November 10, 2009

Source: Foreign Policy

Posted By Elizabeth Dickinson Tuesday, November 10, 2009

The world is less safe for aid workers, access to needy communities in conflict is on the decline, and aid is increasingly tied to military or other strategic objectives. These are among the gloomy conclusions of Development Assistance Research Associates (DARA), an aid watchdog, as it releases its 2009 Humanitarian Responsiveness Index today.

The index is meant to hold donor countries accountable for their responses to the world’s various crises. So in addition to the rankings (the United States takes the 14th slot with Norway and Sweden in 1st and 2nd place), the index looks at trends in the business of getting help to those who need it.

This year, DARA’s executive director, Silvia Hidalgo, told me that the news is not very good. “This is one of the highest on record for humanitarian workers killed,” she said. Asked why, Hidalgo cited security situations in such countries as Somalia and Afghanistan. “[But] it’s not only a problem of security but also countries saying that [their] sovereignty is being questioned.” In Sudan, for example, the government in Khartoum responded to an International Criminal Court indictment of its president by ousting international NGOs. Hidalgo cited Sri Lanka, where refugees in the Tamil regions of the country were cut off from aid, as another example of governments getting in the way.

DARA’s finding also come with a message for the U.S. administration and its strategy review on Afghanistan: demiliterize aid. During the group’s field research, 53 percent of survey respondents told DARA that they believed that U.S. assistance came with political or military motives — 20 percentage points higher than the donor average for the same question.