Working with countries faced with humanitarian disasters: A discussion with Valerie Amos

Valerie Amos began by saying that recent world events had put the United Nations back at the centre of the global agenda. But with Syria dominating, it was easy to forget the humanitarian work it was doing in so many other places, and she was ‘hugely frustrated’ by the narrative that the UN wasn’t doing much.

What we loosely call ‘humanitarianism’ in response to conflict and natural disaster differs from development aid and is concerned with ‘life-saving’. Action should adhere to four principles:

• Humanity
• Neutrality
• Independence
• Impartiality.

It should also be universal.

The 24/7 media age contributes to a challenging, complex world which can overwhelm many – people look for leadership and are disappointed and confused when they don’t find it.

Humanitarianism goes back to the founding principles of the UN; the scourge of war, faith in human rights and importance of tolerance have not gone away. There has been significant progress despite the despair around Rwanda and Bosnia, such as the 161 states signed up to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty and the prison sentences handed out to key figures in the conflict in the Congo.

The development of Responsibility to Protect has moved the discussion on from whether intervention is right on moral or legal grounds to when it is right to intervene on humanitarian grounds. Can we just stand by and watch people suffer? Where does the balance lie between public advocacy and private diplomacy?

How can humanitarianism deal with disasters in the 21^st Century? There are four key points:

• People, especially women and children, should be put at the heart of response Sometimes humanitarian workers are more focused on what they can bring rather than what’s needed on the ground – one village just wanted a bridge fixed so they could get what they wanted, rather than lots of supplies
• The world has changed – we need to grow a more diverse humanitarian system There are different and more diverse organisations becoming part of the system – how best to develop those partnerships?
• How can we build contacts and capacity with regional actors so they become a truly integral part of the agenda? Brazil and Turkey, for example, are now major donors
• How do we make stronger linkages between different areas of work? There is too much compartmentalisation. Humanitarian workers need to work with partners in development – you cannot address the scale of crisis, ‘which is becoming the new normal in some countries’, through humanitarian intervention alone.

Syria is at the top of her agenda right now, a complex crisis with at least four dimensions:

• chemical weapons (the current international focus)
• political
• human rights
• major humanitarian disaster.

‘A brutality [is] being meted out day-by-day which is almost unimaginable… but it is the reality for people’s daily lives.’ It is ‘a regional, not a Syrian, crisis now’; 2 million people have registered as refugees and one-fifth of the Lebanese population is now Syrian, akin to the UK having to absorb 12 million people.

Despite the insecurity, countries are complying with refugee conventions and the Security Council’s consensus statement (2 October) signified progress. The UN’s work on the ground is ‘painstaking and it’s heartbreaking’. The UN estimates there are 2 million people in besieged areas they cannot reach, and on average workers have to get through 50 checkpoints to reach Aleppo (half controlled by government, half by various rebel groups). There is no way of estimating the impact of the trauma on the population, but ‘we have lost in my view a generation of children’.

‘This is a situation that needs a political solution.’ Nobody has the answers to all the dilemmas, hence the need for the UN and human rights as a central component. Those drafting the UN Charter understood that if these rights were so outraged then ‘they cease to be the sole concern of each state’. These are difficult problems, but ‘if it was easy, we wouldn’t have had to set up the UN in the first place’. It is essential the UN’s work continues and it must be an agent of change.

In response to questions, Amos accepted there was an issue of overlapping organisations with overlapping mandates – but rather than ask if all were needed we should ask what model will work.

She said it was becoming harder and harder to deal with humanitarian problems because of the ‘layers of fragility’ often involved, with countries afflicted by natural disaster often having weak government and internal problems. Even well-prepared countries can struggle with disasters: she remembered landing in Brussels after visiting the Congo (always difficult because of continuing suffering which forced you to ask what had actually changed) to images of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

On Syria, the UN estimated in January 2013 that it would need $1.5bn for 6 months, but a few months later they needed $3bn. Amos said the single most important thing was a political solution which brought sufficient stability for people to return and rebuild. She would have preferred a binding resolution from the Security Council to the presidential statement.

It was difficult to get the balance right between dealing with Syria and all the other humanitarian problems around the globe, but Amos concluded that if you didn’t get the crisis at the top of the public agenda right, the public would not trust you to deal with the others.