In the line of fire: development in conflict

Stephen Commins

The blurred continuum

International non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and other humanitarian agencies have traditionally assumed a dichotomy between relief and development work. Sometimes, this dichotomy has been reinforced by the way in which bilateral donor bureaucracies allocate funds for programmes and projects. Occasionally, as Jonathan Goodhand and Peter Chamberlain illustrate in their paper on NGOs in Afghanistan, reprinted in this volume, donors have even refused to support projects in what are deemed as relief areas if the programmes are 'too developmental'. Over the past decade, there has been a move towards establishing clear links, both conceptual and operational, between initial relief operations and longer-term development goals. Indeed, there is now a common language to describe 'the continuum' between relief and development work. This has proved helpful in contexts of food-insecurity and drought, but changes in the nature of emergencies demanding a humanitarian response now require the recognition that both the old dichotomy and the new continuum may obscure more than they clarify. The difference between relief and development has been substantially blurred in situations of long-term political emergencies related to civil conflict. What is now apparent is that some forms of gap-filling development work to provide stabilising mechanisms can be done, and are indeed necessary, in situations of conflict.

A changed environment: new skills and challenges

Operations in conflict-related emergencies require different skills and time-frames, and a recognition that local communities have their own resources and priorities, and are not helpless victims, even in situations of brutality and suffering. The experiences of NGOs operating in such situations can provide a valuable base for helping other agencies to identify development potential within conflict, to review their priorities and capacity for work in different settings, and to present policy challenges to governments and donors. Without an understanding of the ways in which development can and does occur on the midst of conflicts, NGOs will miss opportunities to strengthen local communities. Further, without a political and/or a human-rights perspective on conflicts, NGOs may either unintentionally strengthen warring groups, or serve as political cover for the lack of action by donor governments.

NGOs have begun to move, however uncertainly, towards a wider understanding of development, which is not limited to economic indicators. They have come to recognise that there are questions of social relations, production relations, gender, and the management of human capacity and natural resources that need to be considered. In order to achieve lasting and real changes, they need to understand development as a more inclusive concept that cannot be contained in the old linear continuum of 'relief-to-rehabilitation-to-development'. The new concepts do not view development as depending on the end of armed hostilities, because they include relations and capacities that require attention even during conflicts — as can be seen from the experiences of agencies in places as diverse as Sudan and El Salvador.

Reflections for fresh insights

This Reader is a collection of papers from previous issues of Development in Practice, offering a range of perspectives on the challenges that confront NGOs in situations of conflict. The designation 'NGO' is often over-inclusive (one colleague described 'NGO' as equivalent to calling a table 'not water'); but, for the purposes of this essay, it includes local, national, and international NGOs, with an emphasis on the roles of the latter in the context of conflict. The relationship between international NGOs and local organisations is often complex, as is clear from several of the papers in this Reader. Learning from these experiences is not a matter of finding answers to simple or linear questions; rather the papers can help practitioners to recognise their own perspectives and assumptions about working in conflict, the importance of providing policy input to governments and humanitarian agencies, the need to review the priorities of their own organisations, and questions related to operational practice.

If the experiences from the mid-1970s onwards are inadequately understood, NGOs will miss opportunities to improve their effectiveness while operating in the line of fire; their goals may be at odds with community perceptions; and, as observers such as Mary B. Anderson and John Prendergast have pointed out, they may worsen rather than alleviate the conflict. The provision of food and other resources, the hiring of armed guards, agreements with particular political factions, or the selection of specific regions in which to concentrate can all have an influence on contending factions and even on the eventual outcome of the conflict. In a world where situations of long-term conflict are on the increase, these papers offer insights that will be a valuable resource for practitioners.

Complex humanitarian emergencies and 'the new reality'

The end of the Cold War in 1989 has been seen as creating the conditions for increased civil strife and internal wars. There is a danger in implying that 1989 was the date on which complex humanitarian emergencies (CHEs) came into being. Instead, it may be that the removal of super-power restraints on client states has also been accompanied by growing awareness of the spread of such emergencies. These are characterised by the breakdown of political, economic, and social orders, and by the targeting of civilian populations for violence. The cruel realities of today's CHEs can be found in the earlier civil wars in which NGOs gained important experience in the 1970s and 1980s. For example, there were many significant and brutal emergencies before 1989 (in places such as Afghanistan, Mozambique, Cambodia, and El Salvador), but these were overshadowed by the Cold War, and many were somewhat muted by the...