Chapter 3
Lessons learned:
the Darfur experience
Larry Minear
73
3 – ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action in 2004
3.1 Introduction
In recent years, lesson-learning has become part of the mantra of humanitarian
action. Organisations involved in assistance and protection activities routinely speak
of how the international response to a given crisis will reap the benefits of
experience. ‘We will not make the same mistakes again’, they say, as they suit up for
the next crisis. Given the humanitarian hyperactivity years of the post-Cold-War era,
the wealth of experience available for appropriation is arguably sizeable.
This chapter analyses the humanitarian sector’s assessment of its response to the
Darfur crisis, up to early 2005. It tests the hypothesis that lessons identified in
previous humanitarian action have been incorporated into the Darfur response. It
reaches the judgement that the humanitarian enterprise acquitted itself poorly
during the two years beginning in March 2003, despite encountering challenges,
admittedly formidable, with which it was already familiar from the Sudan and other
conflict settings. The purpose of the present exercise – like that of the Review overall
and of ALNAP itself – is to stimulate reflection by the humanitarian sector on its
activities with a view to enhancing performance and promoting learning and
accountability.
3.1.1 The evaluations and their message
The chapter is based on a desk study of a fairly narrow data set of six evaluations
(some 300 pages in all) of recent work in Darfur that were made available to ALNAP
by its member agencies. One was conducted by UNHCR, one was carried out by
UNICEF and DFID, and a third was a UN interagency study led by OCHA. The
remaining three evaluations were conducted by NGOs: MSF-Holland, Oxfam GB/
International, and CARE International. The UN interagency and CARE studies each
involved two reviews at different times.1 Four of the six evaluations – UNHCR,
Oxfam, CARE, and the UN interagency study – were real-time evaluations, designed
to promote course corrections in existing programmes rather than taking a
retrospective look after their completion.
Beyond the six Darfur-specific evaluations, this chapter draws on a wider literature
on the Sudan, covering the current crisis and its predecessors. Casting the net
74
Lessons learned: the Darfur experience – 3
beyond the Sudan, the chapter also utilises the ALNAP database and other resources
to provide a wider perspective on the Darfur response. In all, upwards of one
hundred titles from the wider literature were consulted. Working within the
constraints of the desk study, the author did not interview the evaluation teams, visit
the region, or consult with the Sudanese authorities.
The chapter reviews eight thematic areas: mobilising humanitarian action;
addressing the crisis of protection; supporting IDPs and refugees; saving
livelihoods; managing tensions between the humanitarian and the political; situating
humanitarian action in relation to the conflict; improving coordination; and crafting
an appropriate and accountable international presence.
These are not the standard OECD/DAC evaluation categories of efficiency,
effectiveness, impact, sustainability, and relevance. However, the DAC categories are
not used consistently in the six evaluations reviewed. The eight thematic areas
represent major recurrent concerns expressed by humanitarian agencies in
assessing their own performance in the Darfur crisis, and are also raised by the
wider international public in reviewing crisis responses. Frequent quotations from
the evaluations are included in the chapter in order to give direct voice to agency
experience.
Box 3.1
The dataset of six evaluation reports
1 UN Interagency evaluation
The OCHA-managed Inter-Agency Evaluation of the Humanitarian Response to
the Darfur Crisis was launched in August 2004. An evaluation team made visits to
the region in September 2004 and January–February 2005, with a third visit
following in May–June 2005. The team consisted of two independent consultants,
one member seconded by CARE/Steering Committee on Humanitarian Response,
and one OCHA staff member. The ALNAP Review utilised a working paper on
performance benchmarks and the team’s observations and recommendations
following the second visit (23 pages). This report is referred to as the UN
interagency evaluation.
CONTINUED
75
3 – ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action in 2004
Box 3.1
The dataset of six evaluation reports continued
2 UNICEF evaluation
The Joint UNICEF–DFID Evaluation of UNICEF Preparedness and Early Response to
the Darfur Emergency (86 pages) was published in late February 2005, based on
earlier field visits. A four-person team led by Francois Grunewald of Groupe URD
consisted of staff from UNICEF, DFID and URD. This evaluation is referred to as
the UNICEF evaluation.
3 UNHCR evaluation
Real-Time Evaluation of UNHCR’s Response to the Emergency in Chad (27 pages) was
published in August 2004, following a two-week visit by two agency staff, Dominik
Baartsch and Nagette Belgacem, to Chad in June.
4 CARE evaluation
CARE International (CI) produced two reports on its real-time evaluation, CARE
International’s Humanitarian Response to the Darfur Crisis. The report of the first
phase covered the period to May 2004, without benefit of field visits (13 pages).
The report of the second phase, which included field visits to both Darfur and
eastern Chad, evaluated activities during June–October 2004 (24 pages). The
process was led by Jock Baker, CI’s Emergencies Quality, Standards and
Accountability Coordinator. A Darfur Emergency Assessment Report was
published on 4 April 2004, following rapid assessments by a seven-person team in
South Darfur in late March 2004.
5 Oxfam evaluation
Real-Time Evaluation of Oxfam Darfur Crisis Response (18 pages) is an internal
review by Oxfam-Great Britain and Oxfam International, based on visits to the
region in July and September 2004.
6 MSF-Holland evaluation
Darfur 2004: a Review of MSF-H’s Responsiveness and Strategic Choices (51 pages)
was published in January 2005, based on research carried out by an independent
consultant, Frances Stevenson, in November–December 2004.
76
Lessons learned: the Darfur experience – 3
This chapter was researched and written from January into early March 2005 when
the international humanitarian apparatus, after lengthy delays, was beginning to
make its mark on the crisis. During March and April, when the chapter circulated for
comment and was revised by the author, the situation took a turn for the worse.
Estimates of conflict- and famine-related deaths were increased and dire warnings
were sounded for the future. As the chapter was completed, in June 2005, the
emergency was still evolving and its trajectory remained uncertain.
Whatever the future holds, this snapshot of the initial two years of the international
response may prove useful in reflecting on the early decisions taken and not taken.
In any event, the humanitarian community and the concerned wider international
public are deeply indebted to the agencies that have been willing to share in painful
detail their experience during this difficult period. It is hoped that this chapter, like
the agencies’ own self-evaluations, will contribute to the improved functioning of the
aid apparatus in future crises.
The author would like to thank Bronagh Carr, Roberta Cohen, Paul Harvey, John
Lakeman, John Mitchell and Helen Young for their comments, and Gordon Brown
for research assistance. Errors of fact or misinterpretations are the author’s own
responsibility.
3.2 Mobilising humanitarian action
‘ The distinguishing feature of the Darfur crisis has been the lateness and
inadequacy of the humanitarian response. It has been so serious that it amounted to
“systemic failure”’ (MSF-H, 2005, p 7). This observation from the MSF-Holland
evaluation, a searing indictment of the humanitarian enterprise as a whole,
resonates to one degree or another with the findings of the other Darfur studies.
There is broad agreement among them that the humanitarian apparatus was
lamentably slow in gearing up for action and that, even after gearing up, never quite
managed to take the measure of the emergency.
77
3 – ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action in 2004
The first signs of the imminent conflict in the region are generally placed in March
2003, when fighting erupted between the government of Sudan and two insurgent
groups, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement
(JEM).2 Indeed, tensions were already apparent in late 2002. Significant
displacement was evident from April 2003 onwards, with refugees arriving in Chad
from April, and internally displaced persons within Darfur itself numbering over
500,000 by May 2003. Displacement and suffering, and death related to conflict
increased steadily throughout 2003–04.
Estimates of deaths related to the conflict varied from 7,000 by the Sudan authorities
(ABC News (Australia), 2005) to 300,000 by a UK parliamentary committee (HoC,
2005), and nearly 400,000 by the Coalition for International Justice (CIJ, 2005). The
particular estimates that caused the most widespread alarm in the humanitarian
community were those made by a WHO official in October 2004 of 70,000 deaths
(WHO, 2004) and by UN Under-Secretary-General Jan Egeland in March 2005 of
180,000 (BBC News, 2005).3 The latter figure was especially vigorously disputed by
the Sudan government, which portrayed it as part of a campaign to discredit the
regime (ABC News (Australia), 2005). Then again, highly politicised emergencies
often involve free-swinging and sometime acrimonious debates about the numbers
of persons affected.4
In reality, serious need in the Darfur region predated the humanitarian crisis that
had spiked upward in 2003. For several years running, drought had undermined
food security and created widespread distress. At the time of the flare-up of violence
in early 2003, a number of agencies – including Oxfam-GB, Save the Children-UK,
MedAir, Goal, the Sudan Red Crescent, and the Leprosy Mission – had been present
on the ground, most of them engaged in development activities. UNICEF had been
involved throughout the country for more than thirty years; Save the Children and
Oxfam had stayed on in Sudan after responding to the crippling Darfur famine of the
mid-eighties. In fact, a Save the Children evaluation mission in April 2000 had been
enthusiastic about strides made in Darfur’s early warning and food information
system (SC-UK, 2000). By their own admission, however, the agencies had been slow
to read the signs in 2003 and to retrofit assistance efforts to the needs of the evolving
emergency.5
If human need increased sharply in early 2003, the UN humanitarian and diplomatic
apparatus was not seriously activated for most of a year, despite various high-level
UN emissary visits and pronouncements. One of the first statements forthcoming
78
Lessons learned: the Darfur experience – 3
was from the OHCHR special rapporteur on the Sudan, who in late March 2003
reported allegations of ethnic cleansing as part of an ostensible effort by the Sudan
government to purge Darfur of African tribes.6 Human-rights NGOs also sounded an
early alarm.7 However, there was a considerable time lag before the United Nations
as a system became seized with the emergency. In September 2003 and again in
January 2004, the UN’s special humanitarian envoy sounded a warning, as did the
Secretary-General himself in December 2003. Senior UN officials briefed the Security
Council in May 2004, which passed resolutions in late July 2004 (1556) and
November 2004 (1574). In July 2004 the Africa Union deployed a small group of
peace monitors. But, in retrospect, these dates in mid-and late 2004 contrast
markedly with the initial escalation of conflict and displacement in early 2003.
On the operational front, the UN’s Greater Darfur Initiative was launched in
September 2003, with $23 million in funding requested. In April 2004, the request
was revised upward to $115 million and in June to $236 million, the growing price
tag conveying the system’s sense of a runaway crisis. A UN country team had been
in place in Khartoum in 2003, but with respect to Darfur the minutes of its meetings,
reviewed by the UNICEF evaluation, were found to ‘reflect a general lack of urgency
until December 2003’ (DFID/UNICEF, 2005, p 28). The standard UN Disaster and
Assessment Coordination (DAC) team was deployed in late February 2004, almost a
year after the flare-up of violence and displacement. The MSF-H evaluation found ‘a
lack of leadership from the UN’, which paid little attention to the Darfur crisis and
whose Khartoum presence seemed a veritable revolving door of itinerating
personnel (MSF-H, 2005, p 8).
If the UN system as a whole was slow to respond, individual UN agencies were not
particularly quick off the mark either. The UNICEF evaluation divides its
mobilisation into four periods.
1
During the early phase (March to October 2003), the agency responded with
‘small-scale interventions with little impact’.
2
In an intermediate phase (November 2003 to early spring 2004), programmes
languished in the face of security constraints and lack of resources.
3
During the third period (May to September 2004), UNICEF finally pulled ‘the
corporate trigger’, declaring Darfur an organisation-wide emergency on May 20
and mobilising its total institutional resources.
79
3 – ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action in 2004
4
The fourth period, from October 2004, saw the consolidation of activities, but still
with disappointing results.
The evaluation concluded that ‘the early UNICEF response, along with that of other
UN agencies, NGOs and institutional donors, was by and large inadequate’. Fully 18
months into the mobilisation, and despite documented successes in the areas of
health, education, and potable water, continuing problems raised serious questions
for the evaluation team about UNICEF’s ‘capacity to deliver and coordinate
emergency operations’8 (DFID/UNICEF, 2005, pp 8, 11, 21).
Other agencies also experienced difficulties, particularly in their own respective
start-up phases. In fact, as more evaluations are carried out, more such difficulties
are likely to be documented.
•
MSF-Holland was perhaps quickest off the mark, having followed up preliminary
internal discussions and Sudan visits between April and September 2003 with
operations in Chad in October 2003 and in West Darfur in March 2004.
•
Oxfam was ‘slowly scaling up the programme (an initial response was started in
September 03 but was curtailed soon afterwards when access was denied by the
GOS.) … Oxfam’s existing presence may have given it some advantage, but we
were not alone in responding late’ (Oxfam, 2004, p 1).
•
CARE’s response in Chad dated from February 2004 and in Darfur from May of
that year, although from the start of 2004 it had supported Save the Children’s
Darfur operation (CARE, June 2004, p 4). A CARE assessment team, exploring
programming possibilities, concluded in April 2004 that ‘Unfortunately,
the humanitarian effort is just now gearing-up in south Darfur’ (CARE,
April 2004, p 13).
•
WFP had the benefit of already approved emergency operations throughout the
country, although during the years 2001 to 2003 there were problems
throughout of ‘considerable under-delivery’ (WFP, 2004, p vi).
80
Lessons learned: the Darfur experience – 3
3.2.1 Reasons for delayed mobilisation
The evaluations identify four major reasons for the delays in mobilisation. First,
agencies had great difficulty establishing and monitoring the extent of the need in
Darfur. The terrain was mammoth and remote and the situation fast-moving, with
fresh military incidents regularly creating new displacement. While there were
variations in the severity of need in North, South and West Darfur, there were
difficulties everywhere in getting a handle on the situation throughout the vast
region. ‘There was little reliable information on the severity of the humanitarian
crisis in its early stages’, concluded the MSF-H evaluation (MSF-H, 2005, p 6).
Situation analysis that kept pace with events would have been a tall order even with
unimpeded access.
Second, information was scarce in part because the government kept the agencies
on a short leash. Access to the Darfurs, doubtless the most critical limiting factor in
the mobilisation effort, waxed and waned according to the political, military and
humanitarian impulses of the Khartoum authorities. The granting of visas for
expatriate personnel and import licences for relief material was used as a means of
exercising political control over emergency activities. Although the authorities eased
strictures in February 2004 and again in May 2004 in response to international
pressure, by then valuable time had been lost. Approaching humanitarian space as
something of an accordion, the authorities restricted access again in early 2005 and
then relaxed restrictions again in April 2005. Complicating access, the UN security
apparatus in the wake of losses of humanitarian personnel in Baghdad seemed
reluctant to challenge government restrictions. For a variety of reasons, the cat-andmouse game between the authorities and the agencies made it difficult for the mice
to mount and sustain activities proportionate to burgeoning need.
Third, a deterrent to putting pressure on the authorities to gain access to Darfur was
the fear of alienating Khartoum, whose cooperation was essential in achieving
North–South peace, itself a humanitarian goal. ‘When the crisis emerged, agencies in
Sudan were like rabbits caught in the headlights’, according to one evaluation, ‘with
their attention focused almost exclusively on the Naivasha process and preparations
for post-peace rehabilitation and development’ (MSF-H, 2005, p 7).
Fourth, the effort to mount a major humanitarian mobilisation for Darfur found itself
engaged in a losing competition with higher-profile emergencies elsewhere for
81
3 – ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action in 2004
priority and resources and media attention. DFID and USAID took the lead among
donors in seeking to keep Darfur needs front and centre, as did NGO consortia at
every available opportunity. However, the unravelling disaster in Darfur was
upstaged in the early going by the crises in Afghanistan and Iraq, which, while of
lesser humanitarian magnitude, had greater political cachet.
Taken together, these four factors delayed for a full year the mobilisation of an
international humanitarian response in any sense commensurate with the need. The
evaluations as a group confirm the conclusion of the UNICEF study that it was not
until at least February 2004 that ‘the donor community began to engage’ (DFID/
UNICEF, 2005, p 32). Figures 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3 document the time-lag between
displacement-generating events on the ground and mobilisation of personnel and
other resources.
Figure 3.1 Darfur Crisis IDPs (UN estimates since September 2003)
1,600,906
Number of IDPs (millions)
1.6
1.4
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
TOTAL
0.4
0.2
Se
529,350
418,338
NORTH
WEST
SOUTH
De Ja
N
M
F
A
O
O
M
A
S
J
J
p 0 ct 0 ov
c 0 n 0 e b 0 a r pr 0 ay u n 0 ul 0 u g 0 e p 0 ct 0
04
4
04
4
3 03
4
4
4
4
3
3
4
4
Source OCHA (October 2004); DFID/UNICEF (2005), based on UN estimates since
September 2003.
82
653,218
Lessons learned: the Darfur experience – 3
3.2.2 Inadequacy of response
If the timeliness of the response to the crisis was the overriding concern of the
evaluations, its inadequacy was a close second. In terms of coverage, the UN
interagency study reports that, at the end of September 2004, some 88 per cent of
the accessible 2,020,597 conflict-affected people had been reached. The
percentages of the IDPs and conflict-affected residents who had received services
ranged from highs in food (70 per cent) and primary health care (67 per cent) to
lows in potable water (40 per cent) and sanitation (42 per cent). The corresponding
figures three months later showed little improvement. By the end of 2004, the
conflict-affected population to which aid agencies had gained access had increased
by about 400,000 (to 2,404,470), itself an encouraging development. Yet sectoral
coverage remained mixed: from highs in shelter (73 per cent) and basic drugs (63
per cent) to lows in potable water (49 per cent) and secondary health care (54 per
cent) (OCHA, 2005, p 2).
Thus, even 18 months into the crisis, the agencies were still having considerable
difficulty gaining control of the situation. Had the data compiled reflected actual need
Figure 3.2 Total number of humanitarian staff in Darfur (national and international)
1 April to 1 October 2004
Number of staff (thousands)
7
6,154
6
5,375
TOTAL
5
4
NATIONAL
3
2
1
779
INTERNATIONAL
Ap
r0
4
Ma
y0
Ju
4
n0
Ju
4
l0
4
Au
g
04
Se
p0
Oc
4
t0
4
Source OCHA (October 2004); DFID/UNICEF (2005).
83
3 – ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action in 2004
rather than accessible need, the percentages reached would have been more
alarming. Moreover, the adequacy of assistance provided in some of the sectors
raised serious questions. The UN interagency study questioned the adequacy of a
shelter package of two blankets per family in conditions in which expatriate staff
required two blankets per person against sub-freezing overnight temperatures.9 And
there were serious questions of whether the coverage achieved by the end of 2004
could be continued into the future. In April 2005, WFP announced that it was
‘cutting by half the non-cereal part of the daily ration, starting in May’, of more than
one million IDPs in Darfur (UN IRIN, 2005). Qualitative as well as quantitative
issues abounded.
Indeed, from the perspective of early 2005, international assistance never quite
caught up with the crisis. What the UNICEF evaluation concluded about food and
nutrition interventions by UNICEF, WFP, and NGOs could be writ large across a
variety of sectors: such interventions ‘have drastically improved the situation, which
nevertheless remains precarious’ (DFID/UNICEF, 2005, p 57). Indeed, two full years
after the initial incidents that triggered the distress, UN Under-Secretary-General Jan
Egeland was warning of a major famine. The humanitarian community ‘has done
Figure 3.3 Resources mobilised for Darfur crisis
DARFUR TOTAL
500
450
400
350
UN DARFUR
US $ (millions)
300
250
200
INGO DARFUR
150
100
RED CROSS DARFUR
50
De
c0
Ja
3
n0
4
Fe
b
04
Ma
r0
Ap
4
r0
4
Ma
y0
Ju
4
Source OCHA (October 2004); DFID/UNICEF (2005)
84
n0
Ju
4
l0
4
Au
g
04
Se
p0
4
Lessons learned: the Darfur experience – 3
our bit’, he said in mid-February 2005; ‘We did prevent the massive famine that
many had predicted, but I think it’s now time to say we perhaps may not be able to
do so if the situation keeps deteriorating as it has’ (UN News Service, 2005).
CARE used the March 2005 anniversary of the Egeland declaration that Darfur was
the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis to call attention to the fact that the crisis
remained unresolved: ‘people continue to be murdered and raped, and to die of
diseases resulting from the violence’; CARE also recalled that it was approaching
two years since the first refugees from the conflict arrived in Chad (CARE, 2005). As
late as June 2005, UNHCR’s director of protection noted on a visit to Darfur that
‘although there are signs of increased stability in some areas, the situation in Darfur
continues to be marred by unpredictability, violence and threats to the security of
affected populations’ (UNHCR, June 2005).
The Darfur crisis was hardly the first time that failures in timeliness and adequacy
had haunted a major humanitarian mobilisation. In Kosovo during NATO’s 1999
bombing campaign, humanitarian organisations had been inundated with refugees
crossing into Macedonia and Albania. UNHCR negotiated an MoU with the British
military, which took over camp-building and camp-management on an interim basis.
Other national military contingents were soon getting into the act. In Darfur, its own
evaluation found UNHCR similarly unprepared. The problem was, among various
factors, ‘the closure of UNHCR’s Chadian office in 2001 and the inadequate attention
and support the emergency initially received from critical sections in Headquarters.
… Many of the activities being implemented in June [2004] should indeed have been
pursued months earlier’ (UNHCR, 2004, pp 3, 17). Even allowing for differing
particulars, history in some key respects did seem to be repeating itself.
Beyond their detailed review of policies and procedures, the evaluations convey an
impression that the agencies were basically unequal to the tasks faced. UNHCR’s
evaluators seem a bit taken aback at the problems that challenged the refugee
agency, as if they were unfamiliar: combatants among the refugees, siting of the
camps too close to the border, difficulties in enumeration, the need to protect women
gathering firewood, problems associated with decentralisation of administration and
interagency and government relations, staff morale.
The UNICEF evaluation noted that while the inaccessibility of people affected by the
conflict made the agency’s task more formidable: ‘due to lack of contingency
planning with regards to inaccessible populations, UNICEF was unable to respond
85
3 – ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action in 2004
adequately when access opened up’ (DFID/UNICEF, 2005, p 42).10 NGOs identified
the familiar problem of ‘scaling up’ effective activities to meet demand, once again a
perennial rather than a novel challenge. The challenges of mobilising effective
humanitarian action in Darfur, then, however formidable, were anything but
unfamiliar.
Taken together, the findings in the six evaluations raise fundamental questions about
the global reach of the world’s humanitarian safety net. Does it have the operational
capacity and discipline to respond to a major crisis in a difficult logistical and political
setting? Can the system maintain adequate capacity between emergencies to be able
to respond quickly?11 Can the global system deal with multiple major humanitarian
emergencies simultaneously? Can it give adequate priority to the Darfurs of the
world when crises with higher political profile but lower incidence of need distract?
The answers will emerge from Darfur and beyond.
3.3 Addressing the crisis of protection
A major leitmotiv of the six evaluations is that the Darfur emergency is first and
foremost a human-rights crisis. ‘The ongoing crisis in Darfur is recognised by the
international community as a crisis of the protection of human rights’ began the
report of the UN interagency team on its second visit in January–February 2005
(OCHA, 2005, p 1). ‘War affected populations’ first and greatest need is protection
from attack’, concluded a CARE assessment mission to South Darfur in April 2004
(CARE April, 2004, p 8). Surveys by Epicentre established very high mortality rates
in four sites visited in September 2004, with violence the primary cause of between
68 and 93 per cent of the deaths.12
3.3.1 Perceptions of human-rights abuses
There has been little disagreement that the government of the Sudan and its Arab
militia patrons have been the major perpetrators of human-rights abuses, although
86
Lessons learned: the Darfur experience – 3
the insurgents are not exonerated. Opinion differs, however, as to whether the
pattern implicates the government in the specific practice of genocide. The report of
an International Commission of Inquiry, established at the behest of the Security
Council and released in January 2005, identified 51 individuals, including ten senior
government officials, as responsible for atrocities in Darfur. ‘While the report finds
no evidence of genocidal intent by the government, it does not rule out the possibility
that individuals in the GoS and militia possessed criminal genocidal intent … and
emphasizes that the crimes against humanity are no less heinous than genocide’
(Justice Africa , 2005, para 15).
The debate about whether or not genocide was being committed was spurred by
observation of the tenth anniversary of the Rwandan bloodletting in April 2004.
‘Looking at Darfur, Seeing Rwanda’, wrote General Roméo Dallaire, reflecting on his
experience in command of UN forces in Rwanda at the time of the genocide in 1994
(Dallaire, October 2004). Mukesh Kapila, from his vantage point as the UN’s
humanitarian coordinator in the Sudan, concurred, drawing a similar conclusion in
widely publicised media interviews in Khartoum in mid-March 2004 that may have
accelerated his departure from the scene. In subsequent months the US Secretary of
State Colin Powell, and the US Congress described the situation as one of genocide,
bringing additional profile to the crisis.
Perspectives differed, however, on the use of the term genocide and, in a broader
sense, whether the international response to flagrant human rights abuses marked a
significant improvement over earlier instances. In a detailed review, two analysts
involved in the 1995–96 joint multi-donor evaluation of the international response to
the Rwanda crisis, John Borton and John Ericksson, drew a largely negative
conclusion. ‘Has the international community become more willing to prevent or
intervene against genocide or mass killings?’, they asked in Lessons from Rwanda –
Lessons for Today. ‘[M]any of the lessons from the Rwanda genocide and the
recommendations of the Joint Evaluation have not resulted in improved practice’
(Danida, 2004, p 19).
Other commentators offered a more positive reading. ‘Despite the very late response
of the international political community to the atrocities in Darfur’, observed Hugo
Slim, ‘key states, UN organizations and NGOs did respond with this new postRwanda sense of responsibility’ (Slim, 2004, p 821). Framing the challenge in terms
of the protection of civilians, the responsibilities of sovereign states, and the
87
3 – ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action in 2004
provisions of international law, Slim argued, was evidence of an encouraging trend,
even though specific actions based on the conclusions may themselves have
been dilatory.13
3.3.2 Protection for women and children
The reality of the Darfur emergency as a crisis in protection was underscored by the
rampant violence against women. ‘The most shocking element of the brutality of the
Dar Fur conflict’, notes an analysis commissioned by DFID, ‘has perhaps been the
widespread, repeated and systematic sexual violence inflicted on women by the
Janjawiid militia’. The particular vulnerability of women and the flagrant abuse of
their fundamental rights was one of the distinguishing features of the Darfur crisis.
With the bread-winning activities of men overtaken by the violence, ‘women have
been left with no choice but to endure sexual violence to be able to assist their
families’ (DFID, 2005, p 26). The reports of rapes of women gathering firewood and
doing other chores near camps were instrumental in establishing Darfur as a
tragedy of international concern.
The quintessential need for protection of vulnerable populations and of women in
particular confronted humanitarian organisations with awkward issues. At the level
of mandates, there was confusion. ‘No UN agency has a clear protection mandate for
IDPs’, concluded the UNICEF evaluation – IDPs being the most numerous single
humanitarian clientele (DFID/UNICEF, 2005, p 47).14 There was also disarray at the
level of programmes. Based on visits to refugee camps in Chad in June 2004, the
UNHCR evaluation concluded that ‘No consistent protection strategy was in place to
systematically respond to the manifold protection issues in evidence.’ UNHCR
turned to seasoned NGOs to help fill protection gaps, the evaluation report observed,
gaps which ‘should not have been there in the first place’ (UNHCR, 2004, pp 3, 12).
But NGOs were themselves not clear on what should be done in protection or on
their specific responsibilities therein. The CARE evaluation noted ‘considerable
uncertainty within the organisation on how to develop or implement a protection
strategy’. It acknowledged ‘confusion at different levels within the organisation
about what role CARE staff should play in protection or how to assess risk
associated with engaging in protection work’ (CARE, June 2004, p 3). The fact that
88
Lessons learned: the Darfur experience – 3
‘giving aid has at times actually increased the risk of attacks on beneficiaries’ lent
urgency to the matter. What could a humanitarian organisation do when faced by
armed militias? Would increased advocacy for more assertive protection by others
jeopardise CARE’s access as a relief agency?
The protection of children was identified as a priority by a number of agencies.
Based on protection assessments, Save the Children-UK formed child protection
teams to assess need and provide services. They identified attacks on children,
physical and sexual abuse (including rape), separation and abduction, humiliation of
relatives, and the impressments of child soldiers as particular areas of concern.
Programmes to address such abuses of human rights included family re-unification,
prevention of gender-based violence, prevention of military recruitment, and
emergency education. Save the Children and others also responded to the crisis in
protection with increased education and advocacy efforts.
Eighteen months into the conflict in Darfur, however, Save the Children observed
that ‘Despite significant advances in the global recognition of the rights of children …
children continue to be victims and are frequently directly targeted’ (SC-UK, 2004, p
2). The OCHA evaluation noted further that educational programming, ‘a protection
tool and activity’ that deserved to be prioritised among humanitarian activities, was
lagging (OCHA, 2005, p 8).
The evaluations differ on views of the extent to which an analysis of gender issues
informed agency programme strategy. The Oxfam review noted that, ‘It is heartening
to find gender issues not only being part of the currency of discourse at most levels,
but also being integrated into programme planning and implementation’ (Oxfam,
2004, p 11). The UN interagency evaluation was more cautious:
It is now widely accepted that conflict and crises are gendered, both in terms
of the differential impact on women and men, girls and boys, and the gender
roles assumed during and after the immediate crisis. Many in the
humanitarian community, however, still regard ‘gender’ as relating solely to
issues of sexual and gender based violence [SGBV] rather than appreciating
that there is a gender and women’s human rights dimension to all aspects of
the response, including non-food item (NFI) selection and distribution,
livelihood analysis and protection. (OCHA, 2005, p 9)
89
3 – ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action in 2004
3.3.3 Relief or rights?
The overriding need for protection led to greater cooperation between relief and
rights agencies. This represented a positive change from earlier crises in which
human-rights advocates were outspokenly critical of ‘truck and chuck’ aid
operatives, and relief officials were disdainful of the ostensible lack of concern
among human-rights advocates for the basic survival of civilian populations. The
more cooperative spirit suggested the implementation of a lesson in interagency
relations identified from earlier crises: that, as formulated by public health specialist
Peter Salama, ‘In the interest of primary prevention, humanitarian agencies need to
use such data [on the targeting of civilians] or at least establish partnerships with
human rights organisations that can’ (Salama et al, 2004, p 1806). Certainly the more
thoroughgoing analysis by relief agencies of the root causes of the conflict fosters
such collaboration (see Section 3.5 below).
At the same time, reflecting their vulnerability to expulsion from Darfur, relief
groups have been more cautious than their rights counterparts in publicly
pressuring the Khartoum authorities to end abuses. Rights groups, which since early
2003 had been denouncing abuses by the government and the militias it supported,
were less persuaded that such pressure might interfere with the negotiations of a
North–South peace agreement, which, relief agencies felt, would itself have major
humanitarian benefits. Another point of tension between relief and rights groups
was the involvement of aid agencies in government-encouraged and potentially
coercive returns of IDPs into areas of still-doubtful safety. Rights groups challenged
IOM, UNHCR’s partner in such movements, for proceeding too uncritically. In their
view, IOM and others involved as government partners in resettlement should ‘not
participate in activities which would expose individuals to human rights abuses’
(Amnesty International, 2004).
On balance, however, rather than representing a new departure in the management
of protection concerns, now more fully acknowledged, the Darfur response reflects
recurrent problems that had characterised earlier crises. These are highlighted in a
recent study, Protect or Neglect? (Bagshaw and Paul, 2004). Noting the traditional
weakness of the UN system in human-rights field presence, analysts Simon
Bagshaw and Diane Paul urge such devices as ground-level human-rights working
groups and focal points, an increase in international presence, more assertive
advocacy, and the strengthening of national and local institutions (Brookings
90
Lessons learned: the Darfur experience – 3
Institution–OCHA, 2004). As the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
reminded the UN Security Council, the fact that as of January 2005 ‘murder, torture,
enforced disappearances, destruction of villages, rape and forced displacement
continue to be committed against the people of Darfur’ (UNHCHR, 2005)
underscored the general failure of protection in the first two years of the conflict.
‘Over the past ten years’, observed one study, ‘the United States has delivered up to
$1 billion in relief aid to the Sudan. But the food, medicines, and seeds, while helpful,
have not protected the Dinka, Nuba, and other tribes from a devastating array of
assaults’ (Cohen and Kunder, 2001, p 2).
Ironically, the prioritising of protection in Darfur, a welcome development in relation
to earlier crises, may have contributed to the problems of meeting the operational
demands of emergency relief programmes. The MSF-H evaluation notes the concern
that protection resources were outdistancing assistance capacity, quoting an Oxfam
official’s lament that relief personnel would rather address the Security Council than
dig latrines (MSF-H, 2005, p 8). For its part, Oxfam confirmed how difficult it had
been to balance operational activities against campaigning and advocacy. As
suggested above, doubts about the capacity of the international humanitarian
enterprise to meet global protection and assistance needs were confirmed rather
than allayed by the Darfur response. To what extent this ‘crisis of operationality’ will
be borne out in future crises remains to be seen. However, the Darfur experience
raises a cautionary flag about the capacity of the global humanitarian apparatus to
deliver in situations of widespread extremity.
3.4 Supporting IDPs and refugees
Sudan has the largest number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) of any country
in the world, some six million in 2004. This is the result of not only the conflict in
Darfur but also years of civil strife in other parts of the country, principally between
North and South. Given the priority attention that IDPs have received in recent years
from the international community at the level of policy, institutional arrangements
and programmes, one might expect the Darfur crisis to demonstrate an exemplary
approach to supporting displaced people. ‘It is imperative that UN agencies be not
91
3 – ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action in 2004
allowed to repeat [in Darfur] the mistakes made in the 1990s in terms of IDP policies’
urged a report commissioned by DFID (DFID, 2005, p 32). The six Darfur evaluations
illustrate both innovations and traditional approaches to support work with IDPs.
Humanitarian organisations, aware that refugees generally fare better than IDPs in
terms of institutional patronage and services, sought to right the balance by focusing
more specifically on the internally displaced. Indeed, correcting the ‘relative neglect’
of IDPs was one of the major recommendations in a recent comprehensive synthesis
of some 17 evaluations of IDP programmes (DAC, 2005). The Darfur data suggest
some success in adjusting the balance.
Certainly the agencies were well aware of the particular vulnerability of IDPs to the
conflict. ‘Addressing the security situation’ of IDPs, reported the Representative of
the Secretary-General on internally displaced persons following a visit in July 2004,
‘must be the absolute priority’ (Deng, 2004, para. 41). While refugees in camps in
Chad also required protection, displaced populations within the Sudan were much
more exposed to violence. Attentiveness to IDP needs had discernible results. The
UN interagency team found that ‘Nearly all IDPs in the camps visited … noted that
health services were better than they had ever received’ (OCHA, 2005, p 12). While a
signal accomplishment, this appraisal also underscored the low level of care
predating the emergency.
Along with progress for IDPs in selected programme areas came greater awareness
of the needs of host communities. Yet this, ironically, itself drew critical comment
from the UN interagency team. ‘While many NGOs are reaching out to the host
community beyond IDP camps’, the evaluation concluded, ‘in some cases this has
been undertaken in a manner that merely duplicates the assistance provided in the
camps, which may not be appropriate. The environment beyond the camp setting is
far more complex.’ The interagency review also found ‘insufficient attention to the
environmental impact of humanitarian assistance activities’, a concern confirmed by
several of the individual evaluations, and a ‘lack of engagement with women’s
leadership structures’ in and around IDP camps (OCHA, 2005, p 11). Not only were
IDP services more difficult to provide but agencies seeking to obtain and maintain
IDP access were more subject to manipulation by the authorities and more
vulnerable to insecurity.
92
Lessons learned: the Darfur experience – 3
3.4.1 Focusing on needs, not categories
The Darfur experience should contribute significantly to recent debate among
donors and agencies about the utility of (a) categorising beneficiaries according to
the nature and extent of their displacement, or (b) assisting them as part of a more
general population in need. An ECHO study, based on reviews in Angola and
Afghanistan as well as Sudan, supported present ECHO policy of allocations based
on need rather than according to a self-contained ‘IDP’ category. The ECHO review
concluded that ‘membership of a particular category was not always a good indicator
of need’ (ECHO, 2004, p 5). Viewing the population as a whole rather than in pieces,
the study found, also lent itself to a more dynamic understanding of political–military
interactions.
A Danida evaluation of assistance to IDPs in Angola also underscored the artificiality
of such population groupings. ‘The need for protection for the IDPs and returnees,
while real, was not much different from that of the resident community’ (Danida ,
2003, p 11). The IDP synthesis study mentioned above, assessing advantages and
disadvantages of targeting, concluded that ‘the central concern is not to grant the
internally displaced a privileged status, but to identify as accurately as possible who
and where they are, and then ensure that their needs are not ignored’ (DAC,
2005, pp 5–6).
3.4.2 Responsibility for displaced people
What of the chronic problem of the lack of an institutional patron for IDPs? The 1998
UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, which clarified the legal position of
IDPs, had by the time of the Darfur crisis been followed up by several changes to
secure IDP interests within the international humanitarian apparatus. But, in this
regard, Darfur repeated history rather than breaking new ground. During its initial
visit in September 2004, the UN interagency team had recommended designation of
a lead agency for IDP camp management. When UNHCR proved unable to play this
role, the UN humanitarian coordinator asked OCHA to identify NGOs to manage the
various IDP camps.
As of early 2005, some 39 different organisations had come forward, most with ‘no
prior experience in camp management/coordination’, leaving some ‘600,000 IDPs [in]
93
3 – ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action in 2004
camps or areas … without a clearly identified camp coordinator’ (OCHA, 2005, p 14).
The UNHCR evaluation itself found unevenness in the quality of services from one
camp to another, reflecting the wide variety of NGOs involved. Darfur thus
represents the latest chapter in the decades-long saga of the clientele that regularly
falls between the coordinating cracks. (Coordination is discussed more widely in
Section 3.8 below.)
On reviewing the six Darfur evaluations in the context of the wider literature on
Sudan and other crises, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the mistakes of the
nineties have indeed been replayed in policies and programmes concerning
displaced people. With some two million IDPs and 200,000 refugees as of early 2005,
the Darfur crisis is primarily one of people displaced within their own country. Yet
with 1.4 million of the IDPs in camps run by some 39 largely inexperienced and
unsupervised NGOs, and another 600,000 in camps without a coordinator, the
United Nations can hardly be said to be responding to the crisis of protection and
assistance as a concerted system. Nor is preventing future displacement through
saving livelihoods – the subject of the following section – by all accounts a major
programming priority.
3.5 Saving livelihoods
Recent policy dialogue has devoted considerable attention to the extent to which
relief activities should be geared to supporting people’s abilities to provide for
themselves – beyond ministrations that provide life-saving inputs such as food,
healthcare, shelter and other such essentials.15 This represents a change from
traditional relief approaches that, as the UN interagency evaluation states, have
reflected ‘the typical weakness of livelihood protection activities in humanitarian
interventions’ (OCHA, 2005, p 18). In fact, critiques of responses to the earlier Darfur
famine of 1984–85 for having been framed primarily in terms of food aid make Sudan
itself something of a laboratory for a ‘livelihoods approach’ to humanitarian
intervention.16
94
Lessons learned: the Darfur experience – 3
3.5.1 Increasing emphasis on livelihoods
A barometer of change is evident in the recent evolution of the Sphere standards in
disaster response. Among the standards presented in the 2000 Sphere handbook are
those for food aid, the purposes of which are presented as to sustain life, ‘to
eliminate the need for survival strategies which may result in long-term negative
consequences to human dignity, household viability, livelihood security and the
environment’ and to ‘provide a short-term income transfer … to allow household
resources to be invested in recovery and longer-term development’ (The Sphere
Project, 2000, p 132). The 2004 version of the same handbook gives the livelihoods
elements much greater prominence. There the food aid discussion is framed in
terms of ‘the importance of food security, nutrition, and food aid in disasters’, with
stress placed on ‘the capabilities, assets (including both material and social
resources) and activities required for a means of living linked to survival and future
well-being’ (The Sphere Project, 2004, p 108).
This more recent thinking is reflected in the Darfur response and in the evaluations
under review. A number of agencies reported having conducted livelihoods surveys.
One by Save the Children showed that, in 2003, ‘the livestock and food reserves of
many people in Darfur were severely depleted’ (MSF-H, 2005, p 4). Many
practitioners had a keen sense of the narrow margin of survival of the Darfur
population, whether IDPs, refugees or settled people. ‘There may be circumstances’,
observed the UN interagency review, ‘where vaccinating animals or providing seeds
is a higher immediate priority than addressing chronic problems like poor healthcare
services or access to water. Protecting livelihoods may have more impact, even in
terms of health outcomes’ (OCHA, 2005, p 11).
Such a livelihoods approach could thus have major programmatic implications. With
a view to its emergency operations throughout Sudan, a WFP evaluation suggests
that ‘WFP could seek to be regarded within the UN system as a food and nutrition
agency (for emergencies), not just a food aid agency (for emergencies)’, capitalising
on the potential of food distributions to ‘free people to choose their own recovery
activities’ (WFP, 2004, p 14, emphasis in original).
In placing greater emphasis on the coping skills of the affected population, a
livelihoods approach underscores ‘the modest impact of external relief programmes,
relative to the far greater contribution to survival and the maintenance of livelihoods
95
3 – ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action in 2004
by people’s own efforts’ (De Waal, 2005, p xii). The more recent emphasis on
supporting livelihoods also places greater weight on understanding the dynamics of
the situations confronting people and challenging their traditional coping
mechanisms. The interagency evaluation of the Darfur response found room for
improvement to the extent that ‘ The lack of understanding of livelihoods and the
complex relationships between nomads, agro-pastoralists and sedentary farmers
impedes programming’ (OCHA, 2005, p 17).
3.5.2 Difficulties in implementation
Attention to livelihoods edges agencies into challenging areas where the body of
accepted policies and best practices is relatively small, and where many lack
operational experience. ‘Programming to support livelihoods will not be easy in the
context of Darfur’, stresses one study carried out in late 2004 in the Sudan and Libya
by a team led by Helen Young.
Since livelihoods are so integral to the conflict and war economy, it is
imperative that implementing agencies understand and consider fully the
implications that any livelihood interventions may have on the dynamics of
conflict. Any peace-building or conflict resolution must also understand, take
account of, and be linked with livelihoods. (Young et al, 2005, p 110)
Her study observed that, ‘Never before in the history of Darfur has there been such
a combination of factors causing the failure of livelihood strategies and the loss of
assets. These factors include production failures, market failures, failures to access
natural resources, and constraints on the remittances of migrant workers. Under
these circumstances region-wide famine appears inevitable. While the provision of
food aid can partially redress the production failures, a much wider raft of
interventions are needed to begin to address the other issues.’ (Young et al,
2005, p110.)
The study’s recommendations encompassed a host of economic and social
measures: ‘processes of land restitution and compensation; livestock restitution,
reconciliation and compensation; and opening up of transport routes to provide safe
passage of people, livestock and goods. Ideally these wider processes of
reconciliation should be linked with livelihood support’ (Young et al, 2005, p ix).
96
Lessons learned: the Darfur experience – 3
Young finds confirmation of the utter centrality of livelihood loss to the Darfur crisis
in the fact that mass displacement continued well after the worst of the organised
armed violence had subsided.17
The difficulties experienced by aid agencies in supporting livelihood strategies in
Darfur recall similar problems that had affected Operation Lifeline Sudan 15 years
earlier. ‘At the start of OLS in 1989’, recalled a major OLS evaluation conducted in
1995–96, ‘the problem was clearly perceived as one of a large number of people
being at risk of starvation … In less than a year, however, these objectives
broadened in OLS II to include assisting displaced populations toward productivity
and self-reliance’ (OLS 1996, p 110). In OLS planning documents, food aid
underwent the evolution noted above from that of a pivotal life-saving input to a
derivative means of promoting self-reliance. While the shift was a positive one, this
and other assessments gave OLS low marks in turning such plans into reality.
In sum, the Darfur response evidenced positive stirrings of innovation away from
traditional relief reflexes. However, at the end of the day, programming continued to
demonstrate what the evaluation cited above termed ‘the typical weakness of
livelihood protection activities in humanitarian interventions’.
3.6 Managing tensions with the political
‘There is almost no action that cannot be interpreted as political’, observed evaluator
Maurice Herson, of humanitarian activities in the Darfur crisis.18 His observation
resonates with experience from other complex emergencies as well. In fact, a group
of evaluation specialists, seeking in 2001 to identify major lessons for those planning
humanitarian strategies for Afghanistan, began their list of nine recommendations
with the overarching need to ‘Develop a coherent policy framework that recognises
that humanitarian aid requires its own “space”’ (DAC, 2001, p 3).
Developing a framework for managing tensions between humanitarian action and
politics in the Darfur crisis had two major aspects. The first concerned insulating
such action from the ambient political context so that activities might proceed in
97
3 – ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action in 2004
keeping with core humanitarian principles. This involved negotiating and
maintaining access to civilian populations, access which the authorities expanded or
contracted depending on political and military considerations. Some successes were
reported. For example, ‘UNICEF’s highly visible role in the Asmara talks between
GoS and the SLA ended with a breakthrough agreement for the polio campaign to be
run on both sides of the frontline’ (DFID/UNICEF, 2005, p 43). Yet such signal
successes were overshadowed by the widespread failure of the aid effort to reach
people in areas outside government control. ‘Access to SLA/JEM controlled areas
and cross-border cooperation’, noted the UNICEF study in an understated comment,
‘remain important challenges’ (DFID/UNICEF, 2005, p 58).
The second aspect concerned finding appropriate political connections. If a certain
separation from the political was essential for humanitarian work to be carried out
with integrity, that work also needed to be carefully situated in relation to the
prevailing political context. The intertwining of humanitarian and political
dimensions, a recurrent reality in major post-Cold-War aid mobilisations, was
particularly tight here. There was not one set of peace negotiations but two: in
Naivasha, Kenya on the Sudan’s North–South conflict, and in Abuja, Nigeria on the
Sudan’s Darfur conflict. The debate about genocide introduced another set of highly
charged political elements into the discussion. Moreover, US-led interventions into
Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as its pursuit of the global war against terrorism called
into question the intentions and bona fides of the world’s sole remaining
superpower and largest aid donor to the Sudan.
The two sets of peace talks were relevant to humanitarian organisations both
because of their importance to the future and because of their operational
implications. ‘Ultimately, sustainable peace and security in the region can only be
possible if the root causes of the conflict are effectively addressed’, observed the
Secretary-General’s Representative on IDPs, Francis Deng, in a comment on the
wider meaning of the peace talks following a visit to Darfur. ‘The grievances of the
region are deep rooted and focus on marginalization, neglect and discrimination
based for the most part on the racial identification of the population as
predominantly non-Arab.’ Assistance and protection, however indispensable, would
remain palliative until the causes of abuse and deprivation were addressed
(Deng, 2004, p 3).
98
Lessons learned: the Darfur experience – 3
Operationally, a complex set of relationships linked humanitarian action and peace.
Success of the North/South peace talks in Naivasha would provide a resettlement
opportunity for some four million IDPs and half a million refugees, and perhaps a
peace dividend for Darfur as well. At the same time and more ominously, as noted by
the UNICEF evaluation, ‘To some extent, progress in the [Naivasha] peace talks …
provided a trigger to conflict in Darfur as groups feared they would lose leverage as
peace-agreements were reached in the South’ (DFID/UNICEF, 2005, p 69).
Meanwhile, success in the Abuja peace talks, despite a pattern of broken ceasefires,
might, with the help of AU monitors, draw down the curtain on flagrant humanrights abuses and on the wide swath of death and destruction across Darfur.
The two conflicts were interlocking in other ways as well. As noted above, the need
for the cooperation of the Khartoum authorities in the Naivasha talks had exercised
a braking influence on the willingness of diplomats and aid agencies to press for
military restraint on the government and for humanitarian access to Darfur. The
issue had produced something of a rift between human-rights advocates committed
to ending the bloodshed, and aid groups anxious to gain and maintain access to
those in need. In addition, an upswing in the likelihood of success in Naivasha in late
2004 led to an intensification of the war in Darfur, as each side sought to solidify its
position and make its bid – for independence, in the case of the rebels, and for
integration, in the case of the government. There was also a more ominous
interpretation: that ‘The Sudanese regime is adept at using one conflict to stoke the
fire of another, and has often exploited the international community’s tendency to
focus on one conflict at a time rather than taking a holistic regional approach’
(Prendergast, 2005).
Humanitarian organisations for their own reasons stayed closely attuned to
developments on the peace fronts. Having activities in all parts of the country, MSFHolland watched political events closely. Already in April 2003 it had been discussing
whether the Naivasha process might destabilise Darfur, concluding that ‘any
scenario was likely to lead to chaos’, about which, however, MSF could do little (MSFH, 2005, p 9). UNICEF felt obliged in anticipation to engage the Africa Union in the
cause of child protection at the hands of its troops. A country-wide WFP evaluation
anticipated a potential peace dividend from a North–South agreement that WFP
‘should prepare for’ (WFP, 2004, p 38).
99
3 – ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action in 2004
3.6.1 Advocacy
Activities in the area of advocacy illustrate the complex effort to manage the tensions
between humanitarian action and politics and peace. On the one hand, aid
organisations were intent on pursuing their bread-and-butter work of assistance and
protection. On the other, they realised that the conflict, as long as it continued, would
complicate their task and increase their caseload. After all, as stated so eloquently by
a former Sudan foreign minister, ‘The reason we’re in need of help is this conflict’
(Minear et al, 1991, p 140). Moreover, in the absence of successfully wresting
humanitarian space from the belligerents, aid agencies would be hard-pressed to
carry out their work.
Advocacy – its conduct, relative priority and impacts – was a subject of recurrent
discussion and comment in the Darfur evaluations. Most agencies engaged in
advocacy, some forthrightly and others more quietly. All were concerned about
whether speaking on essentially political issues – the causes of the conflict, the need
for an international military or observer force, the desirability of economic sanctions
– would jeopardise their perceived neutrality or their operational presence
in-country.
The Sudanese government’s threatened expulsion of Save the Children-UK and
Oxfam-GB in November 2004, following their statements to the UN Security Council
on the need for tougher political–military measures underscored agency
vulnerability.19 One NGO linked publication of a newspaper article written by an aid
worker after his return home to a temporary increase in waiting time for visas and
other permissions. At the same time, UNICEF, which has given explicit priority to
advocacy in other settings, was criticised in its evaluation for missing an opportunity
to make its voice heard on policy issues affecting children.
To what extent did the humanitarian endeavour, in managing these humanitarian/
political tensions, get the balance right? In one sense, the Darfur response replicated
the mistake of Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) in emphasising assistance over
political solutions. OLS failed to capitalise on the agreement won from the
belligerents in 1989 to open up ‘corridors of tranquillity’ for relief personnel and
supplies. Fifteen years of conflict later, it represents a still-missed opportunity to
proceed on peace in tandem with relief, although in its defence there are those who
100
Lessons learned: the Darfur experience – 3
believe that conditioning humanitarian programming on progress on the peace front
does violence to humanitarian principle.
The Darfur response is not the first time that diplomatic challenges have been
sidelined, due to a misplaced emphasis on humanitarian activities.. Earlier examples
of a similar failure to get the balance right exist in the crises in the former Yugoslavia
and Rwanda. Indeed, the ten-year retrospective on the Rwanda response cited above
(Danida, 2004) found in the international response to the Darfur situation ‘a telling
echo of the Joint Evaluation’s conclusion that “humanitarian action cannot substitute
for political action”’. That retrospective recalled the observation of a senior UN
official, Dennis McNamara, in September 2004, that ‘The massive presence in Darfur
is humanitarian – 500 internationals and 3,500 nationals. There is no massive
international presence otherwise. I think humanitarians should not become a
substitute for political security presence. We have seen that too often’ (IRIN press
release, quoted in Danida, 2004, p 102).
In another sense, however, the Darfur response represented a certain progress in
the lessons learning process. The humanitarian enterprise had a clearer sense of the
root causes of the tragedy and was able to articulate these for a wider constituency.
A study of the political roots of and solutions to the Darfur crisis, commissioned by
the Sudan Advocacy Coalition,20 expressed the sobering view that ‘By 2006, it is
likely that donors will have spent over half a billion dollars, if not more, without
addressing a single long-term cause of the conflict.’ The conflict, continued the
review by analyst Vic Tanner, is about ‘the very nature of Sudanese identity’, with the
Sudanese state itself ‘the heart of the problem’ (Tanner, 2005, pp 41, 43).
Also positive is the growing consensus among agencies that effective humanitarian
action has an irreducible advocacy element. Various groups nurtured working
relationships with, or at least monitored the activities of, political bodies such as the
UN Security Council and, at the regional level, the Organisation of African Unity
(now the Africa Union) and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development
(IGAD). The Khartoum-based advocacy coalition itself was a creative effort by aid
groups to understand better and manage more effectively the necessary tensions
between the humanitarian and the political. While differences among the agencies
remain, the new level of willingness to acknowledge and manage the political
dimension of humanitarian action was potentially significant for future highly
politicised settings.
101
3 – ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action in 2004
3.7 Situating humanitarian action in relation
to the conflict
The interplay between the humanitarian enterprise and the conflict itself also
preoccupied humanitarian practitioners in Darfur and their colleagues who
evaluated their work. Once again the Darfur issues were cut from a larger cloth. A
book commissioned by the European Union and published in 2000, The Wider Impact
of Humanitarian Assistance, explores those relationships. However neutral
humanitarian action in premise and principle, according to analyst David Keen:
‘recent crises have shown clearly that emergency aid inevitably affects political and
economic processes in war-torn countries, and in turn aid operations have been
profoundly affected by these processes’ (Keen et al, 2000, p 75).
The evaluations of the Darfur response are not particularly explicit with regard to
the effect of humanitarian presence and activities on Sudanese political and
economic life. However, it is clear that during the years 2003–2004, the war and its
consequences represented the major intersection in the daily dealings of Sudan and
the wider world. The very presence of international humanitarian personnel
represented an embarrassment of major proportions to a country in the throes of
painfully public paroxysms of national self-definition.
The situation was strikingly reminiscent of the famine in Darfur and other parts of
the Sudan in the mid-eighties. Commenting in 1986 on the aid mobilisation, which
took the form of the UN-related Office for Emergency Relations in Africa (OEOA),
then Prime Minister Gazouli Dafalla articulated the country’s resentment toward the
aid effort. ‘It is painful for us to accept these gifts that you bring us’, he said. ‘It is
painful to listen to your admonitions as to the manner in which we are using what
you are giving us. The Sudanese way is to bestow gifts upon the people who come to
this country, not the other way around. While you are doing a noble thing, it is
hurting us’ (Deng and Minear, 1992, pp 91–92). In the Darfur crisis, the endless
succession of luminaries itinerating through Khartoum – aid officials, diplomats,
generals, journalists, the odd social scientist – was a constant reminder of the
country’s extremity and weakness, its conflict and crisis.
102
Lessons learned: the Darfur experience – 3
3.7.1 Effects of the conflict on aid work
Conversely, however, the multiple effects of the conflict on humanitarian operations
are a more explicit theme of the Darfur evaluations. First, the conflict provided the
rationale – and the rationalisation – for many of the constraints imposed by the
authorities on aid activities. ‘When you’re at war’, Britain’s ambassador to the Sudan
had observed in the early days of OLS, ‘everything becomes a question of military
and strategic advantage’ (Minear, 1991, p 73). There was at times during the
mobilisation for Darfur a strong sense among aid workers that the government was
once again creating, or at a minimum encouraging or allowing, security incidents as
a pretext for constraining humanitarian access.
There was no doubt about the sensitivity of humanitarian activities in the midst of
the conflict. They positioned international personnel within active war theatres and
provided an intimate view of the inner workings of the country, including humanrights abuses. Exercise of protection mandates to address the consequences of
scorched-earth and ethnic-cleansing policies placed aid agencies on a collision
course with the authorities, putting at risk their activities and the lives of those who
provided them with information. Programmes of training in human rights and
intercultural awareness were particularly suspect. In a broader sense, the very
presence of humanitarian organisations seemed an embodiment of an international
agenda of regime overthrow.
Aid organisations responded in different ways to the ostensibly security-related
restrictions imposed upon them. ‘The official bureaucratic requirements and
restrictions applied by GoS to aid activity’, explains the MSF evaluation, ‘are
formidable and not to be underestimated’. While acknowledging the difficulties even
for agencies with long experience in the Sudan, MSF-H deployed a national staff
person with a network of contacts in the relevant ministries whom it credited with
arranging the necessary permissions. Its evaluation concludes that ‘It is also likely
that, with the Naivasha [peace] process ongoing, the GoS wanted to keep diplomatic
relations smooth by being seen to be cooperative in other matters such as access to
Darfur’ (MSF-H, 2005, p 16). The resourcefulness of some NGOs contrasted with the
risk-averse tendencies of the UN, which also seemed more prepared to accept ‘no’
for an answer (OCHA, 2005, p 4).
103
3 – ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action in 2004
A second effect of the conflict was to politicise aid work by concentrating activities in
government-controlled areas. ‘While it is important not to provide assistance in a
manner that exacerbates the conflict’, observes the UN interagency evaluation,
‘humanitarian assistance should be provided on the basis of need without any
consideration as to a group’s actual or perceived role in the current conflict’ (OCHA,
2005, p 3). The CARE assessment of April 2004 observed that ‘The NGO community
appears to be divided and in some cases stigmatized by the debate of whether to be
coopted by the GOS “war strategy”’ (CARE, April 2004, p 13).
By and large, aid activities showed a distinct bias in favour of people in governmentcontrolled areas. The bias reflected not intent – agencies were committed to
impartiality – but rather circumstances on the ground, reinforced by government
policy and pressure.21 ‘Due to prolonged insecurity, travel restrictions prevented
UNICEF, and other agencies, from distributing emergency supplies to IDPs in rebelheld areas’, notes the UNICEF evaluation (DFID/UNICEF, 2005, p 42). However, once
again the NGOs had somewhat greater flexibility than the UN. ‘Other agencies,
especially NGOs such as MSF, that are not required to respect UN Security
regulations have managed to achieve wider coverage in the rural areas, where
UNICEF access remains limited’ (DFID/UNICEF, 2005, p 58).22
As of early 2005, a number of NGOs, including Save the Children and Merlin, were
understood to be seeking to expand their presence in places controlled by the
insurgents. The Oxfam evaluation recommended exploration of ‘ways of extending
its work outside government-controlled areas. In North Darfur the challenge of
moving into rebel-held areas needs to be taken up’ (Oxfam, 2004, p 13). Even within
communities exclusively under government aegis, some NGOs, in the interest of
greater proportionality, sought to become operational in areas where people were
least served.
A third effect of the conflict was to reduce the quality and increase the cost of aid.
‘Food deliveries the day before our arrival at the site’, reported a CARE team of its
visit to South Darfur in March 2004, ‘were reported to be picked over first by those
guarding them and food was distributed only after high value items were removed –
this includes removing quantities of sorghum to feed the militias’ horses’ (CARE,
April 2004, p 9).‘Due to limited monitoring capacity’, observes the UNICEF
evaluation, ‘the current post-installation status of services (e.g. number of
functioning latrines and hand pumps, etc) is not known’ (DFID/UNICEF, 2005, p 52).
104
Lessons learned: the Darfur experience – 3
The extent to which humanitarian resources fuelled the war effort remains
conjectural, although, viewed in the context of other relief efforts in the Sudan and
elsewhere, the concern of the agencies was clearly well placed.
Confirming indirectly the negative impact of the conflict on aid activities was the
perception that such activities would get a boost from the advent of peace. An end to
the North–South conflict, observed the WFP evaluation, would open up the
possibility of ‘better coverage, better targeting … and thereby … a greater impact on
persistent and unacceptably high malnutrition rates’. True to the complexity of such
matters in the Sudan, however, the WFP evaluation notes that relief activities would
continue to be needed even after the advent of peace (WFP, 2004, pp 38–39).
Distortions of humanitarian activities are not unique to the latest Darfur crisis. They
call to mind the drought response in the Sudan in the mid-eighties. ‘[S]ince the first
major international relief programmes of the 1980s’, notes one recent study, ‘Arab
groups have been at the back of the queue for relief, in that they are usually
considered last and receive less than their fair share’ (Young et al, 2005, p 46). Such
distortions were also evident in OLS, at its inception in 1989 the jewel in the crown
of UNICEF and the first-ever such UN initiative but, over time, sullied by its intimate
association with the ongoing North–South conflict. A 1996 evaluation gave OLS a
mixed review in that wider setting:
the situation of war-affected populations in Sudan has changed little during
the course of OLS. It remains a chronic political emergency, where people’s
options for reducing their vulnerability are limited. In this situation,
humanitarian crises have been, and will continue to be, a common feature.
The need for humanitarian assistance remains. (OLS, 1996, p 264)
Such distortions also affected international efforts elsewhere in the Sudan at roughly
the time of the Darfur mobilisation. In a reference to the difficulty of keeping food aid
out of military hands, the WFP evaluation of its Sudan-wide emergency operations
notes that ‘Non-civilians have also had access to WFP relief supplies in the southern
sector, putting WFP beneficiaries at risk’ (WFP, 2004, p vii).23 Conditions of war also
exacerbate a factor which affects the programming of food aid in non-conflict
settings: ‘Sharing of food rations among members of clan, i.e. among households
that are not targeted, is a socio-cultural fact that WFP has to accept and needs to take
into account when establishing food rations’ (WFP, 2004, p 28).
105
3 – ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action in 2004
3.7.2 Resonance with other conflicts
In theatres beyond the Sudan, similar distortions have also been encountered over
the years. WFP’s study, Recurring Challenges in the Provision of Food Assistance in
Complex Emergencies: The Problems and Dilemmas faced by WFP and its Partners,
merits quotation at length because it resonates so fully with the Darfur experience.
Although WFP and most humanitarian agencies have attempted to be
‘neutral’ and to provide assistance ‘impartially’ in conflict situations, the
assistance provided – especially bulk food assistance – has not been without
consequences for the course of events and the actions of the parties. Lives
have been saved, but many needy people have not been reached, there have
been unintended side effects, delivery costs have been high, some food has
been lost, stolen or misused, and increasing numbers of WFP and other
humanitarian workers have been killed or injured. In most conflict
situations, food has been used as a weapon and source of influence and, in
some cases, warring parties have profited from or sought to impede
assistance operations. (WFP 1999, p vi)
In sum, the humanitarian enterprise in the Sudan made a serious effort – more so
than in other crises – to understand and address the impacts of the conflict on its
work. That said, the agency evaluations suggest the absence of tough-minded
strategic calculation on the part of humanitarian interests. Clearly the Sudanese
understand their country better than their international well-wishers, and have
become adept over the years at adapting available outside resources to suit their
own purposes. In fact, the evaluations provide a rather detailed picture of the
belligerents in the Darfur conflict as far more strategic in their manipulation of
humanitarian assets than the humanitarian enterprise has been in its utilisation
of them.
106
Lessons learned: the Darfur experience – 3
3.8 Improving coordination
Recent studies have confirmed the importance of an assertive and robust United
Nations role in coordination, along with a disciplined approach by agencies
associated with the UN system in their pursuit of their own activities. Experience in
earlier crises suggests that the weaker a government in a given crisis, the more
essential it is for an outside coordinating element to take an active role. Where the
resident political authorities are strong but not particularly sensitive to humanitarian
concerns, assertive international coordination of humanitarian assets and interests
is particularly crucial. Where insurgent political elements challenge the recognised
political authorities, the coordinating challenge faced by the UN is more complicated
still. In short, very few major conflicts benefit from a hands-off approach to
humanitarian coordination.24
A strong international coordinating nexus was by all accounts not present in the
Darfur crisis. A case in point was the absence of an institutional focal point for IDPs:
as noted, some 39 NGOs were involved in camp coordination. ‘Despite the
agreements they have signed with OCHA’, the UN interagency evaluation observed,
‘the international NGOs concerned do not consider themselves strictly accountable
to OCHA for the quality of services in the camps, nor is it reasonable to expect them
to be given the scope of the task specified in the agreements and supporting
documents. In any event … OCHA … [is not] able to adequately monitor their
performance’ (OCHA, 2005, p 15). OCHA lacked authority not only with NGOs but
also with UNHCR, the putative focal point for IDP concerns in the circumstances.
Even in a non-conflict situation, such weakness and lack of authority at the centre
would invite confusion.
Equally conspicuous by its absence in Darfur was an entity to apportion resources
according to the severity of need. ‘Many organizations – UN agencies and NGOs
alike – have weaknesses in their capacity’, noted the UN interagency study. ‘But
there is little, if any, attempt to balance comparative advantages and weaknesses’
(OCHA, 2005, p 23). The UN-centric system of humanitarian coordination left major
geographical and sectoral gaps. As a result, the evaluation recommended that:
To ensure equity in the provision of humanitarian protection and assistance
and prevent further displacement and tension between groups, all agencies,
107
3 – ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action in 2004
organisations, and donors should continue to make determined and
coordinated efforts to address the needs and vulnerabilities of IDPs and
others in less accessible areas, including areas controlled by non-state
actors. (OCHA, 2005, p 4).
More tightly knit humanitarian presence during the year-plus following the outbreak
of major violence in March 2003 might have helped to orchestrate international
pressure on the Khartoum authorities to expand access within Darfur. Coordination
in the circumstances was not a matter of organisation charts, but of saving lives.
The incapacity of two principal UN workhorses had serious repercussions for the
normal division of labour. ‘UNICEF undertook the responsibility of coordinating
several sectors – child protection, education, water and sanitation, and nutrition as
well as certain aspects of health’, its evaluation concluded, ‘yet did not have
sufficient technical expertise to ensure effective coordination until July–September
2004’ (DFID/UNICEF, 2005, p 9). UNHCR’s relative absence from the scene was also
palpable. Moving to fill the gap caused by UNHCR’s IDP opt-out, OCHA signed an
agreement with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) to provide
technical assistance in IDP camp management in North and South Darfur. Reviewing
the situation in early, 2005, the UN interagency evaluation concluded that ‘IOM has
not been able to adequately fulfil this role, in part due to the fact that IOM made a
number of early mistakes and has yet to gain the confidence of other agencies’
(OCHA, 2005, p 15). Small wonder that relations around coordination tables
were ‘strained’.
Coordination was also an issue within international NGO families, but less so than in
other major crises, and certainly less so than among UN organisations. CARE’s
evaluation notes ‘good overall coordination’ between constituent parts from the US,
France, Canada and elsewhere (CARE, June 2004, p 6). MSF, with national sections
operating on the ground from Holland, France, Belgium, Spain and Switzerland, held
regular coordination meetings in Khartoum to manage its activities in the three
states of Darfur. With an eye to relationships with other agencies, however, its
evaluation found that ‘MSF sections could take a more collaborative and coherent
approach to the overall need in Darfur’ (MSF-H, 2005, p 19). Reflecting on their
experience as a group, some American NGOs realised after the fact that they might
have avoided obstacles placed on aid shipments to the Sudan by the US government
embargo had their sister organisations abroad procured the essentials.
108
Lessons learned: the Darfur experience – 3
The multitude of NGOs that flocked to the Darfur scene in late 2004 could arguably
have benefited from a heavier – or at least a more assertive – UN hand. ‘Coordination
and UN leadership in both North and South Darfur are not strong’, observed the
Oxfam evaluation. ‘ This leaves agencies more or less on their own to assure
relevance and avoid duplication or gaps’ (Oxfam, 2004, p 11). The UN interagency
evaluation itself noted that while a great deal of time was spent in coordination
efforts, ‘the primary purpose served by most meetings is information sharing and
there is an undue reticence to openly discuss problems and provide and accept
constructive criticism.’ Without doubt, limited NGO operationality compounded the
problem of capacity with which the UN itself struggled. A stronger UN could also
have played a more pivotal role with the government’s Humanitarian Assistance
Commission.
The absence of an accepted centre for activities of disparate centripetal and largely
autonomous organisations has been a characteristic of many recent crises, and
remained so in Darfur recently. The OCHA-commissioned study of 2001 reviewed all
possible permutations of coordination structures and functions in a variety of
peacekeeping and stand-alone settings. The report acknowledged that:
The frequent absence or weakness of legitimate government to prioritise
and implement policy creates the UN’s coordination challenge in the first
place. The violence and insecurity facing civilians and those that seek to help
them are also sickeningly familiar challenges to humanitarian action and its
coordination. (OCHA, 2001, p ii)
Based on a detailed review of numerous evaluations and case studies, the authors
of the 2001 report describe a ‘recurring picture over a decade of UN humanitarian
agencies whose governance structures, funding sources, weak management and
institutional cultures all constitute obstacles to effective coordination’. Calling for
fundamental structural change to address ‘the blight of adhocracy … in how the
UN system coordinates’, the authors concede the difficulties in producing such
change. At fault are ‘resistance on the part of Member States and donors, and
weaknesses internal to the system’ (OCHA, 2001, pp 48, 50). Darfur lends fresh
urgency to their plea.
109
3 – ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action in 2004
3.9 Crafting an appropriate and accountable
international presence
Implicit in each of the foregoing challenges has been the task of crafting an
international presence appropriate to the Darfur crisis, and duly accountable. The
six Darfur evaluations shed helpful light on the size and shape of the international
footprint, an item of growing concern in most recent humanitarian interventions.
The lessons-learned exercise for policy makers gearing up for Afghanistan sounded
a cautionary note: ‘Unmanaged influxes of aid agencies – multilateral, bilateral and
NGOs – are an increasing feature of high profile international political-military-aid
interventions’, analysts warned the DAC. ‘The most efficient way to contain the
problems of expatriate dominance and disruption is to prioritise the identification
and engagement of local and national emergency and rehabilitation actors, even
where national and governmental structures remain weak or not fully legitimate’
(DAC, 2001, p 6).
Establishing expatriate presence involves questions of function and competence.
The evaluations concluded, by and large, that the cause of protection was well
served by highly visible expatriates. CARE’s decision early on to ‘spread out as
widely as possible, particularly with food distribution activities’, although questioned
by some at the time, ‘proved beneficial from a protection standpoint’ (CARE,
December 2004, p 20). Traditional relief distribution, by contrast, had no compelling
need for foreign presence. In fact, heavy use of national staff would minimise
operational cost and provide local employment.
Aid agencies had their own need for outsiders. Internationals were indispensable in
getting emergency operations up and running. MSF found that a ‘Shortage of expats
was a significant constraint on the intervention during the early stages and
contributed quite significantly to MSF-H’s inability to maintain a presence in Darfur
when it first intervened in December 03’ (MSF-H, 2005, p 32). Several agencies found
that specialised personnel – for example, technical experts with communications and
advocacy skills – should have been deployed earlier. Save the Children viewed
trouble-shooting in Darfur by a senior executive as indispensable in getting its
programme launched. CARE’s evaluation recommended quarterly visits by senior
officials ‘to gain a first-hand understanding of challenges and communication gaps’
as well as to promote team-building (CARE, December 2004, p iv).
110
Lessons learned: the Darfur experience – 3
But some visits from headquarters were more justified than others. The UN
interagency evaluation was critical of agencies in the field for failing to plan for the
expected ‘inundation of missions’. It urged the ranking UN official in such settings
‘to limit missions to only those that are essential’ (OCHA, 2005, pp 6–7). Yet weak
authority kept all but the most respected coordinators from limiting the numbers of
itinerating supernumeraries, even from his or her own agency, much less from
donor governments. To complicate the situation further, the position of UN resident
coordinator/humanitarian coordinator in Darfur was itself filled by a succession of
people, and also vacant for long stretches.
Whatever the value of international personnel, particularly in crises of protection
such as this, their presence underscored the heavy externality of such humanitarian
operations. The fact that many of the foreigners were young and inexperienced
(more than half were ‘first-missioners’) called the competence of aid operations into
question. ‘ The Darfur response’, remarked the MSF evaluation, ‘suffered from a
shortage of field staff with the necessary knowledge and experience of starting up a
large-scale acute emergency response’ (MSF-H, 2005, p 32). The high international
profile may also have made aid assets more suspect and vulnerable to attack.
One of the weaknesses of expatriate-heavy humanitarian interventions is poor
understanding of local contexts. ‘The Darfurs represent a classic case of a complex
political emergency with its interplay of chronic and emergency needs’, observes the
UN interagency evaluation. ‘Yet despite this general understanding of the complexity
of the situation, no agency or organisation seems to have undertaken a thorough
analysis. There is little evidence at the field level of political and/or security analysis
being undertaken.’ Weakness in situation analysis and strategic planning had
serious ramifications:
The lack of understanding of livelihoods and the complex relationships
between nomads, agro-pastoralists and sedentary farmers impedes
programming. Indeed the lack of credible information and analysis of the
situation in Darfur cuts across all areas and is one of the single biggest
impediments to informed planning and effective action in the Darfurs.
(OCHA, 2005, p 17)
The UN interagency evaluation’s thoroughgoing sector-wide critique resonated with
individual agency experience. ‘Oxfam’s analysis is limited by insufficient
understanding of the internal political situation in Sudan’, its evaluation found. ‘This
111
3 – ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action in 2004
has partly been due to lack of access and ability to investigate the situation safely,
but we should be aiming for a more sophisticated understanding of Sudanese
politics’ (Oxfam, 2004, pp 9–10).
Despite weak strategic political contextualisation in the Darfur response – a gap in
the functioning of the UN system perhaps more than of individual aid agencies –
there appeared as of early 2005 to have been less animosity than in Afghanistan and
Iraq toward the perceived Western character of the humanitarian operation. Yet
agencies were aware of potential dangers. One was the reaction of Arab populations
to the perception that international aid favoured their African compatriots. An MSF
assessment found significant needs in Arab villages, but needs that were ‘the
underlying ones typical of Darfur (chronic poverty and lack of essential services)
rather than the heightened conflict-related humanitarian needs of the IDPs and other
affected populations’ (MSF-H, 2005, p 20).
Given the highly politicised circumstances and the dangers of suspicion and
misunderstanding, contextual analysis would have pointed toward outreach
activities that were for the most part lacking. One study found that ‘if humanitarian
aid fails to reach affected Arab groups, this will almost certainly inflame tensions,
and could even contribute to the harassment of humanitarian workers’ (Young,
2005, p 32).25 The MSF evaluation suggested that MSF ‘may wish to consider
conducting activities to increase awareness amongst the Arab communities of the
rationale for MSF’s humanitarian action’. By extension, advocacy should reach
beyond ‘preaching to the converted’ and should target ‘the Arab League, the AU and
relevant African states, and ‘non-traditional’ but none-the-less significant
governments and donors such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Japan, China and Malaysia’
(MSF-H, 2005, p 37).
The UNICEF evaluation struck a similar note. ‘Opportunities to disseminate UNICEF
advocacy and programme activities to Arabic-speaking media were by and large
ignored, despite the importance of counter-balancing anti-Western and anti-UN
messages and stereotypes with positive images’ (DFID/UNICEF, 2005, p 43). The
situation recalled the early days of OLS, when UNICEF-led media efforts directed
toward the West forfeited ‘an opportunity to create a needed non-Western
constituency’. As a result, concluded one study of the earlier Sudan initiative,
‘Suspicions of Lifeline as a foreign intervention driven by Western political interests
were reinforced’ (Minear, 1991, pp 38–39).
112
Lessons learned: the Darfur experience – 3
3.9.1 Accountability
The Darfur evaluations also shed useful light on the current debate about
accountability. A recurrent theme in the Darfur evaluations was the need for
improved performance. The issue was not about the need for accountability but
rather for what and to whom: that is, standards and mechanisms.
For what are the agencies to be held accountable? Practitioner agencies seem seized
with the need to measure up to agreed professional standards. This is evident in the
launching of the six evaluations reviewed here, in the discussion of Sphere
standards and Code of Conduct provisions, and in the attention paid to mid-course
corrections in policies and programmes. There is something refreshing about the
UN interagency review team, visiting Darfur in September 2004 and issuing a report
that identifies ‘reasonable expectations’ of changes that it expects to see in place by
the time of its next visit three months later. Its approach seems in keeping with the
lesson drawn from earlier emergencies by analyst Peter Salama that, ‘In the absence
of strong government supervision in most emergencies, a mechanism is required to
ensure that all agencies adhere to basic standards in implementing their projects’
(Salama et al, 2004, p 10).
While greater preoccupation with accountability is certainly a positive outcome of
the Darfur crisis, it undermined an essential aspect of humanitarian risk-taking. The
UN interagency evaluation noted a tendency to interpret Sphere standards as
‘absolutes, rather than indicators’, forgetting that standards are targets rather than
objectives and that ends ‘can serve to inhibit, rather than facilitate, action’. One case
in point, the evaluation suggested, might be the daunting task that awaits agencies
that accept responsibility for IDP camps. What better rationale for deferring action
than to plead inability to meet the ‘requirements in the circumstances’? (OCHA,
2005, pp 10–11). A livelihoods study shares the alarm. The willingness of aid
agencies to expand their programmes only when they have met the minimum
standards, it warns, represents ‘a strategy for humanitarian containment, not
humanitarian action’ (Young et al, 2005, p 117).
The larger questions of accountability remain more daunting still. Key ingredients of
success – or, in the case of Darfur, failure – in humanitarian protection and
assistance lie well outside the specific control of the agencies. Should humanitarian
organisations be faulted for not mounting activities that donors were unwilling to
113
3 – ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action in 2004
fund or for which belligerents were unwilling to provide access? Should Security
Council members be held accountable for not becoming ‘seized’ of the crisis earlier,
or UN member nations for not providing military or peacekeeping assets? Before the
net of blame is cast too widely, analyst Hugo Slim reminds, ‘Responsibility for the
killing and destitution in Darfur lies first with those who committed it. Assessing the
subsequent international response to this primary violence is an analysis of
secondary responsibility’ (Slim, 2004, p 827).
But who, then, should take responsibility for the deaths associated with the delays in
mobilising the international response in 2003–04? For the rapes of female IDPs
gathering firewood in 2005? For the failure to provide tens of thousands of people
with the essentials of survival? Should donor governments be held accountable –
and if so, how – for delays in funding ‘emergency’ assistance: that is, for the time lag
of most of a year between the need depicted in Figure 3.1 and the resources
provided (Figure 3.3)? Or are the actions decried crimes without perpetrators,
victims without victimisers? While one NGO at the time of writing faced legal action
in Sudanese court for not having protected an IDP from lynching, the broader
questions of responsibility are perhaps more disquieting still.
3.9.2 Beneficiary participation
The UN interagency evaluation also raised questions about the extent to which
practitioners viewed themselves as accountable to the people being assisted and
protected. The evaluation notes, for example, that ‘A rights-based approach to
humanitarian assistance and the Sphere Project minimum standards require that
beneficiaries actively participate in decision-making.’ The study found little that was
positive to report in this regard from the frontlines in Darfur: ‘beneficiaries have still
not been effectively engaged in the management of matters that concern them
directly’ (OCHA, 2005, p 11).
By contrast, the CARE evaluation provides an example of popular participation
promoting local ownership and thereby enhancing programme quality. ‘CARE has
been successful’, its evaluation reported, ‘at setting up highly participatory water/
sanitation committees within the IDP camps that have taken an increasingly active
role in site planning and latrine design’ (CARE, December 2004, p 6). ‘Other sector
interventions by CARE’, however, ‘have been less proactive in promoting
empowerment’ (CARE, December 2004, p 17). In CARE programmes in refugee
114
Lessons learned: the Darfur experience – 3
camps in Chad, women also had a representation role, as well as filling half of the
available positions in distributing food and non-food items (CARE, December 2004,
p 17). This approach is in keeping with an emerging international consensus about
the importance of beneficiary participation. A wider debate continues, however,
about whether participation should be approached as a vehicle for project implementation or as a more basic exercise in political empowerment (USAID, 2000, p 4).26
In a broader sense, the reality that the evaluations were undertaken and the spirit in
which they were conducted are positive developments. The MSF study is particularly
noteworthy in this regard. The fact that MSF-H was first among the agencies to move
into action in 2003 does not mean that, in its own estimation, it moved quickly
enough or is blameless for preventable distress. ‘[W]ith this evaluation, MSF-H is
asking itself whether its response was good enough, not in relation to the
performance of other actors but rather in relation to the needs of the population’
(MSF-H, 2005, p 3).
3.10 Reflections
The Sudan represents a rich repository of learning. This is certainly the case for the
Darfur experience, as the six evaluations reviewed in this chapter suggest. It is also
true of two previous mobilisations, the Office for Emergency Operations in Africa
(OEOA) in 1984–1986 and Operation Lifeline Sudan from 1989 to the present. OEOA,
OLS, and Darfur represent, as it were, three acts in a single play.
The problems encountered by humanitarian organisations in these three initiatives
were strikingly similar. They included: meeting stated objectives in assistance and
protection; monitoring impacts; and managing tensions between relief and
development, and, in the cases of OLS and Darfur, between assistance and peace.
The problems are remarkably consistent across crises that were drought-related in
origin (OEOA) as well as those rooted in civil strife (OLS and Darfur). The recurring
nature of the problems bears out the observation in an earlier study: that the
challenges of complex emergencies are of a piece with those of ‘natural’ disasters
but with an added degree of complexity (Deng and Minear, 1992).
115
3 – ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action in 2004
Despite the generic nature of the problems, each response proceeded in relative
isolation from its predecessor(s). OLS benefited little from OEOA, and the Darfur
response benefited little from OEOA and OLS. Consistent throughout were: a heavy
reliance on material aid, abundantly supplied, and thus a distorted sense of the
importance of external inputs; a widespread sense among the Sudanese public of
exclusion from, and manipulation by, relief operations; and a difficulty among
international actors in seeing the picture whole rather than in geographical and
sectoral compartments.
All these mobilisations, individually on their own terms and also together, are thus
profoundly unhistorical in construct and execution. This is not to denigrate the
intentions or minimise the accomplishments of each, but rather to suggest that their
contexts were too narrowly understood and their preoccupations too technical. The
UN official who in 1989 described the OLS task of assessing needs in insurgentcontrolled areas in southern Sudan as ‘terra incognita’ could just as easily have been
describing the difficulties faced by the UN apparatus a dozen years later in Darfur.
‘As in other civil conflicts where the UN has had difficulty developing sound data
independently of the host government’, the UN’s ‘involvement proved … “a voyage
of discovery”’ (Minear, 1991, p 39).
The challenge to the UN in Darfur thrown up by the SLA was not unlike the one
posed by the SPLA in the southern Sudan. How can a humanitarian organisation
within a system comprised of member states negotiate access to civilians in territory
controlled by an insurgent non-state actor? The problems are as perennial as the
solutions are elusive.
There is, lamentably, little to suggest that future humanitarian programming in the
Sudan will be much different. The thrust of UN planning for the post-Naivasha era in
North–South relations seems to be proceeding as the fourth act in this larger play,
the theme of which appears to be the marginalisation of the Sudanese people,
already marginalised by conflicts, by well-meaning international institutions. A
UNHCR statement, issued in February 2005, confirms that Sudan’s past is prologue
and that past humanitarian interventions may repeat themselves in the coming
years. ‘Southern Sudan Emergency Team Deploys’, reads the UNHCR Briefing Notes
announcing the dispatch of a 15-person emergency team to southern Sudan ‘to start
urgently needed reintegration projects in preparation for the return of some 550,000
Sudanese refugees from neighbouring countries’ (UNHCR, February 2005).
116
Lessons learned: the Darfur experience – 3
Equal fervour greeted a similar challenge more than 30 years ago, when in early
1972 the Addis Accords brought an end to the 18-year civil war and aid agencies
rushed to mobilise personnel and resources to take advantage of a comparable
window of opportunity. When the Darfur conflict is resolved and reconstruction
efforts are launched, will they, too, be carried out without reference to antecedents?
Given the possibility – or the likelihood, according to some analysts – that the
Naivasha peace agreement fails to hold, as indeed did the Addis Accords, will
contingency plans be in place?
For the moment, it appears that funding will be no obstacle. At the Oslo Donors’
Conference on the Sudan in April 2005, donor governments and agencies pledged
some $4.5 billion toward a three-year development plan of $7.9 billion in external
resources (Oslo Donors’ Conference, 2005). But if past is prologue, largesse can be
part of the problem rather than of the solution.
Historical parallels aside, the lessons-learning picture from Darfur provides some
grounds for encouragement. The broadening of the comfort zone among aid groups
for engaging in the more ostensibly political domains of protection and advocacy is
welcome. Also positive is the attention now given to balancing the conflicting claims
on limited resources of various population groups (refugees, IDPs and residents) and
crafting a humanitarian presence which, while international in essential respects, is
more indigenous in composition and accountability. The use of real-time evaluations
for expediting course corrections is also welcome, as is the increased attention
to impact and accountability. The replacement of humanitarian triumphalism
with greater realism, and of agency defensiveness with greater openness, also
deserves applause.
Yet, a largely negative conclusion remains unavoidable: that the institutional weight
of past practice is giving way all too slowly to the insights of creative practitioners
and intrepid evaluators. In fact, the lethargic effort of the international humanitarian
enterprise in Darfur to come to terms with an unravelling crisis of major proportions
during the first critical two years may be a paradigm for the equally precarious
struggle to implement fundamental institutional changes at the global level. The
tragedy of Darfur and the Sudan will be compounded if changes are not made,
whether in the region or in the humanitarian apparatus itself.
117
3 – ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action in 2004
Notes
1 This chapter also makes reference to an
evaluation of World Food Programme
(WFP) emergency operations in the
Sudan. The study by WFP was nationwide in scope and not undertaken with
specific reference to the Darfur crisis.
2 For a concise and comprehensive
description of the background and
causes of the conflict, see DFID (2005).
3 ‘UN’s Darfur death estimate soars: At
least 180,000 people may have died in
Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region over the
past 18 months, according to the United
Nations’ top emergency relief official’
(BBC News, 2005).
4 For an analysis of the issues of
enumeration, see Crisp (2000).
5 Looking back, however, several agencies
questioned the feasibility of retooling
existing programmes and personnel to
shift from development to relief activities.
6 The Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights itself was conspicuous by
its relative absence on the ground in
Darfur. A small contingent of staff
arrived only in August 2004.
7 Amnesty International issued 38 press
releases and 12 reports on the crisis
during the two-year period beginning in
February 2003 (MSF-H, 2005, pp 24–25).
Human Rights Watch, Physicians for
Human Responsibility, Refugees
International, and other NGOs were also
active in flagging patterns of abuse.
8 UNICEF informed ALNAP that it ‘never
accepted this statement and circulated
the report noting the many useful
comments … but specifically stating our
disagreement with this phrase’.
9 One incident reported from a Darfur IDP
camp involved three women who shared
a single garment. Two women remained
naked in the tent while one went outside
clad in their sole article of clothing
(Flaherty, 2005).
118
10 In effect, the obstacles were threefold:
the government of the Sudan, the UN’s
security office UNSECOORD, and
UNICEF itself.
11 The surge-capacity arrangements
instituted after the similarly delayed
response in Rwanda did not make a
significant difference in this instance
when the UN system itself was not
seized with the crisis. For a detailed
discussion, see Danida (2004).
12 The Epicentre findings were published
in the Lancet of 1 October 2004, and are
quoted in MSF-H (2005), p 7.
13 Sudan analyst Eric Reeves, however,
lambasts ‘the disgraceful dishonesty and
sanctimony that would have us believe
that new resolve has been found’ in the
years since the Rwanda crisis (Reeves,
2005).
14 The UNICEF evaluation notes that
UNICEF ‘has assumed the lead in child
protection interventions and has
participated in the prevention of sexual
and other abuses in IDP camps’ but
observes ongoing difficulties in the child
protection sector (DFID/UNICEF, 2005,
p 47).
15 See, for example, Lautze and Stites
(2003).
16 See, for example, De Waal (1989).
17 Conversation with the author, 12 April
2005. The destruction of livelihoods as
an explicit objective of the Darfur
conflict is examined in section 3.6.
18 Personal communication with the author,
28 February 2005.
19 In April 2005, NGO employees were
reported to have received threats of
reprisals should the UN refer the cases
of those charged with war crimes to the
International Criminal Court (Reeves,
2005). The government arrested two
international staff of MSF on 1 June 2005.
Lessons learned: the Darfur experience – 3
20 Members of the coalition are: CAREInternational, Christian Aid, the IRC,
Oxfam International, Save the ChildrenUK and the Tear Fund.
21 A WHO document noted that ‘WHO staff
have visited the areas which are
relatively inaccessible because they are
not under Government of Sudan control.
They appear to be much worse off than
those which can be assessed’ (WHO,
2004, 2).
22 The report went on to cite as an
important exception ‘the mass
vaccination campaign for polio and
measles on both sides of the frontline’
(DFID/UNICEF, 2005).
23 For a discussion of some of the
problems of achievement of food aid
objectives in conflict situations, see
ALNAP’s Review of Humanitarian Action
in 2003.
24 For a working definition of coordination
and its various elements, see Minear et
al (1992). For a discussion of aspects of
UN coordination and a chart of various
models that have been tried in different
settings, see OCHA (2001).
25 This study also remarked on the
resentment among Arab Sudanese based
on the perceived favouritism of
international aid agencies in employing
African Sudanese.
26 For a discussion of a distinction between
beneficiary involvement in programme
operations and engagement of the local
community in the broader issues of
justice and social change, see ALNAP
(1999).
References
ABC News (Australia) (2005) ‘Sudan
demands proof of UN Darfur death toll’,
15 March.
ALNAP (June 1999) Participation by the
Affected Population in Relief Operations: a
Review of the Experience of DEC Agencies
during the Response to the 1988 Famine in
South Sudan. Prepared for ALNAP by P
Ntata, Chancellor College, University of
Malawi.
Amnesty International (2004) Statement
to the 88th Session of the Governing
Council of the International Organisation
for Migration, 30 November–3 December
2004, 2.
Bagshaw, S and D Paul (November 2004)
Protect or Neglect: Toward a More Effective
UN Approach to the Protection of Internally
Displaced Persons. Washington DC:
Brookings Institution.
BBC News (2005) ‘UN’s Darfur death
estimate soars’, March. http://
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4349063.stm
Brookings Institution–OCHA (2004) ‘New
Evaluation Calls for Better United Nations
Protection of Persons Forcibly Displaced in
their own Countries’, November, 2.
CARE (April 2004) Darfur Emergency
Assessment Report. Findings and
Recommendations. G Brady, G. et al: http://
www.unsudanig.org/emergencies/darfur/
assessments/data/Darfur-humanitarianassessment.doc
CARE (June 2004) Care International’s
Humanitarian Response to the Darfur Crisis,
Real-Time Evaluation, Phase 1. J Baker.
CARE (December 2004) Care International’s
Humanitarian Response to the Darfur Crisis,
Real-Time Evaluation, Phase 2. J Baker.
CARE (2005) ‘One Year after Darfur Called
“Greatest Humanitarian Crisis”, CARE and
Others ask, “What Next?”’, March.
119
3 – ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action in 2004
CIJ (Coalition for International Justice)
(2005) ‘News Analysis Claims Darfur
Deaths Near 400,000’, 21 April. http://
plaatform.blogs.com/passionofthepresent/
2005/04/new_analysis_cl.html
Cohen R A and J Kunder (June 2001)
Humanitarian and Human Rights
Emergencies. Policy Brief no. 83,
Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution:
http://www.brookings.edu/comm/
policybriefs/pb83.pdf
Crisp, J (2000) ‘Who has Counted the
Refugees? UNHCR and the Politics of
Numbers’ in Humanitarian Action: Social
Science Connections: http://
hwproject.tufts.edu/publications.html
DAC (December 2001) Aid Responses to
Afghanistan: Lessons from Previous
Evaluations. DAC Senior Level Meeting,
12–13 December 2001, N Dabelstein.
DAC (2005) Synthesis of Evaluations of
Support to Internally Displaced Persons.
J Borton, R Buchanan-Smith and R Otto.
Dallaire R (4 October 2004) ‘Looking at
Darfur, Seeing Rwanda’. New York Times.
Danida (June 2003) Danish Assistance to
Internally Displaced Persons in Angola. http://
www.um.dk/Publikationer/Danida/English/
Evaluations/SouthernAfrica/
evaluation_south_africa.pdf
Danida (December 2004) Lessons from
Rwanda – Lessons for Today. J Borton and
J Ericksson.
Deng, F (September 2004) Specific Groups
and Individuals: Mass Exoduses and
Displaced Persons. Report of the
Representative of the Secretary-General on
Internally Displaced Persons. United Nations
Economic and Social Council, Commission
on Human Rights.
Deng, F and L Minear (1992) The
Challenges of Famine Relief: Emergency
Operations in the Sudan, Brookings
Institution,. Washington DC.
120
De Waal, A (1989) Famine that Kills: Darfur,
Sudan, 1984–1985. Oxford Studies in
African Affairs.
De Waal, A (January 2005) Famine that
Kills: Darfur, Sudan. Oxford Studies in
African Affairs: http://www.justiceafrica.
org/famine_that_kills.htm
DFID (February 2005) Strategic Priorities
and Key Challenges to Address Conflict and its
Consequences in Dar Fur. S Pantuliano.
DFID/UNICEF (February 2005) Joint
UNICEF-DFID Evaluation of UNICEF
Preparedness and Early Response to the
Darfur Emergency. F Grünewald, E Barr,
A Toscano and A Gades.
ECHO (January 2004) Synthesis of Findings
on ECHO’s Policy of Treating Affected
Populations without Regards to Preconceived
Categories, Specifically IDPs, Refugees and
Returnees and Local Population, Based on
Reviews in Sudan, Angola and Afghanistan.
J Cosgrave.
Flaherty, J (2005) ‘The Secret Stress of the
Humanitarian’ in Tufts Nutrition Vol. 6, No.
2, spring, p 18.
Justice Africa (February 2005) Prospects
for Peace in the Sudan: Briefing. http://
www.justiceafrica.org/Feb05.htm
House of Commons (HoC) International
Development Committee ‘Darfur, Sudan:
The Responsibility to Protect’. Fifth Report
of Session 2004–05. www.publications.
parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/
cmintdev/67/67i.pdf
Keen, D et al (2000) ‘The Political Economy
of War, with Special Reference to Sudan and
Bhar el Ghazal’ in G Loane and T Schuemer
(eds) The Wider Impact of Humanitarian
Assistance: the Case of Sudan and the
Implications for European Union Policy.
Baden-Baden: SWP-Conflict Prevention
Network.
Lautze, S and E Stites (2003) ‘More than
Seeds and Tools: an Overview of OFDA
Livelihood Interventions’. Feinstein
International Famine Center, March:
www.famine.tufts.edu
Lessons learned: the Darfur experience – 3
Minear, L, TA Aboum, E Chole, K Manibe,
A Mohammed and TG Weiss (1991)
Humanitarianism under Siege: a Critical
Review of Operation Lifeline Sudan. Trenton,
N. http://hwproject.tufts.edu/publications/
abstracts/husa.html
Minear, L et al (1992) The International
Response to the Gulf Crisis 1990–1992.
Providence, RI: Watson Institute.
MSF-H (January 2005) Darfur 2004:
a Review of MSF-H’s Responsiveness and
Strategic Choices. F Stevenson.
OCHA (June 2001) Humanitarian
Coordination: Lessons from Recent Field
Experience. N Reindorp and P Wiles: http://
www.odi.org.uk/hpg/papers/
ochacoordination.pdf
OCHA (October 2004) Darfur Humanitarian
Profile. Main Report. A Mengistu and
D Christensen http://www.unsudanig.org/
emergencies/darfur/profile
Salama, P, P Spiegel, L Talley and R
Waldman (2004) ‘Lessons Learned from
Complex Emergencies over Past Decade’ in
Lancet 2004, 364, pp 1801–1813. http://
www.thelancet.com
SC-UK (2000) Final Evaluation – the Darfur
Early Warning and Food Information System.
J Bush and J Seaman.
SC-UK (September 2004) Child Protection in
Darfur. http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/
scuk_cache/scuk/cache/cmsattach/
1793_SCUKDarfur%20Protection%20
ReportSep04.pdf
Slim, H (2004) ‘Dithering over Darfur.
A Preliminary Review of the International
Response’ in International Affairs 5(80).
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/
doi/10.1111/j.1468-2346.2004.00420.x/
enhancedabs/
Sudan Tribune (30 March 2005) “Darfur
crisis toll will hit 300,000: British MPs”
OCHA (February 2005) Inter-Agency
Evaluation of the Humanitarian Response to
the Darfur Crisis. B Broughton, S Maguire,
S Frueh.
Tanner, V (January 2005) Rule of
Lawlessness, Roots & Repercussions of the
Darfur Crisis. Sudan Advocacy Coalition,
Interagency Paper.
OLS (July 1996) Operation Lifeline Sudan –
a Review. A Karim, M Duffield, S Jaspars,
A Benini, J Macrae, M Bradbury, D Johnson
and G Larbi.
The Sphere Project (2000) Humanitarian
Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster
Response. Geneva: http://www.
sphereproject.org/handbook/hdbkpdf/
hdbk_full.pdf
Oslo Donors’ Conference (2005) Olso
Donors’ Conference on Sudan 2005, Chair’s
Conclusions, 12 April, p 1.
Oxfam (July 2004) Real-Time Evaluation of
Oxfam Darfur Crisis Response. M Herson.
Prendergast, J (2005) ‘Resolving the ThreeHeaded War in Southern Sudan, Northern
Uganda, and Darfur’. Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars, Africa
Program Occasional Papers Series, No. 3,
February.
Reeves, E (2005) ‘Current Security
Conditions in Darfur: An Overview, April 7,
2005.’ www.Sudanreeves.org, 5.
The Sphere Project (2004) Humanitarian
Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster
Response. Geneva.
UNHCR (2004) Real-Time Evaluation of
UNHCR’s Response to the Emergency in Chad.
D Bartsch and N Belgacem.
UNHCR (June 2005) Briefing Notes,
26 June, Geneva.
UNHCR (February 2005) Briefing Notes,
22 February, Geneva.
UNHCHR (2005) ‘Statement by Louise
Arbour, High Commissioner on Human
Rights, to the Security Council on Darfur’,
16 February, 4.
121
3 – ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action in 2004
UN IRIN (Integrated Regional
Information Networks) (2005) ‘Sudan: UN
Food Agency to Cut Rations for Over 1 m in
Darfur’, 8 April, 1.
UN News Service (2005) ‘World Must Act
Now on Darfur, with Millions of Lives at
Stake: UN Relief Chief’, 18 February.
USAID (October 2000) Community-Based
Reintegration and Rehabilitation in PostConflict Settings. Roundtable Report. USAID/
Office of Transition Initiatives; UNDP/
Emergency Response Division.
WFP (September 1999) Full Report of the
Thematic Evaluation of Recurring Challenges
in the Provision of Food Assistance in Complex
Emergencies. The Problems and Dilemmas
faced by WFP and its Partners. R Ockwell.
122
WFP (August 2004) Full Report of the
Evaluation of the WFP Emergency Operations
(EMOPs) in the Sudan: Food Assistance to
Populations affected by War and Drought.
B Broughton and D Tymo.
WHO (World Health Organisation) (2004)
‘Mortality Projections for Darfur’, David
Nabarro, 15 October.
Young, H, AM Osman, Y Aklilu, R Dale,
B Badri and AJA Fuddle (December 2005)
Darfur 2004 – Livelihoods under Siege. http://
www.unsudanig.org/emergencies/darfur/
assessments/data/Under%20Siege.pdf