This is part II of a two-part article. Part I can be found here:
Summary of part I:
The humanitarian industry is currently dominated by Western, educated knowledge workers. They have contributed to disseminate three powerful trends present in late capitalism:
- Increased bureaucratization and managerialism,
- A growth of a third sector, dedicated to serve the industry itself rather than affected people directly,
- Cultural traits such as the worship of leadership and the adoption of the pair vulnerability-resilience as a universal lens to understand crises.
These are contributing to creating a powerful cultural barrier between the industry and those we serve.
V. Is AAP the solution?
Faulty accountability of the humanitarian system to those we work for has long been acknowledged by the industry. Over the last decade, policy and programmatic responses have multiplied. Important progress is registered in some operations. Yet, a recent report by the Humanitarian Policy Group signalled that “these efforts are all important, but they fall short of a system-wide shift to ensuring that humanitarian responses are demand-driven”[1].
We will argue here that this relative failure is not only due to lack of momentum in implementation, but also to inherent policy flaws. Following what is common in the market economy for the business-client relationship, most of current AAP doctrine evolve around accountability to individuals. Highly sophisticated systems are created to collect and respond to individual claims, suggestions and complaints. This is, of course, necessary for services rendered at the individual or family level. However, it is insufficient for higher-level issues requiring also organized, community-based involvement, such as general humanitarian priorities, or whether (and how) to organize IDP return.
Organized and empowered communities can also receive finance and distribute aid, participate in humanitarian meetings and – more importantly – exercise the kind of advocacy and legitimate external pressure which is essential to accountability. This is mostly sidelined in current AAP policy. The consideration of affected populations as clients rather than right holders, its atomization into individuals, the lack of curiosity as regards their social organization, and the increasing use of answering machines and artificial intelligence, all contribute to isolate top-level humanitarian decision-making from the voice of organized communities[2].
There is even perhaps a class divide contributing to this isolation. Increasingly, highly paid WEIRD humanitarians manage the industry and take decisions, while lower paid local personnel and local NGOs absorb the social and emotional labour of listening and responding to people in need and facing their complaints and even anger, while often lacking adequate responses.
There is an uncanny familiarity here with a few phenomena quite prevalent in modern Western society. One is the increasing segregation between, on the one hand, educated urban professionals and on the other, manual and care workers. The pandemic has contributed to highlight that the latter are both a pillar of society, and much more exposed to risk, while not receiving by far enough support and protection from the managerial classes – both in politics and in business. This realization has not escaped the humanitarian industry.
A second one is the phenomenon of the call center as an example of disembodied, abstract relations between service provider and client whereby the latter can only vent her anger to a fellow disempowered person, with whom can however feel no commonality[3]. A third one is the doctrine of stakeholder capitalism. This doctrine does champion listening to civil society as part of a new accountability model for capitalism. However, it does have in common with the humanitarian industry a mistrust of external accountability, that is relatively autonomous civil society movements choosing for themselves whether participation, advocacy or denunciation are the most effective strategies in any given situation, often in the face of resistance to change[4].
To be fair, there is currently quite a number of initiatives by humanitarian organizations to engage with leadership structures representing affected populations, including at global level. As an instance, UNHCR is currently systematising good practice arising, among other initiatives, from refugee participation in the latest Global Refugee Forum.
At the same time, effective accountability will only be realized when participation by civil society linked to affected populations is no longer seen as radical, and starts happening regularly in fora such as Humanitarian Country Teams, clusters and interagency meetings.
Let us now turn our attention to two more factors contributing to the relative isolation of WEIRD humanitarians: the way they build social capital, and the weight of the written word.
VI. WEIRD isolation
WEIRD humanitarians increasingly evolve in isolation from local civil society and affected populations. Expatriates tend to spend an increasing amount of time either coordinating or exchanging information with each other, or in bureaucratic tasks created by the growth of the humanitarian services economy, the need to manage organizational complexity and the inflation of “bullshit jobs”. Thus, the self-service exigences of the industry simply don’t leave any time left for quality dialogue with affected communities. This is compounded by the acritical acceptance of a few key terms curiously contributing to the cosmopolitan parochialism of WEIRD humanitarians.
We will now look at three further aspects contributing to WEIRD isolation. One is the lack of social capital between WEIRD humanitarians and affected populations. The second is how the sheer thickness and weight of the written word acts actually as a barrier to dialogue. The third, admittedly speculative, is the psychological security we seek through professional and personal interaction within the circle of WEIRD humanitarians.
WEIRD social capital
WEIRD humanitarians tend to socialize among themselves and donors. This contributes to creating trust, increasing a shared sense of identity and trading social and professional recognition, thereby facilitating cooperation. From a more materialistic perspective, a social network of internationally mobile professionals is obviously more useful to international professional advancement than one rooted in local society. At the same time, this human ecology also contributes to creating quick consensuses and a sense of security about what the situation and needs are of affected populations.
The boundaries of the human ecology of WEIRD humanitarians are, of course, diffuse and mobile. Quite often, expatriate human rights workers, journalists and researchers inhabit the same spheres. The requirements of localisation can also open doors to a few local officials and local NGO personnel. They tend, however, to be urban-based, educated and English-speaking. Often, an unwritten trade-off occurs whereby they help WEIRD humanitarians fulfill localisation requirements, while acting as door-keepers of social and professional relations and finance. This also contributes to the crowding out of smaller, non-English speaking, rural-based local NGOs and grassroots organizations, including those led by affected people. Thus, language and class, and not only geography, also acts as an access barrier to the circle of WEIRD humanitarians. Too often, the boundaries between WEIRD humanitarians and local society cut across local society itself, rather than between both.
A brick wall made of written words
WEIRD humanitarians share a culture made not only of language and professional affiliation but also of words. Socially and professionally, it is increasingly difficult to express the needs and rights of affected populations without consciously or unconsciously referring back to a growing mass of written policies often using abstract, complicated jargon such as vulnerability, resilience, affected populations, communication with communities, accountability to affected populations. This is, of course, called for by the need to have a few common concepts in order to communicate effectively. There are, however, other less honourable reasons. One is the need of humanitarian agencies to be seen as quickly domesticating through policy documents global trends called for by the industry or donors. Perhaps more pernicious is the fact that a growing number of WEIRD humanitarians write texts for a living: research, policy recommendations, needs analysis, donor reports. This contributes to calcification of accepted jargon and ideas, reproduction of the inner culture of WEIRD humanitarians and yet more growth of the textual mass to which they have to refer to communicate. This generates several difficulties.
First, the textual and conceptual culture of WEIRD humanitarians operate as a barrier of entry, professionally and socially, for local NGOs and grassroots organizations – with the exceptions that we have seen above. This only adds to the increasing use of English in meetings even in countries with widespread use of other UN official languages such as French, Spanish or Arabic.
Second, as we have seen above, behind each concept such as vulnerability and resilience there are layers upon layers of ideology that contribute to obscure their original meaning and to increase their value as mere markers of what is culturally acceptable among WEIRD humanitarians and donors. This anchoring of words and concepts to a pre-existing culture obviously blunt their ability to empirically describe local context and causality behind humanitarian and protection problems. Most WEIRD humanitarians have a shared experience of reading Humanitarian Needs Overviews, or Humanitarian Action Plans written in such a neutral, contextless, standardized language that could actually refer to virtually any crisis on Earth. Another shared experience is the shock of listening to local NGO leaders or affected populations expressing facts, needs, rights and preferences in much more precise and eloquent language than the one used in written communications by WEIRD humanitarians.
Finally, and perhaps more insidiously, we have to ask ourselves if the mass of written text in which WEIRD humanitarians evolve is not acting as a barrier for dialogue between the industry and those we work for. Real dialogue does entail a shared commonality of concepts and language. However, it also requires an ability to bend and shift concepts and language that are only proper to us in order to properly listen to the other person. However, the inner pressures of our culture and the sheer weight of the mass of words and concepts that we feel compelled to use actually impede this flexibility. Too often, the intellectual effort of placing the other’s words within the confines of charged, pre-conceived concepts (vulnerable person, protection case, resilient women) acts as an impediment to listening and therefore to dialogue.
A prominent example of concepts obscuring social reality refers to the deeply interlinked concepts of localisation and community mobilisation. Humanitarian practitioners are familiar with the diffuse boundaries between, on the one side, longstanding grassroots movements and local NGOs, and on the other social mobilization by affected populations for mutual assistance and to claim their rights. Yet localisation and community mobilisation remain siloed concepts in international guidance. Thus, the recent IASC guidance on localisation all but ignores organized affected populations as local humanitarian agents. Thus, the more we write about localisation, the more we create blockages to its realisation.
The security we crave
Attacks against aid workers reached an all-time high in 2020, affecting mostly local personnel. Physical security is certainly one of the most important barriers not only to reach, but also to dialogue with affected populations. Yet we have to ask ourselves whether we WEIRD humanitarians also seek psychological security[5] in social and professional distance to affected populations.
Humanitarianism is an impossible task – saving lives without using coercion. Exploitation of humanitarian workers, either by faulty managers or as self-inflicted, has rightly been described as the wrong answer to this impossibility. However, we WEIRD humanitarians have also to question ourselves how much we seek reassurance and the preservation of self-esteem in the face of an impossible task in the relative security of routine, bureaucracy, trainings, meetings and written reports, and in the open trade of recognition happening within our closed social circles. A good example of this phenomenon is the current preference of Protection Clusters of protection messages over advocacy strategies – the former being written, general expressions of the desirability of particular protection approaches or outcomes consensuated only within humanitarian circles. By usually not being adressed to duty holders (Governments or armed groups), they avoid the risk of failure associated to real advocacy or negotiation.
Deepening relations and dialogue with local society and affected populations often yields lucidity about the inadequacy of the response, and this lucidity carries with it a number of fears. The fear of not being listened to when proposing solutions going against the grain of general consensus. Also the fear of being inadequate in the face of suffering, of being made responsible, of exhaustion and failure when trying beyond one’s means or not even trying because of depression, of losing credibility and even their jobs (in particular for local humanitarian workers), of breaking the consensus and being ostracized.
Thus, lucidity about our real impact can be, in itself, a mental health hazard[6]. It is fair to say that most humanitarians achieve some sort of balance when doing the maximum within their limits. Others fall victim to this risk. Yet others seek refuge in the reassuring routine of meetings, trainings, written communications and shared, accepted language, in the security that no one is likely to rupture this routine because a critical mass find assurance within it. Incompetence does exist among us as in any other profession. Yet it is difficult to blame individual humanitarian workers for what amounts to a systemic flaw.
VII. Outline of an ethics of exposure
Why an ethical reflection?
From an intuitive perspective, any reflection is ethical in nature when it refers to human character and behaviour, values as well as right and wrong thought, speech and action. Ethics refers to principles. Thus, ethical reflections are particularly necessary in any highly complex situation presenting high stakes in terms of human suffering and well-being, and where policy and regulations are clearly insufficient to guide behaviour. The use of nuclear weapons or biotechnology are good examples. The same is valid for the point of contact between the humanitarian industry and the people we serve. Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, the goal of humanitarianism is ethical in itself: to save lives and reduce suffering.
There are other important reasons why ethical discussions on the relationship between humanitarians and affected populations continue to be necessary. All ethics is about relations. And humanitarians stand in a complex array of relations with the people we serve:
- From human to human,
- From people with power, to people whose power has been disrupted,
- From people and organizations with a duty of care, and those who receive such care,
- In particular for mandated organizations, from duty holders to right holders.
There is no question that these relations respond to the principle that human suffering must be prevented and mitigated. Thus, the objective of these relations is ethical in nature. I am also, however, also interested in the quality of those relations, simply as human relations.
Another important ground for a discussion on ethics is the gradual replacement of epic humanitarianism by managerial humanitarianism. There is no a priori judgement of value here. Any industry experiencing evolution and growth will need a degree of professionalization and bureaucratization, and humanitarianism is no exception. There is no question that when trying to prevent or mitigate human suffering, ethics dictates that we must be effective and efficient. The point is rather than evolution and change, by the stakes and the complexity they introduce, require the continuity of an ethical discussion, in particular when moving away from the epic humanitarianism of yore where ethical principles and good intentions where all the rules we needed.
A third, and more specific reason to focus on ethics is the fact that, as we have shown above, a particular class of people (WEIRD humanitarians), with a particular culture, class consciousness and self-interest, has come to dominate the industry[7]. Some of its cultural traits, such as the unreasonable responsibilization of individuals and the social distance from more disadvantaged classes, are directly related to late capitalism and are ethically problematic – in particular in an industry dedicated to disadvantaged people. However, even if we abstract ourselves from these specific traits, the very cultural specificity and the inwards character of this class, together with the growth of bureaucracy, are distorting and disrupting the relation in which we stand with the people we serve.
It is telling how a lot of industry trends on human relations, behaviour, vulnerability and emotion, such as leadership, active listening and mindfulness actually relate to our relation to ourselves or to fellow humanitarians, rather than the relation with affected populations. This is somehow relegated to the field of industry standards. Actually, it is not uncommon to hear humanitarian leaders denouncing atrocities by focusing on their own emotions, rather than the victims’: “XXX is shocked and greatly saddened by…”, “I am horrified to learn that…”, “XXX is outraged at the death…”, etc.[8]
An ethics of exposure
Let us say beforehand that this is not a general discussion on the ethics of humanitarian action. This overview has been done before, including also difficult aspects such as fairness and how to prioritize scarce assistance[9]. What I propose here is merely a course correction, a particular ethical angle that we believe needs much more attention than what has been hitherto the case. I believe, however, that the adoption of an ethics of exposure will also revert on the effectiveness and efficacy of aid, and therefore in our ability to achieve goals which are ethical in nature.
By ethics of exposure I understand that humanitarian workers must be open, sometimes in real time, to the effects of opinions, preferences, initiatives and even emotions of the people we serve. This means that dialogue between humanitarians and affected populations is not a mere exchange or collection of information, but is where things actually happen: creation of trust and social capital, negotiation, complaints, venting and confrontation but also joint decision-making[10]. This also means that affected populations gain at least some capacity to label and define us, the same as we do to them (as refugees, economic migrants, vulnerable persons). An ethics of exposure means simply that the relationship of humanitarians to the people we serve must integrate all the elements of healthy human to human relations.
An ethics of exposure contains, of course, an element of principle. It exposes the paradox that an increase in the professionalization and effectiveness of the humanitarian industry has also led to a progressive de-humanization of its relation to the people we serve. This is, in itself, wrong and in need of correction.
There is, however, no contradiction between this principle and professional effectiveness. People tend to trust those willing and able to have real conversations. This means conversations where we accept the possibility of being affected, changed: because we really pay attention[11], because we can be challenged, persuaded or confronted, and because we can change our opinion, perhaps in real time, and because we lose the fear of changing our opinion in public. This is what we understand by exposure.
Besides of being an ethical value in itself, exposure leads to trust, trust leads to cooperation and cooperation with affected populations leads to more efficient humanitarian outcomes. It will also lead to a much more nuanced, contextualized knowledge of the humanitarian situation and needs. This can only create more trust with affected populations, thereby setting off a virtous circle.
An ethics of exposure also means a wider concept of accountability. This entails humanitarian leaders responding to organized affected populations not only on a service provider-to-individual basis, but also on an organization-to-organization and person-to-person basis where the bonds of trust, cooperation, social capital and commitments made must also be accounted for. Giving an account is also explaining ourselves to someone whose respect we are bound to maintain[12]. Real accountability also necessitates external accountability, i.e. the possibility of being exposed to reputational risk by affected population when they deem this is the only avenue to change. This all entails the possibility of losing control. But so do all healthy human relations.
Applying an ethics of exposure
It goes without saying that decolonization of aid, as well as localization, are constitutive elements of a breaking up the wall between a humanitarian industry dominated by WEIRD humanitarians and affected communities. This means, among other, increasing the presence of local humanitarian workers among the managerial ranks of the industry – as a number of INGOs are currently doing.
The same can be said for more structural reforms such as more active decentralization. This would mean that humanitarian decision-making and coordination is more devolved to smaller territorial units, such as municipalities, where smaller local NGOs and organized affected communities can have more access[13].
Meaningful localization and decentralization of the industry will or will not happen in the near future. Even if it does, it is doubtful that it will benefit local NGOs, civil society and affected populations, rather than powerful States. It is also likely that class and cultural barriers, as explained above, will persist in the near future.
Thus, besides of these much needed structural reforms, we want to propose here three instances of action that would increase the common knowledge between the humanitarian industry and affected populations, as well as the amount and quality of dialogue among them. They refer to considering civil society among affected populations as a key element of accountability; to systematic localization of knowledge management; and to creating social capital beween humanitarians and affected populations.
No AAP without civil society
As we have pointed out above, much of current AAP doctrine follows the service provider-to-client model of the market economy, focused on accountability to individual users and largely shunning collective forms of participation, claiming of rights and external accountability. Considering civil society among affected populations as a key element of accountability would entail:
- An attitude of professional and personal curiosity, research and acceptance to forms of collective organization of affected populations,
- Considering community mobilization as recognized part of the humanitarian toolkit of humanitarian agencies and clusters,
- Promoting active representation of organized affected communities in relevant humanitarian fora.
These ideas are far from being new, and have been more developed previously by the author[14]. They have, however, been obscured in practice by the adoption of a deeply individualistic market model. The short memories of the humanitarian industry as regards the multitude of successful past experiences also do not help. Despite rethoric around the Nexus, support to the emergence or representativity of civil society among affected populations is today considered as development work and rarely prioritized by humanitarian agencies, even in situations where it is quite feasible.
The three points mentioned above are, of course, an ethical and political minefield. There are open questions of neutrality, of the ethics of social engineering, of representation of the more disempowered population groups and on possible entrenchment of unequal social relations as regards e.g. gender and ethnic groups. However, these dilemmas exist to a no lesser extent already within the WEIRD-dominated humanitarian industry. There is actually no principle reason to believe that grassroots movements are less submitted to economic and political pressures than professional humanitarian organizations. At any rate, a culture of exposure, dialogue, and respect for context and local knowledge will certainly provide elements of judgement on with whom, when and how to form these partnerships.
On the other hand, there is a wealth of practice showing that in most cases, responses to ethical dilemmas of participation by grassroots movements are as much practical and context based as they are principle-based. Thus, they can often be overcome by empirical and listening-based learning about social organization, as well as practical solutions based on consensus and avoiding one size fits all solutions. Practice shows that effective participation often happens away from capitals, where doctrinal and policy-based discussions are largely shunned in favour of practical approaches based on local knowledge and experimentation.
Building participation certainly takes time. However, some myth-busting is also necessary here. First, the myth that even initial levels of participation are impossible in emergencies. Second, the myth that all humanitarian settings are emergencies. In many cases, as humanitarian situations mature and stabilize (or become entrenched) knowledge and practice is progressively accumulated which will enable for more in-depth participation. A progressive reduction of humanitarian bureaucracy and process will also certainly liberate valuable time to dedicate to this important goal.
Decolonization and localization of knowledge management
As we have shown above, knowledge management in the humanitarian industry is currently dominated by WEIRD humanitarians, either as professionals within humanitarian organizations or as specialized, standalone outfits. Whereas this may make sense in the first stages of an emergency, where ready-made systems are necessary, it becomes less and less reasonable as humanitarian situations mature.
It is, thus, not surprising that in recent years, specialized standalone organizations have also sprung up which compile data from secondary and – less frequently – primary sources and offer it to operational humanitarian organizations or clusters. Their operational models vary. Some try to acquire a recognized status as information providers in particular operations, which helps with external fundraising. Others seek contracts with humanitarian organizations to provide them with information. A relatively new type of organization, arising from AAP requirements, carry out consultations with affected populations and prepares reports on their views and preferences, under contract from operational organizations, clusters or coordinating bodies.
The phenomenon of subcontracting consultations with affected populations deserves particular attention. These consultations can nowadays be carried out by non-profits based on the Global North, with good access to the main headquarters of the humanitarian industry. No comment is being made here on the quality of their services. It is arguable, however, that their operational model is based on the extraction and marketing of information which, on occasion in unstructured form, is already in the hands of affected populations themselves.
At least in the mid-term, it makes much more sense to recognize and reinforce the abilities of these populations to collect, organize and transmit their preferences and needs. Other concurrent possibilities are working with local NGOs or academia, in particular those with long-term engagement with affected populations. These kind of alliances can be done pre-emptively by humanitarian organizations in disaster or conflict-prone areas. Besides of obvious advantages of proximity and localization, these actors will almost always be better placed to use information and analysis not only for programme development but also for advocacy purposes.
For the purposes of this article, a few practical steps towards localisation of knowledge management would be:
- Intense networking and snowballing to identify existing informants or knowledge management structures within affected populations or local society, such as local think tanks, University departments or professors of social science among refugee populations,
- A systematic preference for local actors (such as Universities) to conduct needs analysis, research and report-writing in humanitarian crises,
- Working with development actors to pre-identify local knowledge management partners in countries prone to humanitarian crises.
Forming social capital with affected populations
It is an accepted principle of the humanitarian industry that WEIRD humanitarians actively network and socialize among themselves. This contributes to increasing trust and cooperation as well as professional advancement. For many humanitarian workers, this also constitutes a key element of well-being, a coping mechanism and even a mechanism of mental health in contexts which are often perceived as insecure, incomprehensible and even hostile. Often, a few educated, urban-based, English-speaking locals also integrate these circles. As we have explained above, there can be a transactional element here, whereby a few local actors gain privileged access to inside information, humanitarian decision-making and finance while providing localisation legitimacy to the industry. There is also an unwritten taboo in the industry, whereby humanitarian professionals are discouraged to relate informally to affected populations, citing issues of conflict of interest and power balance. Yet these issues may equally apply to relations within the industry.
The exclusionary character of these social and professional circles is, in itself, ethically questionable. But even when making abstraction of strictly ethical considerations, the practical downsides are considerable. Writing about corporations, Peter Drucker noted in 1955 that:
[I]t is the inside of the organization that is most visible to the executive. It is the inside that has immediacy to him. Its relations and contacts, its problems and challenges, its crosscurrents and gossip reach him and touch him at every point. Unless he makes special efforts to gain direct access to outside reality, he will become increasingly inside-focused. The higher up in the organization he goes, the more will his attention be drawn to problems and challenges of the inside rather than to events on the outside.
Given the interconnectedness of current humanitarian expatriate communities, it is quite straightforward to extrapolate Druker’s thinking to these circles. Thus, they often form self-contained epistemic bubbles. These bubbles often have two effects. One is to expand and intensify the substrate of culture, viewpoint and standard vocabulary through which WEIRD humanitarians view humanitarian crises. The second, is to entrench and provide quick endorsement (which, often, is as much social as it is professional) to received narratives about what the needs are and what the response should be, often in confirmation of the pre-adopted substrate mentioned above.
Social capital with persons of concern helps provide the direct access to “outside reality” Drucker mentions. It will facilitate not only quality information and informal participation, but also the necessary checks and balances provided by local knowledge. It will also quicken the perception by humanitarian management of subtle but crucial changes in the political and social environment (such as the consequences of elections) necessitating quick adaptive strategies such as preparedness or contingency planning.
There are, thus, all kind of reasons for humanitarians, and in particular humanitarian leaders, to form social capital with persons of concern. There are also clear synergies between local knowledge, promoting civil society as a means to accountability, and efforts by humanitarian leaders to form social capital with persons of concern. Supporting local knowledge also means working with local Universities, NGOs and affected populations to better understand the social tissue and organizational structures of affected populations. This will naturally support efforts for community mobilization and identification of structures and leaders with the necessary ability and legitimacy to represent affected populations in humanitarian decision-making bodies.
The bridge, then, to identify particular persons with whom humanitarian leaders will have interest in creating relationships of trust will then happen naturally. Besides of all the advantages in terms of access to local knowledge and checks and balances in terms of accountability, these kinds of processes also provide transparency as to with whom humanitarian leaders are creating informal relations of trust, and why. This helps allay any concerns as regards conflicts of interest, favouritism and lack of transparency.
Conclusions
Back in 2005, I was discussing with a local peasant during a short lull in the clashes between right-wing paramilitaries and ELN guerrillas, in the Colombian village of Micoahumado. He said “lo que necesitamos aquí es una intervención de los países internacionales” (what we need here is an intervention by the international countries). One may, of course, laugh at the simplicity of the peasant’s language. Or one can just admire the knife-sharp precision with which he described the, very current then, assimilation between a rules-based and a Western-led international order.
A lot of water has passed under the bridge at quebrada Arenal since then. The R2P doctrine has lost a lof of its power. Perhaps with it, humanitarianism has lost some of the focus on protection in armed conflict and mass human rights violations so prevalent twenty years ago. The fiascos in Iraq and Afghanistan and the very unequal responses to the pandemic, as well as to the Syrian and the Urkranian refugee crises in Europe, have lost the West a lot of credibility. It has become trendy to speak about the “erosion of the international liberal order” and the loss of credibility of Western leadership in the Global South – including its biggest democracies[15]. From a far more critical perspective, a recent book has analysed the consequences of these developments to the humanitarian system, tracking in detail its complex and yet close linkages to the international liberal order and how they may be disrupted by recent developments[16].
There is no telling how these broad shifts will impact humanitarianism – the same as there was, back in 1989, no way to foresee the impact of the fall of the Berlin wall on the rise of the so-called “humanitarian interventions”. This said, no seasoned humanitarian has failed to perceive that a proven link to the international humanitarian industry no longer provides automatic credibility with authorities and affected people alike in the Global South: one has to work hard at building trust and showing results. Current efforts at building a more multi-polar rules-based world, as well as at decolonizing and localizing the humanitarian industry, may or may not succeed. But in the meantime, and from a more humble perspective, the degradation of relations between the industry and those we serve needs to be urgently addressed. This is an ethical imperative, both in terms of principle and in those of effectiveness of the industry. There is also hope that some real listening and dialogue with those we work for should yield a few clues on where the industry should head in the years to come.
[1] See Humanitarian Policy Group, The Grand Bargain at five years: an independent report, 2021, https://cdn.odi.org/media/documents/GB_2021_WEB_YabmhpF.pdf.
[2] Social organization and representation of any community in policy-making is, of course, an extremely complex issue rife with ethical minefields and possible misuse of power. Yet multiple examples abound in humanitarian work. See https://josepzapater.net/index.php/2022/04/10/accountability-to-affected-populations-the-revolution-will-not-be-televised/
[3] See Mark Fisher, Capitalist realism: is there no alternative?, Zero Books, 2009.
[4] See, among other, Klaus Schwab, Peter Vanham, Stakeholder capitalism: A Global Economy that works for Progress, People and Planet, Wiley, 2021.
[5] The term is used here in its intuitive, common-language sense. It is, however, also useful to refer to Abraham Maslow’s definition of psychological security as “a feeling of confidence, safety and freedom that separates from fear and anxiety, and especially the feeling of satisfying one’s needs now (and in the future).” It is important to remember that in its well-known pyramid of needs, Maslow also included esteem and self-actualization.
[6] One of the most acute observers of human suffering, Simone Weil, noted that “Écouter quelqu’un, c’est se mettre à sa place pendant qu’il parle. Se mettre à la place d’un être dont l’âme est mutilée par le malheur ou en danger imminent de l’être, c’est anéantir sa propre âme. C’est plus difficile que ne serait le suicide à un enfant heureux de vivre. Ainsi les malheureux ne sont pas écoutés.”
[7] Researcher Estella Carpi has underlined the taboo around discussions on social class in humanitarian settings. See Estella Carpi, Bringing Social Class into Humanitarian Debates: The Case of Northern Lebanon, https://southernresponses.org/2021/02/11/bringing-social-class-into-humanitarian-debates-the-case-of-northern-lebanon-part-one/ and https://southernresponses.org/2021/02/11/bringing-social-class-into-humanitarian-debates-the-case-of-northern-lebanon-part-two-the-hidden-role-of-social-class/.
[8] These are all real examples.
[9] See, among other, Hugo Slim, Humanitarian Ethics: a guide to the morality of aid in war and disasters, Hurst & Company, 2015.
[10] Ethics founded on the principle that we exist only as related to others (with God coming in and out of the picture) is a well-known trend in XX century thought, with some basis on phenomenology. Important thinkers are Martin Buber, Simone Weil, Emmanuel Levinas and Franz Rosenzweig.
[11] Simone Weil has written eloquently how difficult it is to pay real attention to those affected by malheur – an untranslatable term pointing not only to suffering, but also to the soul-destroying effects of the persistence of injustice. To Weil, this kind of attention is a form of love that can be reach only through grace. Seasoned humanitarians can really profit from her definition of attention as love. At the same time, they will readily recognize that talking to affected people is an art that can also be learnt through respect, persistence and practice. The concept of attention relates also to liberation theologist Ignacio Ellacuría’s concept of hacerse cargo de la realidad. This also untranslatable term points to the twin duties of understanding and taking responsibility for social reality, in particular human suffering arising from injustice.
[12] Judith Butler has theorized on how exposure to the other “constitutes the conditions of my own emergence as a reflective being”. These reflections are quite fertile in showing how exposure to affected populations may constitute a key element in the self-analysis and reform of the humanitarian industry. See Judith Butler, Giving an Account of Oneself, Fordham University Press, New York, 2005.
[13] See Jeremy Konyndyk, Patrick Saez, and Rose Worden, Inclusive Coordination: Building an Area-Based Humanitarian Coordination Model, Center for Global Development, October 2020, https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/inclusive-coordination-konyndyk-saez-worden.pdf.
[14] See Josep Zapater, Accountability to Affected Populations: the Revolution will not be Televised, https://josepzapater.net/index.php/2022/04/10/accountability-to-affected-populations-the-revolution-will-not-be-televised/.
[15] See, for instance, Can the West win over the rest?, The Economist, 13th of April 2023, and David Milliband, The World Beyond Ukraine, Foreign Affairs, May / June 2023 issue.
[16] See Juliano Fiori, Fernando Espada, Andrea Rigon, Bernard Taithe and Rafia Zakaria (eds.), Amidst the debris: humanitarianism and the end of the liberal order, Hurst & Company, 2021.