The delicate diplomacy of delivering humanitarian aid to a war zone

There is another possibility, and that has to do with how people in countries where there has been conflict perceive the role and mission of the agencies. If the trend towards greater embedding of humanitarian agencies into geo-military strategy continues, will the people they set out to assist come to regard them as arms of the belligerent government?

Once again, there is a parallel with the media in those situations where it has come to be seen as an agency of Western interests. Suspicion and questioning has been the kindest outcome of this perception; hostility and the targetting of journalists and camera crews the worse (remember Daniel Pearl and the war in Afghanistan). The unknown is whether humanitarian agencies and their field staff are to suffer a similar fate.

Victims of their own propaganda

For humanitarian aid agencies, integration of their services into geopolitical strategy is an outcome of their striving for respectability and public acceptance. This is a process that started with the rise of the independent NGO in the 1970s and their ascendancy to a respected place in the public imagination in the 1990s. Embedding within the political and military agendas of the major powers is simply the institutionalisation of this process, and one clearly not to the liking of all agencies.

There are risks and advantages to close cooperation with the governments and militaries of belligerent powers. The question is about the implications of such cooperation and the effect on those agencies that choose to search for funding elsewhere.