By Nick Cater
AlertnetMarch 4, 2003
The 12 member agencies of Oxfam International have decided that they will not accept funding for their relief work from any government that takes part in an attack on Iraq, including the United States, Britain and Australia.
As well as rejecting financial support for preparedness measures, relief operations or post-war reconstruction from those engaged in hostilities, Oxfam International members say they would also refuse to operate in areas of Iraq under military control.
The 12 Oxfam affiliates -- from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Quebec, Spain, Britain and the United States -- will focus on fundraising from non-combatant nations, the European Union, the United Nations and individuals.
Most Oxfam affiliates have long accepted state funds for a wide range of emergency operations and development programmes, with only Oxfam America refusing government funding for any purpose.
An Oxfam GB spokesperson said: "We cannot remember a situation where we have been so critical of the governments involved." With war looming, the new statement on Iraq funding emerged from the most recent twice-yearly meeting between the directors of each national Oxfam affiliate.
It reflected their concern that, ahead of a war that might set off a huge humanitarian crisis, they needed to have a clear, consistent position so individual member agencies could not be "picked off", said Barbara Stocking, director of Oxfam GB.
Stocking told AlertNet that she could not tell if the decision would prompt more donations from those opposed to war, or how much potential funding the Oxfam International members might lose.
As the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief, the organisation was founded during World War Two to help those hungry in German-occupied Greece. Much of the impetus for its launch came from members of the Religious Society of Friends or Quakers, and its aims soon came to include "the relief of suffering arising as a result of wars".
Based on existing Oxfam policy that insists on the agency's impartiality, the new statement sets out that no Oxfam will accept funding if that "allows governments to effectively use the humanitarian operation as an instrument of foreign policy and thus increases the chances of war, or prolongs it once it starts", or if funding "imposes conditions upon us to support military action in Iraq -- or to limit our ability to take independent policy positions".
Stocking said: "We don't think war is inevitable, but if it does happen, we will be extremely concerned for the humanitarian consequences and regional stability. We wanted a common position between all Oxfams. We won't work directly under military control. We must stay impartial and separate from any military forces."
DIFFERENT POSITION
She said that Oxfam GB was in a different position from some agencies already working in Iraq and funded by a government, since it had not worked in the country for seven years, and added: "This statement is not a criticism of any other charity."
Since 1991, Save the Children U.K. (SCF UK) has managed programmes in northern Iraq's Kurdish sector on projects now costing about $1.5 million a year, 50 percent of which is met by the British government's Department for International Development (DFID).
A spokesperson for SCF UK, an AlertNet member, said: "We will seek money from DFID for forthcoming emergencies, such as Iraq if there is war.
"We don't feel that would compromise us or be an endorsement of government policy on the war. But we are very concerned not to work under the auspices of the military, as the U.S. seems keen for NGOs to do. We won't work in concert with military actors. We want free and unfettered access to people on the basis of need, and we don't want out workers compromised by having military protection."
Few other aid agencies refuse state funds but the Médecins Sans Frontií¨res (MSF) network, which includes several AlertNet members, has long had a policy of barring support from belligerents, a stand reaffirmed at a meeting of worldwide senior staff last week.
Nicolas de Torrente, MSF USA's executive director, told AlertNet: "At MSF we very strongly value our operational independence, which is in large part based on our financial independence. We have always had a consistent policy of not taking funding from belligerents, so we did not take money from NATO member governments during the Kosovo crisis, and we won't take money from the U.S. or U.K. governments for work in post-war Iraq. It was the same in Afghanistan."
He added that MSF had worked hard to develop its donor base so that 80 percent of its income came from private sources. "We don't want aid associated with any political or military objectives so we generally don't rely on government funding. In the U.S., we find that most aid organisations rely heavily on U.S. government funding."
In a separate development, European Commission aid experts in Brussels have been quoted in Britain's Financial Times newspaper as saying that if war does start, it will not operate under the control of the U.S. military when it grants humanitarian aid to NGOs, the United Nations or the Red Cross.
NEEDS OF IRAQI PEOPLE
Stocking said that, although Oxfam GB was funding its own preparedness operation and assessments in and around Iraq using £200,000 ($315,000) drawn from fellow Oxfams and reserves, the agency was still talking to DFID, as other Oxfam affiliates were with their national governments, about the needs of the Iraqi people.
Oxfam would prefer funding for any relief operations or post-war reconstruction to be channelled through the United Nations, which it believes should take on civilian authority in the country alongside a body representing the Iraqi people, rather than the U.S. military.
Larry Minear, director of the Humanitarianism and War Project at Tufts University, wrote in an article for AlertNet in January that aid agencies did not want "their preparations to provide an imprimatur on the likelihood, much less the necessity, of war with Iraq". He said recent experience showed the risk of humanitarian efforts being co-opted by those using military force.
"Despite financial incentives to join the fray, humanitarian organisations have ample reason to fear that an aid effort which is simply an extension of a political-military agenda will cut them off from reaching many of those in urgent need," he added, suggesting: "Humanitarian agencies that resist being taken for granted should stipulate the conditions under which they are prepared to become involved in aid activities during or after an eventual war.
Rather than politicising humanitarian action, their initiative would underscore the importance of maintaining their neutrality and independence."
Of the Oxfam position, a DFID spokesperson told AlertNet: "That is a decision for Oxfam." Stocking added: "What Oxfam does about its funding is not the biggest issue. The biggest issue is what happens to the Iraqi people."
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