The extent in which aid and development should converge is one of contestation, with advocates of the fusion insisting humanitarianism should account for long term objectives, and proponents of enforcing separate realms rendering integration implausible. This essay supports the latter, arguing humanitarian assistance cannot and does not build peace, but whether it should is indefinite. New humanitarian arguments and conceptions of peace will firstly be outlined to establish counter-arguments and assert how peace cannot be analysed as a monolithic notion. To demonstrate how aid cannot build peace, ideological and structural incompatibilities will be identified and, to demonstrate how aid does not build peace, case studies will be examined to illustrate the role of capitalism, imperialism and the homogenisation of the West. Additionally, the question of whether aid should build peace will be contemplated, factoring in intersectional dynamics and alternative conflict and peace theories.
Proponents of the view that humanitarian assistance builds peace draw on new humanitarian principles to challenge what David Rieff describes as ‘bed for the night humanitarianism’. Stuart Gordon and Antonio Donini synonymise the growth of new humanitarianism with the decolonisation process and liberation struggles, with these political processes driving an “institutionalization of internationalised compassion” and the rise of information technologies facilitating the engagement of global aid institutions with suffering. Liberal discourse emerging from the global North argued that classic humanitarianism, critiqued for being more paternalistic than emancipatory, overlooked the structural injustices that embedded deprivation within a society and thus lacked the capability to transform conflict conditions. As a result of the assumption that philanthropy without human rights disempowers victims, the paradigm proposes a rights-based approach that recognises recipients as agents of change should be adopted. The erasure of neutrality, a word said to be “dirty” by Fiona Fox, demonstrates this call to politicise aid as Fox asserts conflicts are constructed around victim – perpetrator dichotomies and subsequently demand the condemnation of the latter. The Rwandan genocide is drawn on by liberal commentators to exemplify this, with The African Rights paper stating the genocide represented “the hazards of politically blind humanitarianism” as the ICRC failed to make a public statement regarding the abuse of the Tutsi population, rendering them complicit in the genocidaire’s regime. When applied to Johan Galtung’s positive conception of peace, the claim that humanitarian assistance can build peace holds validity as positive peace, defined as the absence of structural violence, encapsulates much of what new humanitarians seek to achieve through long term commitments. Though less elements of a negative peace, understood as an absence of violence, can be attained through relief efforts due to the limited jurisdiction of aid agencies, new humanitarians could nonetheless argue relief workers in the political sector may exercise some influence over conflict prevention. However, classic humanitarians may contend neither variant of peace is attained by humanitarian assistance insofar that the criteria of a positive peace, comprising of six typologies; nature, person, social, world, cultural and time, far exceeds the mandate of relief work, nor are aid workers required to collaborate with political actors. Though formulated in critique of Galtung’s conceptions, Kenneth Boulding’s theory of a stable peace, defined as an absence of conflict and awareness of the interplay between social systems, subsequently also appears unfulfilled by most humanitarian agendas. Therefore, whilst humanitarian assistance is somewhat compatible with a positive and negative peace according to new humanitarians, classic humanitarians render it largely incompatible with both peace types, and Boulding’s third variant.
Elaborating on this incompatibility, classic humanitarians argue the ideology of humanitarian assistance is not conducive of peace. According to Michael Schloms, humanitarian aid consists of the provision of essentials and to assume organisations should exceed this distribution is problematic. Schloms also asserts the belief in an ‘ethics of commitment’ that surpasses the alleviation of immediate suffering compromises the emergence of universal humanitarian goals, thus hindering peace efforts. In response to criticisms of classic humanitarian ideals being of privileged origins, Joanna Macrae states developing modest objectives is fundamental if agencies are to establish priorities in line with needs and respond to imminent threats, as does the transcendence of this basic provision exceed most organisation’s internal capacities. Attempts to dismantle neutrality appear equally redundant, as agencies that fail to adhere to a common strategy to ensure the host state’s “economy is not benefitting” jeopardise primary objectives through the formation of alliances. It is therefore evident humanitarian assistance cannot build any variant of peace as many organisation’s ideological fabric situates peace outside of the realm of aid. Likewise, Schloms states a lack of condemnation of human rights violations has become a justifiable norm as agencies, in their adherence to principles of independence, assign this responsibility to external actors and maintain failures to attain peace reflect the inadequacy of political institutions, not humanitarian organisations. Jean Pictet of the ICRC explains this independence through the analogy of a swimmer being encompassed by water, but not consumed by it; the swimmer representing relief agencies and water analogising politics. The relationships of dependency within the field further necessitate this as agencies must appease both donor and recipient and, only in doing so, can humanitarian negotiations commence. Therefore, ideologically, humanitarian assistance is incompatible with all peace types.
Much of this sentiment carries through when considering the infrastructure of aid agencies as their inherently reactive nature, high staff turnover and dissuasion of accountability prohibit much of the behaviour required to build peace. Issues lie with the high availability of aid roles, particularly to students, religious missionaries, and those yearning to experience war without partaking in conflict, which discourage employees offering critical recommendations as the convenience of switching agency is greater. Likewise, the consistent replacement of staff in line with new projects prevents the emergence of experienced, senior aid workers in a single organisation, further hindering an agency’s introspection. It would subsequently be unlikely a largely inexperienced, unstable workforce could secure the extremely complex, temporally demanding state of peace. As well as requiring qualified and invested staff, a greater focus on more sophisticated conflict analysis and interactions with conflict entrepreneurs demands high administrative costs. However, as learning “has no market appeal”, a ‘commodity logic’ that minimises ‘overhead’ costs hampers institutional learning, as concessions are made in strategy and scrutiny evaluation to appease donors. According to Nicholas Leader, who carried out an investigation into the willingness of agencies to discuss principles of action on the basis of past experience, “information is gathered without creating knowledge”. New humanitarian principles are therefore further undermined as it appears, even if organisations sought to build peace, it is unlikely they would possess the information processing capacities necessary to do so in a way that did not cause further disruption. Not only is institutionalised learning financially less preferable, but also seemingly unnecessary in the realm of altruism due to relief being a ‘self-justifying cause’. Unlike most market-oriented firms, agencies are not required to account for the dissatisfaction of their consumers as their responsibility lies with satisfying donors. Those who fail to do so risk being held liable for inadequacies and endangering the organisation’s survival, forcing humanitarian assistance out of the peacebuilding domain as inclusion would require greater accountability. Evidence of this structural incompatibility can be taken from the Kosovo War, where a report carried out into the failures of humanitarian response cited the appointment of inexperienced staff who lacked socio-political and cultural knowledge as a major hinderance to efficiency. Agencies were also criticised for implementing aid haphazardly and failing to collaborate with other organisations, of which there was over 250 operating in Kosovo and Albania alone, particularly during the refugee phase. Even the most seasoned agencies, such as the UNHCR who possessed almost 50 years of experience and had won two Nobel Peace Prizes prior to this mission, were deemed unprofessional and lacking in monitoring mechanisms. These issues are best summarised in an HPN report; “protection can be as important as the provision of material relief”, further illustrating the infeasibility of new humanitarianism as it is evident agencies do not always have the capacity to deliver the comparatively simple commitments of classic humanitarianism.
Though assessment of ideology and infrastructure indicate, hypothetically, humanitarian assistance cannot build peace, the extent in which aid does build peace requires a more intimate understanding of case studies. It is argued humanitarian assistance can only build a liberal peace due to its imperial, capitalistic tendencies at the micro, meso and macro level where the liberal order is diffused through the imposition of Western institutions. To fortify these establishments, which are enforced through democratisation, marketisation and the integration of cosmopolitan frameworks, social orders relating to nationalism and empire are utilised to co-constitute liberalisation. Humanitarian assistance may subsequently serve as a vessel for Western interests. Issues previously mentioned concerning the voyeuristic nature of the role, whereby staff often join the industry as missionaries or disaster tourists, occupy much of the micro realm as the expectation of a cultural performance is inherently colonial. Issues of culture are also persistent at the meso level, as indicated by an encounter in 2014 between Roots to Peace workers and the Taliban. Upon the Islamic fundamentalist’s raid of an aid residence in Kabul, suspicions of “moral decay” in the West were confirmed as they found evidence of body modification, sexual promiscuity and the assignment of women to roles in healthcare and education; all of which contradict the organisation’s far right ideologies. Antonio Donini therefore argues this instance represents the socio-cultural discrepancies between agencies and their host states and, with humanitarianism being the dominant discourse, danger exists in that aid may function as an instrument of Western ideals intended to reproduce liberal schemas on morally antithetical populations. It can thus be assumed Boulding’s stable peace, which accounts for cultural, political and religious ideology, is implausible as the longer agencies are based within a state and the greater social involvement assigned to them, the higher risk of unfamiliar institutions being imposed. Perhaps most alarming however, are the capitalistic mechanisms operating at a meso level. Following the 2010 Haiti Earthquake which crippled markets, displaced 2.3 million inhabitants and killed up to 300,000 people of a state already ranked the poorest in the Western hemisphere, many were forced into prostitution. Deeply problematic in this was that the main clientele of sex workers consisted of aid workers, with some paying up to five times more than locals or offering aid in lieu of payment. According to a report published in May 2015, more than 225 instances of humanitarians trading aid for sex emerged between 2008 and 2014, with Port-au-Prince’s mayor Ralph Youri Chevry stating “(aid workers) have been doing as they please for years”. This case reflects a predatory form of disaster capitalism that exploits the desperation of civilians by forcing states in recovery to ‘act like a business’, erasing the industry’s altruistic backbone as aid worker – recipient relationships are made transactional. Furthermore, misconduct in Haiti is highly imperialistic as the black body, hypersexualised in colonial contexts, becomes an object of sexual gratification worth little more than the basic essentials it is exchanged for, further compromising the autonomy of local actors; “the majority of women in prostitution don’t want to be there”. Trends in this behaviour are evident globally, with high numbers of sexual exploitation occurring in West and North Africa from 2002 and 2006, and the term “peacekeeper babies” being coined by Oxfam personnel. The ‘disposable’ nature of sex workers is reiterated in the measures taken by relief agencies to rectify the issue, with a 2015 independent report citing “failure to respond to allegations in a meaningful way” as the driving force behind humanitarian cultures of impunity. Rosa Luxemburg’s theory of a capitalist system having a functional need for a non-capitalist exterior to conquer progressively new areas is subsequently demonstrated, as it is evident those at the bottom of the capitalist pyramid fall victim to the social and economic engineering of institutionalised practices at the top. It is evident relief in Haiti has failed to establish any variant of peace as following natural disaster, a second wave of disaster comprising of the marketisation of essentials, forced vulnerable individuals into relationships of co-dependency with humanitarians. The new humanitarian argument that classic humanitarianism disempowers victims as rights are not integrated into their approach is therefore undermined, as one could argue an approach that excludes rights entirely is preferable to one that institutionalises their violation.
Another risk within new humanitarianism is the amalgamation of Western actors engendered by the more involved, long term involvement of agencies in host states. Francis Kofi Abiew claims whilst it was once taboo to attack aid workers, new social contracts render them lucrative targets. As an explicit reassertion of the divisions of international labour is yet to be made, distinctions between the enemy and relief workers are ambiguous; an issue exacerbated by the funding of agencies by combatant governments. This notion is supported by former Interior Minister of Afghanistan Mohammed Haneef Atmar who observed “it is unfortunate that the Western response combined food aid with cruise missiles”, as well as the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Afghanistan; “if you’re working for an international organisation…you can be an easier target”. The 2014 case of British aid worker David Haines being murdered by Jihadis in Syria exemplifies the blurring of military, political and humanitarian domains as, 10 days into his work surveying sites for refugee camps near the Turkish border, a video emerged of his beheading. ACTED, the agency Haines worked on behalf of, responded “a man’s life should never be threatened on account of his humanitarian action” but with the vilification of non-Western politics becoming integral to right wing rhetoric, “either you are with us or with the terrorists”, the perception that the West conform to the same political agenda remains. This further insinuates the impracticality of new humanitarianism as, in line with the increasing hostility between major right wing actors in the West and those in the Middle East and North Africa, the prospect of assigning relief workers greater political responsibility appears counterproductive to peace.
Perhaps more pressing than the question of humanitarianism as a peace-builder, is a consideration of should humanitarian assistance build peace. Schloms demonstrates the distinction between relief and development is artificial as all humanitarian organisations partake in rehabilitative projects to an extent, such as the French section of Médecins Sans Frontières who, despite being critical of long-lasting initiatives, spent 38% of its finance on mid and long-term missions. One could thus argue the persistent debate surrounding the two schools is less worthwhile than previously assumed, as polarity has been academically constructed. However, whilst elements of this division may have been manufactured, the provision of societal change as a prerequisite for peacebuilding cannot be taken for granted. Furthermore, in assessing whether humanitarian assistance should build peace, it is vital the demographics most disadvantaged by the provision or omission of peacebuilding efforts are identified. According to an analysis of the mental repercussions of war, whilst women and men experience difference traumata, “women have increased vulnerability to the psychological consequences”, with black women being disproportionately affected. This comes as a result of women being more likely to bear the brunt of domestic upheaval in their role of principal care-givers, as well as community violence and harassment when seeking protection. Feminist and post-colonial paradigms also reveal peace remains a distant prospect for women, particularly black women, as sexual violence rates spike during war and fail to recede as conflict subsides. Subsequently, it is valid to assert peacebuilding measures cannot be assessed until it can be guaranteed the peace in question is inclusive. The testing process of the debate would also be heavily racialised as, assuming Democratic Peace Theory which claims democracies are hesitant to engage in warfare, it is unlikely the states controlling peacebuilding efforts will be at the receiving end of those efforts. Therefore, the failures of testing various humanitarian approaches will only ever disadvantage non-white populations who, having already suffered in physical warfare or disaster, may be forced to endure further devastation. Another problematic aspect of testing the relationship between humanitarian assistance and peace is the assumption that peace exists as a palpable state in binary opposition to war, reinforcing hegemonic social orders in the external projection of dualist concepts. Accounting for these factors, it is evident conclusions derived from analyses into whether humanitarianism should encompass peacebuilding measures reflect the lesser of two evils, with the preferable side only being sub-optimal. Nonetheless, I will maintain that aid cannot and does not build peace, regardless of whether it should.
To conclude, in a world where classic humanitarianism is far from faultless, a significantly more complex new humanitarianism remains a distant prospect. Ideologically and structurally, humanitarian assistance cannot build peace and, in the case studies observed, it does not build peace due to its capitalist, imperialist inclinations, as well as the conflation of Western actors it engenders. The case of whether aid should build peace poses ethical issues when assessing the populations who will be most disadvantaged by the failure of either model, as does it indicate the dichotomous nature of the two schools is self-imposed, rendering the debate somewhat irrelevant. Taking this into consideration, and despite new humanitarianisms better fulfilment of certain peace variants, a prolonged, heavily involved approach possesses a propensity for destruction that far exceeds the risks of a classic approach; “one cannot at the same time be a champion of justice and charity”. Humanitarian assistance is thus not conducive of peace, making the reassertion of classic principles vital to the survival of aid.
