmaticapproach to women’s rights, and the increasing insistencein the US on the need to put pressure on the Taliban forpolicy changes. This, combined with the departure ofAlfredo Witschi-Cestar i as the UN ResidentCoordinator, meant that the ASG became less effectivein achieving consensus among donors on programmingand funding. Similarly, the history of the SACB is markedby fluctuating relations between donor personnel andthe various UN Resident Coordinators. The SACBvirtually ground to a halt during a period of intenseantagonism between the chair of the ExecutiveCommittee and the Resident Coordinator. From 2000,a much closer working relationship between the twopeople in these roles has again enabled the SACB tofunction more effectively.

Despite these changes over the years, the case studiesrevealed that coordination mechanisms in Afghanistan andSomalia shared a number of characteristics and impacts.Perhaps the most striking was what also made themexceptional: in both of these ‘failed states’, the interest ofdonor governments in establishing coordination structures

7 The first coordination meeting was held in October 1992 inGeneva to review and pledge funds for a 100-day UN actionplan for humanitarian assistance, which called for $83m. Thesecond meeting was held in Addis Ababa in December 1992,which resulted in a comprehensive relief and rehabilitation planfor Somalia budgeted at $159m. The third coordination meeting,again in Addis Ababa, was in March 1993.

8 These included the appropriate approach to gender issues,agreement on appropriate interventions to support grass-rootscommunity development and what programming would constituteundesirable support to the local authorities. There was also anacknowledgement of a limited role for aid programming inreducing narcotics production.

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was in the first instance driven by the acute dilemmapresented by the absence of a legitimate or competentinterlocutor. Yet in both cases, this problem was largelyducked. Far from donor coordination mechanismssignifying political engagement by proxy, these structureswere rather a manifestation of disengagement. In bothcountries, there was a policy vacuum among donorgovernments, which was filled only by untested assertionsabout the incentive and disincentive powers of aid. InSomalia, the sole policy on offer was the ‘Peace Dividend’approach – a policy initially promoted by the EC, whichdeclared that donors would target resources to morepeaceful areas, so rewarding those authorities who managedto achieve stability, and denying resources and legitimacyto others. The policy was both under-resourced and under-theorised (Reindorp, 2002). While the Strategic Frameworkin Afghanistan was more elaborate, aiming to use aid to‘socialise’ the Taliban through principled engagement, thistoo was criticised for ignoring the underlying politicaleconomy that sustained the regime (see Duffield et al.,1998). The revenues available to the Taliban from foreignbackers or from illicit trade eclipsed the paltry sums of aidon offer.

In both cases, donors failed to address the underlyingquestion of how Somalia or Afghanistan might movetowards becoming accountable and functioning states. Inneither case was it clear how the coordination structuresrelated to other aspects of the response. For instance, it wasnot clear how the ASG was meant to relate to the crucial‘6+2 Group’ of governments, involving Afghanistan’sneighbours plus Russia and the US. Nor has the relationshipbetween the SACB and the Inter-Governmental Authorityon Development (IGAD) or other ad hoc diplomaticgroupings been adequately defined.

In both countries, the strikingly elaborate nature of thecoordination architecture and the intensity of coordinationactivities obscured the absence of coordinated policy andthe underlying obstacles to coordinated strategies, and evendistracted from the programme responses that the wholecoordination edifice was intended to improve. InAfghanistan, as Duffield argues, the ‘strategic goal’ wasimpossible to achieve via a ‘disparate, short term and projectfocused’ intervention. ‘In practice … the atomistic, localand project level tendencies of the assistance system haveproved stronger than the architectural reforms. All thevarious mechanisms have been adapted and adjusted sothat they accommodate these tendencies. The project rules’(Duffield et al., 1998: 5). In the case of the SACB, themultiple ‘performances’ of coordination – especially theproliferation of meetings – frequently risked becoming anend in themselves. The SACB in particular was strong ondetail, but weak in generating wider analysis. No collectivestrategic analysis materialised, and the SACB structuresfailed to deliver joint planning. Even where agreementwas achieved in the SACB, these decisions did not alwaysreach workers in the field, and so were not alwaysimplemented.

3.4.4 The impact on donor behaviour anddecision-making

In both Afghanistan and Somalia, donors failed tocoordinate meaningfully among themselves on key issuesto do with relations with local authorities and the securityof staff, nor did they coordinate their messages to the UNsystem.9

In Afghanistan, the presence of strong national interestsmeant that the habit of cooperation ran extremely shallow,and donors repeatedly failed to agree on a shared policy(Johnson and Leslie, 2002). On the whole, most donorsseem ambivalent towards collective positions, especiallywhere these might compromise their independence ofaction. At the ASG meeting in Stockholm in 1999, forinstance, efforts to define an appropriate process ofengagement with the Taliban on human rights wereopposed by the US. Johnson and Leslie (2002) concludethat the Strategic Framework, ASG and PCP have hadlittle influence on donors’ decisions, which have insteadbeen shaped by a mixture of inertia, ad hoc thinking, politicalaims and developmental/humanitarian priorities. For manydonors, these questions are determined at headquarters,and staff in Islamabad have relatively little influence overthem.

In the few identified instances where donors havecoordinated among themselves to produce a collective shiftin policy, this resulted from informal discussions andgroupings, rather than from the larger, formal structures.For example, an informal grouping compr isingScandinavian countries, Switzerland, Canada and theNetherlands was instrumental in bringing about a shift infunding timescales in support of longer-term initiatives inAfghanistan. Yet as with the ‘Friends of ’ groups, this kindof informality excludes some parties. Johnson and Leslienote that, in Afghanistan, one of the advantages of theformal fora was that they offered the opportunity forAfghans to participate in donor meetings, thus potentiallyinforming and influencing decisions.10

In the SACB, where donors’ strategic interests were lesspronounced, the research revealed a number of ways inwhich donors have influenced one another, and wherethe structures of the SACB enabled influence to be exertedin particular ways. The primary route has been through

9 In 1999, for example, Danida resumed funding for UNHCR’srepatriation programme after a break of two years, but insistedthat international UNHCR staff inside Afghanistan shouldsupervise and monitor returns. Meanwhile, the US pressuredUNHCR to stop repatriation activities and provide assistance inneighbouring countries, while Japan argued for ‘showcaserepatriation’ (Johnson and Leslie, 2002). See also Leader (2000)on donors’ poor coordination with the Taliban; and the HalperinReport (US government, 2000) on relations with the WFP.10 Most coordination fora were outside Afghanistan, especiallyin Islamabad, while most Afghan NGOs were either inAfghanistan, or in Peshawar.

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policy leadership. The ‘peace dividend approach’ is oneexample of this, and the Code of Conduct another. Thecombination of peer pressure and the requirement thatthere should be consensus within the SACB has alsooccasionally modified the policies of key donors. Forexample, one donor, seeking to draft a strategy to guide allSACB members’ funds on governance projects, in fact hadtheir own policy modified because other SACB memberswere unhappy about political bias. The fact that donorscame together in smaller groups has also allowed theadoption of complementary strategies; for example, whileone donor favoured one geographical area or sector,another was able to ensure that other areas and sectorswere supported. Yet while the SACB has fostered a strongsense of collegiality and cooperation among individualpersonnel, overall it did not enable donors to devise sharedstrategies to guide their aid. Some interviewees suggestedthat, by combining donors with UN agencies and NGOs,the SACB appears to have had the perverse effect ofconstraining the dialogue between donors themselves.

3.4.5 The impact on funding

Funding strategies represent the primary form of influencefor any donor. Yet in both case studies, the coordinationstructures have had at best an ambiguous impact on thelevel and type of funding each country has attracted.

Funding for core humanitarian activities in Afghanistanappears to have been reasonably consistent until September2001. Funds received under the CAP dipped from $76.5m(72% of requested funds) in 1995 to $40m (22%) in 1999,before recovering again to $107m (48%) in 2000. However,CAP data paints only part of the picture; for example,whereas in 1999 the CAP received just $40m, total recordedhumanitarian aid to Afghanistan was an estimated $300m(Danida, 1999).11

The available evidence suggests that the ASG has had littleor no impact on donors’ decisions about funding. Althoughinterviewees stressed that information-sharing on fundingdecisions was the basis for their engagement in coordinationstructures, none could point to an example of donorscollectively exploring funding ‘gaps’ and adjusting theirpriorities to meet these needs (Johnson and Leslie, 2002).Indeed, funding patterns did not reflect areas of concernas expressed in the ASG. For example, despite widespreadinternational concern at the human rights situation inAfghanistan and declarations to that effect in the ASG,investment in rights-centred activities has been limited.12

And despite declared concerns about funding the salaries

of Taliban officials, major donors continued to support thisin practice. Interviewees acknowledged that the fundingpriorities set by donors bore at best an incidental relationto the deliberations within the various coordination groups.For example, only 12% of proposals put forward in the2000 Consolidated Appeal under Sustainable Livelihoodswere in fact funded, despite the fact that this had been oneof the key themes within the Strategic Framework (Johnsonand Leslie, 2002).

Overall, until September 2001 the bulk of humanitarianfunding was disbursed to the same organisations for thesame kinds of activities year after year. Donors providedconsistent levels of non-earmarked funding to thoseagencies mandated to provide essential supplies or services,including ICRC and the WFP.13 The study found noevidence of a significant decline in funds to multilateralagencies; in fact, in Afghanistan an exceptionally highpercentage of DAC ODA has been multilateral. Between1993 and 2000, around half of all aid ($668.6m out of$14.7bn) was multilateral. The research did, however, reveala growth in earmarked grants to multilateral organisations,and an increase in the funding of NGOs. Switzerland, forexample, allocated almost all of its funds for Afghanistan toICRC, UNHCR and WFP until 1998, at which point itmoved to more direct partnerships with NGOs. Prior to11 September, DFID also increased its direct funding ofNGOs, while reducing its support for UNHCR, whichhad sub-contracted care and welfare programmes toPakistan-based NGOs. This was matched by the perceptionthat UNHCR should concentrate less on service deliveryand more on the protection of refugees.14 The case studyalso showed that agencies are better able to secure fundingif they successfully argue that their work is humanitarian,not developmental, thus maintaining access to budgetsearmarked for humanitarian assistance (Donini, Dudleyand Ockwell, 1996).

Events after 11 September, though largely beyond the scopeof this study, clearly show how quickly funding choicescan change in the presence of strong strategic interest andengagement. During September and October 2001,Afghanistan received significant new offers of aid; byDecember, $345m had been pledged, compared with areported total of $107m during 2000. This was despitecontinued political uncertainty and a deterioration in thesecurity situation, which had hitherto been portrayed bydonors as a major constraint to humanitarian work.

11 This discrepancy was mostly due to major emergencyprogrammes following the Wardak and Badakhshan/Takharearthquakes; nonetheless, a number of organisations, notablyICRC, regularly receive funds outside of the CAP.12 In 1999, the only human rights project to receive funding (fromNorway) was the UN Coordination Office’s Human Rights office.

13 This consistency was variously attributed to donors’organisational inertia, the degree of confidence in implementingpartners, an explicit commitment to multilaterals among somedonors, and the bureaucratic difficulties involved in tracking avariety of individual grants.14 For both Switzerland and the UK, this shift depended on havingadequate staffing to cope with more direct NGO funding. In thecase of the Netherlands, the continued direct contribution toOCHA acknowledges that there is insufficient staff capacity tomanage direct funding of NGOs.

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Procedures for applications and approvals of grants werestreamlined, and significant new resources were madeavailable to multilateral agencies. Areas of activity whichhad been short of funding before September 2001, such ascoordination and support for refugees, enjoyed greatlyincreased pledges, while some donors were prepared tocommit significant sums to UN agencies with fewconditions attached.

In Somalia, any assessment of aid levels is complicated bythe opacity and paucity of the data. Donors do not keepconsolidated, easily accessed information on what theyprovide. The SACB has not been able to fill this gap: analysisof resource flows, and an ability to match these with ananalysis of need, has historically been the starting point fordiscussions regarding effective humanitarian coordination.According to DAC figures Arab states, previously majordonors to Somalia, are giving virtually nothing, thoughanecdotal evidence suggests that this is not true. Prior to2001, when it produced its first overview of donor fundsto Somalia, the SACB had done little to address thisinformation gap. While it remains difficult to distinguishbetween humanitarian aid and development assistance, theavailable evidence suggests that the SACB has not had ahuge impact on donors’ funding patterns (Reindorp, 2002).

Aid to Somalia has fluctuated hugely over the years. Itreached a high of $964m in 1993 (5% of total ODA toSub-Saharan Africa), but has dwindled over the lifespan ofthe SACB. In 1999, total aid was $114m. Between 1993and 2001, the CAP on average received $39m a year,meeting 42% of requests.15 Bilateral emergency aid hasaccounted for 30%–40% of total ODA since 1995 (thepoint at which it began to be clearly reported). Since 1995,both the overall level of multilateral aid, and its share oftotal ODA, have remained relatively consistent overall. Inthe absence of consolidated information, anecdotalevidence suggests that NGOs and the ICRC are supportingtheir programmes from unearmarked funds. Intervieweesalso suggested that management capacity, rather than funds,was the key factor limiting their programmes. The type ofprogramming also appears to be important in attractingfunding: NGOs focusing on life-saving emergency work,and with large numbers of expatriates delivering theprogramme, report that they find fund-raising easiest, whiledonors are not willing to commit development assistancefor fear that such aid is especially vulnerable to diversion.

Interviewees made a number of links between the SACBand funding levels, but it was difficult to relate these toavailable figures. Some interviewees suggested that theSACB had helped to mobilise resources because its jointalerts and statements had more credibility than would havebeen the case had they been issued by individual agencies.

This potential may, however, be limited given the low levelsof recognition of the SACB among Western donor publics(Bradbury and Coultan, 1998). Otherwise, it was difficultto identify a clear case where the SACB had a significantimpact on the funding behaviour of a donor, with thepossible exception of Denmark. From 1999, Denmark’sshare of total ODA to Somalia doubled to 1.33% comparedwith 0.63% for the decade 1985–94.16 This was the largestincrease in any donor’s share of aid, and coincided withDenmark’s chairing of the SACB Executive Committee.

3.4.6 The impact on humanitarian space

While the extent to which the ASG or SACB haveinfluenced donor funding is unclear, both case studieshighlighted how donors have used these structures toinfluence humanitarian operations in ways that impactdirectly on the quality and quantity of ‘humanitarian space’.

In Afghanistan until late September 2001, the Taliban’spolicies arguably represented the most significant constraintto ‘principled’ humanitarian action (Johnson and Leslie,2002). Yet at the same time, the imposition of UN sanctionsin November 1999, followed by a one-sided arms embargoin January 2001, damaged perceptions of the internationalcommunity’s impartiality and neutrality.

In Somalia, the SACB’s commitment to unconditionalemergency aid was open to question from the outset, sincethe US zoning policy effectively linked resource flows withsecurity. In this context, humanitarian principles,particularly impartiality and neutrality, have beenmisinterpreted, blurred by the exigencies of working insuch a volatile setting and marked by the kind of confusionaround principles typical of ‘grey zone’ activity. Over time,a more pragmatic, but also arguably confused, approachhas emerged. Thus, over the past two years donor policyseems to have been driven by different factors, determinedas much by the experience and perspectives of individualdesk officers, as by the more formal frameworks establishedby the SACB. In some cases, these favour the humanitarian‘minimum’ of life-saving interventions, in others theyencourage more developmental and peace-buildingapproaches. This suggests that the SACB has been largelyunable to develop a comprehensive framework to guideinternational interventions, and direct official aid, in thischronic crisis.

In both the SACB and ASG, donors have most clearlyinfluenced decisions about the nature and allocation ofassistance through their assessments of security. From theoutset, security questions dominated discussions in theSACB’s Executive Committee, and the body’s success in

15 Significantly larger amounts reach Somalia through remittancesfrom overseas Somalis, and from Somali organisations, Islamicgroups, regional governments and local communities; most ofthis goes unrecorded.

16 In 1999 and 2000, Denmark gave over $3m to Somalia, about0.31% of its bilateral ODA. When imputed multilateral aid isincluded, the total rises to $4.84m in 1999.

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establishing collective responses in this area has been hailedas one of its greatest achievements. In 1995, all SACBmembers agreed a Code of Conduct. This listed a numberof conditions for the release of aid, one of which was thatthe ‘responsible Somali authorities must guarantee thatsecure conditions prevail for aid agencies and their staffand that they pursue and bring to justice the perpetratorsof criminal acts’. The SACB undertook to monitor theCode’s implementation, and ‘to advise the donors and otherpartners to take appropriate action whenever deemednecessary, including suspension of activities’.

Responses to security incidents ranged from collectivedenouncements by the SACB to the imposition of banson assistance by SACB members to a particular area.However, as time went on deciding when conditions hadchanged such that a ban could be lifted became increasinglycontentious. Since the SACB has never had a unified systemfor gathering security information or managing theresponse, the range of sources has been wide, includingUN security officers, donors’ security personnel and NGOworkers. This has provided fertile ground for debate overthe security situation on the ground. The emphasis oncollective decision-making and the donors’ dominationof the SACB’s Executive Committee gave donors thegreatest sway over how humanitarian agencies shouldrespond to security conditions. Donors were ready tochange their assessments of the security situation in orderto ensure that, for political reasons, aid reached certainparts of the country (Reindorp, 2002). One donor, forinstance, enforced a ban on aid to one area by refusing toallow aid agency personnel onto its flights. Crucially, neitherNGOs nor UN agencies were fundamentally opposed todonors’ involvement in decisions to do with security; rather,donors are seen to have a key role to play in sustaining aframework of consent for humanitarian action. It is howdonors were involved – apparently overlaying humanitarianagencies’ assessments with their own political concerns –that has provoked concern. The lack of a robust andimpartial mechanism for gathering and analysingintelligence, combined with the lack of consultation withoperational agencies, was seen by agencies to compromisethe legitimacy of donors’ applying de facto conditionalityon humanitarian aid.

In Afghanistan, there were similar concerns about donors’use of security issues as a form of political conditionalityon aid. In 1998, DFID decided to withdraw funding fromNGOs fielding expatriates in Afghanistan. The movefollowed the killing of a UNSMA staff member in Kabulin August 1998, the day after US missile attacks on Khostin eastern Afghanistan. While some of DFID’s partneragencies withdrew their expatriate staff, the majorinternational NGOs did not, and sought alternative sourcesof funding to maintain their programmes.17 Throughoutthis period, guarantees of security for humanitarian

personnel became central to discussions between the UNand the Taliban, both in Kabul and elsewhere (Johnson andLeslie, 2002). In the wake of 11 September, donorsassociated with the US-led ‘coalition’ appear to havebecome much more tolerant of security risks, despite thefact that the security situation for agencies has in factdeteriorated. The impartial provision of assistance was alsojeopardised as donors imposed conditions on aid in aneffort to isolate the Taliban.

Political factors may also influence assessments of need.Different assessments among donors and aid agenciesabout the severity of food needs in Gedo, Somalia inNovember 2001 are one example of the potential forsuch politicisation. In early 2001, assessments by WFPand a number of NGOs suggested that there was goingto be a food crisis in the area. This failed to convince theSACB Executive Committee of the urgency of thesituation and the need for action. However, following anassessment involving WFP and the EC in October 2001,and a bulletin from the EU-funded Food SecurityAssessment Unit (FSAU) stating that food aid needs wouldexceed the levels envisaged by the WFP and NGOs, theSACB Executive Committee members appeared to revisetheir view. The EC explained this shift as due to‘methodological differences’, but the fact that the FSAUmethodology relies on subjective as well as technicalassessment suggests that the EU was influencing themeasurement of need.18

3.5 Donor coordination andinternational organisations: enhancedcoherence or the bilateralisation ofmultilateralism?

In addition to increased donor presence at field level, thepast decade has also seen important innovations in howdonors are seeking to shape international humanitarianpolicy. Donors have always sought to do this, throughfunding patterns, participation in global governance, andthrough bilateral dialogue with their key partners. In recentyears, however, the mechanisms through which donors seekto establish and sustain dialogue with their multilateralpartners have become more formalised, and have soughtto foster inter-donor coordination.

One important way in which donors have sought to dothis is through the establishment of ‘Friends’ groups. Theseseek to bring interested donors together on a regular basisto discuss key issues of concern to particular organisations,usually with representatives of the relevant organisation

17 DFID’s funding of ICRC, which fielded expatriate staff throughoutthis period, does not seem to have been similarly affected.

18 This episode is linked to wider tensions between donors andagencies regarding food aid in Somalia generally. The EC opposesfood aid, believing that other interventions can support foodsecurity more effectively. The US, and its principal implementersof food aid, CARE and WFP, are more supportive.

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present. One of the first such groups, the Donor SupportGroup (DSG), appears to have been formed by governmentdonors to the ICRC in 1996–97. The group seems to havebeen established as an advisory body to counter donorconcerns over their lack of access to the ICRC’s governingbodies, and hence to decision-making (Wiles et al., 2002).The group, which comprises the 13 largest donors to ICRC,meets annually, and acts as a forum for dialogue with andsupport to the ICRC.19 In addition, it undertakes two fieldvisits each year. In common with other similar forums, thereare no terms of reference, and no formal statements ordecisions are made. Rather, the tone tends to be informal,with an emphasis on lesson learning and exchangingexperience on key issues. Topics of discussion have includedissues such as coordination, exit/transition strategies, the RedCross and Red Crescent Movement, human resources, thedevelopment of management systems, cost effectiveness,evaluations and lesson learning. Interestingly, protection,which many would see as at the core of ICRC’s mandate,appears to have attracted less attention. The DSG seems tohave enabled ICRC to maintain a unified reporting systemto its donors, and to resist demands from some donors foradditional, specific reports (Wiles et al., 2002).

Within the UN, similar groups have emerged for OCHA,UNICEF and UNHCR. They too are informal, and appearto lack precise rules about purpose, conduct, compositionor accountability. They are also small; the ‘Friends ofUNHCR’, for example, is limited to the agency’s seventop donors. Interviewees for this study suggested that the‘Friends of OCHA’ group – now called the Working Groupon OCHA – was established by a group of Europeandonors in response to pressure for UNHCR to becomethe lead coordination agency. These donors includedDenmark, the UK, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden andGermany. Thus, the group was established as a way ofstrengthening OCHA’s position as the coordinating bodywithin the UN. It now meets annually, though it convenesmore frequently at working level. With the ‘Friends of ’groups for UNICEF and UNHCR, interviewees suggestedthat they were established in part to address widespreadfrustration about the formal governance mechanisms ofthese agencies, as well as to provide more coherent donorinput into the development of the organisations. In thecase of UNHCR, the formation of this group appears tohave met with a mixed reception, and even a degree ofresistance. In autumn 2001, when the research for this studywas conducted, the group remained very informal, andeven lacked a clear name.20

What emerges from even a superficial analysis of thesedifferent groups is that they differ significantly from one tothe other, reflecting not only donors’ own agendas, but alsothe ability of particular organisations to define the terms onwhich they wish to engage with official donors. Thus, forexample, ICRC has used the DSG as a means of managingdonors’ increased demands for accountability, while alsounderscoring its independence. For OCHA, its group appearsin part to have provided at least one mechanism to achievepolicy guidance, given the absence of a formal governancebody. By contrast, UNHCR, particularly under HighCommissioner Sadako Ogata, appears to have been relativelyresistant to such a group, seeing it as a threat both to itsformal governance mechanisms and to its ability to negotiatebilaterally with selected donors.

Friends’ groups have become popular with donors partlybecause, despite attempts at reform, governing boards are seenas too unwieldy and formal to allow for effective dialogue,scrutiny or direction. Interviewees from many donor bodiescomplained about the need to submit formal requests to speakin advance, and difficulties in getting information on particularactions. Some interviewees for this study also raised concernsover alleged obfuscation by UN agencies, making it difficultfor donors to hold to them to account. The Halperin Reportnotes that the governing boards of the UN’s humanitarianagencies are too large and formal to take quick and decisiveaction (US government, 2000). This means that the informalityof the ‘Friends of ’ groups is particularly attractive, and is oftencited as a key aspect of their value. Indeed, as OCHA’s grouphas become larger and more formal, some members havecomplained that discussion has become more superficial, andthe group less useful.

On the whole, donors view these smaller, more informalgroupings among peers as a positive development. Donorsargue that they make it easier to get information on theirparticular concerns, enable a shared view on particular issuesand make funding for the agency in question morepredictable. In this sense, the emergence of these groupsmirrors the shift to policy coordination in development aid.However, there is inconsistent evidence as to how substantiveor demanding discussions are within these groups. This maydepend partly upon membership; for instance, the New York-based Humanitarian Liaison Working Group (HLWG), aninformal point of contact for UN donor governments,involves diplomatic staff without the expertise that wouldallow real scrutiny of OCHA. Although some participantsargue that the HLWG is a forum for policy discussion, otherssay that it is solely a forum for briefing and informationexchange. Nor is it clear what impact these groups reallyhave in coordinating donor behaviour, or in putting morepressure on UN institutions to coordinate with one another.The primary strength of these groups appears to be as aforum for briefing and the exchange of ideas, rather than asa mechanism for coordination in terms of joint responses,resource allocation, shared policies and consistentlycomplementary practices from different donors. Nonetheless,their emergence does suggest that donors are interested in

19 This group comprises Australia, Canada, Denmark, ECHO,Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden,Switzerland, the UK and the US. These countries each donateover CHF10m ($7m) annually.20 It is perhaps significant that one major donor sought to call thegroup the ‘High Commissioner’s Special Group on Policy’, a labellikely to be resisted by many, including the major host countries,who perceive that their contribution to refugee welfare remainsunrecognised by the major aid donors.

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at least the minimal coordination activities of sharinginformation and perspectives on the organisations inquestion.

3.6 Coordination among donors: theweakest link?

The analysis so far has focused on donor relationships with‘third party’ coordinators, such as the UN, as well as newinstitutions for interaction such as the ‘Friends of ’ groups.However, coordination between donors may in fact be theweakest aspect of the coordination of humanitarianresponse. This was true of the Afghanistan and Somaliacase studies. More generally, although levels of interactionamong donors concerned with humanitarian response arerelatively high, examples of good coordination are hard tofind. Evaluations paint a picture of consistently poorcoordination among the major European donors.

In the EU, humanitarian coordination is described as weak,among EU members, within the EC, and betweenheadquarters and the field (EC, 1999). The recent evaluationof ECHO’s work notes, for example, that ‘Half of theevaluations refer to the lack of coordination betweendonors and only 5% refer to good coordination’. TheHumanitarian Aid Committee, which brings togetherECHO and the 15 Member States of the EU, is seen by allsides as little more than a rubber-stamp for ECHO’s GlobalPlans. Information is described as flowing in one direction:from the Commission to the Member States (EC, 1997;EC, 1999). Representatives on the HAC tend to berelatively junior, and have little contact with other policymechanisms such as the CFSP, further complicatingcoordination (Brusset and Tiberghien, 2002).

The UK has no stated policy on aid coordination, thoughthe 1997 White Paper on development stated that theBritish government should increase its impact byinfluencing others. Officials report that DFID is puttinggreater effort into persuading counterparts in othercountries to work towards common objectives, particularlyaround the Millennium Development Goals. DFID seemsto be increasingly keen to convene ad hoc meetings ofdonors, often to discuss DFID proposals, and this is seen asa key source of influence. DFID has the capacity to developdetailed policy in ways that smaller donors cannot, andthe personal dynamism of Clare Short, the Secretary ofState, was also cited as another important source ofinfluence. However, despite this apparent focus on thepolicies of others, interviewees from DFID and elsewheresuggested that DFID seeks coordination around specifictasks and objectives, in particular the MDGs, rather thanin relation to particular mandates.21

The US government’s capacity for coordination with otherdonors is hampered both by Washington’s well-knownambivalence towards multilateral cooperation, and by theinstitutional architecture of official US aid. Coordinationproblems are thus external, in terms of working with others,and internal, to do with relations between the variousbureaux involved in humanitarian policy-making andresponse. At the end of 1999, for instance, State Departmenthumanitarian assistance for Afghanistan came from severalbureaux: Political–Military Affairs (for demining);International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (forcounter-narcotics activities); International Organisations(to support OCHA); Democracy, Human Rights andLabor; and the President’s Interagency Council on Women.Assistance for conflict victims inside Afghanistan waschannelled through ICRC.

Then Secretary of State Madeline Albright’s decision tocommission a review of US humanitarian policy was drivenby coordination concerns, and the resulting HalperinReport is a lucid description of the challenges that the USfaces in coordinating internally between its respectiveoffices and departments. According to the report, theabsence of ‘a unified, empowered humanitarian leadershipstructure made it difficult to resolve disputes, ensure policyconsistency and guard against unilateral decisions’ (USgovernment, 2000). The report also suggests that bifurcatedfunding weakens the US government’s influence ondecision-making among other donors, and may encouragepartners to play agencies off against each other.22 In itscase study on Afghanistan, the Halperin Report states that‘most of the assistance community generally views PRMand AID as two separate donors with different prioritiesand procedures … at times this may make it appear as if[the US government] has no strategy or single policy inthe country’ (US government, 2000). These internalproblems make it difficult for the US to exert the level ofinfluence that might be expected given its status as themajor donor of humanitarian aid.

That is not to say that there are no examples of coordinationwith other donors. One of the most cited has been theefforts of OFDA and ECHO to strengthen theircollaboration with biannual meetings (although one USofficial described ECHO’s decision-making as ‘covert’,suggesting that some ingredients of effective cooperationare missing). OFDA staff are encouraged to pass throughBrussels whenever they can. However, the internalchallenges the US faces suggest that it will continue tostruggle with coordination mechanisms.

Denmark has demonstrated its commitment tocoordination through its staunch support for DHA andOCHA. As a donor with a small bureaucracy and limited

21 Horton (2002) notes that DFID’s attempts to ensure that WHO’sobjectives were in line with the MDGs risked compromising othercore aspects of WHO’s mandate, including the definition ofinternational standards for the diagnosis and treatment of disease.

22 Stoddard (2002) notes that NGO interviewees were hostile to aunified aid administration as this could reduce their fundingopportunities.

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numbers of staff concerned with humanitarian aid on theground, Denmark has delegated coordination to the UN.Danish officials note that their interactions with UNagencies have been mostly focused at a policy level, andstate that Danida needs to focus more at the country levelwhere there is a policy-implementation gap. Danish officialsreported that they follow and learn from DFID policy,such as the ISPs guiding relations with UN multilateralagencies. Denmark is also following the UK in puttingmore emphasis on establishing alliances with like-mindeddonors.

3.7 Conclusion

This chapter explores the extent, nature and impact of thechanging involvement of donor governments in thecoordination of humanitarian operations. The majorinnovations in humanitarian coordination over the pastdecade have been the ERC, the IASC and the formationof DHA and OCHA, even if the nature and level of supportfrom donors for these mechanisms has made it difficult forthem to deliver coordinated responses. The creation ofECHO and its deployment of field personnel have shiftedthe balance of power in the humanitarian system, whilefunding for coordination among NGOs has increased.

At field level, the evidence suggests that bodies such as theSACB and the ASG are peculiar to their circumstances,not least because of their cost in time and human resources.Perversely, in the case of Somalia, the SACB has militatedagainst donors sitting together to work out what they cancoordinate on, and what they cannot. Among the factorshere have been the size of the SACB, and some suggestiontoo that its formality inhibits frank discussion. The highlyroutinised nature of the SACB, while on one hand a benefitbecause it brings predictability and allows relationships toform, can on the other discourage participants from doingthe necessary preparation and investment that a more adhoc/irregular forum may provoke. In coordination, one hasto guard against regularity and formality breedingcontempt.

The involvement of donors in coordination at field levelis welcomed, even sought, by other actors operating insituations of chronic political crisis. However, donors havenot engaged in an optimum way. In neither Somalia norAfghanistan was donor involvement in coordinationstructures linked to a political strategy to manage conflict;rather, the intensity of involvement and the complexity ofthe architecture that developed masked the lack of such astrategy. At the same time, donors were clearly seeking toscrutinise and influence humanitarian aid and action. Thus,for example, donors in both the ASG and the SACB exertedinfluence over aid through a highly political analysis ofsecurity. However, this does not necessarily imply that suchinfluence could not have been brought to bear in theabsence of a coordination structure, nor is it clear thatthese structures undermined the UN any more than is

apparent elsewhere. Major donors to Afghanistan assert that,if they wish to influence the aid effort, they do not have touse coordination structures to do so. Unilateral decisionson aid allocation and provision can be just as effective.

At headquarters, there is increasing awareness that thenature of the coordination challenge is becoming morecomplex. However, coordination architectures andtechnologies are rarely up to the task. The most that canbe said is that there is some evidence of increased interestamong donors for greater policy discussion, if notcoordination, through informal and ad hoc mechanisms.This study was not systematic in its consideration ofrelations between civilian and military bodies, nor in itsexamination of cross-departmental and inter-ministerialcoordination within governments, yet it is clear that thereare weaknesses in both areas. These will become increasinglyimportant as new actors seek a role in humanitarianresponse.

Donors still see the UN as the default coordinationstructure, while still also doubting its ability to do this jobwell. Yet concerns about the UN’s performance do notseem sufficient to encourage systematic efforts to tacklethe organisation’s weaknesses. There is perhaps a keenersense of where the UN’s comparative advantage lies. In itscapacity to handle ‘sudden, large volumes of financial andother donations from the public’ (US government, 2000:19), its global presence, its coordination capacity and itseconomies of scale, the UN is largely unrivalled. Evendonor personnel keen to support NGOs concede that theydo not have the logistics capacity and global reach of UNagencies. Although the consolidation of NGOs into largeconfederations is a potentially major shift in the landscapeof humanitarian coordination, present evidence suggeststhat coordinating between the various elements of thesenew ‘families’ may in fact pose more problems than externalcoordination. Such conglomerates are not yet a reliablealternative to larger multilateral agencies, and give littlesign that they are keen to adopt a broader coordinatingrole. The response to Afghanistan after 11 September wasfurther proof that donor governments need channels todisburse large volumes of assistance rapidly. US intervieweesreferred in particular to the WFP’s logistics capabilities.

While the great majority of this study’s interviewees stressedthat the UN retains pre-eminent responsibility forcoordination, this position is not unchallenged, and theEC appears to be interested in taking a more active role,potentially in competition with the UN. In some settings,ECHO appears poised to challenge the UN’s monopolyon coordination (Reindorp and Wiles, 2001; Mowjee andMacrae, 2002; Brusset and Tiberghien, 2002). While therecent communication between the EC and the UNprovides a much stronger basis for coordination andcollaboration between the EC and the UN (Commissionof the European Communities, 2001), an EC report of1997 concludes that the lack of an overall policy in thisarea has meant that collaboration has been unstable, with

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different principles being applied at different times (EC,1997). This has given ECHO personnel a free rein tosupervene. The fact that ECHO does not contribute toCAPs only increases tensions.

For the future, all the signs are that the humanitarian ‘system’will remain dependent on the UN, but donors are largelypessimistic about the organisation’s ability to reform itself,particularly through Executive Boards. This suggests thatdonors are likely to continue to try to influence multilateralsthrough other means. Ostensibly, ‘Friends of ’ groups arethe first attempt by donors to scrutinise the performanceof UN agencies in a more coordinated way. They alsoindicate donors’ shared interest in exerting greater influence,although the extent to which these groups in themselvesallow for this is open to question. Arguably, this capacityfor influence is already available to the small group ofdonors that fund UN agencies. The top 15 donors toUNHCR, for example, provide over 90% of the agency’sfunding, and around 80% of funds are earmarked for specificpurposes. This leaves UNHCR susceptible to donors’opinions, priorities and prejudices, with or without a‘Friends of ’ group.

Although the donor personnel interviewed for this studydisagreed about the extent to which the ‘Friends of ’ groupsallow donors to bypass the governance mechanisms ofExecutive Boards, they could potentially bring donorscloser to the policy-making process. However, while thesegroups appear more amenable to donor governments thando formal governance structures, it appears that donorsare inconsistent in their use of them to coordinate on thedetails of what they expect from a particular organisation.In as much as they apply pressure to UN agencies toimprove their coordination performance, and this pressureis applied to all UN agencies, these groups could have apositive benefit. If UN agencies use them as a forum topress donors to improve coordination among themselves,and to develop their policy and practice in ways thatenhance the delivery of humanitarian assistance andprotection, they are useful. These groups perhaps bestexemplify the tensions between donors’ concern to improvethe performance of UN agencies, and the risk that thiswill allow a handful of governments undue influence overthe multilateral system. It remains to be seen whether thesegroups afford donors sufficient influence that they dispense

with earmarking as their preferred tool of control. Overall,donor enthusiasm for informal coordination may be apositive development in as much as it delivers greatercoordination than more formal mechanisms. Where suchad hoc fora foster greater clarity on how donors cancomplement each other, this is to be welcomed. Yet theseinformal groupings may also reinforce problems aroundthe weak accountability of donors. In groupings such asthe ASG, where terms of reference were never laid out,donors can evade responsibility for their inaction or poorcoordination.

A number of factors are driving these changes in the waydonors approach coordination. Alongside a professionalconcern with quality, civil servants in donor countries arealso under pressure to ensure that their work is visible tokey constituencies, including the general population indonor states, interest groups and politicians. This increasedvisibility, amplified by the media, exerts contradictorypressures on coordination. Whilst theoretically theheightened profile of humanitarian action should increasethe pressure for greater coordination, in practice thisincreased visibility seems to have led to greater competitionwithin the sector, including among donors and betweendonors and their operational partners.

Donors are in the strongest position to demandcoordination from others and ensure coordination betweenthemselves. Yet despite an increasingly formalisedcommitment to inter-donor coordination, they do notappear to have enhanced coordination significantly eitherat field level or globally. Coordination is clearly difficultgiven that governments are dealing with the divergentdemands of domestic constituencies. There is a wealth oftheoretical and experimental work that reveals whycoordination among donors can be difficult.23 The absenceof explicit strategies for humanitarian coordination on thepart of donors makes for a poor start. So too does theabsence of any global strategy, similar to that which existsin relation to development coordination in the shape ofthe DAC, and through country-based mechanisms such asConsultative Groups and Round Tables. Thus, while therehave been small steps towards establishing more policy-based approaches to humanitarian action, as yet the systemsrequired to make this concrete in a coherent strategy remainelusive.

23 See, for example, Hackett, Dudley and Walker (1997) on howdifferential capabilities impair cooperation; and Eriksson (1999)on how coordination is complicated by non-aid concerns, suchas donor commercial interests.

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4.1 Introduction

Most Western donor government agencies are strongsupporters of the var ious initiatives to strengthenaccountability within the international humanitarian aidsystem in the last six to seven years. This growing interestin accountability and value for money in theirimplementing partners has been one of the major driverstowards the apparent bilateralisation of donor funds. Intheory at least, it should be easier to hold implementingpartners to account if funds are clearly earmarked forparticular programmes. And it has long been held that it iseasier to hold NGOs to account than large complex UNagencies – hence the trend amongst some donors toincrease the proportion of aid channelled through NGOs.Yet for all this concern with accountability, how donors areheld to account has been overlooked. Instead, the focushas either been on strengthening operational agencies’upward accountability to their funders, or their downwardaccountability to their beneficiaries.

This chapter explores the complex question of donoraccountability. It begins by setting out a framework foraccountability, and reviewing key trends in public sectormanagement relevant to the management of official aidprogrammes. Section 2 describes the main stakeholders inthe humanitar ian assistance provided by donor

governments, and identifies some inherent problems inholding actors within the system to account. The followingsections review the various accountability mechanisms thatapply to donor agencies. The formal mechanisms for holdingeach donor agency to account operate mainly ‘upwards’,principally to parliament (including the scrutiny of thenational audit office) and to the wider government, includingthe treasury/ministry of finance. Internal bureaucratic meansof promoting accountability within donor agencies arereviewed, as well as the more powerful forms of informalaccountability: the role of the media, of NGOs and ofacademia. Finally, conclusions are drawn about where thereare gaps and weaknesses in the current accountabilitystructures and mechanisms. A number of recommendationsare made, with the intention of improving the accountabilityand overall performance of the humanitarian assistancepolicies and programmes of donor agencies. Theserecommendations take into account the potential tensionbetween ever-tighter accountability mechanisms and thekind of flexibility that may be critical to the overalleffectiveness of humanitarian assistance policies andprogrammes. Hence, it is important to distinguish betweendifferent levels of accountability and their associatedmechanisms. This is explored further in the next section.

Donor accountability is a complicated issue because ofthe range of domestic and international political and policy

Chapter 4Donors and accountability

Table 4.1: Key features of DFID, Danida and CIDA

Features DFID Danida CIDA

Status of the department Independent ministry. Part of the Ministry of Subordinate to theSecretary of State for Foreign Affairs (MFA) Department for ForeignInternational Affairs and InternationalDevelopment has Trade (DFAIT)cabinet status

Size of humanitarian aid Approx. £200m Approx. DKK850m Approx. $90mbudget ($310m) per year ($110m) per year (Canadian) (US$60m) per year

Humanitarian aid as a Approx. 10% Just under 10% Approx. 7–8%percentage of total aid

Extent to which Operation Response Not at all Recent and very limited.operational Team run by a private Small Emergency

contractor, has expanded Response Unitsignificantly over the established in 2001,past decade administered by

Canadian Red Cross,principally for needsassessment anddesigning a responsestrategy

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environments that government aid departments operatein. Although they are key actors in the internationalhumanitarian system, these departments are first andforemost components of a domestic government system.Hence, they are primarily accountable to their nationalelectorates and domestic taxpayers, and it is here thataccountability mechanisms are clearest and mostformalised. But humanitarian assistance is rarely just theconcern of a government’s aid department. Otherministries are often involved, and humanitarian aidprogramming is often closely linked with a government’sbroader objectives and policy. In addition, a wide rangeof other stakeholders are engaged in one way or another,from affected populations to multilateral organisations,the media and business.

This chapter is based on case studies of three donoragencies: DFID, Danida in Denmark and the CanadianInternational Development Agency (CIDA). Each hasdistinct character istics. For example, DFID is anindependent ministry, whereas both CIDA and Danidaare part of their respective ministries of foreign affairs.CIDA and Danida are traditionally regarded as strongsupporters of multilateralism, whereas DFID has adopteda more mixed and sometimes ambivalent approach tothe UN (see Chapter 2). DFID has developed its ownoperational capacity, while CIDA and Danida are entirelydependent on NGOs, the Red Cross and UN agenciesfor operational capacity. Yet there are also common threads;all three, for example, are concerned about the visibilityof their aid programmes; in all three, there is evidence ofincreasing bilateralisation of their aid spending, albeit froma different base; and all three have supported keyaccountability initiatives within the humanitarian aidsector.

4.2 Accountability and governmentagencies

4.2.1 Definitions and types of accountability

There are many definitions and types of accountability.For some, accountability is the basic process ofaccounting for one’s actions. For others, beingaccountable means being held responsible for one’sactions. For the purposes of analysing the accountabilityof donors, accountability can be described as havingfour main components:

● agreement of clear roles and responsibilities of theorganisation and its personnel;

● taking action for which an organisation is responsible;

● reporting on and accounting for those actions; and

● responding to and complying with agreed standardsof performance and the views and needs of stakeholders(Raynard, 2000).

For governments, five main types of accountability operate,each of which is associated with a distinct set of accountingmechanisms.1

i) Political/strategic accountabilityPolitical or ‘strategic’ accountability relates principally tomembers of the executive charged with defining andcarrying out policy, who are obliged to explain theirpolicies and actions to the electorate and takeresponsibility for them. The executive/ministers thereforehave responsibility for macro-policy objectives and overallresource allocation.

ii) Legal accountabilityGovernments and their ministers are accountable fortheir policies and actions to their national courts of law,and to any relevant supranational court of law, such asthe European Court of Justice. Legal accountability isonly effective where government policy and action iscircumscr ibed by relevant and sufficiently clearlegislation.

iii) Managerial accountabilityGovernment departments are charged with implementingthe government’s macro-policy objectives, subject toallocated resources. Civil servants are accountable to thesenior civil service and to the minister concerned forachieving delegated targets and objectives for the use ofresources, including negotiating and managing contractswith service providers.

iv) Financial accountabilityThe financial accountability of government departmentsis separate from managerial accountability, but closely linkedto it. It includes the accountability of civil servants for theregularity, effectiveness and efficiency with which publicresources are managed and used in the implementation ofpolicy.

v) Contractual accountabilityGovernment departments increasingly delegate or sub-contract the delivery of public services to agencies and/orindependent organisations, including non-governmentalorganisations. These agencies are accountable for providingservices to clients in accordance with contractual termsagreed with the department concerned.

4.2.2 The changing face of the public sector

Democratically elected governments are arguably themost accountable of bodies. They enter office throughan election; they are meant to adhere to the promisesmade in their manifestos; their policies and actions areopen to challenge and scrutiny by opposition parties,upper houses and committees; and they have to go back

1 These five categories of accountability draw on a typologyoutlined in Glynn and Murphy (1996).

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to the electorate periodically to be judged on theirperformance. No private or non-profit sector organisationhas to suffer such public scrutiny. Yet ironically, theexperience and practice of private organisations isinforming the accountability of the public sector; thelanguage of efficiency and effectiveness, quality controland value for money has become part and parcel of howthe public sector goes about its ‘business’.

As described in Chapter 2, the ‘New Public SectorManagement’ has its roots in the seismic changes thattook place during the 1980s as a result of the neo-liberalpolicies of many Western governments, notably those ofUS President Ronald Reagan and British Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher. The belief that the public sector wasfailing to deliver the required services led to a fundamentalshift in the role of the state, from provider to facilitatorand regulator (Humphrey et al., 1993; Power, 1994;Barberis, 1998). New forms of organisation sprang up;so-called ‘quangos’ (quasi non-governmentalorganisations) took over welfare provision; the privatesector assumed greater prominence, not only with theprivatisation of public utilities but also through privatecontracting, both to NGOs and private agencies. Thisgrowing reliance on unelected bodies to carry outregulatory and service functions once reserved for thestate gave rise to criticism about their non-democraticnature, ‘not least because many of these bodies are nowstaffed with government-approved individuals where theirfunctions were once performed by elected localgovernment officials’ (Humphrey et al., 1993). In addition,the new enterpr ise culture saw a new dr ive formeasurement, reporting and accountability, and theintroduction of new financial and economic criteria forassessing the performance of the public sector.

4.2.3 The ministerial model of democracy

One of the problems for accountability is that the basicmodel of democracy has not changed with these changesin the role of the state. Parliament is the ultimateinstitution for the accountability of any department ofthe executive. It is here that the laws and policiesformulated by the executive within its departments aredebated and enacted, and where a government isaccountable to its public. The basis for the governanceand therefore accountability of the executive is theministerial model of government, which has a long historyin each of the countries looked at for this study. Membersof the executive are charged with defining policy, andare obliged to explain their policies and actions to theelectorate and take responsibility for them. Ministerstherefore maintain responsibility for macro-policyobjectives and overall resource allocation. Eachdepartment, in turn, is responsible for implementing aparticular area of government policy, and the ministerand department are accountable to parliament. Rush(2000) identifies two forms of ministerial responsibility,

collective and individual, and notes that ‘the ultimatesanction in both cases is the forced resignation of thegovernment as a whole or of an individual ministerrespectively’.

One of the key weaknesses in the ministerial model isuncertainty over where and how the lines should bedrawn between ministerial responsibility (understood interms of potential blame or credit) and ministerialaccountability (interpreted in terms of explanation andclarification). Should a minister be required, not onlyto provide an account of particular policies or activities,but also to take full responsibility for them? For example,if the government is disbursing funds to multilateralbodies which are ineffective or inefficient, does theresponsibility lie with the executive for the misuse oftaxpayers’ money, or must ministers only provide anaccount?

4.3 Accountability within theinternational humanitarian system:key trends and challenges

Problems of accountability are especially acute in thehumanitarian sphere. There are a number of reasons forthis, including the variety of stakeholders involved; the typesof situation in which humanitarian agencies work; the wayin which the humanitarian system operates; and thechanging objectives governments have attached tohumanitarian assistance.

The various stakeholders to which a donor may be directlyor indirectly accountable are spread throughout the world,and may be in fast-changing conflict zones or areas ofnatural disaster where local institutions are weak or non-existent. These stakeholders include:

● affected populations;

● the national authorities, including parliament: membersof parliament, select committees, oppositionspokespersons and other government departments inaffected countries;

● operational humanitarian and development agencies:NGOs and multilateral organisations;

● other donor governments;

● Southern and ‘recipient’ governments and stateinstitutions;

● the domestic public (taxpayer and electorate);

● the media;

● academia; and

● business.

Populations affected by humanitarian crises are clearly theprimary stakeholders. However, they are also the weakest– often physically, nearly always politically. The links

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between donor government agencies and the potential oractual beneficiaries of their humanitarian assistance are atbest tenuous, and often mediated by the donor’soperational partners. This highlights the obvious butimportant difference between accountability mechanismsapplied to ministries that have a principally domesticfunction (for example, health and education), and thoseapplied to ministries or departments for internationaldevelopment and assistance. In the latter case, the mostimportant stakeholders are not part of the electorate, donot usually have access to the national parliament of thedonor government, and are therefore represented by proxy,often by international NGOs, and to some extent by themedia. As one official interviewed for this study put it,‘The Treasury should be quite worried about the factthat there is absolutely no customer “test” when it comesto humanitarian aid’.

At the centre of an emergency – whether caused bynatural disaster or by conflict – the ‘normal’ localaccountability mechanisms associated with the judiciary,democratic processes and even the media may besuspended, damaged or ineffective (Borton, 2001). In someconflict situations, such as Somalia and the easternDemocratic Republic of Congo, there is no formal stateauthority at all, or a very weak state. The accountabilitymechanisms that would normally exist betweeninternational aid agencies and the government of therecipient country are absent. Therefore, the only way inwhich humanitarian aid agencies are usually held toaccount tends to be functional and upwards, accountingfor the financial resources provided by the respectivedonor agency.

Obstacles to effective accountability also stem fromfundamental character istics of the internationalhumanitarian system. Raynard (2000) has highlighted thegeneral lack of clearly defined responsibilities amonghumanitarian organisations, and therefore problems ofattribution. Thus, for example, if food aid is not deliveredto those in need, it may be difficult to establish whetherthis failure is the responsibility of the operational NGOon the ground, of the agency supplying the food, of thedonor agency which is supposed to provide the financialresources, of diplomats who are negotiating humanitarianaccess, or of the belligerents who have denied access. Ifresponsibilities have not been clearly defined at the outset,it is easy for one actor to lay the blame for failure at thefeet of one (or a number) of others.

This means that a systemic approach to accountability isneeded. However, there are no international structuresor mechanisms responsible for scrutinising theperformance of the system as a whole. Remarkably, therehas been only one system-wide evaluation of theinternational humanitarian response to a crisis – the multi-donor Joint Evaluation of Emergency Assistance to Rwanda

(JEEAR, 1996). Only this type and scale of evaluationcan really deal with the complex web of inter-dependentrelationships between different agencies, and tackle theproblems of attribution and the lack of clearly definedresponsibility.

The changing objectives of official humanitarianassistance also present challenges to accountability. At itssimplest, humanitarian assistance is about meetingimmediate life-saving needs with material help in theform of medical care, and resources such as food, shelterand water. During the 1990s, however, the aims ofhumanitar ian aid became much more complex.Humanitar ian assistance is now also expected tocontribute to longer-term developmental needs, or topeace-building and conflict reduction. As a consequence,aid has been withheld or disbursed selectively in areas orcountries controlled by political or military groups orregimes deemed unacceptable to donors. Thus, the goalof humanitarian aid has become blurred. Without cleargoals, it is all the more difficult to develop and agreeappropriate criteria against which donors and otheragencies can be held to account.

4.3.1 The drivers for change within thehumanitarian system

Since the mid-1990s, this ‘accountability vacuum’ hasattracted considerable attention. Poor performance andthe political and moral dilemmas faced by humanitarianaid organisations gained particular prominence duringthe Rwanda crisis from 1994 to 1996. High-profile mediacoverage raised fundamental questions about howinternational humanitarian aid was organised, andconcerns about the lack of accountability of aid agencies,especially NGOs, have persisted. This criticism has beena powerful external driver for aid agencies – especiallyNGOs – to improve their performance, particularly totighten up their own lines of accountability.

The second factor dr iving change has been theexponential growth in the NGO sector. In Rwanda,over 200 NGOs were active at the height of theinternational response; in Kosovo in 1999–2000, therewere over 300. As small and relatively inexperiencedNGOs have become involved in emergencies, establishedand experienced agencies have become concerned tomaintain, or in some cases establish, technical standardsto ensure a sufficiently high quality of interventions,and thus to promote a greater degree of professionalism.Linked to this is a fear that, unless humanitarian agenciesimprove their performance and strengthen theiraccountability, regulation will be imposed on them fromthe outside. This combination of factors has given riseto a number of ‘accountability initiatives’, summarisedin Table 4.2.

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Initiative Date Origin Key features

Code of Conduct for the 1994 Formulated by the IFRC States basic principlesInternational Red Cross and other NGO and standards ofand Red Crescent representatives behaviour. Hundreds ofMovement and NGOs in signatoriesDisaster Relief

Sphere Project Started in 1996. Developed by a Provides a HumanitarianHumanitarian Charter coalition of European Charter. Sets minimumand Minimum Standards and US NGOs standards and keypublished in 2000 indicators for disaster

assistance in fivesectors. Currently underevaluation

People in Aid Started in 1996. People Established by a group Sets standards for thein Aid Code of Best of UK organisations management andPractice published in support of aid personnel.1997 Verified by social audit

of signatory agencies

ALNAP 1997 Supported by a wide Inter-agency forum torange of agencies link different initiatives(donors, UN, NGOs, on learning andRed Cross movement accountability, and toetc), and hosted by ODI undertake

complementaryactivities

Humanitarian 1997 Concept developed by a Explored how aOmbudsman group of UK Humanitarian

organisations Ombudsman might actas an impartial andindependent voice forpeople affected byemergencies

Humanitarian 2000 Developed out of the Dedicated to improvingAccountability Project Humanitarian accountability within the

Ombudsman, to become humanitarian sector,an international project initially through abased in Geneva programme of action-

research

Quality Platform 2000 Developed by French Designed to raiseNGOs awareness that there is

disagreement overSphere, and to explorealternative approaches

Country-specific codes Periodic, from mid- Usually drawing on Usually to ensure1990s onwards, for 1994 Code of Conduct humanitarianexample in Liberia, organisations areDRC and Sierra Leone working to the same

principles, and to guidebehaviour. Occasionallyto secure agreement ofwarring parties tostandards and principles

Table 4.2: Accountability and quality initiatives in humanitarian assistance

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Although the need to strengthen accountability hasmotivated many of these initiatives, strictly speaking mostare concerned with improving quality and performancein the delivery of humanitarian assistance. With oneexception – the People in Aid Code – there are no agreedmechanisms for monitoring compliance with any of thesecodes and standards, nor for sanctioning those who breachthem.

Most of these initiatives have been developed by NGOs.NGOs have also been most active in implementing them,albeit amidst considerable controversy in the case of Sphere(Terry, 2000). UN agencies have been slower to getinvolved, except perhaps in some country-specific codesand the Active Learning Network for Accountability andPerformance (ALNAP). Donor agencies have been verysupportive of these initiatives, particularly the Sphereproject; many have provided funding, and some, like CIDA,offer to fund training in Sphere for their implementingpartners. Although few of these standards are regarded asdefinitive and their acceptance and institutionalisationwithin the humanitarian aid system is still at an early stage,donors increasingly expect their implementing partnersto abide by them. However, there has been little thinkingabout what standards such as Sphere could mean for donorsthemselves. In theory, donors could be held to accountagainst these same standards, at least in terms of thesystematic monitoring of, and accounting for, the standardsachieved by their operational partner organisations and intheir own operational activities.

4.3.2 Principles and laws

Raynard has argued that:

For those involved in humanitarian assistance the bottomline is all about values, as expounded in humanitarianprinciples and law. This seems to be a fundamentalfoundation on which to drive accountability inhumanitarian assistance; this set of powerful values canallow one to develop accountability systems based uponthe principles of humanitarianism (Raynard, 2000).

Humanitarian values are spelt out in broad terms in IHL,and all Western donor governments are signatories to IHLthrough the Geneva Conventions. However, theseConventions are primarily concerned with the conductof warfare, and therefore serve more as a check on politicalaction, to ensure that involvement in conflict and warfarerespects core humanitarian principles. The generalprinciples and values of humanitarian assistance derivedfrom international humanitarian and human rights law,including the right of humanitarian organisations toprovide assistance to non-combatants in situations ofconflict, informed a set of guiding principles forhumanitar ian action developed by the Red Crossmovement, including the impartiality, neutrality andindependence of humanitarian assistance, and these remain

a central foundation of today’s international humanitariansystem. Yet these principles and much of the body ofinternational law from which they derive are not strictlybinding on donors or other actors in the system, and thereis little consensus among humanitarian agencies aboutwhich humanitarian principles they adhere to, and whatthey mean in practice (Leader, 2000).

At national level, some countries legislate for their officialdevelopment assistance programmes, for example throughthe UK’s International Development Act of 2002, and theLaw on International Development Work in Denmark.(There is no legislated mandate for the Canadian aidprogramme.) However, humanitarian assistance is rarelyan explicit part of this national legislation. Switzerlandappears to be one of the few Western donor governmentsto have established a statutory basis for its humanitarianassistance. A federal law in 1997 states that ‘humanitarianaid is not to be used as a substitute for other instruments’,and declares a commitment to humanitarian principles(Stevenson and Macrae, 2002). In the UK, the decisionwas explicitly not to include a statutory definition ofhumanitarian assistance in the International DevelopmentAct. According to DFID, this was because ‘any definitionof humanitarian assistance in legislation would beunnecessary, and would furthermore constrain our abilityto react quickly, to respond to need, to learn from theoperation of humanitarian assistance programmes, and toreflect those lessons in future programmes’ (Stevenson andMacrae, 2002). Instead of setting out clear responsibilitiesfor humanitarian assistance, the Act specifies only that theSecretary of State for International Development ‘mayprovide any person or body with assistance for the purposeof alleviating the effects of a natural or man-made disasteror other emergency on the population of one or morecountries outside the United Kingdom’. The language ispermissive, not obligatory. In Denmark, the NAO hasdrawn attention to the lack of a legal basis for Denmark’shumanitarian assistance, and has recommended that sucha basis be incorporated into the country’s law oninternational development. The Canadian governmentestablished a National Committee on Humanitarian Lawin 1996. However, in none of the three cases looked at forthis study are there legislative criteria for holding the donoragency to account for its core strategic responsibilities forhumanitarian assistance.

As the operational realities of humanitarian assistance havebecome more complex, and the accompanying debatesmore sophisticated, so donor agencies have developed moredetailed policies and strategies for their work (see, forexample, DFID, 2000; Danida, 2002; CIDA, 2001). Theseusually make reference to IHL and to humanitarianprinciples, but are still at a general level which does littleto address the complexity of most of today’s humanitariancrises, nor the political and moral dilemmas routinely facedin providing humanitarian assistance. In 1998, DFIDannounced ten ‘Principles for a New Humanitarianism’,but the difficulty of consistently applying them in practice

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is reflected in an important caveat, to the effect thatsometimes the department:

may have to cease funding completely … where there areserious security risks or concern that any harm to staffcould lead to wider negative implications; or if it is provingimpossible to keep to humanitarian principles and deliverhelp effectively to those who need it. We seek to discuss thereasoning behind such decisions as fully as possible withthe agencies concerned. But when there are complex securityconsiderations, it is not always possible to publicly shareall the information that may be available to us (DFID,2000: 9).

In all three cases studied, the status of the relevant policydocument itself is unclear, and there is no formal processfor monitoring and reporting the donor’s adherence to itat different levels. In the UK, there has been controversyover the status of humanitarian principles within DFID’shumanitarian assistance programme, and within thegovernment’s broader humanitarian policies. The elevationof the minister responsible for international developmentto cabinet rank and the creation of DFID as a separategovernment department in 1997 took the aid portfolio –including humanitarian aid – out of the control of theForeign Secretary and the Foreign and CommonwealthOffice (FCO). However, at the same time as creating DFID,the new Labour government also started moving towardsmuch more ‘joined up’ policy-making in both domesticand international policy. This was reflected in the 1997White Paper, which signalled that the UK’s responses toconflict, political instability, poverty and humanitarianassistance would involve the deployment of diplomatic andmilitary instruments, as well as aid (DFID, 1997; see alsoMacrae and Leader, 2000). The alignment of humanitarianaid with foreign and security policies was reaffirmed byForeign Secretary Jack Straw in 2002:

where intervention is required, it has to be early and it hasto be coordinated. Diplomacy by itself is not enough.Humanitarian and development aid by itself is not enough.Military action by itself is most certainly not enough. Butbring these three together, within a clear overarching strategy,and we can far better secure and sustain the peace of theglobal community. This is the approach which we haveadopted with success in Kosovo, Macedonia, East Timor,Sierra Leone and now Afghanistan. We have to build onthis experience.2

This has raised questions about the extent to which DFID’semergency aid and other development policies might besubordinated to the government’s wider internationalpolitical objectives, despite the formal separation of theaid portfolio from the FCO. Concerns raised by a number

of NGOs about the apparent ‘politicisation’ of the UK’shumanitarian response in Sierra Leone in 1997–98 werefollowed by similar charges relating to the UK’shumanitarian policies in Afghanistan before September2001 (see IDC, 1999b; and Macrae and Leader, 2000). Thesedebates have been fuelled by an overall lack of clarity inthe parameters of core objectives and responsibilities forindividual ministers and their departments in this area. Itis noteworthy that the International Development Act of2002 does not define humanitarian assistance, nor does itdefine or limit how that assistance should be provided,with what objectives or against what criteria.

The alignment of humanitarian aid with foreign andsecurity policies is expressed by the government in termsof achieving more effective responses to complexhumanitarian and political emergencies, such as in Kosovo,East Timor, Sier ra Leone and Afghanistan. Thegovernment’s strategic accountability for its policies in thesesituations is therefore couched generally in terms of theoverall effectiveness of its diplomatic, military andhumanitarian strategies in response to specific emergencies.But this raises the problem of how to measure effectivenessat this level and against what criteria, since the effectivenessof humanitarian policies cannot be assessed against the samecriteria as political and military policies. The governmentcould succeed in its overarching aim of securing andsustaining the peace of the global community, but this doesnot say anything directly or specifically about itshumanitarian policies and their impact, or about whetherhumanitarian principles have been adhered to.

In a meeting with chief executives of British humanitarianNGOs in 1999, Short acknowledged that a perception ofthe humanitarian response as part of, or linked to, the overallpolitical agenda ‘would directly and disastrouslycompromise the impartiality and universality ofhumanitarian aid’. She therefore underlined the need for‘an open, on-going and constructive dialogue … to explorethe potential of policy coherence, and the respectiveboundaries of, and differences between, humanitarian andforeign policy objectives’ (DFID, 1999). To date, this debatehas remained muted, and has failed to clarify how thehumanitarian imperative to save lives and reduce sufferingsits with longer-term conflict reduction and developmentalobjectives.

4.4 Internal accountability mechanisms

4.4.1 Management processes and monitoringmechanisms

In many Western countries, public sector management hasbeen rethought, and terms such as ‘performancemanagement’ and ‘results-based management’ have beenintroduced. Key features of these approaches include settingclear outcome targets, and shifting the emphasis in

2 Speech by Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, London, 10 April 2002.See also chapter 2 of the 1999 Government White PaperModernising Government (London: Her Majesty’s Government,1999).

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management and monitoring from activities and outputsto outcomes and impact.

This shift in emphasis has applied to international aidprogrammes, as well as domestic social services. Thus,DFID has a PSA and Service Delivery Agreements, againstwhich it must monitor and report on its performance tothe Treasury, and has adopted a ‘performance managementapproach’.3 The PSA is designed to link DFID’s strategicobjectives set out in the 1997 and 2001 White Papers tomeasurable managerial targets and resource allocations.However, humanitarian assistance does not figure in thecurrent PSA. This is because the PSA is structured aroundthe MDGs (in which humanitarian assistance does notfeature). This absence also stems from the difficultiesinvolved in developing an appropriate quantifiable results-based target in this area, and DFID’s interest to maintainflexibility in its emergency programming. CIDA has alsoadopted results-based management as part of its Policyfor Performance Review in 1994, in response to sharpcriticism from the national audit office. It has alsoestablished a Performance Review Branch, whose role isto ‘provide independent and objective advice tomanagement on the continued relevance … success andcost-effectiveness of key CIDA policies, programs, andprojects and on the effectiveness of the managementsystems, processes and practices’ (CIDA, 1996: 1). APerformance Review Committee has been set up todecide which parts of CIDA’s operations should bereviewed each year.

Traditionally, aid programming and monitoring havefocused on inputs and activities. In theory, the shift toresults-based management switches attention to immediateoutputs, intermediate outcomes and longer-term impacts.In practice, however, applying these managementtechniques to international aid programming is morecomplex. In 2002, for instance, the UK’s NAO noted theparticular challenges to effective performance managementand measurement in development work. These stemmedfrom:

● the timescales over which discernible results will show,which are longer than those usually set for publicexpenditure monitoring and reporting;

● attribution, where there is a range of different actorsinvolved and other external political, economic andsocial factors that need to be taken into account;

● the decentralised management of aid programmes,which means that teams in the field may not be fullyintegrated into their agency’s high-level objectives;and

● the poor quality of performance data available indeveloping countries (NAO, 2002: 4).

These difficulties are compounded in the case ofhumanitarian assistance, which is often seen as a specialcase. In DFID, some of the mechanisms forimplementing performance management – for exampleoutput-to-purpose reviews of projects that requiremanagers to assess annually their progress towardsdelivering outputs and outcomes – usually do not applyto humanitarian aid projects because they typically fallbelow the funding threshold of £500,000, and/or areover too quickly to be subject to such detailed reviews.CIDA’s International Humanitar ian AssistanceDepartment has gone furthest in developing andlaunching a performance framework for short-termhumanitarian responses (CIDA, 2002). This indicates theexpected impact and outcomes of humanitar ianassistance programmes, but is relatively unprescriptive,giving examples of expected outputs whilst allowingimplementing partners to develop their own listaccording to the local context. Nevertheless, officials inCIDA report that the agency is still struggling toimplement results-based management and to developperformance indicators, particularly above project levelto the programme and especially the corporate/strategiclevel. Indeed, some outside observers are dismissive ofthe impact of this new approach, claiming that it hasmainly brought cosmetic changes in the type ofpaperwork that officers are required to fill out. A recentreport on development effectiveness in DFID similarlycomments that ‘as a basis for corporate management,performance reporting and accountability, currentsystems are not yet adequate’ (Flint et al., 2002).

4.4.2 Evaluations

The practice of evaluating emergency programmes tookroot in the wake of the major African famines in themid-1980s, but since the mid-1990s, there has been anotable increase in the number of evaluations ofhumanitarian aid; ALNAP’s database of evaluations, forexample, holds less than ten for each year between 1986and 1993, 20 for 1994 and over 50 in 2000. Mostevaluations have been commissioned by individual aidagencies, to evaluate their particular contribution to theresponse to a humanitarian emergency. According toALNAP’s definition (ALNAP, 2001: 18), an evaluationof humanitarian action is:

a systematic and impartial examination of humanitarianaction intended to draw lessons to improve policy andpractice and enhance accountability. It has the followingcharacteristics:

3 PSAs are short statements of a department’s priority objectivesfor the following three years, with associated performancemeasures and targets. They are reviewed every two years as partof the UK government’s spending review process, anddepartmental budgets are linked increasingly to performance inrelation to the PSAs. In addition, each department reports on itsperformance against PSA targets in its annual reports to parliament.A department’s PSA is supported by a Service Delivery Agreement,which focuses on the implementation of policy. The SDA explainshow the department will contribute towards delivery of the PSAtargets.

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● It is commissioned by or in cooperation with theorganisation(s) whose performance is being evaluated.

● It is undertaken either by a team of non-employees(external) or by a mixed team of non-employees(external) and employees (internal) from thecommissioning organisation and/or the organisationbeing evaluated.

● It assesses policy and/or practice against recognisedcriteria …

● It articulates findings, draws conclusions and makesrecommendations.

Despite growth in recent years, donors expend much moreenergy in evaluating development assistance than they doin evaluating humanitarian aid. CIDA’s Performance andEvaluation Branch, for instance, has not evaluated any aspectof Canada’s humanitarian assistance programme. All itsefforts have focused on development programmes. WithinDFID, responsibility for commissioning evaluations ofhumanitarian work was largely delegated to CHAD fromthe central evaluations department in 1997. With theexception of the UK’s response to the Montserratemergency (Clay et al., 1999), there have been noindependent evaluations of DFID’s humanitarian worksince then. Instead, the emphasis has been much more oninternal reviews and lesson learning studies, and evaluationscommissioned by CHAD that are concerned primarilywith examining and assessing the performance of partnerorganisations.

In Denmark, Danida commissioned a major evaluation ofits humanitarian assistance in 1999, based on six countrycase studies and two institutional reviews. When donorsdo commission an evaluation of their humanitarianprogramme, it usually focuses on the implementing partner.In other words, the donor is being evaluated only by proxy,according to the performance of its operational partners.Initially, this was the case for the 1999 Danida evaluation,and was reflected in the terms of reference. However, itsoon became apparent that Danida’s own policies andprogramming decisions needed to be included if theevaluation was to be complete. Thus, Danida itself was beingheld to account in what must be one of the largestevaluation exercises ever launched by a bilateral governmentdonor agency.

There is an ongoing debate in both the development andhumanitarian sectors about whether it is possible to useevaluations for accountability and for learning. Danida’sevaluation was commissioned by the Evaluation Secretariatrather than by the humanitarian assistance department. Thisdivision of responsibility increases the likelihood that theevaluation will serve an accountability function, particularlyif – as in the case of Danida – independent teams arecommissioned to carry out the work, usually in aninvestigative style. However, an investigative process, whichmay end up attributing responsibility and blame, may not

encourage learning. Instead, a more participatory approachis likely to be most effective, along the lines that DFID hasbeen experimenting with in its internal reviews. Forinstance, DFID conducted an internal evaluation of its,and others’, response to the Gujarat earthquake. Theevaluation process was built into line-managementprocedures in order to focus specifically on lesson learning.DFID has similarly relied upon internal lesson learningexercises, rather than formal evaluations, in relation to thecrises in Kosovo and Afghanistan. These exercises usuallyresult in internal documents which are not in the publicdomain and hence are distinct from accountabilitymechanisms. DFID’s evaluation department hasacknowledged that the department’s external audiences‘will be concerned with the degree to which self-assessmentis complemented by genuinely independent checks’ (DFID,2001). In the US, OFDA’s After-Action Reviews clearlydistinguish between learning and accountability with their‘No Attribution, No Retribution’ rule (ALNAP, 2002: 60).Similarly, the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperationmakes a distinction between external evaluations for cross-sectoral analysis, and self-evaluations for internal learningand team-building (ALNAP, 2002: 60).

Danida’s 1999 evaluation is a positive example of howevaluation can perform an accountability function and resultin some significant changes. For example, in response tothe evaluation’s recommendations Denmark now has itsfirst-ever strategy specifically for humanitarian assistance.The evaluation also resulted in the piloting of two country-specific strategies, for Sudan and Angola, as part of an overalleffort to improve country-level strategic planning. Thereare several reasons why this evaluation was taken seriously,and why it contributed to meaningful change. First, allevaluations commissioned by Danida’s EvaluationSecretariat are made public, and if sufficiently high profile,their release may be accompanied by a press conference.This was the case for the evaluation of humanitarianassistance, which was reported on in the national press.This policy reinforces the accountability function of theevaluation, and it means that the findings are read carefullyby Danida officials. Second, it appears that larger and morecomprehensive evaluations have greatest impact, not leastat a policy level. This is borne out not only by the Danidaevaluation, but also from the list of evaluations cited in thelatest ALNAP review as having had a particular impact onpolicy and practice. These include evaluations of the UK’sresponse to drought in southern Africa (Clay et al., 1995)and the Joint Evaluation of Emergency Assistance to Rwanda(JEEAR, 1996).

4.4.3 Governance and advisory structures

Danida is the only one of the three case study donors tohave its own consultative/advisory bodies: the Council forInternational Development Cooperation and the Boardfor International Development Cooperation. Strictlyspeaking, neither performs a formal accountability function,

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but de facto they have significant influence, especially theBoard, and both are important in linking Danida to Danishcivil society.

The Council for International Development Cooperationhas up to 75 members, drawn from different parts ofDanish civil society, and appointed by the Ministry ofForeign Affairs (MFA) for a three-year period. It is aconsultative body, meeting twice a year. The Boardcomprises nine members, also appointed by the MFA fora three-year period. It meets ten times a year. Its maintasks are to assist the Minister in carrying out his or herregular duties as specified in the Law on InternationalDevelopment Work, by reviewing policy, strategy andindividual project and programme proposals over DKK5m($0.7m). Although the Board is formally an advisory body,Danida officials take its views and comments seriously; ifa project proposal receives negative comment, it is as if ithas been rejected.

Although neither the Council nor the Board spends muchtime on the humanitarian assistance programme, whichaccounts for less than a tenth of Danish ODA, these twobodies are regarded as having an important positiveinfluence on the high level of public support that Danida’said programme has traditionally enjoyed. Powerfulconstituencies, such as agriculture and industry, arerepresented on the Board, along with NGOs. This appearsto contribute to the consensual support for official Danishaid.

Neither DFID nor CIDA has an equivalent advisory body.However, both embarked on extensive public consultationexercises in the 1990s: DFID during the rolling-out of the1997 White Paper, when the Labour party came to power,and subsequently in the preparation of the ISPs fornegotiation with multilateral agencies; and the Departmentof Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) inCanada during the formulation of the new Liberalgovernment’s foreign policy, ‘Canada in the World’, in 1994.In Canada’s case, the consultation was in response to thewidespread and vocal criticism of the previous Conservativegovernment’s approach to aid. In the early 1990s, theConservatives had made what was perceived to be a majorreorientation in aid policy to serve more blatantlycommercial objectives, and in 1993 had decided toterminate Canadian aid to several African states. In bothcountries, these consultation processes appeared to indicatea greater concern to take account of public views, andespecially to be seen to consult. They were, however,principally focused on development assistance.

4.5 Parliamentary oversight

Parliamentary oversight is generally regarded as the ultimateform of democratic accountability, despite some of theweaknesses of the ministerial model of democracydescr ibed above. Both the UK and Canada have

‘Westminster-style’ parliaments, comprising two chambersand a first-past-the-post electoral system. The executive inthe Westminster system is particularly powerful. The Danishparliament consists of a single chamber and an electoralsystem of proportional representation. It also has a powerfulexecutive, although governments are normally formed bycoalition. Despite these differences, the mechanisms ofparliamentary oversight are broadly similar in each country.MPs exercise their scrutiny function within parliamentthrough legislative procedure, debates on non-legislativebusiness and parliamentary questions, and through theactivities of investigative committees, includingdepartmental select committees.

Although parliamentary questions (PQs) appear to be theroute most regularly and vigorously used by MPs, absorbingconsiderable time on the part of departmental officials,they do not provide the most effective tool for rigorousand detailed scrutiny of particular areas of governmentpolicy. Particularly in Canada and the UK, oral PQs tendto take the form of politically aggressive exchanges, whichencourage defensive and largely uninformative replies fromministers. Written PQs may generate more specificinformation, but not sustained analysis or discussion ofgovernment policy.

Instead, parliamentary committees appear to have the mostpotential in holding the international aid programme toaccount, although this potential is rarely fully realised. Thepower of these committees resides in their ability to launchinquiries of their own choosing, and to call witnesses(ministers, civil servants, independent experts or others)to give evidence, and to make recommendations to thedepartment concerned. However, they have no formal rolein the legislative or policy process, and cannot force agovernment to accept their recommendations.

On the financial side, finance committees are responsiblefor monitoring all government expenditure. A departmentalcommittee is responsible for monitor ing the aidprogramme. In Canada, this is the Standing Committeeon Foreign Affairs and International Trade (SCFAIT), andin Denmark it is the Foreign Affairs Committee. In eachof these countries, just as the aid programme is one smallpart of the foreign affairs ministry, so aid tends to representa relatively small proportion of the workload of thecommittee. SCFAIT’s Sub-Committee on Human Rightsand International Development, which was established inthe mid-1980s, has periodically lapsed into dormancy. Inthe UK, the establishment of DFID as an independentministry in 1997 meant the creation of a dedicated selectcommittee, the International Development Committee(IDC). In each case, the aid department or ministry submitsits annual report (and often its annual plans) to the UK.Themed or country-specific investigations, chosen by theselect committee, tend to be vigorously pursued. In theseinvestigations, a particular aspect of the aid programmecomes under scrutiny, and witnesses are called to giveevidence.

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In both Denmark and Canada, there have been no formalhearings or enquiries related to humanitarian assistance inat least the last six years, despite the incidence of major,high-profile humanitarian emergencies such as Kosovo in1999 and Afghanistan in 2001, and the general rise inhumanitarian aid expenditure.

In Denmark, this lack of formal scrutiny is partly to dowith the high level of public support that the aidprogramme has traditionally enjoyed. The Danish publichas rarely questioned the level and direction of theircountry’s aid programme, while the traditionally consensualpolitical culture translates into what appears to be a lowpropensity to scrutinise certain areas of government policy,including aid policy. The Foreign Affairs Committeereceives summaries of all Danida’s completed evaluationreports, including the high-profile 1999 evaluation, butdoes not seem to have responded to them. The traditionalposition of international aid may, however, be changing.In general elections in November 2001, overseasdevelopment aid was, unusually, a hotly debated issue.Right-wing parties regarded aid as a prime target for budgetcuts in order to fund domestic programmes, at the sametime as Denmark’s relatively liberal policy on immigrationcame under major attack. On taking power, the coalitionimmediately initiated small but significant cuts in the aidbudget.

In Canada, there has been little parliamentary scrutiny ofthe aid programme, especially the humanitarian aidprogramme, since the influential Weingard Committee in1987. The Committee was set up by SCFAIT in the wakeof the Ethiopian famine in 1985, and was tasked withexamining Canada’s response. Chaired by a distinguishedacademic, the Committee expanded its remit to reviewthe entire aid programme, and ended up focusing moreon the efficacy of CIDA’s long-term development assistancethan on emergency relief. The Committee’s report is widelyregarded as one of the best and most comprehensive reviewsof Canadian aid policy.4 It had a major impact, and manyof its recommendations formed the basis of governmentpolicy as set out in Sharing Our Future, which was issued inthe same year (CIDA, 1987). This remained the guidingpolicy document until CIDA’s next comprehensive reviewin 2001.

There are a number of reasons why there has been nosignificant parliamentary scrutiny of humanitarian assistancesince Weingard and Sharing Our Future. First, the SCFAIThas a very broad agenda, within which aid policy has neverbeen a priority, compared with trade and internationalsecurity. Humanitarian aid represents only 7–8% of thetotal aid budget. In the high-profile complex politicalemergencies of the 1990s, humanitarian assistance was

perceived as secondary to the larger military and politicalissues at stake. (Similarly, development aid has tended tobe seen as a side issue to trade and the economic agenda.)The second set of reasons is structural, to do with howCanadian parliamentary accountability mechanisms operatein general. The committees are constrained in their activitiesby strong party discipline, which hinders critical analysisof government policy by the committee as a whole. Inrecent years, there has been a move towards the submissionof minority reports, produced by various factions withinthe committees. This has weakened the committee structurefurther. While SCFAIT is considered a prestigiouscommittee, there is a high turnover in the membershipand of the chair of the Sub-Committee on Human Rightsand International Development. Most of the members ofthe sub-committee, including the chair, are not membersof SCFAIT; the division of labour between the parent andthe sub-committee is not entirely clear, and workloads arenot well-coordinated. A review of the minutes of the sub-committee indicates that its hearings have served primarilyas a forum for briefing MPs on various international issuesand on the current political situation in a given country,rather than for accountability purposes.

Some political commentators in Canada have argued thatthere has been a gradual concentration of power in theprime minister’s office since Jean Chrétien came to powerin 1993, and that there has been a corresponding weakeningof the role of parliament in policy-making and oversight(Simpson, 2001). For instance, unanimous oppositionwithin the Sub-Committee on Human Rights andInternational Development to swingeing cuts in aid in 1993had no influence on the government (Folster, 2001).Although a government department is required to respondwithin a fixed period of time to the recommendations ofa select committee, only very rarely will the committeefollow up or take issue with that department if it regardsthe response as inadequate.

As in Denmark and Canada, the IDC in the UK can onlymake recommendations. But the impact of the IDC andother select committees should be assessed purely in termsof their influence over policy, since their primary functionis to hold the government to account through the scrutinyof government policy and administration. The IDC hasundertaken a number of inquir ies into specifichumanitarian crises since it came into existence in 1997:

● Montserrat in 1997 and 1998;

● Sudan in 1998;

● Kosovo in 1999;

● Mozambique in 2000; and

● Afghanistan in 2001.

In addition, the IDC undertook a major inquiry in 1999into conflict prevention and post-conflict reconstruction,which looked at DFID’s humanitarian programming in

4 For Whose Benefit? Report of the Standing Committee on ExternalAffairs and International Trade on Canada’s Official DevelopmentAssistance Policies and Programs (Ottawa: Ministry of Supply andServices, 1987).

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Sierra Leone. Although not all humanitarian emergenciesare subject to IDC inquiries, this level of scrutiny is probablyunique internationally, and represents a very considerableadvance in overall parliamentary attention to humanitarianpolicy.

Nevertheless, a number of factors inhibit the ability of theIDC to scrutinise DFID and the wider UK governmenteffectively. The committee’s business is, to a large extent,driven by committee members’ particular interests and areasof expertise, and its work is limited by some of theconstraining factors described above, in particular the lackof clear criteria against which the humanitarian assistanceprogramme can be held to account at a strategic oroperational level, and difficulties in attributing responsibilityto DFID as opposed to other actors in the internationalhumanitarian system. The committee suffers from the samestructural constraints as in Canada, with strong partydiscipline tending to restrain criticism of government policy.Moreover, the committee’s inquiries are usually launchedshortly after the onset of a major humanitarian crisis,reflecting an implicit intention on the part of the committeeto influence policy as it is being made, as well as to scrutiniseit. It also means that the committee tends to focus onimmediate operational issues and challenges rather thanon larger issues of strategic policy.

A significant constraint on both SCFAIT and the IDC isthe lack of resources available to them to conductgenuinely independent inquir ies. In Canada, theParliamentary Centre, a not-for-profit organisation closelyassociated with parliament, provided specialist advisers tothe foreign affairs, trade and defence standing committeesuntil 1995, when it suffered major budget cuts. Since then,the centre spends only about 10% of its time servicingcommittees. The IDC is serviced by five support staff, andonly occasionally brings in specialist advisers. The lack ofprofessional research staff inevitably limits the depth ofassessment and analysis that the committee can engage in.It also means that these committees tend to be heavilydependent on NGOs, both for an overall analysis of thegovernment’s policies and performance record, and asproxies for the ‘real’ stakeholders in humanitarian crises –those at its centre. NGOs may do a good job in both roles,but they also have their own interests, have no formalobligation to scrutinise DFID and may lack the resourcesto do so effectively, and also often have a contractualrelationship to DFID as service providers. Media coverageof a major humanitarian emergency is one of the triggersof an IDC inquiry, and the content of the coverage maydetermine the issues that it covers. Thus, there is a circularlink to NGOs, on whom the media is often dependent forstories and analysis. In the UK, proposals to strengthen thecommittees’ scrutiny work have focused on increasing theirindependence from party influence, increasing the provisionof specialist and support staff, and systematising the focusof committee inquiries through establishing commonobjectives and core tasks (see, for instance, ModernisationCommittee, 2002).

4.6 National audits

In each of the three case studies, the national audit is oneof the strongest accountability channels, both for the detailand quality of scrutiny and the seriousness with whichaudit reports are taken. In the three countries looked athere, the Auditor-General, supported by the NAO in theUK and Denmark and by the Office of the Auditor General(OAG) in Canada, reports directly to parliament, andspecifically to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). Inthe UK and Canada, the PAC is a special kind of selectcommittee comprising MPs; in Denmark, it is made up ofsix paid members who are not necessarily MPs, and whoare appointed by parliament for a four-year termindependently of elections.5

There are a number of reasons why national audits areparticularly effective and authoritative.

● Financial accountability is one of the easiest forms ofaccountability to monitor, related as it is to hardquantitative data about the disbursement and trackingof government money. Managerial accountability is alittle harder to monitor – particularly against thecriterion of effectiveness, although efficiency andeconomy are relatively straightforward – but is still moretangible than, say, strategic accountability.

● Government departments with large discretionarybudgets generally receive more attention from thenational audit office than departments whoseexpenditure is principally payroll. Thus, the grant-making aid departments come under scrutiny, althoughhumanitarian aid much less so by virtue of being arelatively small percentage of the total aid budget.However, this is usually carried out at greater cost tothe national audit office than the corresponding auditof a domestic-oriented ministry, because of the needto travel – ‘to get out there and kick the tyres’, in thewords of one Canadian official.

● The mechanisms through which the national auditoperates are clear and powerful, and are linked toparliament. The national audit office is respected forits professionalism and political neutrality. In turn, itreports to the parliamentary PAC, which is takenseriously and is much less partisan than most otherselect committees (and not partisan at all in the case ofDenmark). The respective government department isrequired to respond formally to the recommendationsin an audit report (in Canada this has been the caseonly since April 2002). And the PAC has the power toensure that certain recommendations are acted upon.

5 None of the national audit offices has a mandate to auditmultilateral organisations – in this case UN agencies – that arerecipients of Danish, Canadian or British aid. They may scrutinisehow the respective donor agency administers these funds, butauditing of the agency itself is usually the responsibility of itsinternal audit office (in the case of UNESCO, Canada’s OAG hasbeen appointed as auditor).

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● Finally, as all major audit reports are made public, thereis the possibility of negative press coverage. In Canada,the OAG’s annual report to parliament on the findingsof its audits of federal government departments andprogrammes is regularly given prominent coverage inthe national media.

In addition to the financial audit, which establishes whetheraccounts are sound and whether actions are in accordancewith appropriations, laws and agreements, there is also aperformance audit component to the work of the nationalaudit office. Economy and efficiency are the two mostimportant criteria within the performance audit, and arecommon to each of the national audit offices. In the caseof the Danish NAO, effectiveness is an additionalperformance criterion, which monitors the extent to whichthe intended results have been achieved. The OAG’smandate is restricted to monitoring whether CIDA isscrutinising its own aid effectiveness. In short, the nationalaudit monitors financial accountability and elements ofmanagerial accountability. It does not play any role inrelation to strategic accountability, and cannot evaluatepolicy, only whether policy is being adhered to.

That said, the advent of PSAs in the UK, for instance, meansthat Britain’s NAO will probably have much stronger macroindicators against which policy performance can be measuredthan has hitherto been the case. Importantly, DFID’s statedobjectives – to save lives through emergency relief, to protectand rebuild livelihoods and communities and reducevulnerability, to provide swift and appropriate assistance basedon analysis of need, to work towards better disasterpreparedness and prevention, and to seek improved standards,conduct and partnership across the humanitarian system –have not been incorporated into the PSA. Instead, they areseen as being subsumed under overall conflict reductionand poverty eradication objectives. These are not necessarilyidentical with humanitarian objectives, however. Since theseheadline objectives for humanitarian assistance have not yetbeen linked to any PSA or other formal targets or monitoringand reporting systems, it is not clear how the NAO, or indeedDFID itself, is to scrutinise and assess performance againstthese general objectives.

In any case, the NAO and PAC are very much concernedwith value-for-money considerations and the ways thatpolicies and programmes are implemented, and it would bebeyond their remit to examine the extent to which policiesthemselves are appropriate. The PAC and NAO, for instance,could examine whether DFID’s humanitarian assistanceconforms to the policies it set out, for example the ten‘Principles for a New Humanitarianism’, but it could nottake a view on the relevance and appropriateness of theseprinciples. The NAO’s approach is also potentiallyconstrained by the range and volume of its work. In commonwith other audit offices, it is responsible for auditing all areasof government, and since emergency aid accounts only foraround 10% of the UK’s overall aid programme, it is notlikely to scrutinise DFID’s humanitarian programme very

frequently. In the last ten years, the NAO has published tworeports concerned with humanitarian assistance: in the early1990s, on the emergency aid programme of the OverseasDevelopment Administration (DFID’s predecessor), and in2000, on DFID’s response to the Kosovo crisis (NAO, 1993;NAO, 2000). A recent NAO report on performancemanagement in DFID does not include any specificdiscussion or scrutiny of humanitarian assistance (NAO,2002). Importantly, in 2002, a new investigation into theoverall humanitarian assistance spending of DFID waslaunched, which is likely to be wide-ranging.

In Denmark, the NAO looks at humanitarian assistance atleast once every five years, which is the cycle within whichit covers the whole MFA. On a number of occasions it hasnoted shortcomings in how humanitarian assistance grantsare administered and monitored. This contributed toDanida’s decision to revise its ‘Guidelines for Administrationof Extraordinary State Contributions for HumanitarianPurposes to Danish Organisations’ (Danida, 2001a). Thereis an important continuity in the way that the NAOscrutinises Danida, referring back to previous audits andmonitoring Danida’s progress in implementing earlierrecommendations. As well as this regular audit cycle, theNAO can carry out one-off investigations in response toparticular concerns. This may be on its own initiative, oron the initiative of the PAC. In 2000, for instance,newspaper articles raised serious questions about RedBarnet (Danish Save the Children)’s financial managementand the MFA’s management of grants to the organisation,prompting the PAC to request a supplementary audit inaddition to the NAO’s general audit of MFA grants toDanish NGOs.6 There were a number of criticisms ofDanida’s handling of these grants, giving further impetusto its revision of its guidelines.

Canada’s OAG works on a similar cycle, expecting to conducta major audit of CIDA every four to five years. In fact, CIDAhas been a much more frequent target of OAG audits. Therewas a major review in 1993, and subsequent reviews almostevery year since: in 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000.However, the audits have never covered the humanitarianassistance programme because it is seen to be too small towarrant scrutiny, and has never been identified as ‘high risk’.7

The comprehensive 1993 audit was highly critical of CIDA(OAG, 1993), for reasons including conflicts in the aidprogramme’s stated objectives, unclear lines of accountabilityin the administration of ODA and a lack of transparencyand under-utilisation of audits and evaluations for internallearning. The report was a key factor in the introduction ofresults-based management in 1996. Subsequent audits havemonitored CIDA’s progress in addressing the concerns raisedin the 1993 report. The 1998 audit, for instance, found thatprogress had been made, but had been slow (OAG, 1998).The significance and impact of the 1993 review is

6 This was published in Danish, entitled Rigsrevisionens beretningom udenrigsministeriets forvaltning af tilskud til Red Barnet.7 Personal communication, Canadian government official.

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demonstrated by the fact that it triggered a hearing by SCFAITas well as by the PAC. However, officials have commentedthat ‘CIDA is just not on the radar’ as much since.

A number of interviewees suggested that the OAG hasbecome more authoritative and influential as parliamentaryopposition to the Liberal government has weakened withthe demise of the federal Conservative party and the arrivalof several small regionally based parties in parliament. Inthe absence of effective parliamentary scrutiny, OAG auditreports have become one of the primary tools for holdingthe government to account. However, officials at the OAGalso indicated that it was important for them to preservetheir professional neutrality, which includes being wary ofpolitically-motivated parliamentary requests for audits.

4.7 Informal accountability: NGOs,academia and the media

NGOs, academia and the media each play an informalrole in holding donor government agencies to accountfor their humanitarian assistance programmes, both directlyand through their interaction with the formalaccountability mechanisms described above.

The nature of relations between donors and NGOs variesconsiderably from country to country. In Canada andDenmark, it is close and mainly collaborative. There are arelatively small number of NGOs in each country engagedin humanitarian assistance work, and they are heavilydependent on their governments for funding. In Denmark,an informal forum, the Humanitarian Contact Group,brings together Danida and the NGOs (along with someother government ministries). It is used principally forinformation exchange and coordination, but the frequencyand cooperative nature of the dialogue means that NGOscan sometimes use these channels to influence and questionDanida. In Canada, close relations between CIDA and theNGOs are demonstrated by the fact that both CIDA andthe DFAIT are observers on the NGO Policy and AdvocacyGroup for Emergency Relief (PAGER). Again, this offersan informal mechanism for the occasional questioning ofgovernment officers.

In the UK, DFID’s relationship with UK-based NGOshas become more distant since the Labour governmentcame to power in 1997, with occasional high-profile stand-offs and confrontation. During the famine in South Sudanin 1998, for example, Secretary of State Clare Shortcriticised UK-based agencies for launching a public appeal,claiming that it was unnecessary; also in 1998, British NGOActionAid criticised DFID’s humanitarian response to thecrisis in Sierra Leone. More recently, DFID’s relationshipwith NGOs appears to have become closer. It wasnoticeable, for example, that the launch of the DisastersEmergency Committee (DEC) appeal for southern Africain July 2002 was greeted warmly by the Prime Minister.This reflected the resumption of close dialogue on

humanitar ian issues between NGOs and DFID,institutionalised through the DEC, for example, andbilaterally through Partnership Programme Agreements(PPAs) with individual NGOs. PPAs mirror the ISPs thatDFID has negotiated with its multilateral partners, and setout at a strategic level how the two partners will worktogether to meet the Millennium Development Goals.Strategic funding is linked to jointly agreed strategicobjectives. Although DFID has agreed PPAs with a smallnumber of large NGOs active in the humanitarian field,these do not yet incorporate any substantial provisionsrelating to partnership in the area of humanitarian assistance.Thus, DFID’s relations with NGOs remain largely basedon project-by-project contracts.

In all three cases, NGOs probably have little impact on donoraccountability, for a number of reasons. First, donors and NGOsare dependent upon each other, particularly in humanitarianassistance. Most NGOs rely heavily on official donors forfunding, and in turn donors depend on NGOs for operationalcapacity and visibility. This funding dependence may limitthe extent to which NGOs publicly (or indeed privately)hold their governments to account. Second, NGO advocacyaround humanitarian issues is generally less well developedthan for development. NGOs have been most influentialaround long-running and well-established joint campaigns,for example on trade and land mines, but joint campaigninghas not been a strong feature of humanitarian advocacy.

It is arguable that NGOs have had most impact indirectly, inparticular by submitting evidence to parliamentary selectcommittees, and also by raising issues in the media. But in thewords of one IDC member interviewed for this study, ‘NGOsare unreliable whistle-blowers in the area of emergency aidbecause they have their own interests at stake; they are tooconcerned with fundraising’. As NGOs have becomeincreasingly powerful players on issues of international policy,especially to do with development, their own legitimacy andaccountability have been called into question.8 In this respect,the humanitarian sector is probably ahead of its developmentcounterparts, with its initiatives to strengthen accountability.

Through their research, academics also provide a degreeof scrutiny of donor governments’ humanitarian assistance.As the debate around the role of humanitarian assistancein complex political emergencies has become more active,so the amount of research activity has increased. The effectthis has had in holding donor governments to account ishard to measure, or even to guess at. It is likely to dependupon intangibles, such as the nature of the relationshipbetween researchers and policy-makers, the prevailingpolitical climate and the credibility of the evidence.9

8 See, for example, ‘The Non-Governmental Order’, TheEconomist, 11 December 1999; ‘Sins of the Secular Missionaries’,ibid., 29 January 2000; and ‘NGOs – Credible, Legitimate andAccountable?, Accountability Quarterly, no. 15, 2001.9 ODI has launched a research project exploring the relativeinfluence of research on policy.

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The media can be a powerful mechanism of informalaccountability by virtue of its close relationship withdomestic public opinion. Again, the extent of this influencevaries from country to country, depending upon the extentof domestic interest in humanitarian aid issues and thestyle of the national media.

In the UK, the media has become increasingly critical ofhumanitarian aid agencies and of the nature of somehumanitarian aid work. Collinson (2002) notes thatministers and senior civil servants increasingly try toaccount directly for their policies and actions throughstatements to the media, in addition to (and sometimes inadvance of) statements to parliament. Much of the scrutinyof government policy undertaken by the British parliamentthrough the IDC is supported and/or influenced by theinformation, analysis and advice provided by the media.

In Denmark, the national press has been less hostile tohumanitarian agencies than in the UK, but there are stillclear examples of its influence over Danida’s decision-making. For instance, the 1999 evaluation of Danishhumanitarian assistance in the Bahr El Ghazal famine inSudan the year before commented that ‘the timing ofDanida’s response to acute crisis in Sudan appears to havebeen very dependent upon the arrival of pictures ofstarvation in the Danish media’ (Danida, 1999: 70). Theevaluation argues that this was far too late for famineprevention or mitigation activities. In other words, aiddisbursement was influenced more by the domestic mediathan by the timing of need on the ground.

Much media debate and comment is conducted throughsound bites, by-passing most of the detail relating to themanagement and delivery of humanitarian operations, andthe scrutiny that it applies tends to be directed at governmentas a whole rather than any particular department. Thus, theaccountability role played by the media is mainly at a politicaland strategic level. But however powerful, the media is alsoa highly unreliable driver of accountability at any level. Thiswas commented upon by the IDC in its report on thehumanitarian crisis in Afghanistan:

The response of the media to the crisis has beendisappointing. A great deal of attention has been paid tothe military side of the campaign with little devoted to thehumanitarian crisis … Once the Taliban began to collapseand access to the most vulnerable people was possible theworld’s media still chose to follow the military. What littlecoverage of the humanitarian crisis there has been hasfocused on refugees and the refugee camps while the realcrisis is inside Afghanistan among the internally displacedand vulnerable populations. A few reporters have chosento focus on the humanitarian crisis but much more couldbe done to show the world the true nature of the crisis andthe difficulties the humanitarian effort faces every day (IDC,2001).

4.8 Conclusion

Developing effective ways of holding Western donorgovernments to account for their humanitarian assistancepolicies and programmes is more challenging than for manyother areas of government policy. The key stakeholders –those suffering at the centre of a humanitarian crisis –have no voice or access to formal accountabilitymechanisms, least of all to national parliaments. And donorgovernments are part of different and overlapping policyenvironments, both domestically and internationally. Theseand other factors differentiate international humanitarianassistance from domestic social services such as health andeducation.

Whilst donor governments have supported many of theaccountability initiatives associated with the‘accountability revolution’ within the internationalhumanitarian system, there has been surprisingly littlereflection on the implications of these initiatives fordonors themselves. Instead, the main influence instrengthening donor accountability seems to have comefrom the trends and initiatives associated with the ‘NewPublic Sector Management’. However, there arelimitations in applying some of these new methods tohumanitarian assistance because of the speed and shortduration of many humanitarian programmes.

The critical missing ingredient of accountability as appliedto donors is the clear definition of roles and responsibilities– of what is expected of a donor government’shumanitarian aid programme. The rest flows from this –for example, taking action to fulfil those responsibilities,and reporting on and accounting for these actions. Thisabsence is particularly problematic when a government’shumanitarian assistance plays more than one role. Forexample, a government may expect its aid to supportoverall military and political strategies and objectives. Butthis may be at odds with the expectation within thehumanitarian system itself that this aid should be givenaccording to humanitarian principles, and to meet basichumanitarian objectives. In these circumstances, domesticpolitical expectations will almost always prevail. Hence,the need to define clearly the strategic objectives of adonor government’s humanitarian assistance programme,so as to provide some protection for humanitarianprinciples. The lack of clearly-defined strategic objectivesfor governmental humanitarian aid that are linked directlyto formal policy, management and performancemonitoring systems within donor agencies and the widergovernment means that accountability at a political andstrategic level tends to be weakest of all: rather thanspecifying their obligations and taking responsibility forhumanitarian assistance, ministers tend instead towards amore minimalist interpretation of strategic accountabilitywhich is limited to simply providing an account of whatthey do.

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This has a knock-on effect for legal accountability.Internationally, there is little to hold donors to account fortheir obligations under IHL, which in any case is morerelevant to political and military action than humanitarianassistance. These inadequacies at international level meanthat it is important to ensure a sound legal basis forhumanitarian assistance at national level, where donorgovernments may be held to account more effectively. Butthe three case studies reveal the failings of this level ofaccountability as well. In only rare cases, for example inSwitzerland, is the essence of humanitarian assistanceenshrined in national law.

Managerial accountability tends to fill the vacuum. It isat this level that most attention and effort have beenfocused. In part, this is due to general concerns aboutimproving public sector performance across the board,which in turn has resulted in initiatives such as results-based management. But its impact on humanitarianassistance programming has been minimal because of theparticular characteristics that differentiate humanitarianfrom development assistance. Instead, donor governmentdepar tments have concentrated on contractualaccountability, tightening up the ways in which theirimplementing partners are held to account.

Of all the formal accountability mechanisms reviewed inthis chapter, the relative influence of the audit office isstriking. Its role is clear, as are the mechanisms by which itoperates. However, its responsibility is restricted to largelymanagerial and financial accountability, although theboundaries are shifting in favour of more strategic issues.However, this is a slow process and to date, the nationalaudit function has concerned itself with issues of efficiencyand financial probity, and less with questions regardingwhether humanitarian policy adheres to principles ofhumanitarian action. Unless these principles themselvesare incorporated directly into the donor’s formal policycommitments and systems of policy implementation andmanagement, they are likely to remain outside the scopeof national audit investigations.

In two of the case study countries – Canada and Denmark– parliament has shown very little interest in humanitarianassistance, which is regarded as a small part of the total aidprogramme. In the UK the structure is stronger, by virtueof the establishment of the IDC. But the committee’slimited powers in the executive-dominated Westminstersystem and the relatively meagre research and otherresources that it can call upon make these challenges all

the more difficult to overcome. Over the past five years,the committee has focused on individual, high-profileemergencies, mounting its inquiries usually very soon afterthe onset of the emergency. This type of inquiry enablesrelatively detailed consideration of general operationalchallenges in the midst of the crisis, but it does not easilyenable the committee to take a broader look at DFID’shigher-level policies and overall performance, or to singleout DFID from the wider fray of humanitarian agenciesand donors involved. In particular, it makes it very difficultfor the committee to draw on independent, qualitativeevaluations of donors’ and operational agencies’ policiesand programmes, since these would normally be completedat a later stage. This, in turn, reinforces the committee’sreliance on the evidence provided by NGOs and otherhumanitarian agencies. Even at the managerial level ofaccountability, the IDC is heavily dependent on proxystakeholders for analysis.

Thus, while the mechanisms for holding donorgovernments to account are strongest at national anddomestic level, they are heavily dependent on evidenceand analysis provided at an international level. In practice,this comes mainly through the informal mechanisms ofaccountability, namely the media, NGOs and academia.But this is often partial and patchy; links to the ‘real’stakeholders – the victims of conflict and disaster – aretenuous.

Finding ways of strengthening accountability should notmean tying up donor agencies in bureaucracy and red tape,nor should it encourage more risk-averse behaviour. Theultimate objective is improved performance, which meansbetter serving those suffering at the heart of a humanitariancrisis. It is also important to note that more monitoring,evaluating and reporting does not necessarily lead to greateraccountability, since everything depends on what ismonitored, evaluated and reported, how and by whom.There is always a risk that strengthening one form ofaccountability might overshadow or undermine another.But without effective systems for holding donors to accountfor their humanitarian policies and activities, it is difficultto identify areas where donor performance might beimproved or donor responsibilities strengthened in theinterests of victims of humanitarian disaster. Strengtheningthe accountability of donors can best be achieved byfocusing on improved strategic and political accountability,against clearly defined strategic objectives and definitionsof humanitarian assistance, which are followed through atthe managerial and contractual levels.

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5.1 From ‘bilateralisation’ to gooddonorship?

The increasing involvement of donors in humanitariandecision-making is both legitimate and appropriate. Donorsare custodians of public funds and are accountable, via theirparliaments, for their effective use. Furthermore,humanitarian action is not uniquely, or even primarily, theproperty of humanitarian organisations. Responsibility forupholding humanitarian law, including the responsibilityto assist and protect civilians, rests first and foremost withstates, not aid agencies.

This report is concerned with a small, but neverthelesssignificant, aspect of international, particularlygovernmental, response to crises, namely the provision ofpublic funds to mitigate their effects. Specifically, it hasexamined whether changes in how such aid is providedare likely to have an impact on the quality of humanitarianoperations, and if so, how this might be monitored andassessed. The study is based on a limited number of casestudies, and hence is offered as a preliminary, rather thandefinitive, analysis of what is a complex and rapidlychanging sphere of international public policy, and one inwhich different governments adopt very differentapproaches. Despite the inevitable limitations of theresearch, it is possible to draw out a number of themes.

First, the fact that donors influence humanitarian action isnot new. Since the inception of official support for reliefaid, they have exerted an important and direct influenceover its shape and form. This influence derives primarilyfrom decisions over whether to provide funding, and if soin what volume and to whom. These decisions reflect bothan international commitment to relieve suffering anddistress, and clear political priorities. From Biafra in the1960s to Cambodia in the 1970s and Ethiopia in the 1980s,these decisions exerted an important influence onpopulations’ access to relief, and indeed also on conflictsthemselves (Davies, 1975; Moorehead, 1999). Choicesregarding the allocation of resources remain a primarysource of donor influence in the humanitarian sphere.

These decisions are informed by a wide range of factors,including geopolitical concerns. As the geopoliticallandscape has changed, so donors have adapted their aidstrategies, including humanitarian aid strategies. The politicsof the Cold War were succeeded by an apparent consensusthat liberal values would guide international interventionin crises (Dillon and Reid, 2000; Macrae and Leader, 2000).This consensus was shattered by the events of 11 September.

The war on terrorism has radically altered the internationalsecurity agenda, with significant, but as yet poorlyunderstood, implications for humanitarian action.

At the same time as the security framework has becomemore volatile, apparently more banal changes have takenplace in the systems that donors are using to manage theiraid once it has been allocated to particular organisationsand crises. These changes are more recent. They haveattracted comment, and sometimes criticism, fromhumanitarian organisations, and have been described asthe ‘bilateralisation’ of humanitarian response. They include:

● a greater ability to formulate strategies for humanitarianresponse, rather than delegating this responsibility solelyto operational agencies;

● tighter earmarking of funds to multilateral organisations;

● increased bilateral contracting with NGOs, bypassingthe UN;

● the formalisation of procedures to appraise applicationsfor project and institutional contributions, and monitorprogress against stated objectives. This is reflected innew administrative procedures and in greater fieldpresence; and

● more policy-based approaches to humanitarian grant-making, particularly for international organisations. Thisis reflected in new forms of contractual relationship,and in donors’ greater efforts in coordination.

As noted in Chapter 1, these changes have been driven bya variety of factors, including an increased concern withperformance and accountability, and the need to achievemore visible and coherent aid responses in complex politicalemergencies. In addition, donors have both encouragedand responded to changes in the range of organisationsworking in complex crises. At least since the mid-1980s,the position of the UN and the ICRC as coordinatorsand providers of humanitarian ‘services’ has been steadilyeroded by the emergence of a vibrant and expanding NGOsector, and more recently by a new range of paramilitary,military and private actors. At the same time, increasingrecognition of the longevity of many crises has seen theappearance of more developmental players, including theWorld Bank, the UNDP and development-orientedNGOs, in conflict-affected countries.

Given the increasing complexity of the international policylandscape, it is neither surprising nor unwelcome thatofficial donors are seeking to define more carefully howthey engage in difficult environments. Indeed, the majority

Chapter 5Uncertain power: conclusions and recommendations

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of agencies welcome increased donor involvement inhumanitarian policy, recognising both the unique power ofgovernments as political actors and, more pragmatically, theimportance of this engagement in ensuring sustainable andadequate funding. However, as donors assert their role morestrongly, it will be important to ensure that the purpose ofthis engagement is clear; to understand its operationalimplications; and to identify how donors and theiroperational partners can reach consensus on what constitutesgood practice in official humanitarian donorship.

The findings of this study suggest that the followingoverarching principles might be used to inform officialhumanitarian donorship:

● active respect for international law (in particularinternational humanitarian law and refugee law);

● commitment to needs-based programming; and

● predictable, adequate and flexible funding.

A group of UNHCR’s donors has also proposedprinciples that might be used to guidecontributions to that organisation. These include:

● the desirability of full resourcing andimplementation of the Annual Programmebudget, as approved by ExCom;

● the importance of consultations betweenUNHCR and ExCom members to establishclear prioritisation;

● the prerogative of donors to maintain general priorities in their support of UNHCR;

● the importance of respecting and supporting the multilateral nature of UNHCR’s mandate;

● the importance of predictability, flexibilityand the need for unearmarked contributionsand/or adequate earmarked contributionsfor both global operations and HQ;

● the need for equitable sharing amongdonors to meet these costs;

● the desirability of donors to avoid earmarking below country level and, wherethey do this, to allow for the administrativecosts;

● the need to avoid concentrating theirassistance on specific and visible activities,both geographically and in given sectors;

● the usefulness of global reporting and ofregular consultations; and

● the need to expand UNHCR’s funding base.It is unclear how far these principles have beenapplied in practice.

Experience elsewhere in the humanitarian sphere, and inthe aid sphere more generally, suggests that, in addition toadopting principles, there need to be mechanisms tomonitor adherence to them. The findings of this studysuggest that existing mechanisms for scrutinising officialhumanitarian assistance are limited, both within particularcountries and internationally. Reinforcing these is thereforelikely to be important.

The following sections map out some of the practicalimplications of these principles for donor governmentsand their partners.

5.2 Active respect for international lawand humanitarian principles

5.2.1 Defining the distinctive purpose ofofficial humanitarian assistance

Chapter 2 argued that the concept of trust is useful inunderstanding how donor–recipient relationships work. Akey element in this trust is the extent to which partnersshare a mutual understanding of, and commitment to, thegoal to which they are working.

Arguably, the 1990s saw an erosion of the high degree oftrust that had previously existed between official donorsand their operational humanitarian partners. On the onehand, donors grew increasingly sceptical of their partners’operational competence, both in terms of achievingtechnical standards, and in terms of their ability to navigatesafely a very complex political environment in the field.On the other, many agencies sensed that official donorswere using their humanitarian aid for political purposes.This was reflected in uneven funding patterns and, in rarebut significant cases, in donors withholding funds, allegedlyon political grounds. In rebuilding trust between officialdonors and their operational partners, there is thus a needto square donors’ legitimate concerns with performanceand accountability with agencies’ concerns to maintain anindependent and impartial response.

One way to enhance the trust between donors and recipientorganisations is to ensure that the goals of humanitarianassistance are clear. In particular, donors might address head-on the concerns of agencies that humanitarian assistanceis being ‘politicised’ by reaffirming the central purpose oftheir official aid – namely saving lives and relieving sufferingand distress – and underscoring the impartiality of suchassistance. This suggests reinforcing the idea of humanitarianassistance as a distinct form of aid, subject to different rulesthan those that govern conventional development assistance.In other words, humanitarian aid is unconditional andprovided proportionate to need.

Many official donors, including DFID, have outlined theircommitment to such principles in important policy

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statements, and through their support for operationalagencies’ efforts to develop codes of conduct. However,where the distinctiveness of humanitarian assistance as aparticular form of aid is coming under pressure, there aresignificant arguments in favour of:

● codifying this commitment to humanitarian principles into alegal framework to govern official humanitarian aid.

Switzerland has such legislation, the NAO has argued forit in Denmark, and the preamble of the regulationgoverning ECHO underscores its commitment toprinciples of impartiality and neutrality (Macrae and Leader,2000; Swiss Federal Council, 1997; Official Journal of theEuropean Communities, 1996). Incorporating such acommitment into legislation potentially provides allstakeholders – including civil servants in donorgovernments, politicians and recipient partners – with aclear statement of the objectives of publicly fundedhumanitarian assistance. It also underscores the emphasisthat donors will place on their partners ensuring that theirresponses adhere to international law and principles, andin establishing mechanisms by which their performancewill be monitored.

Stating a commitment to upholding the principles ofhumanity and the impartiality of assistance, andreaffirming the value of independent humanitarian action,would make explicit how, and whether, donorgovernments see humanitarian assistance fitting into theirwider foreign policy goals. At present, the near-absenceof such a legislative base means that it is difficult tointerpret consistently donors’ understanding of therelationship between the humanitarian goal of alleviatingsuffering, and goals of conflict reduction. While theremay be complementarities, these two objectives areanalytically and operationally distinct (Macrae and Leader,2000).

The presence of a legally-binding statement of thepurpose of humanitarian assistance would also supportthe development of more managerial tools by whichdonor performance could be measured. For example,the UK’s PSAs serve as a contract between spendingdepartments and the Treasury, setting out departmentalobjectives and indicators of performance. The Britishgovernment’s commitment to poverty eradication isestablished in law, and is reflected in the PSA whichuses the Millennium Development Goals to set specifictargets by which DFID’s performance can be measured.The absence of specific legislation governing the useof humanitarian assistance, and of MDGs that relatedirectly to humanitarian affairs, means that there is nounified indicator of DFID’s performance in this sphere.A legal statement would also act as the starting-pointfor donor–agency discussion in situations where donorsare concerned that poor security may undermine thescope for the effective and principled delivery ofassistance.

5.2.2 Linking aid and politics: the role of donoragencies in humanitarian diplomacy andprotection

A striking finding of the research, particularly with regardto donor coordination, was that there is only a weak linkagewith wider political efforts to enhance the quality andquantity of humanitarian space. In Afghanistan and Somalia,initiatives by donors to coordinate humanitarian assistanceremained disconnected from wider political efforts, inwhich many of the same donor governments were involved.With the partial exception of the Framework Agreementbetween the Swedish government and UNHCR,partnership agreements rarely refer to donor governments’commitments to act as advocates on matters such asprotection and the negotiation of humanitarian access.Equally, within donor coordination bodies, such as ‘friendsof ’ groups, attention appears to focus primarily on issuesof assistance, rather than protection (see for example, Wiles(2002b)).

Clearly, donors intervene bilaterally and collectivelythrough diplomatic channels in order to enhance thequality of humanitarian space. It was outside the scope ofthis study to review these interactions; indeed, this area ofhumanitarian policy is likely to be particularly difficult toexamine given its sensitive and confidential character.However, while there has been much dialogue regardingdonors’ expectations of their partners, there appears to havebeen much less formal discussion of the potential ofpartnership in strengthening donors’ contribution tohumanitarian diplomacy. Given the clear comparativeadvantage of donor governments in mobilising diplomaticassets, and the commitment of many to a more coherentapproach to such issues, there appears to be scope for furtherdiscussion around how donor governments envisage therelationship between their assistance programmes and otherforms of intervention.

Such analysis has become more common in thedevelopment sphere, where cross-departmental workingis seen as a sine qua non for achieving the MDGs. In thehumanitarian sphere, examples of such a commitment fromdonor governments could include supporting keymultilateral initiatives to enhance asylum, the protectionof internally displaced people, the deployment of humanrights monitors and efforts to ensure that peacekeepingforces adhere to international humanitarian law. There area number of mechanisms through which donors mightseek to link their efforts in these areas with their assistancework, including framework agreements. These can identifykey points where donors might work with operationalpartners to enhance respect for international humanitarianand refugee law. This suggests that donors, in partnershipwith relevant agencies, might usefully:

● examine how and whether their assistance policies contributeto government-wide strategies to enhance the protection ofcivilians in wartime.

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This is a sensitive and difficult area, for donors andoperational agencies alike. It is here that the humanitarianassistance agenda confronts the fraught and highly politicalagendas of foreign and defence policy, as well as issuesaround domestic immigration. Yet it is precisely how thisinterface is managed that has proved a key point of tensionbetween humanitar ian organisations and donorgovernments. Agencies have complained of an absence ofpolitical engagement in some crises, and of donorgovernments using humanitarian assistance as part of apolitical strategy in others. At the same time, donors areconcerned to ensure the effectiveness of humanitarianresponse, which in part means agencies being better ableto navigate and respond to very difficult securityenvironments, and so ensure that assistance bolsters, ratherthan undermines, the protection of civilians. There will beno quick or easy answers to how different forms ofintervention – aid, military and political – relate to eachother in this area. What will be important, however, isensuring that, in the dialogue between donors and theirpartners, protection issues and humanitarian access rankalongside issues of effective assistance.

5.3 Commitment to needs-basedprogramming

5.3.1 Linking resources with need

Ensuring that resources are allocated proportionate to need(i.e. impartially) is a key expression of a commitment tointernational humanitarian law and principles. At present,the international humanitarian system as a whole is weakat defining and prioritising humanitarian need, both inspecific countries and comparatively worldwide. The audittrail that traces the flow of funds from donors to recipientsis also extremely weak. It is therefore impossible to provedefinitively the extent to which official humanitarian aidresources do or do not match humanitarian need. Themajor proxy indicator – donors’ contributions to the CAP– is unreliable in that donors channel sizeable amounts offunding in other ways, including through contributions toglobal appeals.

The Humanitarian Financing Working Group (HFWG)is an important initiative in this respect. The HFWG seeksto establish more firmly the process by which needs areassessed and prioritised and how they inform appeals, andto analyse the factors influencing donors’ allocation ofresources. The implications of this work are clearly system-wide.

Operational agencies have been slow to develop needs-based approaches to budgeting, and to collect and analysedata regarding the human costs of the under-financing ofspecific humanitarian operations. Donor presence at fieldlevel, through field offices, coordination mechanisms andad hoc visits, can strengthen needs assessment. However,

this presence can also compromise this process throughundue political interference, for example in relation tosecurity issues. It is therefore recommended that:

● in line with the essential purpose of humanitarian relief, donorscommit themselves in principle to adopting a needs-basedapproach to resource allocation;

● donors and operational agencies continue to invest in the processstarted by the HFWG, and agree on a strategy to take forwardits recommendations;

● donors reaffirm the importance of an independent process ofneeds assessment, and provide adequate financial support forthe development of effective and accessible humanitarianinformation systems;

● donor efforts to ensure that this process is robust, throughfield visits as well as through field offices, are likely to remainimportant, and it would be useful to identify best practice inthis regard;

● operational agencies, in particular UNHCR, WFP andOCHA, strengthen their capacity to analyse humanitarianneed and the impact of assistance, and identify mechanismsfor more robust and formalised reporting of the impact ofresource constraints and insecurity on affected populations;and

● efforts continue to strengthen the CAP not only as a fund-raising tool, but also as a mechanism for developing a sharedunderstanding of need, and to prioritise interventions.

5.3.2 Responding to need: the role of donorcoordination

There is also a case for enhanced donor coordination inspecific crises. Evidence from Somalia and Afghanistansuggests that inter-donor coordination mechanisms werenot sufficiently effective in reaching consensus on need,nor in informing humanitarian response. One of the moststr iking findings of this study in terms of donorcoordination is that, while donors have been active insupporting mechanisms to ensure coherent, policy-basedapproaches in relatively stable environments (such asComprehensive Development Frameworks, ConsultativeGroups and Round Tables), there are few examples ofsimilar mechanisms in the much more complex and difficultcircumstances of ‘crisis’-affected countries.

The weakness of donor coordination mechanisms inspecific crises is echoed at the global level. The past fiveyears have seen donors investing increasingly incollective discussion regarding the policies andperformance of key international humanitar ianorganisations. ‘Friends’ groups, and their equivalents, arethus an important expression of the increased seriousnesswith which donors view the humanitarian sector. Withrare exceptions, these have served primarily as forumsfor information exchange, rather than places wherenorms and strategies are discussed and agreed. In parallel

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with these inter-donor groupings, individual donors arealso seeking to strengthen their bilateral engagementwith key international organisations, for examplethrough framework agreements and more formal andprogrammed ‘strategic dialogue’. The implications forthe independence and accountability of internationalorganisations remain to be fully examined. It will beimportant to ensure that such interventions enhancethe ability of these international bodies to develop arobust view of the needs of their constituents, and toprioritise their interventions accordingly.

Overall, the fragmented and diverse approaches of differentdonors to humanitarian policy may protect the operationaland institutional independence of their partners.1 However,given the concentration of humanitarian funding in the handsof relatively few donors and the complexity and high risks ofthe environments in which humanitarian aid funds aredisbursed, enhanced donor coordination could improve theeffectiveness of humanitarian action, globally and in specificcrises. It may therefore be appropriate for donors to:

● review comprehensively the mechanisms available to facilitateinter-donor coordination in contexts where conventionaldevelopment aid coordination mechanisms are not in place.The objective of such mechanisms should be to support, notduplicate or undermine, other coordination efforts, in particularof the UN; and

● establish mechanisms by which bilateral agreements betweendonor governments and their international partners can bereviewed multilaterally or through a more discrete peer reviewmechanism in order to ensure that they support agencies’overall strategies, as agreed by their formal governance bodies.

5.4 Adequate, predictable and flexiblefunding

Humanitarian assistance is peculiar in the aid sphere inthat it relies almost entirely on voluntary contributions.This, combined with the heavy concentration of donors,makes the humanitarian sector particularly insecure anddependent upon the decisions of relatively few countries.It is unlikely that donor governments would accept anymove towards introducing assessed contributions tohumanitarian organisations (not least because it wouldprivilege the UN system). However, given the depressingpredictability of the core humanitarian caseload, and theneed to diversify the range of donors supportinghumanitarian action, there is a case for:

● considering the introduction of a target for donors’ contributions,either as a proportion of their GDP or as a percentage oftheir total ODA.

This would increase the predictability of overallhumanitarian funding.

Tight earmarking of contributions and shifts in earmarkingin the middle of a year, particularly in the wake of majorvisible crises, further undermine the prospects of achievingthe stable and predictable funding base necessary foreffective and equitable humanitarian response. In line withthe UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)resolution of 2002 (UNECOSOC, 2002), this studyconfirms the importance of:

● official donors committing additional funds to responding tomajor emergencies, rather than reallocating existingcontributions from crises elsewhere.

Framework agreements provide a potential means ofachieving more predictable and timely contributions andencouraging a policy-based approach to giving, while alsoenhancing agency accountability. Potentially, they mightalso provide a basis for multi-year contributions, as is thecase with DFID’s ISPs. There are a number of concernswithin agencies regarding the costs of such processes,particularly in senior management time, as well as aperception that they may undermine multilateral processesof governance. It is therefore recommended that:

● donors and recipient organisations with experience offramework agreements undertake a joint review of thesemechanisms, identifying their costs and benefits andhighlighting examples of good practice that might be used inthe future.

The bilateralisation of disbursement channels, in particularthe stagnation of the UN’s market share, is a clear policytrend. Implicit in this is a rethinking of the ‘business model’currently in place in relation to the UN. Donors areincreasingly opting to contract NGOs directly, cutting outthe UN ‘middleman’. In part, this should be welcomedbecause it releases UN agencies from the administrativeburden of direct contracting, allows for a more rapid andflexible response and gives them greater opportunity tofocus on issues at the core of their mandates, includingprotection. However, this shift also reduces the UN’sleverage in shaping the overall humanitarian response. Thisin turn suggests a need to:

● reexamine the basis upon which the UN’s role in coordinationis maintained, both financially and institutionally. This mightinclude reviewing the basis on which its coordination work isfunded, as well as the inclusion of provisions in donor contractsand monitoring frameworks with other partners that outlineexpectations of participation/adherence to coordinationframeworks.

Generally, more bilateral contracting of NGOs impliesshifting the costs of defining and managing these contractsfrom the multilaterals to donor agencies themselves. It isnotable that, in two of the case studies reviewed, donorsrelied significantly on private contractors to increase theircapacity in this area. The implications of this type ofmanagement arrangement are important, both in terms ofcosts, and in terms of the supervision of such contractors.Donors might thus:

1 See Robinson (1998) for a discussion of the potential costs andbenefits of donor coherence.

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● review their capacity to manage humanitarian assistancecontracts cost-effectively, strategically and accountably.

5.5 Checks and balances

The unease around the apparent move towards increaseddonor involvement arises because agencies are concernedthat they will become little more than executing bodiesfor donor states, which have multiple and complex agendas,particularly in conflict-related countries.

The international literature concerning the fundingrelationship between governments and non-governmentalactors (in the broadest sense) suggests that the provision offunding of itself does not necessarily undermine theautonomy and independence of the recipient body. Theorganisational culture governing donor–partner relations,a shared understanding of the rules of that relationshipand access to mechanisms to regulate it are equallyimportant.

Few would argue that donors do not have a legitimaterole in ensuring the effective and accountable use of publicfunds. What is at issue is how their financial power istranslated into a set of operational relationships in acontentious sphere, particularly given the contestedlegitimacy and weak capacity of governments in recipientcountries. There is no mechanism of global governanceregulating humanitarian assistance. While donors have beenvocal advocates of enhancing the accountability ofoperational agencies, much less attention has been paid tothe mechanisms by which they are held accountable forthe impact of their decisions as funders and policy players.

Chapters 2 and 3 noted both the opportunities and therisks associated with increased donor engagement inhumanitarian decision-making. Chapter 4 also describedthe current mechanisms in place for holding selecteddonors to account. This section analyses ways in whichthe checks and balances that govern donor behaviour mightbe strengthened.

5.5.1 Strengthening existing mechanisms ofpublic scrutiny

With the partial exception of the UK, humanitarianassistance has received relatively little attention fromnational audit offices or parliamentary committees. Thisspeaks both to the relatively low levels of public expendituredevoted to humanitarian assistance, and to the fact that, inbroad terms, such assistance enjoys high levels of publicsupport. Where such formal mechanisms of parliamentaryscrutiny have been invoked, they have tended to focus onspecific crises, and have not reviewed donor performanceover time or in relation to strategic objectives. Furthermore,parliamentary committees in particular often have limitedresources and access to independent expertise, and are thus

especially dependent upon NGOs and government officialsfor their evidence.

While official donors have funded evaluations ofhumanitarian assistance, these have rarely examined theparticular role of individual donors or of collective donorbehaviour. The multi-donor evaluation of the internationalresponse to the genocide in Rwanda and the evaluationsof Danida and ECHO’s humanitarian assistance areimportant exceptions. More such evaluations wouldcomplement techniques such as results-based management,adopted by many donor organisations and their operationalpartners, which rely on the self-assessment of performanceagainst specific indicators.

The frequent absence of clear goals for humanitarianassistance makes it more difficult to define entry points forsuch mechanisms of public scrutiny. This extends to theuse of new public management tools, such as results-basedmonitoring, and the establishment of robust indicators ofdepartmental performance. It is therefore recommendedthat:

● parliamentary committees and members of parliament ensurea systematic approach to their scrutiny of humanitarianassistance, which focuses on both specific operations and moregeneric policy approaches; and

● donors should be encouraged to participate in system-wideevaluations that include donors’ contribution to the overallresponse, as well as occasional evaluations of their humanitarianaid portfolio, including a review of their own policies andprocedures.

5.5.2 The role of the Development AssistanceCommittee

The Development Assistance Committee of the OECD isa key focal-point for global debates around trends in officialdevelopment assistance and for establishing norms of donorbehaviour. The DAC has, however, undertaken only verylimited work on humanitarian assistance specifically. Whileit has been active in debates regarding the role ofdevelopment aid in conflict management, this has rarelyincluded analysis of the particular role of humanitarianassistance. Thus, there are no commonly accepted normsby which donor behaviour in the humanitarian systemcan be monitored, nor documented best practice that mightinform the evolution of official aid policy in this area. Suchanalysis might be used individually by donors, as well ascontributing to the DAC peer-review process.

In addition, the DAC’s role in collecting and analysingdata regarding humanitarian aid spending merits review.Precisely what constitutes emergency and relief aid isnot clearly defined, with different donors reporting suchspending differently and inconsistently. There is over-and under-reporting of emergency aid spending. Over-reporting results from the inclusion of domestic spending

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on refugees, and from the inclusion of spending oninfrastructure rehabil i tat ion in post-confl ictenvironments, which does not sit easily with commonlyunderstood objectives of humanitarian action. Under-reporting often stems from donors effectively usingdevelopment aid funds for humanitarian purposes. Whilethe DAC can work only with the data it receives, thereis a case for more rigorous definitions against whichdonors report.

The inclusion of spending incurred to support refugeesin donor countries is at best untransparent and at worstdisingenuous, masking as it does the fact that thesefunds never leave the shores of donor countries. Atthe very least, these figures should not be included inaggregated emergency spending. At best, they shouldbe excluded from ODA. As noted in the ECOSOCresolution, there is a need to strengthen global financialtracking systems. Specifically, enabling DAC data to‘speak’ to data collated by OCHA is important ifpatterns in humanitar ian spending by country ordisbursement channel are to be analysed, and toimprove the proxy correlation of spending with need.It is therefore recommended that:

● the DAC establish a Task Force to identify good practice inrespect of official humanitarian donorship;

● this work should inform members’ annual reporting and peerreview exercises; and

● as part of its review of financial reporting in this area, theDAC reporting requirements should be adjusted to excludedonors’ domestic spending on refugees from consolidatedreporting on emergency assistance.

5.5.3 Measuring success

There is an absence of commonly accepted measures ofhumanitarian performance, and many donors, includingDanida, DFID and ECHO, are allowing their partners toset their own indicators. While this may capture the diverseways in which different organisations work, it will makeany meaningful aggregation of performance indicatorsdifficult.

Performance reporting within donor organisations –‘accounting for results’ – typically centres on the annualresource-allocation round. Linking performance reportingand reviews to resourcing decisions raises the question ofthe reliability of self-assessment, since this system inevitablycreates incentives for units and departments to cast theirperformance in a positive light (DFID, 2001: 11). As DFID’sevaluation department has noted, external audiences ‘willbe concerned with the degree to which self-assessment iscomplemented by genuinely independent checks’. It notesalso the importance of being clear about what is meant by‘external review’, since there is a difference between reviewsconducted by external consultants managed by the

department whose programmes are under review, and‘arm’s-length’ reviews conducted by a unit not respondingto the same manager as the one under review (DFID, 2001).This suggests that:

● it will be important for agencies to establish performanceindicators that reflect their own objectives, and that there ismutual understanding between donors and their partnersregarding how and whether such data feed into overallassessments of donors’ and other humanitarian actors’performance.

‘Perverse incentives’ are often associated with results-basedapproaches, and it will be important to ensure thatperformance indicators do not compromise operationaleffectiveness. This implies that:

● donors should review comparatively their experience of usingresults-based management in the humanitarian sector in orderto identify good practice in the definition and monitoring ofkey indicators of performance.

5.5.4 Multiple accountabilities: enhancing thebeneficiary voice

Chapter 4 noted that, in contrast to other issues of publicpolicy, the links between the subjects of aid policy andexisting mechanisms of accountability in donor countriesare weak. The ultimate ‘users’ of services funded throughaid are physically and politically distant from, and poorlyconnected to, parliamentary and other bodies in donorcountries. With development aid, this weakness is partiallyoffset by the fact that the recipient government acts asthe interlocutor between the donor country and therecipient population, and as such is accountable to itspeople for the deployment of aid funds. Wheregovernance is contested, and where international actorscircumvent state institutions in allocating their aid, theaccountability of humanitarian actors to recipientpopulations is particularly precarious.

The difficulty of measuring and attributing impacts andoutcomes on the ground, coupled with the lack of anauthentic ‘customer voice’ in the accountability cycle, hasalmost certainly reinforced the overall focus on processand outputs in donors’ formal corporate-levelcommitments relating to humanitarian assistance. Thissuggests that:

● donors, agencies and institutions concerned with improvingperformance and achieving results or scrutinising humanitarianassistance (including evaluation departments and consultants,parliaments, audit offices, NGOs, academics and the media)should step up their efforts and invest resources in ensuringthat the actual and potential beneficiaries of humanitarianassistance can play a more direct role in holding humanitarianactors to account. These efforts should include direct consultationwith beneficiaries for purposes of evaluations, audits andparliamentary inquiries.

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5.5.5 Donors as ‘pushers and prodders’

The donors looked at for this study have adopted a varietyof approaches in establishing a field presence. Given theissues raised, it would be timely to analyse how establishingsuch a presence best contributes to enhancing theeffectiveness of aid, and how a balance can best be struckbetween ensur ing accountability and respectingprogrammatic independence. Issues of interest here arelikely to include the mandates of field staff relative toheadquarters; the professional profile of staff, in particularthe need for adequate technical expertise; and the ways inwhich field staff contribute to other coordinationmechanisms.

5.5.6 The role of humanitarian organisations

Agencies vary in their capacity to analyse critically andmanage their changing relations with official donors. Manyof the organisations contacted in the course of this researchhad considerably expanded their organisational capacityto respond to donors’ increasing reporting demands, oftenat considerable cost. However, there has been less uniforminvestment in dialogue among agencies, and betweenagencies and their donor partners, regarding theirexpectations of donor behaviour.

ICRC is perhaps most rigorous in the defence of itsindependence, evidenced, for example, in its carefulnegotiation of its framework agreement with DFID andits management of the Donor Support Group. ICRC’sability to link discussions of contractual arrangements withissues of doctrine is buttressed both by its mandate, and bythe wide knowledge of its principles and working practicesat all levels of the international community. ICRC’sindependence has an established value for donors, as wellas for the organisation and its constituents.

NGOs too have proved adept both at anticipating andpre-empting donors’ agendas, with initiatives such as Sphereand the Codes of Conduct seeking to translate acommitment to particular values into operational guidanceand performance-monitoring criteria. However, donors’confidence in such mechanisms is not assured, not leastbecause they are contested within the NGO community,while adherence to the Codes of Conduct at field levelremains patchy at best (Leader, 2000). In relation to theseinitiatives, the establishment and strengthening of inter-agency mechanisms for dialogue, including the SteeringCommittee for Humanitarian Response (SCHR) andInteraction, have been important. These groups, which alsosit in the IASC, have been important lobbyists in policyissues such as civil–military relations. Yet there is a senseamong some NGOs, particularly after 11 September and

particularly, though not exclusively, in the US, that thespace for critical lobbying on donor policy is being reduced.Given competition for resources, many NGOs continueto operate a policy of self-censorship in relation to officialdonor policy.

The UN has perhaps been least able to balanceresponsiveness to donors’ legitimate demands for tougheraccountability with a capacity to engage critically withthe new donor agenda. While routinely reasserting the needto respect the values of multilateralism, the UN has beenmore sluggish and reactive than its NGO and Red Crosscounterparts in establishing mechanisms for dialogue withdonors, and for refining mechanisms of governance andreporting. This, combined with the particular challengesof operational effectiveness, has made the UN a weak criticof donor policy.

It is therefore recommended that:

● operational agencies invest, individually and collectively, indiscussion and debate regarding trends in official donorship,and work to identify good practice in developing effectivepartnerships with official donors in the humanitarian sphere.

5.6 Conclusion

This study has been concerned with one small aspect ofthe humanitarian equation: how donors’ changingmanagement of humanitarian assistance is playing out. Itsuggests that describing these processes as ‘bilateralisation’is misleading. Historically, individual donors have alwaysexerted influence over the shape of humanitarian action.Bilateralisation’s pejorative ring also distracts from the factthat donor governments have an important and legitimaterole in ensuring effective and accountable humanitarianresponse. That said, there have been important shifts indonors’ objectives in this field, and in the systems by whichthey are seeking to achieve them. It is therefore timely toinitiate an inclusive and comprehensive debate regardinggood donorship in the humanitarian arena.

In taking forward this agenda, it will be important torecognise both its modesty and its significance. It is modestin that it is concerned with a relatively tiny proportion ofglobal wealth, which is seeking to counter the effects ofmuch more powerful military, political and economicinterests in affected countries. It is significant in that definingthe purpose of such funds and the manner in which theyare managed says much about the relationship betweenthe most powerful nations and some of the mostmarginalised people on the planet. The issue is thus notwhether donors should be involved in humanitarian action,but why and how they choose to use their influence.

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Leader, N. (2000) Negotiating the ‘Governance Gap’: The UNand Capacity-building in Afghanistan, review report. Islamabad:UN Capacity-building Task Force.

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List of interviewees and respondents

Yemane Abadi, Ethiopian Embassy, SomaliaAdam Abdelmoula, UNHCHR, SomaliaAbdullah Al-Khalifa, Saudi Embassy, SomaliaBabafemi Badejo, UNDPA, SomaliaMaura Barry, SACB, SomaliaJohn Battle MPAyham Bayzid, MSF-Holland, SomaliaMia Beers, USAID, SomaliaImanol Berakoetxea, SACB, SomaliaSaverio Bertolino, Regional Representative, COSV,SomaliaJim Bishop, Disaster Response Committee, InteractionCecilia Bjorner, Swedish Mission, UNHCRCharlotte Bogh, Red BarnetAnne Bordé, Director-General, Policy Branch, CIDAYves Boulanger, Director-General of Performance Review,CIDAEddy Boyle, EU, SomaliaMark Bradbury, Consultant, SomaliaPippa Bradford, WFP, IslamabadJeremy Brickhill, UNDP, SomaliaMatt Bryden, Director, War Torn Societies Project, SomaliaHelmut Buss, DRRM, UNHCRVittorio Cagnolati, Terra NuovaJoanne Caley, UK Mission, UNHCRGerald Cashion, USAID, SomaliaJean-Francois Cautain, EC, IslamabadJane Cocking, OxfamSander Cohen, Special Advisor to the High Commissioner,UNHCRTony Colman MPDuff Conacher, Democracy WatchMarie-Anne Coninsx, EC Mission, UNHCRTim Craddock, DFIDJeff Crisp, Head, Evaluation and Policy Analysis Unit,UNHCRMaria Crompvoets, Dutch Embassy, SomaliaJohn Cunliffe, ACF, SomaliaMark Cutts, Special Advisory to the High Commissioner,UNHCRNiels Dabelstein, Head, Evaluation Secretariat, DanidaStefan Dalhgren, Swedish Embassy, SomaliaJean Daudelin, Senior Researcher, Conflict and HumanSecurity, North–South InstituteWill Day, Director, CARE-UKHervé Delphin, Assistant to the Director, ECHOKhidir Dhaloum, Deputy Programme Director, SCF-UKSivanka Dhanapala, Executive Assistant to the DHC,UNHCRMariam Diallo, UNHCRAntonio Donini, UNCO, IslamabadEvan Due, Canadian High Commission, IslamabadMichel Dufour, ICRC, SomaliaDebbie Duncan, DFIDDolph Everts, Deputy Head, DRRM, UNHCR

Kathleen Fahy, former Programme Manager, Somalia,TrócaireScott Faia, CARE, SomaliaTony Faint, DFIDLehnart Falk, Red BarnetKate Farnsworth, OFDAKevin Farrell, Representative/Country Director, WFP,SomaliaAnne Folkvord, DRRM, UNHCRManuel Fontaine, Programme Officer/Coordinator,UNICEF, SomaliaAnn Freckleton, DFID, British High Commission,IslamabadMike Gaouette, Head of Emergencies, SCF-UKAbeba Ghebremedhin, DRRM, UNHCRMarcello Girodani, COSVKarri Goeldner, USAID, SomaliaElissa Golberg, Department of Foreign AffairsGianluca Gondolini, COOPIJonathan Goodhand, SOAS, LondonNancy Gordon, Vice-President, CARE CanadaGreg Gottlieb, Acting Director, Office of TransitionInitiativesYves Gounin, French Embassy, SomaliaPhilippe Gourdin, UNESCO, SomaliaSebastian Groth, German Embassy, SomaliaDaniel Gustafson, FAO, SomaliaRuedi Hager, Swiss Development Corporation, IslamabadFahim Hakim, CPAU, PeshawarBirthe Hald, Head of Relief Section, Danish Red CrossSalah Halima, Egyptian Embassy, SomaliaLisa Hansen, S. Hum, DanidaBernard Harbourne, OCHA, SomaliaPaul Harvey, British High Commission, SomaliaSusan Hay, Head, ECHO IVJohn Hayward, ECHO Afghanistan (1997–99); ECHOMoscowLisa Henry, Dan Church Aid, DanidaGunilla Hesselmark, Director and Controller ofDepartment of Resource Management, UNHCRJohn Hitchinson, Office of the Auditor-General of CanadaSue Hogwood, British Ambassador to KigaliKristian Hojersholt, S. Hum, DanidaPeter Holdsworth, ECHO, SomaliaKristian Holmsbach, DanidaJohn Horekens, former Head, Communications andFundraising, UNHCRTom Hushek, BPRM, US Embassy, IslamabadMoe Hussein, UNCU, SomaliaPablo Ibañez, ECHO VSigurd Illing, ECHenrik Jesperson, Royal Danish Embassy, SomaliaFatuma Jibril, Horn Relief for SomaliaEva Johansson, Swedish Embassy, SomaliaEddie Johns, UNCTAD/UNDP former focal point for

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SomalilandChris Johnson, former Head, Strategic Monitoring Unit,AfghanistanPat Johnson, UNDP, SomaliaGary Jones, Norwegian People’s Aid/NGO ConsortiumFocal PointJack Jones, DFIDAnne Juepner, UNDP, SomaliaAllan Jury, former Director, Policy and Resource Planning,BPRMMukesh Kapila, formerly Head, CHADBarbara Kelly, formerly DFIDTom Kelly, DFIDRandolph Kent, Resident Coordinator, UNDP, SomaliaGaim Kibreab, Norwegian Church AidBasil King, AMREF, SomaliaPirrko Korula, Head, Action 2004Elspeth Krogh, Dan Church Aid, member of Danida’s Boardfor International Development CooperationManfred Kuhnapfel, Office of the Auditor-General ofCanadaAnders Laderkarl, Danish Refugee CouncilDominic LangbakerCristophe Langenkamp, Technical Assistance RuralDevelopment, EU Delegation, SomaliaJohanna Langenkamp, UNHCR Office, BrusselsJim Lee, Library of Parliament, CanadaLai-Ling Lee, Programme Manager, Médecins SansFrontières, OttawaUlla Lehmann Nielsen, DanidaPaul Lerose-Edwards, CanademAndre le Sage, OCHA, SomaliaMikael Lindval, Swedish Mission to UNHCRStina Ljungdell, DRRM, UNHCRMads Lofvall, Danish Red CrossWayne Long, Chief Security Advisor, SomaliaPeter Lundberg, SIDA, StockholmK. Lutato, UNHCRUna MacAskill, CORDAIDAlison Maccoll, FAO, SomaliaNorman MacDonnell, International HumanitarianAssistance Unit, Multilateral Branch, CIDAEwan MacLeod, EC Peshawar (1993–99); UNHCR,GenevaSimon Mansfield, Africa Greater Horn Department, DFIDMario Maritano, EU, SomaliaRicardo Mattei, Italian Cooperation, SomaliaDick McCallSusan McCoy, CIDAHunter McGill, Director-General of the InternationalHumanitarian Assistance Unit, CIDAMargaret McKelvey, Director, Office of Assistance to Africa,BPRMSiri Melchior Tellier, Head of International Development,Danish Red CrossNicole Mendenhall, former Director-General ofPerformance Review, CIDARobert Miller, Director, The Parliamentary Centre, OttawaDavid Mepham, Special Adviser to UK Development

Secretary Clare ShortJuerg Montani, ICRC, SomaliaMichael Mosselmans, DFIDPeninah Munoru, DRRM, UNHCRDavid Murphy, IRCWalid Musa, EU, SomaliaNigel Nicholson, Save the Children, SomaliaNorah Niland, UNCO IslamabadZahra Osmane, DRRM, UNHCRChris Print, FAO, SomaliaDavid Querol, MSF Spain, SomaliaHazel Reitz, BPRMSarah Richards, DFIDGianfranco Rotigliano, UNICEF, SomaliaAnnika Sandlund, DRRM, UNHCRNureldin Satti, UNESCOKathrin Schick, Director, VOICEGerald Schmitz, Senior Researcher, Library of Parliament,CanadaAdrian (‘Buz’) Sharp, FSAULeo Shcelekens, EC, SomaliaZainab Sheikh-Ali, Fund Raising Officer, DRRM,UNHCRAbdulkadir Shirwa, USAID/FEWSSusie Smith, OxfamSteffen Stenberg-Jensen, Head, ECHO IDavid Stephens, Special Representative of the SecretaryGeneral, SomaliaArne Strand, consultant/researcher, PRDU, YorkJohan Svensson, Life and Peace InstituteMaja Sverdrup, S. Hum, DanidaAndrea Tamagnini, UNDP Senior Deputy Res/Rep,NairobiJennifer Tangney, VOICERichard Teuten, Aid Policy Department, DFIDLinda Thomas Greenfield, US Mission, UNHCRThomas Thomsen, DACAARMette Thygesen, ECHO IVBrian Tomlinson, Policy Director, Canadian Council forInternational CooperationJan Top Christensen, Head, S. Hum, DanidaRoy Trivedy, DFIDSolly Tshivula, South African High CommissionCarol Ungaro, Italian Special Envoy for SomaliaJean-Pierre van der Straeten, ECHO VIAnita Vester, National Audit Office, DenmarkEmma Visman, SaferWorldGovert Visser, Royal Netherlands Embassy, Islamabad(1997–2000)Karen von HippelHarold Wackman, World Bank, SomaliaMark Walkup, BPRMCarly Wand, DRRM, UNHCRGlenn Warren, US EmbassyDahir Wasrame, World Bank, SomaliaJean-Noel Wettervald, Head, DRRM, UNHCRAndrew Wilder, SCF, IslamabadKelly Williams, MSF-Holland, SomaliaRoy Williams, former Director, OFDA

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Elizabeth Winter, British Agencies Afghanistan Group(BAAG), LondonBart Witteveen, Danish Refugee CouncilErik Wonge, National Audit Office, DenmarkMary Ann Wrysch, Deputy High Commissioner, UNHCRAlexandros YannisSheldon Yett, UNICEF, SomaliaHaroun Yusuf, ActionAid, SomaliaAlexadro Zanotta, Terra Nuova

Interviews were also conducted in mid-2002 with NGOstaff in one large and one small agency, as part of the researchinto NGOs’ contractual relations with donors. To allowfor more open discussion of the findings of the study, theresearcher undertook not to disclose the names of theNGOs, nor of the staff interviewed.

Small NGOOperations Manager, Sierra LeoneOperations Manager, DRCSenior Health Adviser, Sierra Leone and AfghanistanOperations Manager, AfghanistanOperations Assistant, Afghanistan

Large NGOHead of International Funding UnitEmergency Funding ManagerEmergency Funding/ECHO CoordinatorRegional Funding ManagerEmergency Funding Coordinator, Sierra LeoneEmergency Funding Coordinator, Afghanistan

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Annex 1Outputs of the research project

In addition to this report, this research project has producedthe following outputs:

Briefing Papers

Joanna Macrae, The Changing Role of Official Donors inHumanitarian Action: A Review of Trends and Issues

Sarah Collinson, International Humanitarian Action and theAccountability of Official Donors: Uncertain Power, UncertainResponsibility

Anna Schmidt, Coordinating Humanitarian Action: TheChanging Role of Official Donors

Background Papers

Margie Buchanan-Smith and Ulrik Sørensen Rohde,Danida’s International Humanitarian Assistance Programme: ACase Study of Accountability Mechanisms

Sarah Collinson, Donor Accountability in the UK

Natalie Folster, Canada’s International Humanitarian AidProgramme: Policy Oversight Mechanisms

Chris Johnson and Jolyon Leslie, Coordination Structures inAfghanistan

Tasneem Mowjee and Joanna Macrae, Accountability andInfluence in the European Community Humanitarian Aid Office

Abby Stoddard, The US and the ‘Bilateralisation’ ofHumanitarian Response

These papers are available on the ODI website(www.odi.org.uk/hpg/publications.html), and in hard copyfree on request from the ODI.

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Annex 2Main articles of the general conditions of the ECHO

Framework Partnership Agreement

● Article 3 points out that EC funding can representpartial or total financing for a project.

● Article 4 stipulates that requests for financing must besubmitted on the standard forms provided. OnceECHO has studied the proposal, it undertakes to ‘notifythe Partner as soon as possible of its acceptance orrefusal, taking into account the degree of urgency ofthe operation’.

● Under Article 6, the duration of a project is limited tosix months, except for special circumstances whenECHO may grant an extension and which wouldrequire a written amendment to the OperationContract.

● Article 7 on the eligibility of expenditure states thatthe Commission’s decision sets the date from whichexpenditure is eligible. This may be the date on whichECHO received the proposal.

● Article 8 on the budget lists the items for which fundingcan be provided (staff, relief supplies, transport andmonthly flat rates for vehicles and other equipmentfor the project).

● Article 10 consists of 11 points which deal with changesto project budgets.

● Article 12 on the coordination of operations states that,in the case of large-scale operations financed by ECHO,it may ask Partners to participate in a working groupfor the exchange of views and for consultation toimprove coordination between different Partnersengaged in the operation.

● Article 15 comprises seven points which deal withvarious aspects of the purchase of goods.

● Articles 22 and 23 cover reporting requirements.Partners are required to submit monthly, quarterly orone final financial report, as stipulated in the contract.ECHO undertakes to acknowledge receipt of financialreports. Financial reports are to be submitted onstandard forms, whilst operation reports need to bebased on the guidelines provided by ECHO.

● Article 27 on visibility commits a Partner to participatein any action or activity designed to ensure the visibilityof humanitarian actions undertaken by ECHO, whichis consistent with its mandate and ‘provided that it doesnot compromise the Partner’s security or the securityof its staff ’. It also requires Partners to ensure thatsupplies financed by ECHO and all transport displaythe ECHO logo, ‘which should be of an adequate size’.

● Article 33 states that the FPA, General Conditions andthe Operational Contract are governed by Belgian law.Disputes which cannot be settled amicably will bebrought before the competent courts in Brussels. Butthe parties may also agree to settle the dispute byarbitration, ‘in accordance with the UNCITRAL [UNCommission on International Trade Law] arbitrationrules’.

Changes to the Articles made in the revised FPA introducedin 1999 include:

● The extension of Article 3 to state that, in the case oflarge-scale humanitarian operations which are fundedby a number of donors, the humanitarian organisationundertakes to inform ECHO of the identity of theother donors.

● The amendment of Article 6 so that projects can beextended beyond six months by the Commission inwriting (this removes any mention of amendments tothe operation contract).

● The expansion of Article 7 from a brief statement thatthe date of eligibility of expenditure is set by theCommission. This includes exceptional emergencycases when ECHO may consider eligible expenditureby the humanitarian agency before it receives aproposal.

● The revision of Article 8 so that items which can befunded are listed in a separate annex (which becomesa fourth part of the FPA). The rest of the Article ismore detailed about initial changes to the budget byECHO, and provides for ECHO to consider the budgetjointly with the partner when ECHO is suggestingsubstantial modifications to it (thus avoiding problemsof apparently arbitrary changes by ECHO deskofficers).

● The updating of Article 10 to give Partners moreflexibility to adapt budgets.

● The extension of Article 11, which covers operationalimplementation by the humanitarian organisation, toenable agencies to ‘assign implementation of theoperation, in full or in part, to a local Partner’. Thisallows Partners to work through local partnerorganisations whereas, previously, they were only ableto entrust part of the implementation to theseorganisations.

● The simplification of Article 13 (previously 12) ongeneral coordination to one paragraph stating that, in

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the case of operations financed by the Community,ECHO may suggest that humanitarian agencies and/or donors participate in a working group to exchangeinformation to improve coordination between thehumanitarian actors involved. Article 14 then providesfor funded organisations to keep in regular contactwith the ECHO office or Commission Delegation inthe field.

● The substantial lengthening of Article 16 (previously15) on Procurement.

● The amendment of Articles 23 and 24 on reporting toenable humanitarian organisations to modify the

standard forms on which narrative and financial reportsare to be submitted. But ECHO added the stipulationthat final financial reports must include the full namesof expatriate staff, their functions and the duration oftheir services.

● The inclusion in Article 30 (previously 27) on visibilityof a requirement that the funded organisation presenta visibility plan where appropriate, and that evidenceof visibility activities be provided in final reports.

● An alteration to Article 33 to provide for an arbitrationpanel for contract-related disputes which cannot besettled amicably.

HPG Briefing Papers

HPG Briefing Papers present the key findings of HPG research in a four- or six-page summary.

HPG Briefing Paper 7 Coordinating Humanitarian Action: The Changing Role of Official Donors by Anna Schmidt and NicolaReindorp (December 2002)

HPG Briefing Paper 6 International Humanitarian Action and the Accountability of Official Donors: Uncertain Power, Uncertain Responsibilityby Sarah Collinson (December 2002)

HPG Briefing Paper 5 The Changing Role of Official Donors in Humanitarian Action: A Review of Trends and Issues by Joanna Macrae(December 2002)

HPG Briefing Paper 4 Financing International Humanitarian Action: A Review of Key Trends by Margie Buchanan-Smith (November2002)

HPG Briefing Paper 3 Trends in US Humanitarian Policy by Abby Stoddard (April 2002)

HPG Briefing Paper 2 Mainstreaming Safety and Security Management in Aid Agencies by Koenraad Van Brabant (March 2001)

HPG Briefing Paper 1 The Politics of Coherence: Humanitarianism and Foreign Policy in the Post-Cold War Era by Joanna Macrae andNicholas Leader (July 2000)

An ODI Briefing Paper is also available, entitled International Humanitarian Action: A Review of Key Trends, by Joanna Macrae(April 2002)

HPG Reports

HPG Reports present the detailed findings of the Group’s research. They are HPG’s major contribution to the development ofhumanitarian policy.

HPG Report 11 The New Humanitarianisms: A Review of Trends in Global Humanitarian Action edited by Joanna Macrae (April2002)

HPG Report 10 Politics and Humanitarian Aid: Debates: Dilemmas and Dissension – A Conference Report by Devon Curtis (April2001)

HPG Report 9 Mainstreaming the Organisational Management of Safety and Security: A Review of Aid Agency Practices and a Guide forManagement by Koenraad Van Brabant (March 2001)

HPG Report 8 Shifting Sands: The Search for ‘Coherence’ between Political and Humanitarian Responses to Complex Emergencies byJoanna Macrae and Nicholas Leader (August 2000)

HPG Report 7 Solidarity and Soup Kitchens: A Review of Principles and Practice for Food Distribution in Conflict by Susanne Jaspars(August 2000)

HPG Report 6 Terms of Engagement: Conditions and Conditionality in Humanitarian Action – A Conference Report edited by NicholasLeader and Joanna Macrae (July 2000)

HPG Report 5 The Principles of Humanitarian Action in International Humanitarian Law by Kate Mackintosh (March 2000)

HPG Report 4 The ‘Agreement on Ground Rules’ in South Sudan by Mark Bradbury, Nicholas Leader and Kate Mackintosh(March 2000)

HPG Report 3 The ‘Joint Policy of Operation’ and the ‘Principles and Protocols of Humanitarian Operation’ in Liberia by PhilippaAtkinson and Nicholas Leader (March 2000)

HPG Report 2 The Politics of Principle: The Principles of Humanitarian Action in Practice by Nicholas Leader (March 2000)

HPG Report 1 The Political Economy of War: An Annotated Bibliography by Philippe Le Billon (March 2000)

Reports and Briefing Papers are available on request from the ODI, and on the ODI website at www.odi.org.uk/hpg/publications.html.

HPG also publishes the Humanitarian Practice Network, an informal forum where fieldworkers, managers and policy-makersin the humanitarian sector share information, analysis and experience. For more information on the HPN, visit www.odihpn.org.

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