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Setting standards
by Nick Cater
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The Rwandan refugee crisis in 1994 showed
the waste, inefficiencies and inadequacies of aid agencies
competing for space and resources in a disaster..
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In 1994 the International Federation
developed a code of conduct establishing standards by which
to measure its work. Nick Cater takes a look back and considers
its impact.
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The idea was simple but far reaching: create a code of conduct
setting out basic standards for disaster response to which
relief agencies could commit themselves to ensure the quality
of their work, the professionalism of their staff and the
impact of their efforts for those in need.
The timing was prescient, for while the challenges of Rwanda,
Kosovo and Afghanistan were yet to come, the end of the Cold
War in the early 1990s had begun to open up once-closed countries
to humanitarian action, yet make millions more vulnerable,
allow conflicts old and new to flourish, and usher in an era
of major disasters. The start of the decade also saw disaster
spending soar, and controversy over the role of the growing
number of aid agencies.
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The idea was taken up for development by the Steering Committee
for Humanitarian Response (SCHR), which brings together some
of the world's largest humanitarian agencies, including the
Federation. Over ten years after the idea was first suggested,
the Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red
Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief now has almost
200 signatory agencies and has inspired global discussion
and action by governments, the United Nations (UN), non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) and all parts of the Movement.
Today, Code of Conduct themes can be seen in dozens of projects
and programmes, from worldwide initiatives to raise the quality
of humanitarian care - including the detail of how many grammes
of food and litres of water a disaster survivor needs to stay
alive - to single-crisis local agreements on aid agency roles
and responsibilities. While some suggest the original code
is outmoded and needs updating, enhancing or replacing, others
are using it as a benchmark in evaluating relief programmes
from Mozambique to India or are considering ways it could
be transformed into an operational tool for better work.
In its ten short points, covering issues such as independence,
accountability, political or religious bias, and involving
local communities, the Code of Conduct demanded that the priority
be the beneficiaries, young and old, sick and hungry, those
most vulnerable to natural hazards, conflict and technological
catastrophes. Be-yond the ten points were three often-overlooked
annexes setting out the kind of commitments from governments,
the UN and others - including unfettered access to those in
need, respect for the independence and impartiality of humanitarian
agencies, and sufficient funding and security - that would,
if fulfilled, make any agency's adherence to the Code of Conduct
far easier.
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The crisis in Kosovo revealed that while
some aid agencies were more aware and openly questioning the
value of their work, the implementation of humanitarian standards
was still not widespread.
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Old and new
The Code of Conduct - and what it did not or could not include,
from technical guidelines to what happens if it is broken
- led directly to two global projects committed to improve
agency standards. The Sphere Project incorporated the Code
of Conduct into its far broader rights- and legislation-based
Humanitarian Charter, while also developing detailed technical
standards for food aid, nutrition, health, water and sanitation,
and shelter and site selection in disasters. The Humanitarian
Accountability Project (HAP) tackles the vexed question of
how relief agencies can make themselves responsible to those
they are trying to assist.
Sphere project manager Nan Buzard sees strong links from
the Code of Conduct to the Sphere Project: "Sphere sets
out people's rights, with minimum technical standards as one
expression of those rights; it can be seen as a later, practical
realization of some aspects of the Code of Conduct."
At HAP, co-director Agnes Callamard says: "The Code of
Conduct remains a very important reference point against which
agencies can be assessed, and it was a crucial first step
towards accountability, towards giving beneficiaries a voice."
While both Sphere and HAP have attracted many agencies across
the world to get involved in their work, they have also faced
criticism, especially from the "Quality Platform"
group of relief organizations. Among those promoting the Quality
Platform is the French NGO network Groupe Urgence-Réhabilitation-Développement,
whose chairman, François Grünewald, argues that
"by no means all humanitarians agree with what Sphere
and the HAP represent. Universal benchmarks ignore the fact
that each humanitarian emergency is unique, and each calls
for different, perhaps original, responses".
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Codes of conduct that draw at least some of their language
and inspiration from the original are to be found from Ethiopia
to Australia and back to Liberia. In Sierra Leone, NGOs decided
the Code of Conduct was too generic and wrote a shorter version
specifically for their situation of conflict and displacement.
Other codes have addressed specific sectors.
For the Movement, the Code of Conduct has an influence on
a wide range of policies and plans, from the Federation's
long-term Strategy 2010 to the detailed Principles and Rules
for Disaster Relief, while the ICRC has made accountability
the theme for its forthcoming Wolfsberg meeting of senior
humanitarian decision-makers.
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The initiatives on standards and accountability have been
accompanied by an expansion of monitoring and evaluation to
assess impact and whether standards were met. Much of this
work is collated by the interagency Active Learning Network
for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action
(ALNAP), where John Borton says: "There's been a lot
of progress in recent years, though it has been more inspired
than systematic; the Code of Conduct, Sphere, HAP and other
initiatives are a patchwork but we need a unified approach."
He added that a recent Hague conference on "Enhancing
the Quality of Humanitarian Assistance" boosted the Code
of Conduct by suggesting it should be made more operational.
Borton is among many who feel that as well as obvious omissions,
such as gender, a vital gap for the self-policed Code of Conduct
was the lack of any monitoring or checks on how closely agencies
observed it. While compliance mechanisms, accreditation, regulation
or sanctions have all been resisted by relief agencies, some
improvements in standards may come through more open monitoring,
peer reviewing and publishing evaluations.
The past decade has seen a steep growth in humanitarian capacity
and skills within the developing world, including the creation
of many local agencies, yet one area in which the Code of
Conduct and recent initiatives have been criticized for their
limited progress is involving beneficiaries in running relief
programmes. A report by Wageningen University's Disaster Studies
Unit to the Hague conference states: "There appears to
be much less experimentation, implementation and documentation
of beneficiary participation than would be expected on the
basis of the widely proclaimed importance of this issue."
With the Code of Conduct's tenth anniversary due in 2004,
the Federation is now reviewing all initiatives and projects
on standards and accountability to assess which are the most
useful future tools and how to align them. Eva von Oelreich,
head of disaster preparedness and response, says: "The
Code of Conduct is an excellent foundation but there's work
still to be done. The debate is partly about how to renew
it. More importantly we need to use the standards and other
tools, grown out of the 1990s and inspired by the Code of
Conduct, in a more holistic way. One of the essential tools
we are now using is the Better Programming Initiative (BPI),
developed to meet specific Red Cross Red Crescent needs to
avoid building on tensions in post-conflict situations. An
analysis of the post-conflict situation and other crucial
factors help to improve the programmes meaningfully and thus
support the aim of the Code of Conduct." With HAP, Sphere
and other work such as the BPI, "the Code of Conduct
has had an enormous legacy and its continuing strength is
clear: it is still being built on today".
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Nick Cater
Nick Cater is an independent journalist and consultant on
aid issues. A former co-editor of the World Disasters Report,
he can be contacted at caterdisaster@yahoo.co.uk
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