Global Policy Forum

By Anna Jefferys and Toby Porter*

Anna Jefferys and Toby Porter of Save the Children UK argue that combining U.N. peacekeeping with humanitarian coordination makes it impossible for NGOs in Ivory Coast to be seen as impartial.

If anyone wanted a concrete example of why most NGOs are concerned about U.N. missions that integrate military peacekeeping with humanitarian aid, look no further than recent events in Ivory Coast.

Over the past three weeks, the peace process in Ivory Coast – also known by its French name of Cote d'Ivoire -- has threatened to unravel. The government has threatened to re-take the north, there were brief but extremely serious incidents of direct military confrontation between the government and French forces present in the country, and almost all foreigners have been evacuated.

Inevitably, at the time when the need for aid operations has increased, overall humanitarian capacity is a fraction of what it was three weeks ago. Most aid agencies have evacuated their international personnel, and many have lost important and expensive capital items such as vehicles and communication equipment. Tensions remain high in most parts of the country. It is currently unclear how the political situation will play out, or indeed when and how large-scale humanitarian operations will resume.

How do we begin to go about re-establishing our presence in Cote d'Ivoire and communicating to all parties to the conflict that we are impartial and independent humanitarian agencies, when the senior U.N. humanitarian official in the country reports to the same individual commanding the troops that have just been mandated to use all means necessary to maintain the ceasefire?

When a peace process starts to unravel, peacekeepers and humanitarians need to move rapidly in different directions. Peacekeepers may need to assume a hostile posture with one or more warring party, and threaten or use force to enforce the peace agreement.

Perception is Everything

As they do so, it is extremely unlikely that the warring party in question will continue to see them as impartial. Humanitarians, on the other hand, need to stress their impartiality more than ever, in order to to try and deliver humanitarian assistance to civilian populations caught up in the conflict. This is an incredibly complex task when a civil conflict threatens to resume and anti-foreigner feeling is running high.

In this context, a U.N. mission structure that integrates its peacekeeping and aid components is unhelpful – it makes distinguishing between "humanitarian" and "political" almost impossible, especially for warring parties. This has been recognised for years. When it comes to negotiating access to civilian populations with warring parties, the perception of impartiality can be as important as the thing itself. This is the essence of the problem -- U.N. integrated missions damage the perception of the impartiality of humanitarian action.

For years, NGOs have begged the U.N. and Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) in particular to engage substantively with their concerns about integrated missions. As a minimum, we have asked for DPKO to transform what up until now has been a breathtakingly arrogant lack of consultation with non-U.N. humanitarian agencies during the planning process for U.N. integrated missions. To date, our efforts have achieved little or nothing in the way of a meaningful dialogue.

Crisis in the Aid World

What is especially perplexing about this is that almost everyone in the humanitarian world, from the top United Nations officials in New York down to the project level in Kandahar, acknowledges that we are collectively facing a grave difficulty – namely, the degree to which global humanitarian action and agencies are no longer perceived as impartial.

It makes no sense for the United Nations to continue to lay claim to the leadership of a global humanitarian community deeply concerned about this diminishing perception of impartiality, and yet, on the other, adopt management structures for its own missions that many of the most experienced NGOs see as directly contributing to this perception in countries where they operate.

The United Nations Operation in Cote d'Ivoire (UNOCI) initially became operational in April 2004. Under this structure, the 4000 French peacekeeping forces – known as "Licorne" -- who were already present in Cote d'Ivoire would continue to work alongside 6,000 UNOCI troops. Particular Licorne factions were mandated to work under U.N. Sector command as "Quick Reaction Forces". Working together, the purpose of UNOCI and Licorne was primarily to monitor a ceasefire, while UNOCI also has a remit to lead on the eventual disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration process.

There are currently two main shapes which an United Nations integrated mission can take, currently referred to as "minimalist" or "maximalist". In a "maximimalist" mission, all of the responsibility and structures for humanitarian coordination are located firmly within the management structure of the U.N. integrated mission. There is usually no separate identity or staff for the U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). UNOCI, conversely, is an example of a "minimalist" integrated mission. OCHA -- the U.N. entity mandated with the coordination of a humanitarian presence in Cote d'Ivoire that is made up primarily of NGO actors -- retains its own office, located outside the main UNOCI headquarters.

Humanitarian Coordinator

But the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator is also the Deputy Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General (D-SRSG), and works directly to the command of the SRSG, Albert Tevooedjire. This is, for many, precisely where the problem lies. The SRSG, in effect, line manages not only the Humanitarian Coordinator in Ivory Coast, but also all the UNOCI military contingents.

He is also responsible for all political aspects of the U.N. presence in Cote d'Ivoire. When fighting resumed, and nine French peacekeepers were killed in government air strikes on November 6, the robust military response on the part of French troops led to accusations from the Ivorian army that French troops were acting as an invading force, thus throwing into question the impartiality of their role.

Closely associated with, and indeed mandated to work alongside these French troops, UNOCI inevitably found itself in the middle of this political imbroglio. In early November, UNOCI troops deployed to prevent Ivorian government troops from crossing the zone that separates the rebel-controlled areas in the north from the government-controlled areas in the south. This is, in essence, exactly how the Security Council would expect UNOCI to react, and this was confirmed two days later when a strong resolution was passed in New York, threatening force on any party that further violated the ceasefire.

‘Include NGOs in the Debate'

With anti-U.N. feeling already entrenched in Cote d'Ivoire, resentment in government-controlled areas can only increase in light of these events and the latest Security Council Resolution. From an NGO perspective, the task of resuming activities in the conflict-affected areas will not have been made any easier by the fact that United Nations humanitarian leadership and coordination arrangements form part of an integrated mission.

This is the heart of the problem for humanitarian agencies. The events in Cote d'Ivoire illustrate why the U.N. needs to review, at the highest level, humanitarian coordination arrangements within integrated missions. It would be reassuring if they finally started to include NGOs in that process.

About the Authors: Toby Porter is emergencies director and Anna Jefferys is emergency information and policy officer at Save the Children UK.