Letter to my MP - Gypsies and Travellers

This is not a good time to be a member of the UK's most disenfranchised and misunderstood ethnic minority. In a letter to the Guardian in June 2010, a long list of academics, broadcasters, and a planning official wrote:

Already the government has reversed progressive policies giving incentives for local authorities to develop Gypsy and Traveller sites, by cuts announced in the Housing and Communities Agency budget, cancelling all next year's bids for sites. The Conservatives announced plans to scrap planning and housing circulars which have started to give Gypsies and Travellers a "level playing field" in planning disputes with local authorities and planning inspectors. According to Eric Pickles, they want to revive the "Gypsy law" of criminal trespass. This discriminatory law was derided when Michael Howard campaigned on it in 2005.Detailed research has identified targets for sites for Gypsies and Travellers, and yards for showmen. Many have been agreed with local authorities and progress was starting to be made. After years of inaction on sites a cumulative need has built up. The situation now is worse than ever and will only get worse without new provision.

My MP, Conservative Mark Pawsey, has stepped up recently to offer his thoughts on this incredibly complex, entrenched and sensitive issue. Below is the text of the email I've just written to him. I've also put in an FOI request to Warwickshire County Council, asking for more information about site provision in Warwickshire - I'll report back, and may follow up with the same request to Rugby Borough Council - which, by the way, has a Conservative majority, and as I note below, has still expressed concern at the impact of the cuts.

Sunday 12 September 2010

Dear Mr Pawsey

I write following your recent comments in the Westminster Hall debate on Unauthorised Encampments of the 8^th September, 2010. Your statement displayed a failure to acknowledge, and perhaps a lack of understanding of, the challenges facing Gypsies and Travellers in the UK and the lives that have already been needlessly lost. It certainly appeared as if you were failing to represent those of your constituents who are themselves Gypsies and Travellers, or who support their right to pursue their legally recognised traditional way of life.

Due to government legislation, planning restrictions and sale of public land, the number of safe and legal stopping places for Gypsies and Travellers have been dramatically reduced. Gypsy families therefore often have to prioritise finding appropriate places to stop over attending preventative medical appointments such as smear tests and pre- and postnatal checks. A Department of Health study from 2004 found that coping with eviction, discrimination and poor living conditions is seen by Gypsies as being a primary cause of ill-health, particularly among women, facing the massive challenges of raising children ‘in situations where there may be no running water, shared toilets, leaking roofs and no washing machine’.

Due to widespread and persistent racism, particularly among support staff, and suspicion of conventional medicine, Gypsies and Travellers are more likely to see easy-access or peripatetic medical staff than to establish a relationship with 'the GP, practice nurse, a counsellor, chiropodist, dentist, optician, or alternative medical workers’. Thus they often do not understand or access their entitlements to preventative medicine such as childhood immunisations, antenatal checks and smear tests, and may put off seeking healthcare advice, or may under-use or discard prescriptions and medication.

As a result, medical conditions which can easily be controlled go unmonitored and unmedicated, or else medication is not reviewed and any side effects are not followed up. Gypsies are proven to suffer disproportionally from illness associated with poverty and poor living conditions, such as asthma, chest infections, heart disease, and disability, smoking and alcohol-related illnesses.

For Gypsy women these inequalities have severe consequences. The Confidential Enquiry into Maternal Deaths in 2002 found that of the disproportionately high number of Gypsy mothers who died during the period of study, almost all died either directly due to substandard care or as a result of associated problems. Their children are also at risk. Although the Department of Health found similar levels of common problems such as morning sickness, pre-term birth, breech presentation, or post-natal depression, miscarriage and Caesarean delivery were more common among Gypsy women. Incredibly, 17.6% of Gypsy and Traveller women studied had experienced the death of a child, compared with 0.9% of the comparators. Gypsy infants were found to have ‘low birth weight, low immunisation uptake and high child accident rate’, and there was a markedly high incidence of stillbirths.

In the case of Gypsy and Traveller mothers and babies, it is clear that the 'cycle of enforced nomadism' and lack of government leadership has lead to unnecessary deaths – and this is just one small area of policy. In this context, it is irresponsible and short-sighted to support public authorities in a knee-jerk, populist approach to retrospective Gypsy and Traveller planning applications without taking account of, and engaging with the wider problem. Rugby Borough Council has itself expressed concern at the impacts of the cuts and scrapping of targets implemented by the Coalition Government.

I urge you to take the earliest opportunity to outline how you will support a balanced and responsible approach to this issue, in all its complexity. I particularly recommend reading the 2004 Department of Health Study by Van Cleemput and Parry. I would also be delighted to brief you personally, at your convenience, if this would be helpful.

Yours sincerely

Laura Hudson

Haiti: agency instrospection

An incisive and thought-provoking post from Tales from the Hood, operational in Haiti:

In the first two weeks it was about visibility while the cameras were rolling. Getting your agency’s sign or T-shirted horde of volunteers in the background or foreground was the media game. But now it’s about reeling in big chunks of the real funding from the real donors. The real feeding frenzy has begun.

...Several NGOs will get their foothold in Haiti and possibly the world by playing their cards right in this emergency response. Many will remember this earthquake response as a time of winning grants and thinking through Civ/Mil issues and handling large quantities of stuff.

Read more on the Tales from the Hood blog.

Haiti analysis round-up for Monday 25th January

There is such a lot now coming out of blogs and commentators that I thought rounding them up would be more useful.

• One piece of news: a useful summary of today's meeting in Montreal of governments involved in the response.

Below are more technical pieces from the humanitarian blogosphere (and yes I did just use that phrase). Enjoy:

• Quite a bit of comment on the Lancet article condemning the aid effort as self-serving and uncoordinated. Michael Keizer agrees that some points have a grain of truth, albeit unsupported by evidence, (the comments repay the reading on this one); Alanna Shaikh (humanitarian uber-blogger with a big following) weighs in; Brendan Gormley is covered in a Guardian profile following the very strong DEC response to the article; and a frazzled response straight from Haiti here.
  
• Dan Smith of International Alert looks at what's next for Haiti, recovery and the humanitarian caseload and the IntLawGrrls look at future administration possibilities
  
• Paul Currion argues that reinventing Haiti really means reinventing the systems in which the country exists, as well as internal infrastructure
  
• Peter Daou asks why we can't mobilise the same outpouring of aid and compassion for comparable numbers of people affected by sexual violence in the Congo
• Newsweek gives a view on the historical background to the earthquake in Haiti
  
• An old hand expresses disappointment with the media coverage of the response
  
• And an absolutely fascinating bit of advice for the military supporting the operation from a retired Marine Corps officer - sample quote:
  

'Your job is to try to get Haiti back to something approaching the way it was seconds before the quake struck. If the President wants you to do nation-building, he’ll let you know.'

DEC and ODI: Lessons for Haiti

In case any of you missed it - ALNAP and ODI have rolled out their lessons learned papers on urbanisation and earthquakes, linked to from this op-ed from Ben Ramalingam. Meanwhile, a thoughtful look from CNN at the recent DEC report on lessons learned from the Tsunami response in Aceh through the lens of the Haiti operation.

ICG: Why the media prefer natural disasters

The British Red Cross supports its partners within the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement to respond to humanitarian emergencies around the world. These range from giving money, people and materials to respond to natural disasters, to supporting large scale humanitarian operations in conflict zones. Since 2006 the British Red Cross has had a dedicated team working to support the Movement in assisting people suffering from the effects of armed conflict. As an impartial and neutral organisation, the Red Cross seeks to help those who are in crisis, whoever and wherever they are.

Unfortunately, public appeals launched by British Red Cross for emergencies in conflict zones routinely raise far less funds than those appeals which are launched for natural "quick-onset" disasters. A recent example of this is the ongoing crisis in northern Pakistan, where it has been estimated that the millions who had to flee their homes due to fighting in 2008/09 has been the largest displacement of people since Partition. The needs were huge and British Red Cross launched an emergency appeal in 2009 to raise funds for the displaced. This appeal raised only £60,000 and, despite the efforts of our communications team, very little of our material regarding the humanitarian crisis was picked up by the news agencies.

In the following article, Andrew Stroehlein, Communications Director for the International Crisis Group examines why the media chooses to focus more on victims of natural disasters rather than on those caught up in armed conflict.

"If only Sri Lanka last year could have got a tenth of the media attention Haiti's now getting", lamented my friend who was working in Colombo at the time, "the public pressure might have saved so many lives." While no one would ever argue with the amount of press Haiti is deservedly receiving right now, it's easy to see his point. The international media respond very differently to the victims of natural disasters and the victims of wars.

Last year's brutal end to the long-running conflict in Sri Lanka produced tens of thousands of innocent dead and injured in its final few months, as government forces shelled areas with trapped civilians, and Tamil Tiger rebels prevented them from fleeing. Hundreds of thousands of survivors were then put into appalling government-run internment camps, from which they were not allowed to leave. This all garnered significant media attention at the very end of the fighting, but it never at any point had anything near the scale of media interest Haiti's earthquake is getting today.

Read more on Alertnet.

ODI-HPN: Humanitarian Exchange no 44, featuring 'The Crisis in the West Bank and Gaza'

The latest Humanitarian Exchange (no 44, September 2009) from the Humanitarian Practice Network of the Overseas Development Institute features a series of articles on the current situation in the occupied Palestine territories, and on the impact of the barrier and the closure system.

Rolf Holmboe, Denmark’s representative to the Palestinian Authority, describes his government’s programme to enable municipalities to provide basic services and support community development. Other articles look at UNDP’s efforts to help individuals and communities to reclaim their agency and dignity, the hidden crisis of displacement, the impact of human rights group B’Tselem’s distribution of video cameras to Palestinian civilians and a community based child protection programme instigated by Save the Children.

Articles in the policy and practice section include an examination of civil–military relations in natural disasters, methods for measuring the socio-economic impact of post-disaster shelter programmes and the challenges of emergency nutrition programming in Eritrea. Others focus on a new decision-making tool for use in complex humanitarian environments, the question of whether chronic conflict and recurrent disasters exacerbate social divisions or strengthen cohesion, the ways in which the media influence charitable giving and the lessons learned from the deployment of UN and EU hybrid protection forces in Chad.

HPN: The Role of the Affected State in humanitarian action

Humanitarian Exchange Magazine 43 features articles on the role of the affected state in humanitarian action. Case studies explore the extent to which economic growth, political stability and experience impact on the willingness and capacity of states to manage disaster response. The surprisingly positive role the military has played in supporting effective state-led disaster response is also highlighted and perceptions – often promoted by the media – that only international relief agencies can save lives and alleviate suffering are challenged. The role of the state in humanitarian action is, however, not always positive, as illustrated in articles focused on Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe.

Feature stories:
Aid and access in Sri Lanka
The silver lining of the tsunami?: disaster management in Indonesia
When the affected state causes the crisis: the case of Zimbabwe
Humanitarian governance in Ethiopia
Land and displacement in Timor-Leste
Lessons from the Sichuan earthquake

Practice and policy notes
Britain and Afghanistan: policy and expectations
Are humanitarians fuelling conflicts? Evidence from eastern Chad and Darfur
Lessons from campaigning on Darfur
Supporting the capacity of beneficiaries, local staff and partners to face violence alone
Stuck in the ‘recovery gap’: the role of humanitarian aid in the Central African Republic
Out of site, out of mind? Reflections on responding to displacement in DRC
Making cash work: a case study from Kenya

ALNAP on Alertnet: Don't chase headlines, chase quality news

Written by: Ben Ramalingam

A leading UK newspaper recently reported a warning by Britain that lives are being lost because of a lack of U.N. leadership in responding to humanitarian crises. It sounds like a strong story, doesn't it? While not exactly inaccurate, it's a striking example of the problems humanitarians face in dealing with a story-hungry media.

The report was based on a speech given by Gareth Thomas MP, the UK Secretary of State for International Development, to the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) in Geneva in October. In it he set out five key changes necessary to deal with humanitarian crises in a world being buffeted by climate change, rising food prices and financial meltdown. His points covered stronger in-country leadership from the U.N.; better coordination across all agencies with more support to the U.N.; more and better humanitarian funding, especially from the USA; greater accountability to aid recipients and sustained political commitment from all quarters. He highlighted how these issues were ever more important in a world facing rising numbers of disasters.

These are good suggestions and - if backed with political will - have the potential to make a real difference for disaster affected people around the world. But the article didn't mention any of this. Its report instead focused on one particular element: that the key problem with the humanitarian system was a lack of properly trained or appropriate U.N. humanitarian coordinators to oversee disaster relief in operational settings. By positioning the story as a "warning" from Britain, the sense of drama and tension in the story was heightened.

While not incorrect or false, it was hard not to see this is as yet another example of the media absorbing a nuanced, complex narrative and broadcasting a partial and over-simplified message.

Read more on the Alertnet website.

ALNAP: 'Don't Chase Headlines, Chase Good Quality News... Don't Be First, Be Accountable' - A New Agenda for News Media and Humanitarian Aid

“Don’t chase headlines, chase good quality news... Don’t be first, be accountable” is the key message delivered to the news media and humanitarian communities by this latest ALNAP report. The report draws on debates at the 23rd ALNAP Biannual Meeting held on the 4th June 2008 in Madrid, as well as a broader programme of research and analysis. It outlines a series of new opportunities and challenges for decision makers across the donor, media and humanitarian communities, and points towards a new agenda for news media and humanitarian aid.

Access this report via ReliefWeb
At the point of a humanitarian crisis, a complex set of obligations and interests arise in media and humanitarian agencies, and become interlocked. Relief agencies rely heavily on the media to get the humanitarian message out, to inform the world of unfolding disasters and to harness the power of donors to raise funds and respond to the crisis. Cash-strapped news agencies primarily concerned with providing coverage of the latest world affairs and ensuring currency, relevance and audience engagement are increasingly dependent on humanitarian agencies for access and information.

The relationships between providers of news and providers of humanitarian aid can influence public perceptions and capture political attention. They can trigger, inform, critique and, in some cases, undermine international responses. They can also fundamentally shape information flows and aid allocations. In times of crisis, the relationship can be essential and complementary, but it is also often - and at the same time - uncomfortable and ambiguous.

The report points to five key changes which could improve this complex relationship in favour of improved humanitarian outcomes. First, greater effort is required to improve understanding between aid and media agencies, moving towards mutual respect – and perhaps even trust – as a means of addressing the current, complex set of relationships. Second, there need to be attempts to change the existing flawed and simplistic narratives about crises and people affected by them, and to change the ‘media logic’ around disasters. Third, local and national media in disaster-affected countries should be viewed as instrumental part of humanitarian response capacities. Fourth, more should be made of the potential of existing humanitarian information platforms for communication. Fifth, and most importantly, those affected by crises need to be put centre stage in efforts to improve humanitarian reporting.

How can such changes be brought about? Increased accountability and transparency within both the humanitarian and media sectors lie at the heart of possible solutions. A wide range of actions, both short term and long term, could be taken by humanitarian agencies, the media and donor governments to change the current paradigm. The discussions at the Biannual Meeting and subsequent research and analysis identified five recommendations:

1. Evaluate the role of media relations and communications in humanitarian action, and actively apply this learning within and across agencies

2. Undertake a regular, independent review of “Humanitarian Reporting”

3. Establish collaborative partnerships to enable cross-sector efforts in “disaster myth-busting”

4. Establish a global alliance of media and humanitarian actors, at the local, national and international levels

5. Establish serving the needs of crisis-affected populations as a central common goal of both media and humanitarian agencies.

OCHA: Global Symposium +5 on Information for Humanitarian Action - Final Report

With the ever-changing humanitarian landscape, challenges and opportunities continue to characterize the humanitarian community’s ability to share, manage and exchange information. While timely, relevant and reliable information remains central to effective humanitarian coordination and response, users increasingly expect information to support evidencebased advocacy, decision-making and resource allocation. Given these expectations, information professionals recognize they must work together to produce information tailored to serve a range of different needs in affected countries based on common standards and sound analytical methods. Today’s technology offers many solutions but real progress is still only possible through the willingness of people and their organizations to collaborate in sharing, managing and communicating information as a community.

It was in this context that the 2007 Global Symposium +5 on Information for Humanitarian Action was held in Geneva at the Palais des Nations on 22-26 October. The Symposium brought together more than 300 humanitarian professionals to build upon a community of practice on humanitarian information and knowledge to strengthen humanitarian response through timely and reliable information. Participation represented the broad spectrum of humanitarian actors globally. This report reflects the collective wisdom and learning of this wide base of humanitarian information professionals representing more than 100 organizations. The report outlines emerging themes, recognizes lessons and good practice, and reaffirms the agreed principles supporting quality standards. Most importantly, it provides recommendations that will guide the humanitarian community forward.

Download the report from Reliefweb.

Agent Provocateur - an alternative view of positioning from Professional Fundraiser

Current theory in NGOs is certain that treating aid recipients as clients who need tools of empowerment is far more effective and acceptable than treating them as ‘the white man’s burden.’ Fine, this makes sense. And of course, no one has the right to tell an organisation that its strategy or proposition is wrong. But they can choose not to support it.

Experience has shown that more people donate more money when their sense of mercy or pity is evoked rather than when their sense of injustice is provoked. Fact.

The second part of the problem is the idea of brand consistency. In a corporate, having one brand construct is sacrosanct. If my mission is to provide “performance engineering”, then I say that in every communication to every external audience (even if internally – and to my shareholders – I add the word ‘profitable’ to the two words above).

But charities have a much more complex group of stakeholders. Beneficiaries want one thing, programme deliverers want another, campaigners and lobbyists want another, and then – often at the bottom of the list – donors want something else. So a ‘one size fits all’ brand architecture tends to be a lowest common denominator construct, and all too often, it’s the fundraisers who lose out.

The rest of the article can be read online at the Professional Fundraiser website.

UNDP: Communicating Disasters - An Asia Pacific Resource Book

This book (Edited by Nalaka Gunawardene and Frederick Noronha with a Foreword by Sir Arthur C Clarke) was published in December 2007. It is a multi-author book that discusses how information, education and communication can help create disaster resilient communities across the Asia Pacific region, home to half of humanity. It also takes a critical look at the communication lessons of the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004, and explores the role of good communications before, during and after disasters.

Kenya Red Cross video on You Tube

Blog post from Nick Young in Indonesia

13 December
Flying into Calang in the south west of Indonesia's Aceh province, it was easy at last to see the full impact of 3 years of building work. As our 6 seater plane flew low over the area of Teunom, where British Red Cross has been working, we could see clearly the red roofs of the 1930 houses that we have built.

This was one of the areas worst hit by the 2004 earthquake and tsunami, destroying many of the houses. The land here is a completely flat plain, and the sea simply rolled in unobstructed, leaving many with no hope of escape.

Today, there are new houses everywhere, many of them built by our own team, and to a standard which no other agency has matched. They do indeed stand out for their pastel colours, sturdy design and professional appearance.

With our cameraman, who was here to record the ceremony of handing over the final house to the final beneficiary, we visited first a small estate of about 200 houses which we have built for those who owned no land, or whose land was and remains inundated, or whose parents both died - the most vulnerable, in other words. It looks just lovely, the soft green houses with their red roofs set off beautifully by the flowers already planted outside by their new owners.

We talked to Idris, who lost his wife and two children. He had just moved in, the two bedroom home that he shares with his remaining son completely bare of furniture. He lost his fishing boat too, but doesn't want to go back to sea so he is farming a little piece of land to make ends meet.

We met another man whose previous job was climbing trees to collect coconuts: he was up a tree when the tsunami struck, and clung on until the water started to subside. With his wife, he now sells cigarettes from a tray because he simply can't bring himself to climb another tree.

And then young Nazir, who tomorrow will receive the keys to the 100,000th house built in Aceh province - one of ours. Aged 15, he lost both his parents and his brother and sister, and now lives with his remaining sister.

Our next stop was a small riverside community hidden in the forest. Most of our houses are in these difficult-to-access areas. Before the tsunami, the land was 2 metres above the level of the water; now it is just a foot or two, and the area floods regularly. Here, we have built houses on solid reinforced concrete pillars well above river level.

We laughed and joked with the local people who flocked to meet us, and visited with a mother and her daughter who who each lost a husband and have just moved into two adjoining British Red Cross houses. On the way back to camp, our driver Amir told us how his parents both died in that very spot, and of his 2 week walk through the devastation of the tsunami to reach them from the college where he had been studying.

14 December
After a night of torrential monsoon rain, we returned to our "housing estate" for the ceremonial handover of keys to the 100,000th by the Head of the Indonesian Government's Aceh Reconstruction Agency (BRR), Pak Kuntoro.

In a moving ceremony, he paid the warmest possible tribute to the British Red Cross team, and praised the high quality of the houses, which he said were the best he had seen. He has been under huge pressure to get houses built, and the local Bupati (mayor) had some harsh words to say to him on that score! There is still much to do, and we have done well to complete our work so quickly.

Next stop was our own project completion party, and a chance for me to say thank you in public to our building team leader Gabriel Constantine (to whom I presented a Badge of Honour, richly deserved), the local contractors Wika and the consulting engineers and supervisors Kogas. They have all worked wonderfully well together, in a true Red Cross spirit.

It was also nice to be able to thank our fundraising director Mark Astarita who was with me on the trip, as well as our livelihoods team who have worked so hard helping local people to get back on their feet financially.

My last words were for the brave survivors of the tsunami. "We can't fill the gap in your lives left by the death of your loved ones," I said, "but we will always carry in our hearts the memory of the people of Teunom, and we hope you will hold us in your hearts too, and the friendships we have made with the houses we have built."

And then it was time to go home - "jakwoe" as it said in Acenese on our T-shirts. That night, as the rain tipped down again, everyone gathered together to dance and sing along to the local folk superstar Rafli, who had risen from his hospital bed (dengue fever) to sing at this special concert. For a while, the worries of the last 3 years, and the sadness, slipped away with the music.

Independent: Conflict Zones

Today's Independent contains a special Conflict Zones pullout, timed to coincide with the Dispatches from Disasters Zones event that we're hosting at the Foreign Press Association today.

The eight-page pullout, produced in association with the ICRC, includes coverage of Red Cross work in Afghanistan, Somalia, Colombia and Israel and the Occupied Territories, as well as a piece on our refugee services in the UK. There is a special editorial headlined 'The need for an organisation as sure-footed as the Red Cross is now greater than ever'.

HPG Policy Brief: Humanitarian advocacy in Darfur: The challenge of neutrality

This latest HPG Policy Brief reviews operational aid actors' international advocacy on Darfur since the outbreak of the conflict in 2003 and assesses the issues and challenges that humanitarian organisations face when undertaking advocacy on high profile political emergencies. It makes the following points:

• In order to gain access to communities affected by war, humanitarians have historically remained neutral in matters of political controversy. However, this strict notion of neutrality has been much eroded in recent years. A more ‘pragmatic' form of neutrality is emerging: sufficiently non-partisan to facilitate access to affected communities, while also sufficiently flexible to allow advocacy.
• Aid actors concerned to retain access to affected communities should do more to define and safeguard this new form of neutrality. This may involve distancing themselves from other non-neutral campaigners.
• There is a lack of clarity around humanitarian actors' role in advocacy. This can lead to aid actors overstepping humanitarian boundaries and being drawn into discussions in which they have limited competence or expertise. More discussion and evaluation of the role of advocacy, and its effectiveness in humanitarian action, is required.

Click on the link to download the Policy Brief in pdf format from the HPG website.

Advocacy and Darfur seminar - a summary

HPG event: Humanitarian advocacy and Darfur
Wednesday 17 October – ODI offices, 111 Westminster Bridge Road

A really interesting seminar exploring the difficulties of advocacy within an increasingly insecure environment. There were three speakers; Sorcha O’Callaghan, Research Fellow, Humanitarian Policy Group, Brendan Cox, Executive Director, Crisis Action and Rebecca Dale, Independent Policy Advisor on Sudan. I particularly liked Rebecca who spoke with great clarity and had some thought provoking points to make. To see a summary of their comments, read my blog post below:

Sorcha:

• Focussed on the fact that agencies have now become relatively silent compared to three or four years ago when press releases and public advocacy was at its peak. Agencies are increasingly being pulled into political and military discussions. This is undermining their ability to operate and is manifesting itself in the form of growing insecurity for aid workers, increasing problems with access and further restrictions being imposed by the Sudanese government.
• Maintaining neutrality whilst conducting advocacy – not easy when the Sudanese President claims that the aid agencies are the real enemy of the state. A clearer definition is needed of what advocacy is.

Brendan:

• Representing Crisis Action, a campaigning coalition on armed conflict that works behind the scenes to engender change.
• No clear line between humanitarian action and political advocacy. Agencies must be responsible for their actions. He cited the example of MSF denouncing sexual violence – they could not have chosen a more politically sensitive topic.
• The issue is not with principles but with judgement. Judgement in making decisions needs to be improved, further resources are required and greater professionalisation.

Rebecca:

• Damned if you speak out, damned if you do not.
• Again underlined the responsibility of agencies for their actions. Link between field workers on the ground and advocacy campaigns at headquarters level needs to be strengthened. Those running advocacy campaign must fully understand the implications of their actions.
• ‘War on Terror’ has fundamentally changed the way international NGOs are seen. An association has been created between western politcal powers and NGOs, that they are now somehow instruments of government. The request by international NGOs for a non consensual military force to enter Darfur reinforces this – will an Iraq/Afghanistan type occupation follow this request?
• Are NGOs undermining sovereignty?
• A shift has occurred from NGOs needing to provide purely basic needs to now having to be involved in advocacy, understand the root causes of conflict and become involved in post conflict work.
• Support for humanitarian work is dependent on ease of involvement. There is nowhere near the level of engagement in the US on the humanitarian situation in Palestine compared to the massive engagement on Darfur.
• Agencies under increased pressure to speak out.
• If access is not improved the UN will impose sanctions, this puts a lot of pressure on NGOs to stay and improve access.
• Neutrality does not mean condoning violations of IHL.