Introduction
The security and safety of personnel is a significant concern for all humanitarian organisations. Within the humanitarian community there is a widespread perception of escalating threats to aid workers and their programmes. Increasingly, agencies appear to be deliberately targeted, with both national and international staff subjected to intimidation and violence which aims to manipulate an agency’s presence or programmes to suit the agendas of different groups. This level of insecurity has forced agencies to withdraw, reduce their activities in certain regions, or change their operational approach. There is widespread agreement that to counter this increased risk to staff, greater NGO collaboration on security is required. Despite this, formal collaboration on security issues remains rare. Where mechanisms do exist, they tend to be ad hoc and reliant on personalities involved and, consequently, are rarely sustained.
As a result of operational insecurity, combined with a greater demand for reliable security information in the field, the sector has witnessed the appearance of a number of NGOmanaged collaborative security arrangements. The most notable of these are ANSO in Afghanistan and NCCI Security Office in Iraq. In these instances, provision of specialised security management support and technical advice, coordinated sharing of security information, and staff security training, has allowed NGOs to improve staff security. This, in turn, has enabled the continuation of humanitarian assistance in complex and highly insecure environments. Elsewhere, NGO communities in the field have formed various, largely informal, collaborative networks or fora to exchange security information, discuss security issues and agree common operational strategies. In some contexts, groups of NGOs have joined together to hire or second a security advisor to provide security information, analysis and support. These different approaches have had varying success, with some being more effective than others.
The high profile given to recent security collaboration initiatives such as ANSO has led to an increasing demand from NGOs for similar structures in other insecure environments.
However, adopting similar approaches may not be best suited to the security needs of NGOs in that context. NGOs are generally unaware of the range of security collaboration options available to them, how to determine the most appropriate mechanism to adopt, and the issues involved in establishing and maintaining these initiatives. Even where NGOs recognise the need for a security collaboration mechanism, it can prove extremely difficult and slow to get a structure established and maintained, due to a lack of agency commitment and agreement, problems with funding, and availability of experienced staff.
