Provocation: Whose Life Is Worth More?

Published February 24, 2009 @ 12:21PM PT

If you want to get an aid agency's attention, it's better to kill western staff

Interesting comments on last week's piece Trying Not To Get Shot: Trends in Aid Worker Fatalities, with a number of commenters arguing, rather persuasively, against my point that national staff face greater risks than international staff.

So, refining my argument. The problem isn't that national staff run a higher risk of being attacked than international staff - the problem lies in the vastly different way in which organizations respond to the deaths of national and international staff, and what this says about the implicit value organizations place on national staff.

The vast majority of the 33 aid workers killed in Afghanistan last year were national staff. If all 33 had been American and European, would any aid agencies remain? I think not.

[Standard disclaimer - more than happy to be proven wrong.]

[Image from Flickr - and, credit to GOOD Magazine for the idea of provocations. Also Wouter Buikhesen. Hard to forget Wouter.]

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Comments (6)

Hmmm. What would make an aid agency leave?

I think that NGO's have become inurred to casualties in general. We are certainly very accepting of unrealized risk in places like Afghanistan. Even realized risk seems more acceptable than it would have been ten years ago. The deliberate murder of four NRC staff didn't spark withdrawals. Having an international staff member gunned down on the sidewalk of the national capital didn't.

I think the only thing that would make NGO's leave is a suicide bombing in an NGO office in Kabul. FWIW, I think that possibility is immanent.

Posted by Kevin Toomer on 02/24/2009 @ 02:32PM PT
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The idea of 'provocations' is not new, nor an original idea from GOOD Magazine: it hails back to the mid-1960s. Just Google 'provo' and 'Wouter Buikhuisen'.

Yes, there definitely is a disparity in the way many (not all, I hasten to add) INGOs react to national staff deaths or injuries as opposed to internationals. The question is: what to do about it? I think it might actually be a relic of not-so-ancient times past: it is not that long ago that INGOs revolved around international staff and national staff were seen as 'auxiliaries' (in the sense of the Roman military units). The re-evaluation of their role is something rather recent, and I think it has not yet percolated through all aspects of the way we manage things.

To change this, we will need a real culture change in the way we look at national staff and their role in our organisations -- unlike the rather superficial changes that we see now. Blogs like yours might help there, although on the other hand I am afraid that not many field managers find the time and opportunity to read and process the discussions found here.

Almost by definition, culture change is something long drawn out and painful, so there is still a lot for you (and other critics) to do.

Posted by Michael Keizer on 02/24/2009 @ 02:43PM PT
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Kevin - interesting point, about how NGOs have become inurred to casualties more generally. Hadn't thought about it in those terms. It raises the question, though, about where hte line should be drawn. At what point should NGOs leave? Or is that point of unacceptable risk only ever realized in hindsight; i.e. after a suicide bombing in an NGO office?

Michael - apologies for overlooking Wouter, and an appropriate edit has been duly made above.

Even back in the day, I'd imagine that national staff comprised the vast majority of aid agency personnel; as long as we're using military analogies, perhaps better to think of them as enlisted men than auxiliaries. (As Telly Savalas said in Kelly's Hereos - we always get the broken end of the bottle.)

Any idea from your end of what real culture change would look like? Especially as more and more agencies appoint former national staff as countery directors / country program managers, albeit outside their home countries.

Also - I'm trying to draw harried field managers through pictures. Everyone loves pictures.

Posted by Michael Bear on 02/24/2009 @ 06:01PM PT
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@Kevin - I totally agree!

Posted by Angela Graham on 02/24/2009 @ 08:16PM PT
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Apologies for the late reply.

As you already mention, having more and more former national staff appointed in management positions already makes a difference. However, it will take some time before this percolates through our organisations. One issue to keep in mind here is that these appointments have hardly reached top level jobs yet: there are very few former national staff general or operational directors of INGOs yet.

What also will be necessary is a change in the way we recruit and indorctrinate new international staff. Too often we try to attract people with romantic images of the expat doing work that locals just cannot, or having knowledge/expertise that these locals need to be imparted with. We know that the reality is different and that often there are very different reasons to recruit international staff instead of nationals, but new staff often have very mistaken ideas in this respect. Inculcating from the start that national staff are in most ways that count equal and equivalent colleagues would possibly also make a difference in the way they are treated when it comes to security management.

Finally, it would do no harm if legal standards from our home societies would be extended at least in part to our national staff. Often INGOs feel that they have a legal duty of care towards their international staff that they do not towards nationals, and sadly they might even be right (depending on where they are incorporated). Having a similar legal duty of care towards nationals would definitely help a lot towards treating them on the same footing as internationals, especially in countries that tend to award high damages.

Posted by Michael Keizer on 02/27/2009 @ 10:17PM PT
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Michael,

I couldn't agree more, on all counts,

MBK

Posted by Michael Bear on 02/28/2009 @ 08:43AM PT
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Michael has worked for NGOs in Afghanistan, across east and central Africa, and Iraq. Prior to going overseas, he worked on a project providing assistance to the United Nations on the application of International Humanitarian Law to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.