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	\|\|\|\| Status Report #30: November 1998
	THIS IS ANOTHER in our series of reports designed to keep the stakeholders of the Humanitarianism and War Project and its increasingly wide circle of users current on our work. This report covers the period since November 1998.
	CONTENTS:
	Research Completed Research in Progress Conferences, Workshops, and Other Publications Personnel Interview: Greg Hansen

	RESEARCH COMPLETED
	The Project recently completed more than three years of research on the Caucasus region and the special challenges of mounting effective responses to human need resulting from war and the all-encompassing social, economic, and political transition following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Since 1996 the Project has produced four monographs designed to assist practitioners and policy-makers.
	New readers of these pages may wish to consult Armed Conflict in Georgia: A Case Study in Humanitarian Action and Peacekeeping, which analyzes the period of November 1989 to April 1995. It examines the civil conflicts in Georgia, the contributing ethnic, economic, and political factors, and the roles of international actors and aid providers. Humanitarian Action and Politics: The Case of Nagorno-Karabakh reviews the differing humanitarian challenges in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Nagorno-Karabakh in the years 1988-1996. It takes a close look at the intrusion of political agendas into the humanitarian responses to conflict and assesses the damages caused by the resulting politicization of aid activities. War and Humanitarian Action in Chechnya reviews humanitarian action in a war conducted without humanitarian pretensions or principles.
	Building on these three monographs and subsequent research, the Project and the Local Capacities for Peace Project (LCPP) have just published Humanitarian Action in the Caucasus: A Guide for Practitioners. A translation into Russian is expected early in 1999. Authored by Greg Hansen (who is profiled later in this Status Report), co-author of the Chechnya study and an LCPP associate, lessons learnedand spurnedare examined. Issues raised in the Guide were reviewed recently in a series of seven strategy sessions led by Hansen, joined by H&W Project Director Larry Minear, LCPP head Mary B. Anderson, and our consultant, S. Neil MacFarlane. Discussions were held in September and October in Yerevan, Armenia; Barda and Baku, Azerbaijan; Tbilisi and Zugdidi, Georgia; Tskhinvali, South Ossetia; and Moscow. Addressing the specific concerns of the locations in which they were held, these meetings attracted a wide range of participantssome 200 in allfrom humanitarian, donor government, diplomatic, and peacekeeping institutions. Hansen and MacFarlane also made presentations in Copenhagen at an international conference sponsored by the Danish Refugee Council (September 28-30) on Facilitating the Safe and Orderly Return of Refugees and IDPs in the Caucasus.
	All of these publications may be downloaded directly from our website. Those who would like hard copies should contact the Project office.
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	RESEARCH IN PROGRESS
	Research on the dynamics of learning by humanitarian organizations after the Cold War, the umbrella for our work during Phase 3 (1997-1999), proceeds apace. In our research cluster entitled Humanitarian Interactions, work is moving forward on the coordination and human rights fronts. In September, consultant Marc Sommers conducted interviews in Sierra Leone, Geneva, and Brussels in preparation of a monograph on the dynamics of coordination, focussing specifically on the operational level. Sommers's recent data-gathering in West Africa will be combined with his earlier work in Tanzania in the publication in the spring. His work was vetted at the session between European Union and U.S. government officials discussed below.
	Tensions at the interface between the delivery of assistance and the provision of protection, an item of growing concern within the international community, have been receiving priority attention among our researchers. The monograph Protecting Human Rights in Complex Emergencies is nearing completion. The study draws on extensive input from practitioner organizations at meetings organized by the Project in 1998 and from a focus group of NGO officials with human rights portfolios. A second monograph, entitled Assistance and Protection: The Gender Connection, will follow.
	The groundwork is also being laid for two related studies in which the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has expressed interest. The first will review the status of the current effort to "mainstream" human rights throughout the work of the various agencies of the United Nations system. The second will examine tensions between the protection of human rights and other objectives articulated by the UN Charter. H&W Director Larry Minear spent a week in Geneva in October laying the groundwork for this research in discussions at the Office of the High Commissioner and with other agencies there.
	The Project is pleased to announce a significant grant in support from the Ford Foundation of research on "Human Rights and Humanitarian Action" which will allow us to continue building on and advancing our efforts in this area.
	In our Humanitarian Politics cluster, research coordinated by Neil MacFarlane is also moving forward nicely, with two monographs expected in 1999. One will review the experience of aid agencies coping with the politization of humanitarian action through advocacy. Efforts to engage governments at the international level as well as to negotiate humanitarian access in conflict areas themselves are being studied. The other monograph explores "the conflict connection:" that is, the extent to which humanitarian activities ease, or exacerbate, tensions. MacFarlane is currently gathering information in Guatemala to supplement earlier work in other regions.
	In our Humanitarian Impacts cluster, two monographs are also anticipated. One, authored by consultant Ian Smillie, is scheduled for publication in January. Entitled Relief and Development: The Struggle for Synergy, it provides the research which served as the basis for the NGO discussion on November 17, detailed below.
	A second study, also being spearheaded by Smillie, is being launched to review the experience of humanitarian actors in strengthening local institutions. Plans call for reviewing efforts in a variety of different settingssome with strong public and private local institutions, others with weaker onesto assess the impacts of international organizations and resources. We are pleased to acknowledge a grant from Canada's International Development Research Centre which will facilitate our effort to engage institutions and consultants from the areas under study and to frame recommendations geared toward practical improvements in the approaches taken by international aid organizations.
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	CONFERNCES, WORKSHOPS, AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS
	On October 29, officials from the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO) and the U.S. Government, the two largest governmental contributors to humanitarian activities, gathered for an all-day meeting, facilitated by the Humanitarianism and War Project, at the headquarters of the American Red Cross in Washington, DC. The session, the first of four to be held at six-month intervals, provided a forum for ongoing discussions at the working level between ECHO and U.S. officialsprimarily from the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) but with representation from the Bureau for Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) and the Office for Transition Initiatives (OTI) with an eye to more effective communication and more regular collaboration in responding to humanitarian crises. The discussion used as a point of departure recent field research by the Project on humanitarian coordination in Sierra Leone.
	The Ford Foundation hosted the third in an ongoing series of policy dialogues with senior NGO officials in New York City on November 17. Attended by officials from eleven North American NGOs and three foundations, the session explored the topic of Relief and Development: The Struggle for Synergy. The discussion reviewed the experiences of NGOs in achieving synergies between relief and development and the constraints against doing so. Based on their differing mandates, the groups discussed whether agencies that carry out activities across the spectrum have a comparative advantage in realizing such synergies over those that specialize in either relief or development.
	At the annual presentation of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation Humanitarian Prize award in New York in September, Larry Minear appeared on a panel to discuss the topic, "Is Neutrality Still Possible?" with Emma Bonino, EU Commissioner, and Francis Amar of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Principal Consultant Thomas Weiss made a presentation in a September session at the Brookings Institution organized by Francis Deng and Roberta Cohen to discuss the New Directions for the Mandate of the Representative of the UN Secretary-General's Representative on Internally Displaced Persons; he also was a commentator at New York University's Center for International Cooperation's workshop on Investing in Peace: Donor Support for Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Transition and attended the workshop of the War-Torn Societies Project in New York.
	A new book is now available by Weiss, Military-Civilian Interactions: Intervening in Humanitarian Crises (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999). It examines the history of military-civilian interactions, develops a framework for assessing military costs and civilian benefits, and examines the use of international military forces in Northern Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Haiti. An announcement and order form for an examination copy is enclosed along with a new brochure describing the Humanitarianism and War Project.
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	PERSONNEL
	We are pleased to welcome Kevin von See Dahl to the staff of the Humanitarianism and War Project. A recent Brown graduate in International Relations, Kevin will provide additional part-time support as we continue to expand the services and information provided.
	The Project is currently seeking to fill a position created following the departure of Project co-founder and co-director Thomas Weiss, who has assumed the position of Distinguished Professor at The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York. We are seeking a person well-versed in humanitarian issues, whether as practitioner or analyst, to conduct research and assist in management. In addition to working with the Project, the person will teach a course each year at Brown Universtity and work on other projects with the Watson Institute. A Ph.D. is required for the position, which will be filled at the assistant or associate professor level. A job description is attached. Applications should be received by February 15, 1999.
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	INTERVIEW: GREG HANSEN
	In response to suggestions that we provide more information about our researchers, future status reports will include brief profiles. Below are excerpts from an interview with Greg Hansen, author of the Project's most recent publication, Humanitarian Action in the Caucasus: A Guide for Practitioners.
	H&W: Tell me about the beginnings of your relationship with the H&W Project and the LCP Project.
	GH: Going back to 1995 when I was a UN Volunteer, I was experiencing some difficulties in that my own work was interacting with the conflicts in Georgia. I felt, in a way, overwhelmed by the complexities of those interactions with my grass-roots peace-building and the conflict. I actually sought out the advice of Mary Anderson, [head of the Local Capacities for Peace Project] and Larry Minear on a return trip to North America, asking for their input on what I was doing. Mary, a few days after our first meeting, broke her ankle and needed someone to do a trip to Lebanon on short notice to conduct a case-study. I've been working with her since then.
	H&W: Can you be specific about what you asked Larry and Mary?
	GH: I was working with UNICEF in the Gali region of Abkhazia in 1995. We wanted to address the problem of children in a security zone having to make a very difficult walk through some dangerous areas to go to school. What we wanted to do was to help open a few schools in a lower security zone where things had been relatively stable for quite a number of months so that kids wouldn't have to walk through mined areas. We started a very small block of construction projects to provide schools in safe areas.
	The local IDP leadership began to exploit the school openings because they sent the message that people were returning home to the places that they had fled for good. Having the schools open was quite a statement. In response, the Abkhaz authorities in Sukhumi decreed that Georgian could not be used as the language of instruction in these schools.
	Well, in the context of that conflict, language was one of the big issues. The Abkhaz felt threatened by the Georgian language, the Georgians resented the use of the Abkhaz language, and so on. Was assistance in opening the schools acting as a flash point between Abkhaz and Georgians? Yes, it probably was. Bomb threats were made. People were arming themselves where the schools had been opened. There was fear that Abkhaz militia would attack the villages where the schools had been opened.
	H&W: Certainly that was a frustrating situation. Why did it happen?
	GH: I think I did not appreciate how opening schools was a symbolically significant event on both sides, sending the message to the Abkhaz that the Georgians were returning permanently, and sending the same message to the Georgians.
	I think what I learned is that aid workers are not malevolent beings and they don't go in to stir up politically sensitive situations. However, by providing assistance in a very politically complex conflict environment, even the most seemingly innocuous forms of assistance can be extremely political or provocative. The fundamental question that the Local Capacities for Peace and the Humanitarianism and War Projects have been asking is, how can aid be provided in such situations so that it does not make tensions worse?
	H&W: Where did the idea of the Caucasus Guide come from?
	GH: The three monographs on the Caucasus had been quite well-received. The particular challenges of that environment called for something of more practical use to aid workers and aid agencies struggling to come up with strategy and policy in the Caucasus. So, in a way, the Guide was the "next step" following the more academic analysis of the monographs.
	I think I mentioned in the Guide that in African, Central American, or Asian settings, there are decades of aid experience that can inform present-day activity, but that's not the case in Caucasus. It's still new territory in many ways and aid agencies did not have a lot of collective memory about the area, the people, and the different challenges that their programming faced. During the research, it came out that a lot of lessons had been learned by aid agencies and by aid workers, but it is the nature of the business that people and agencies come and go on a quite regular basis. The Guide was an attempt to gather together in a thin volume some of the lessons that had been learned, a way of documenting experiences, and a way of formalizing institutional memory.
	In terms of specific challenges that we set out to address, the biggest was security, followed by the complexities of the political environment that impinged upon, or facilitated, humanitarian action. In fact, the priority of the security issue increased dramatically during the course of the research.
	H&W: Tell me about the seven strategy sessions that you held in the region.
	GH: I think aid agencies and aid workers in the region have embraced the opportunity to step back from the work and reflect on it and to bounce ideas around with their colleagues. That's not something that aid workers are generally given the chance to do. They go to coordination meetings and things like that, but the meetings tend to be very issue-specific rather than the wide-ranging sessions we've done over there. The agendas for our meetings tended to be extremely flexible to allow for the agencies and workers to define what they see as the biggest challenges and to address them.
	In the Caucasus, by providing a space for aid workers and agencies to talk about these things, we've helped to equip them with some tools. I'm not talking just about the seven strategy sessions, but also the Guide, and, going back a few years, the three monographs. It has been a pretty intense bit of activity by the two Projects. I think we have done a pretty good job collectively of equipping the agencies with the tools they need to reflect and strategize thoughtfully. Now it is up to them to decide how to use those tools, whether in changing strategy or in adapting in different ways to the environment.
	One of the lessons about the Caucasus is that you have to be closely attuned to the social and political goings-on in the neighborhoods where you are working. In some settings, if you do not do that, you will place yourself and your colleagues at risk. You'll place the potential beneficiaries at risk, too, because you'll be feeding insensitivities. The sort of aid workers who treat the job like a logistics operation are fewer and fewer in the Caucasus. In fact, time and again, it has been proven that these are really high-caliber people out there doing the work.
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