What are humanitarian negotiations?
Every day, humanitarian organizations work in challenging contexts, such as armed conflicts, settings of severe political instability, other situations of violence, and human-made or natural disasters. Engagement with all actors is crucial to support humanitarian action and assist people in need. Worldwide, around 50 million to 60 million people live in areas under the control or influence of non-State armed groups (NSAGs). The humanitarian operating environment has become extremely challenging and the number of countries with extreme access constraints is increasing, with civilians still accounting for the most casualties.
Humanitarian negotiations aim to facilitate operational access to reach populations in need. Negotiations help to provide access to vital assistance and services, and they contribute to mitigating risks to humanitarian workers within a difficult operating environment. They protect humanitarian space and contribute to broader initiatives, such as humanitarian corridors and ceasefires. These negotiations are conducted in a principled manner with purely humanitarian objectives: they should not legitimize or show support to any actor.
Negotiations take place with State and non-State actors, who hinder humanitarian access, and with those who can facilitate access, including Member States. These negotiations are conducted with respect to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence. They can take place at various levels, from facilitating access for humanitarian convoys at checkpoints or across combat lines, to high-level international negotiations with Heads of State. Skillfully conducted humanitarian negotiations can also help to overcome bureaucratic and administrative impediments that obstruct humanitarian action.
Humanitarian Access
Armed conflict, violence and insecurity continue to be the main drivers of access constraints. Threats or attacks against humanitarian personnel and assets often result in relocation, delays and significant operational challenges for humanitarian organizations, their implementing partners and especially operational NGOs.
Humanitarian access is further constrained by bureaucratic and administrative impediments, including delays in visa processing, custom clearance, prolonged security clearance, fees, taxes on NGOs and laws constraining operations. In response to this growing trend, the IASC released new guidance in 2022 for HCs and HCTs on how to better understand and address these constraints.
Despite these insecurity and access impediments, humanitarian organizations continue to put in place mitigation measures and deliver life-saving assistance in all major emergency settings to ensure the continuity of operations that focus on enhanced security management measures, local outreach and community engagement.
Who negotiates?
Negotiations take place at different levels – from formal conversations between Member States at the Security Council to community-level engagement with local leaders. General Assembly resolution 46/182 (1991), paragraph 35 (d), gives the Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC) the mandate and leadership to facilitate access, including through negotiations. Since its creation, OCHA has been involved in coordination with military actors and engaged with Member States on humanitarian access at all levels. Broader understanding by all actors of OCHA’s convening role and mandate to undertake humanitarian negotiations would help to improve engagement with all actors, facilitate humanitarian access and broaden humanitarian space.
Other UN humanitarian agencies also have skilled and dedicated staff who are conducting humanitarian negotiations in complex emergencies worldwide. Humanitarian access workers are often the primary actors who negotiate with armed groups and other actors. To engage meaningfully, they need to have social and communication skills and a deep understanding of the situation’s context, actors and dynamics.
Negotiating access in Haiti
Since 2021, a sharp rise in violence between rival gangs in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area has deprived the local population of access to basic services and limited humanitarian partners’ capacity to safely deliver life-saving assistance. In July 2022, violent clashes between the two main coalitions of armed groups, known as G-9 en famille et alliés and G-Pep, broke out in Cité Soleil, a Port-au-Prince neighbourhood that has been inaccessible to the UN for some time. Most of the 277,000 inhabitants were trapped in the violence, deprived of drinking water, food, first aid and education. On 19 July, a UN inter-agency mission negotiated secure access to Cité Soleil to conduct a rapid needs assessment and distribute life-saving assistance.
Between 22 July and 9 September, 12 relief distributions were carried out, providing more than 2 million litres of drinking water and 224 million tonnes of dry rations, such as oil, rice and beans, to 6,800 households (more than 34,000 people) in Cité Soleil. Other items distributed included hygiene and baby supplies, plastic sheeting, jerry cans, blankets, solar lamps and house-repair items. With implementing partners’ support, mobile clinics were deployed and provided first aid and psychosocial support to more than 1,700 people, especially children.
When facing multi-dimensional challenges, such as those in Cité Soleil, effective collaboration between humanitarian, development and peace actors is key to ensure sustainable results for the population. The UN intervention strategy for Cité Soleil, currently being drafted, seeks to align humanitarian, development and peacebuilding activities to provide a comprehensive and lasting response through the mobilization of a variety of UN programmes, such as Spotlight, The UN Peacebuilding Fund, and Community Violence Reduction.
What does a negotiation look like?
An example of a high-level negotiation involving Member States and UN senior leadership is the recent Black Sea Grain Initiative, which represented a landmark negotiated agreement in 2022 between Russia and Ukraine. The Government of Türkiye and the UN worked closely over many months to develop plans for the agreement, with the ERC heading talks on Ukrainian grain exports. As part of the negotiations, Ukraine and Russia signed parallel documents outlining the mechanisms through which grain exports would resume. The negotiated agreement opened up the passage of grain through the Black Sea, thanks to the opening of three seaports in Ukraine, ultimately helping millions of people and easing the pressure on food prices. Over 10 million tonnes of grain had shipped by November 2022.
At the country level, ongoing negotiations with gangs for humanitarian access in Cité Soleil, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, illustrate the difference that successful humanitarian negotiations can make to populations in need. There was a clear humanitarian imperative for these negotiations - following violent clashes, people living in the Cité Soleil neighbourhood were trapped and without access to food, drinking water or health services. Experienced humanitarian actors engaged gang leaders who control the area in a series of talks, explaining their goal to assist the people in need. By gaining the gangs’ trust, humanitarians were able to enter the neighbourhoods, deliver vital assistance and evaluate further needs.
Aid worker security incidents (2010–2021)
Challenges
People undertaking humanitarian negotiations often face impediments, including political or legal implications that come with engaging all parties. Humanitarian organizations also face increased scrutiny out of concern that humanitarian activities could – voluntarily or not – benefit targeted Governments, groups or individuals. Such risks can be successfully mitigated by careful context analysis and by adopting a conflict-sensitive approach to programming.
Global trends show that humanitarians operate in increasingly complex environments. Attacks on aid workers are at their highest since 2013, with 141 reported fatalities in 2021. National aid workers are especially at risk. Access constraints are often exacerbated by restrictions and bureaucratic and administrative impediments. The Global Protection Cluster reported that in 13 of 23 operations, bureaucratic and administrative constraints were identified as the most critical barrier to reaching affected populations.
Humanitarian actors’ ability to engage with all parties, including NSAGs or de facto authorities, is key to successful humanitarian operations. It is crucial that all actors fully understand exactly what humanitarian engagement is and what its objectives are. It is equally imperative that Member States continue to support the humanitarian community, enabling the full protection of humanitarian negotiations.
Ukraine: Farming During Wartime
After months of stalemate in delivering grain and food from Ukraine, farmers like Volodymyr Varbanets can now export their harvests to the rest of the world. The Black Sea Grain Initiative, mediated by the UN and Türkiye, made this possible.
References
- International Review of Red Cross, No. 915, Engaging armed groups at the International Committee of the Red Cross: Challenges, opportunities and COVID-19, January 2022, https://international-review.icrc.org/articles/engaging-armed-groups-at-icrc-challenges-opportunities-covid-19-915.
- S/RES/1894 (2009).
- https://interagencystandingcommittee.org/operational-response/iasc-guidance-understanding-and-addressing-bureaucratic-and-administrative-impediments-humanitarian.
- UNCTAD, The Black Sea Grain Initiative: What it is, and why it’s important for the world, 23 September 2022.
- Humanitarian Outcomes/Aid Worker Security Database. (2022). Figures at a Glance. (July), www.humanitarianoutcomes.org/sites/default/files/publications/awsd_figures_2022.pdf.
- Global Protection Cluster, Global Protection Update: beyond trucks, access that protects, June 2022.