what do NGOs bring to peacemaking? (pa)

humanitarian NGOs in conflict intervention (ma)

pamela all

• no official, governmental status• often serve as a bridge between the

official world and grassroots level, sometimes as advocates for the grassroots, sometimes as implementers of government (or intl) policy

• independent organisations and place great values on their independence

• generally enjoy few of the traditional sources of leverage available to governments and intl organisations

pamela all

• humanitarian NGOs: humanitarian crises, relief + development

• human rights NGOs: promotes and protects basic rights

• conflict resolution NGOs: averting crises through preventive measures, acting as intermediaries, working with opposing parties, facilitating negotiations, initiating, catalyzing, monitoring, expediting dialogues

mary anderson

• humanitarian relief • economic development• human rights• pursuing peace

mary anderson

“ (1) aid resources can be stolen and used to support and finance war, (2) aid can distort markets by reinforcing the war economy and undermining peacetime production and productivity, (3) the distribution of aid can enhance intergroup tensions, (4) aid frees people to support conflict, as they need not to waste their time and energy to fulfill the basic needs substituted by transnational third-party NGOs, and (5) aid legitimises people and their actions or agendas, as its distribution requires permission from armed factions, is subject to – sometimes illegal – taxation or should hire the services of warring parties”

mary anderson

• “mandate blinders” approach• “aid on our terms only”

approach • “hippocratic oath” approach

goodhand & hulme

• “… interventions in CPE can involve three scenarios: (1) conflict fuelling, where NGO activities, although unintended, contributed to the circumstances which reinforce violent conflict, (2) holding operation, where NGOs neither have a positive or negative impact but help maintain some civic structures which may re-emerge when the conflict de-escalates, and (3) building peace, where NGO programmes can challenge the structures and dynamics of conflict and create incentives for peace“