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.