Humanitarian Profile - John Holmes

by Michael Bear

category: Humanitarian Relief

Published October 05, 2008 @ 10:33PM PT

This humanitarian profile looks at John Holmes – the UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs / Emergency Relief Coordinator.

Sometimes, writing about humanitarian relief feels like an extended exercise in the statistics of misery; that, or a collection of anecdotes about life among the dispossessed – some amusing, most rather less so. In many ways, this parallels the experience of being out in the field, or at least my experience. A temptation to see people as no more than abstractions, reduced to numbers on a report, or a temptation to see the work as a humanitarian safari.

Such reflections are not particularly new; in fact, they tap into an entire genre of aid worker angst, focused on our relationship with those we try to help. Or, for some of our more religious brethren, save.

Yet it’s not just beneficiaries or crisis-affected populations or partners (or, god forbid, victims) who become depersonalized. So too do those organizations – donors and the UN and NGOs – which shape humanitarian response.

It’s sometimes easy to forget that it’s not acronyms which make decisions, but specific individuals. People who decide how much money is spent, and where, and on what. People who help ensure that a crisis stays in the news.

These profiles are meant to take a look at those individuals who exert a tremendous influence on humanitarian relief.

As mentioned above, John Holmes is the UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs / Emergency Relief Coordinator. Or, as he’s known on the street, the USG / ERC.

As such, he’s the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which seeks to “mobilize and coordinate effective and principled humanitarian action”. The USG / ERC develops humanitarian policy, advocates on humanitarian issues, and helps coordinate the international humanitarian response to specific crises.

All of which means that Holmes plays a critical role in keeping international attention focused on specific crises. He also has the power of the purse, insofar as he manages the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF).

Holmes was born in England in 1951. After attending Balliol College, Oxford, he entered the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1973 – rising eventually to become Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, and then Ambassador to Portugal and France.

(An advantage of being British – he was knighted along the way, and is now Sir John Holmes GCVO, KBE, CMG.)

Holmes became USG / ERC in January 2007, replacing Jan Egeland. Since then, he’s spoken out on crises including Afghanistan, Darfur, Iraq, Somalia, Zimbabwe and the conflict in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia.

Three issues in particular stand out. First is his focus on gender-based violence, and in particular rape in Congo. (For an audio clip of Holmes discussing the situation, click here.)

Second is his strong stance on the humanitarian situation in Gaza, which he described as “extremely severe and totally unacceptable.” See also the Op-Ed he published in Al Ahram in March 2008, following his visit to the region.

Third, he spoke out against a “confrontation” with the Burmese Government in the weeks following Cyclone Nargis, when others were arguing that a humanitarian intervention was necessary to overcome Burmese reluctance to accept international assistance. Writing three months after the cyclone, he noted that the much feared “second wave of deaths from starvation or disease has not happened” – as those advocating humanitarian intervention had predicted.

It’s worth quoting his remarks in detail:

“[W]e must stay focused on the goal: assisting people in crisis. From the first, the aid operation in Myanmar – as is true everywhere we work – had to be about helping vulnerable people in need, not about politics. In this post-Iraq age, I am concerned that humanitarians are often pressured to choose between the hammer of forced intervention and the anvil of perceived inaction. Was there a realistic alternative to the approach of persistent negotiation and dialogue that we pursued? I do not believe so. Nor have I met anyone engaged in the operations who believes that a different approach would have brought more aid to more people more quickly.

This is not to say that there can never be a role for humanitarian intervention, even in natural disasters. But it must be the last resort, when all else has been tried and the only alternative is death and suffering on a mass scale.”

Finally, to see the man himself – below is a video of Holmes from the Davos World Economic Forum:

If you have any suggestions for future profiles, please let me know.

Images: John Holmes - UN