Some Not-Depressing News About Humanitarian Security

by Michael Bear

category: Humanitarian Relief

Published June 30, 2009 @ 07:59AM PT

Finally, some not-depressing news about humanitarian security.  International Medical Corps (IMC) has just released a short study entitled Security Management in Humanitarian Agencies, which finds that NGOs are finally beginning to devote increased resources to staff security.

According to the report:

"The findings of this survey suggest that the area of NGO security management is undergoing a considerable amount of professionalization with the creation of more security‐related posts at the field and headquarters levels...Furthermore, agencies are investing more in areas such as security training, formal incident tracking, redaction of security documents such as manuals, standard operating procedures and guidelines, and are also exploring various collective mechanisms between agencies to manage security effectively."

(Bonus - the report also has graphs.)

Though the sample size was relatively small, the most surprising finding was that field staff seemed more satisfied than headquarters staff with headquarters' awareness of security incidents:

"Around one‐third (34.50%) of respondents based in the headquarters compared to one‐eighth (13%) of field based respondents feel that their headquarters’ awareness in security incidents needs improvement."

I only have the report as a pdf.  If anyone is interested, send me a message at mkleinman@change.org and I'd be happy to forward it along. The main findings are below:

- Around 35% of the respondents said that their organisation currently has a specialized safety and security department.
- Almost 70% of the respondents feel that a specialized security department would be ideally suited to manage security
- Security training and salaries of security personnel are the two main areas towards which most security expenditure is directed
- Almost all organizations surveyed have a written security policy statement and all field sites have security guidelines available
- A majority (85%) of the respondents’ agencies have a formal incident reporting system in place or are in the process of setting up such a system
- The field level staff are more confident about the headquarters’ awareness of incidents than the headquarters itself
- Information Sharing and Joint Donor Advocacy are seen as the most important areas for NGO Security Collaboration

For more information on how many staff in the field receive security trainings, see here.

[Aid worker helps to free a trapped vehicle in Darfur - Photo from The Guardian / ACT-Caritas]