General Assembly resolution 46/182 gives an explicit directive that emergency assistance must be provided in ways that will support recovery and long-term development. The resolution clearly recognized the need to establish a strong link between relief and development activities within the assistance community and, in particular, within the United Nations system. It charges the ERC to help orient the interventions of the humanitarian relief community towards longer-term development objectives.
The link between relief and development was initially viewed as a continuum, or linear progression, where relief operations in response to a humanitarian crisis would be followed first by a programme of rehabilitation and then by the resumption of development activities. The concept of a continuum grew out of experiences in providing assistance following sudden-onset, natural disasters. With the upsurge in complex man-made emergencies, however, it became clear that this linear model did not reflect the full scope of relief and development linkages. The implication of the continuum was that one must wait for the emergency to run its course before initiating rehabilitation and reconstruction work. Yet, in a long-lasting complex emergency, following such a sequence might miss opportunities for initiating and/or accelerating the processes of recovery in the midst of, or emerging from, an internal conflict or other man-made disaster. As an example, at the same time that one must provide essential drugs, medicines and health care to victims of emergencies, there is also a need to train health workers and maintain effective health monitoring systems, if the society is to have any hope of sustaining its own health and medical services.
Relief organizations are increasingly looking at the longer-term consequences of the aid they provide in response to specific crises. Until the dispersal of the camps during the civil conflict in Zaire in late 1996, donor Governments, United Nations agencies and other relief providers expressed strong concern over the long-term impact of maintaining large refugee camps along Rwanda's borders in Zaire, Tanzania and Burundi. The humanitarian community faced the dilemma of choosing between providing the resources required to maintain the camp populations and providing additional assistance for reconstruction and reintegration inside Rwanda, designed to meet the longer-term needs of the Rwandan population.
Aligning development objectives with humanitarian principles
In the post-cold-war environment, development has come to emphasize the active promotion of civil society, democracy, liberal economic policies, and structures that protect human rights. There is a growing consensus that international assistance should bridge the twin objectives of emergency relief and economic and civic development. For example, by ensuring that life-saving food aid does not undermine local agricultural markets, donors can maximize the longer-term development as well as the humanitarian impacts of their assistance.
While the primary focus of humanitarian relief agencies is to save lives, they also have the responsibility to foster national or local capacities to cope with long-term needs. As the flow of relief ebbs, it is essential to ensure that the community, through local or national mechanisms, has the means to secure its survival and to provide for its long-term stability. Relief, provided without considering how to build local capacity, often fosters long-term dependency. In addition, where the structures of a society have broken down, there is a danger that humanitarian assistance can serve to strengthen or restore fundamentally flawed structures in the society, thereby perpetuating, or even accentuating, the social, economic and/or political inequalities which triggered the conflict in the first place. Relief organizations have struggled to design food and other assistance programmes, like wet feeding or targeted distributions, which reach the most vulnerable groups - most often women, children, the elderly and the disabled - rather than providing more generalized distributions which powerful elements in a population can more easily access. A major challenge in designing humanitarian programmes is to avoid reverting to development and other practices which may have contributed to the original conflict.
The evolving consensus
In July 1995, the Economic and Social Council urged the United Nations humanitarian system to review its capacity to respond to humanitarian crises and disasters and to build relief and development linkages. In response to this request, the IASC has developed an integrated approach to relief and development. This has resulted in:
The Administrative Committee on Coordination (ACC) - chaired by the United Nations Secretary-General and composed of executive heads of programmes and specialized agencies of the United Nations system - has emphasized that relief and development programmes must overcome whatever divisions have been created by the earlier separation of their approaches, budgets and functions. The ACC has endorsed the need for an integrated and coordinated framework to address any combination of political, military, humanitarian, human rights, environmental, economic, social, cultural and demographic factors in situations of crisis. The ACC has also emphasized that this integrated approach linking relief and development should be adopted during both crisis and post-crisis conditions, and involve partnerships with non-United Nations actors, particularly, local and national authorities.
The evolving consensus in the United Nations system has resulted in a commitment to focus on strengthening local capacities and coping mechanisms in post-conflict United Nations relief operations. This model of intervention states that, rather than relying primarily on international organizations, first priority should be given to strengthening and working through local institutions.
Despite this evolving consensus within the relief and development communities, there remain very practical challenges to linking relief and development operations in conflict situations. Institutional structures within and outside the United Nations system have specific relief and development responsibilities. New working relationships and understandings need to be developed across the United Nations system to ensure that primacy is given to strengthening local capacities.
The IASC has begun focusing on this critical issue of capacity building in the context of linking relief and development. By its nature, successful local capacity building will involve a rethinking of the relationship between the humanitarian providers and the recipient populations. For the external actors responding to an emergency, a central task must be to identify, understand and seek to strengthen whatever coping mechanisms victims draw on during their time of crisis. This will require identification of local coping mechanisms and evaluation of their viability and value for the society. Relief programmes must then seek to address immediate needs while helping to strengthen these mechanisms and, thereby, laying the foundation for recovery.
The move from "pure relief" to "relief tied to recovery" can only take hold in a climate of improving security, where processes of reconciliation are already underway. At the same time, however, it is critical that the political and security negotiations embrace, even at the earliest stage, the need for economic and social recovery. WFP food-for-work projects often provide food in exchange for labour to jump-start the rebuilding of essential infrastructure - water, sanitation, schools, etc. - that is a prerequisite for development. Small capacity-building projects undertaken by UNICEF targeting women's groups in Afghanistan have been successful in limiting the long-term dependency of this generally vulnerable group. ( See box on Gender issues in Afghanistan ) Demobilization and reintegration programmes in Liberia and Angola are intended to help both combatants and civilians to reestablish basic livelihoods and hence contribute to longer-term stability. In countries impacted by landmines, such as Afghanistan, Angola, Bosnia and Herzegovina or Cambodia, early demining of agricultural lands is essential if local inhabitants are to return to self-sufficiency.
Considerable responsibility is placed on the United Nations Humanitarian/Resident Coordinator to ensure that these relationships are fostered. In recognition of this responsibility, DHA and UNDP convened a workshop during April 1997 in Turin, Italy, to enhance the collective understanding of the roles and responsibilities of the Humanitarian/ Resident Coordinator in fusing relief and development objectives. The workshop stressed the importance of elaborating a broad strategic framework at the outset of a crisis which would address both immediate humanitarian and longer-term development goals. Subsequently, the IASC has decided to deploy joint teams to Afghanistan and Mozambique to test this approach.
A further challenge is financing. Donor Governments have traditionally separated relief from development in their assistance programmes. Furthermore, donors often provide humanitarian relief unconditionally, whereas development assistance is becoming increasingly tied to specific objectives or is otherwise conditioned. The overall decline in international aid resources from donor countries has led to increased competition for resources among the assistance community. It also appears that projects which bridge relief and development do not readily attract donor support. ( See box on South Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia): resource constraints on relief and development )
DHA - together with all the humanitarian agencies - has followed these trends closely and is discussing with the donor community how to better support both relief and development activities. For such an approach to work, DHA believes that funds for critical development activities should be provided with the same flexibility, in terms of allocation and disbursement, as funds for relief activities. This follows the recommendation made in the Joint Evaluation of Emergency Assistance to Rwanda which states that the international donor community should, "develop rapid and flexible procedures for disbursing reconstruction funds along the same lines as procedures for emergency assistance." For example, funding and other support for the strengthening or reestablishment of the security apparatus and the law enforcement system constitute critical components of recovery. When linked to demobilization of combatants, these are pivotal activities which must be undertaken at the earliest opportunity, once conflict begins to abate.
As the United Nations develops greater understanding of the issues surrounding the resolution of complex emergencies, approaches which seek to bridge relief and development are being explored. It is essential that, in this process, the interests and concerns of those affected are not overlooked. Ultimately, no amount of change and adaptation by the international assistance system can replace the willingness of communities themselves to determine how best to improve their own situation and prospects.