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Background and purpose: The NGO Policy Dialogue Series was launched in 1997 with two purposes in mind. The first was to provide a forum that would meet twice each year for discussions among North American NGOs about the challenges that they face as practitioners functioning in the internal armed conflicts in the post-Cold War era. An exchange of experience would nurture a process of critical reflection and encourage the identification of lessons learned from recent experience. Some such discussions were taking place within individual agencies and among the agencies. However, NGOs expressed interest in a forum where, on an occasional but systematic basis, views regarding issues of policy and program, of professionalism and accountability, could be exchanged. With that in mind, the discussions from the start have been off-the-record and limited in participation to NGOs. It was felt that the presence of donor agencies, UN officials, and others might inhibit the free exchange of views. While summaries of each session have been circulated, mention of individual comments or agencies have generally been avoided, except where necessary to provide specificity to a given observation. A second purpose of the series was to share the conclusions and recommendations of the Humanitarianism & War Project and to receive informed feedback into the Project's ongoing work. Sometimes this took the shape of helping to frame a piece of research, and sometimes reacting to a completed analysis. Given the overarching theme of our research, institutional learning and change in post-Cold War humanitarian organizations, we found the series a useful sounding board for our own work. Most of the topics chosen have been the subjects of research being completed at about the time of the discussion. The sessions provided both a reality check for the researchers, who have generally been on hand to present their findings to the group, and a challenge for program managers. Evolution: The discussions have consistently attracted knowledgeable staff with responsibilities in the areas being reviewed (for example, human rights, Afghanistan, staff training), although a number of agencies have continued to send senior executives and decision-makers. The involvement of InterAction from the inception of the series has been positive and insures a still wider dissemination of H&W findings. The early sessions covered a four-hour period, including lunch. More recently, the time has been expanded to five hours, which still often proves inadequate to the complexity of the issues involved. The original intention was to limit participation to agencies that were financial contributors to the Humanitarianism and War Project. (A list of such contributors is provided elsewhere on the website.) Over time, however, the topics proved of considerable interest to a wider range of NGOs, and it seemed short-sighted to exclude agencies that were not in a position to provide financial support for the Project's work. Generous financial contributions from the Mellon and Ford Foundations made it possible to convene the gatherings (and to conduct the research on which discussions were based) even in the absence of cash contributions from all participants. Since the Project approaches "humanitarian action" as inclusive of both protection and assistance activities, efforts have been made to engage human rights as well as emergency aid groups around the table. Thus, the circle has been widened and broadened considerably. In the early years, the reports on individual meetings were circulated only among actual participants, who numbered generally around 25-30. However, interest in the issues discussed touches a wide range of agencies and individuals than gather around the table on any given occasion. At the session in November 2001, participants agreed to have the Issues Notes and reports made more widely available. After the initial four sessions, which were held in both New York and Washington with a variety of individual institutions hosting, the ongoing venue has become The Graduate Center of The City University of New York in midtown Manhattan, thanks to an agreement between the Project and the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies. Each session generally establishes the topic for the following one. Wider significance: The topics identified for discussion by the NGO group and the exchanges that have taken place at each session offer something of a bellwether of issues of importance to the non-governmental community. As such, the policy dialogue series will be of interest not only to practitioners seeking to reflect upon and deepen their own experience, identifying lessons to be learned from this crisis or that. The series will also be of interest to academics and policy analysts, some of whom have not been privy to this level of exchange and a number of whom are outspokenly critical of NGOs for their perceived approaches to these very issues. With the passage of time, a number of recurrent themes have emerged, even as some of the participants themselves have come and gone. In general, there has been a remarkable continuity, both in the policy issues discussed and in those on hand to wrestle with the evident dilemmas. As facilitator of the series, the Project has been struck by the seriousness with which the issues are approached. Some specific follow-up steps have implemented ideas proposed: for example, the creation of an NGO focal point for protection in Kosovo suggested in Session V. In a broader sense, however, the discussions are evidence of a growing sense of the importance of context - historical, political, military, and cultural as well as humanitarian - to the effective NGO functioning. Sessions held to date. The following ten sessions have been held, with an eleventh currently planned. Please click on each to access the Issues Note circulated in advance and a report of the proceedings disseminated after the fact.
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