The Comprehensive Approach: the point of war is not just to win but to make a better peace - Defence Committee Contents


APPENDIX K

WAR CHILD

Paper prepared by Mark Waddington, Chief Executive Officer and Nivi Narang, Campaigns Director, WAR CHILD

SUMMARY

  This paper seeks to provide written responses to each of the questions put forward by the National Audit Office's enquiry into the Comprehensive Approach on behalf of the Defence Select Committee.

  Examples from War Child's experience in the field, complimented with references from key elements of the relevant body of literature are presented.

  In summary, it is War Child's view that the Comprehensive Approach is not currently effective, and that its development is confined by the dominant military agenda that underlies it. Recommendations are suggested to address this.

OVERVIEW AND CONTEXT

  War Child is an international award winning charity that has worked for over 15 years to help protect children, realise their rights and rebuild their lives in conflict and post conflict situations.

  War Child has previously delivered major humanitarian projects, primarily emergency feeding, in Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan. Our focus is now on building a protective environment for marginalised children in some of the worst conflict affected countries, including Afghanistan, DRC, Uganda and Iraq, where we remain the only international child protection organisation in the south of that country. In addition, War Child has experience of operating in Palestine, East Timor, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Rwanda.

  War Child is also part of the War Child International family, which collaborates on projects to maximise the benefit of our collective efforts for children living with the effects of war. War Child International currently operates in Sudan and Sri Lanka.

  War Child UK has worked in Iraq since 2003 in Thi Qar and Basrah, and in Afghanistan since 2001 in Herat.

  War Child works with some of the most marginalised people in these countries—children who are affected simultaneously by insecurity, extreme poverty and social exclusion. They are often overlooked and hard to reach. They include street children, children in prison, child soldiers and child mothers.

    "The recruitment of children as suicide bombers is an increasing threat and often involves significant cajoling and trickery. UNICEF indicates that children as young as six have been recruited to carry out such attacks. Many of these children are from destitute families in volatile regions of the country and are more easily persuaded to join the insurgents for protection."

    It is children like this that War Child is working with in Iraq.

  Our work, however, is not limited to working with children. We work with families, local government, national ministries, the judiciary, the police, the education system, local religious organisations and local community based organisations as well as with other NGOs. It is through the relationships we build with these groups as well as with the local staff we employ in these locations that we have a deep understanding of the context on the ground, the needs and views of communities, their local structures and cultures.

  We also work closely with DFID and the FCO, both of which have funded work in Afghanistan and DRC respectively. We have liaised with the MoD directly and via the Humanitarian Office for Coordination in Kuwait.

Theme 1:  From a UK perspective, what does your organisation understand by the term "Comprehensive Approach"?

  War Child understands that the Comprehensive Approach refers to an integrated approach across relevant government, public and possibly private sector and/or non-governmental agencies for the purpose of assessing, planning and implementing crisis management and peace support operations.

  War Child understands that its primary elements:

    —  Political;

    —  Economic;

    —  Military; and

    —  Humanitarian.

  We understand that this is currently being driven by the MoD. This clearly implies a dominant military agenda, which reflects War Child's experiences on the ground.

Theme 2:  Has the MoD and/or the UK Government effectively communicated what it understands by the Comprehensive Approach and the merits of such an approach?

  No.

  War Child operates in both Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as in DRC and Uganda. We routinely work through civil-military liaison organs. Our staff have worked in numerous conflict and post conflict environments, including Kosovo, Bosnia, Gaza, East Timor, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Liberia, Rwanda and so on. Our advocacy team works closely with UK Government departments as well as with politicians. However, no staff member has heard of the Comprehensive Approach.

  In seeking to understand what the Comprehensive Approach is, the primary source documents we found were:

    —  The Joint Discussion note 4/05, January 2006, promulgated as directed by the Chiefs of Staff. The definition of the Comprehensive Approach provided by this document is, at best, vague and open to a variety of interpretations. As a means of communicating the concept it is poorly written and has very little substance.

    —  The Stabilisation Unit's "core script" on the Comprehensive Approach. This paper scopes out a clearer purpose, with a focus on joined up planning. However, it is not a paper that would be accessible unless a specific search was being made on the Comprehensive Approach. In other words, you would have to know about the Comprehensive Approach before being able to have found this paper.

  Both documents are very limited in terms of communicating the merits of a Comprehensive Approach:

    —  There is no reference to evidence, success or failures, or even an example of how the Comprehensive Approach has or might be employed in practise.

    —  There are huge gaps, including:

    —  how the Comprehensive Approach might be used to prevent conflict occurring in the first place, and

    —  the duration of commitment of the Comprehensive Approach,

    —  There is no consideration of a cross-government capability to deliver it.

    —  There is only a limited assessment regarding the status of its development as a concept and the challenges to its practical implementation.

  A brief online search yielded a wider, specialist narrative on the Comprehensive Approach, such as conference reports and official military documents, which provided a fragmented body of literature. This body of literature presents significant inconsistencies regarding the definition and purpose of the Comprehensive Approach, which raise serious concerns for its humanitarian intentions on the one hand, and the transparency of interests underlying its use in any given situation on the other.

  So, there does not appear to have been any substantive effort by the MoD and/or UK Government to communicate the concept of the Comprehensive Approach, the status of its development, an acknowledgement of current limitations and/or gaps in its understanding to anyone other than some internal stakeholders.

Theme 3:  Does your organisation see the Comprehensive Approach as an effective way of addressing international crises?

  There are potentially several very significant positives that might be gained through the use of a Comprehensive Approach in addressing international crises:

    —  It recognises the links between humanitarian/development, political and economic issues to security.

    —  It creates improved conditions for a more inclusive consultation of key stakeholders in a way that could make an intervention more responsive to the needs of civilians on the ground.

    —  It improves the potential for having clearer and more transparent objectives for an intervention, which would enable non-state actors such as NGOs to more effectively position themselves with regard to humanitarian, development and advocacy needs, while having been explicit about intent the MoD and/or UK Government could be more robustly held to account.

    —  It creates the possibility of a civilian led intervention with military elements, rather than an intervention that is defined and led primarily on military terms.

    —  It presents the opportunity to establish the conditions in which conflict can be prevented through the use of economic and political assets alongside the option of military force in supporting governments which legitimately and to the best of their capability represent the interests of civilians, but which are at risk of coups, insurgencies or rebellion (see the work of Paul Collier in War, Guns and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places, 2009, Bodley Head).

  However, according to Para 103 of the Joint Discussion note 4/05, "the CA is a conceptual framework which could be used to reinvigorate the existing, Cabinet Office-led approach to coordinating the objectives and activities of Government Departments in identifying, analysing, planning and executing national responses to complex situations."

  It is therefore by definition a whole government approach and so is inherently politically motivated. This is inevitable and necessary. However, International Humanitarian Law dictates that humanitarian assistance, which is currently seen as an element of the Comprehensive Approach, should be given regardless of the political affiliation of a person, their ethnicity, religion and so on. So while there may be alignment with humanitarian objectives from time to time, the delivery of humanitarian action cannot remain independent of government policy wherever it falls within the scope of the Comprehensive Approach.

  If humanitarian action is sourced in a "whole government" owned strategy and subsequently delivered through a Comprehensive Approach then it is not impartial. Consequently, the humanitarian delivery agents will not be perceived to be neutral within a conflict or post-conflict situation.

  Furthermore, the Comprehensive Approach is established within the Joint Discussion Document as the "more extensive employment of the Effects Based Approach"[64], that is, its military aspect. The Comprehensive Approach is, therefore, fundamentally seen through a military lens and driven by a military agenda.

  Four examples of a military dominance within the comprehensive approach are given below:

    1. Language use and misuse is at the heart of much of the confusion surrounding civil-military relations. During the Kosovo crisis, NATO's Chief Press Officer made reference to "humanitarian bombing" and a "humanitarian war". War Child believe that the term "humanitarian" should not be used to describe any military operations.

    2. Military sources close to War Child have stated that senior military personnel are referring to the campaign in Iraq as the "British defeat in Iraq", indicating two things:

    2.1The comprehensive approach has failed.

    2.2Couching the description in the language of defeat (and by default, victory) is not consistent with the Stabilisation Unit's paper on the Comprehensive Approach.

    3. ISAF have recently been distributing teddy bears to the local population (via kindergartens, children's centres and orphanages) in Herat, Western Afghanistan, which feature the ISAF logo and words along the lines of "caring for the Afghan people". This attempt to behave as an NGO and encourage goodwill amongst the community following military action is hugely detrimental to War Child and other NGOs. The lack of distinction between NGOs and the military is likely to occur amongst ordinary people, which will result in lack of goodwill, lack of trust and lack of security of NGOs.

    4. Within the frame of a military agenda, the Comprehensive Approach has been neither able to deliver aid in the volumes required nor without shaping it according to military and political interests:

    — Since 2001, $25 billion has been spent in Afghanistan building local security forces.  An equal amount was pledged in aid but only $15 billion has been delivered. Of that $15 billion, 40% has flowed back to the donor countries through contractors and other foreign staff. In the mean time, the security situation continues to deteriorate.

    — Much of the money "follows the conflict", It is disbursed in areas where the conflict is fiercest, suggesting it is being used to achieve military and political aims rather than the humanitarian or development needs of people.

    — Because much of the aid flow into Afghanistan is tied to a military two-thirds of assistance bypasses the Afghan government, which raises serious question marks over the timing of efforts to support the establishment of an elected government.

    — Consequently, there is poor donor coordination and communication, and so the Afghan government does not know how 1/3 of the aid disbursed since 2001—$5 billion—has actually been spent. This brings into question accountability to Afghan civilians as well as to the western, tax-paying public.

    ACBAR, Aid Effectiveness in Afghanistan, 2008

  Because humanitarian assistance delivered within the Comprehensive Approach has an inherently political basis (not least as a result of the military drivers) its delivery will be subject to partiality, and there will be a lack of neutrality on the ground. Consequently, there are significant implications for:

    —  Access to those civilians who require humanitarian assistance.

    —  The space independent humanitarian actors have to operate within, as defined by the parameters of impartiality, neutrality and independence and, therefore, capability to deliver.

    —  The security of independent humanitarian agencies as a result of humanitarian actions being perceived as non-neutral.

  This leads to a number of unanswered questions:

    —  Where does the military role start and end within a Comprehensive Approach?

    —  How does the military role relate to the humanitarian role?

    —  How are local actors/NGOs involved in a Comprehensive Approach, and how are prospective beneficiaries able to input?

    —  Are all agencies/actors "in-theatre" perceived as assets within the Comprehensive Approach and, if so, what does this mean for the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the very people who need it?

    —  How can the integrity of "campaign authority"[65] within the Comprehensive Approach be maintained given the dominance of the Effects Based Approach?

    —   To what extent are military actors able and/or willing to work with other actors toward a common humanitarian language that does not utilise or spin alternative meanings in order to cloak the negative consequences of military actions, or service an agenda that is not always reconcilable with humanitarian work?

  These are all questions which need answering in the planning phase of a Comprehensive Approach for a specific crisis and then reviewing throughout the delivery of it. Full transparency regarding the answers to these questions will be vital to ensure that the purpose of a Comprehensive Approach is fully understood and so that the key actors can be held to account for it. It is on this basis that more effective coordination with independent actors will be enabled and its legitimacy more deeply rooted among civilians. And so finding the answers to these questions must involve the consultation of civilians, their organisations and NGOs.

  In the mean time, within the frame of a Comprehensive Approach people are perceived as objects, the vessels of attitude and motivation, the holders of hearts and minds, allies or enemies. They are not perceived, as they would be through an impartial humanitarian lens, as human beings with rights, the actual subjects of a humanitarian intervention. Consequently, within the four primary elements of the Comprehensive Approach—political, economic, military and humanitarian—the humanitarian needs of people play a muted fourth fiddle.

  Thus, humanitarian action is likely to serve the political, economic and military objectives of foreign policy rather than the requirements of international law, especially international humanitarian law. This closes the loop in a way that creates a partial, non-neutral frame for humanitarian assistance that is not always in the interests of those who need help.

    Humanitarian assistance is one of the St Petersburg Tasks that form the mandate of the EU's Rapid Reaction Force. There are major concerns about the effectiveness of humanitarian assistance when delivered by the military within the frame of a Comprehensive Approach. For example:

    —  Aid delivered by the military is often short term and unsustainable. For example, during the Rwandan crisis British forces established an army field hospital which was open for only six weeks, which they demolished during a serious Shigella outbreak.

    —  Also during the Rwandan crisis, the RAF quoted cargo rates for the transport of humanitarian supplies six times higher than those of a civilian airline.

    —  In Afghanistan, the US Army spent $40m on food airdrops weighing 6,000 tonnes, equivalent to $7.50 per Kg. This compared with the World Food Programme's average of $0.20 per Kg.

    —  Also in Afghanistan, the food packets air dropped by the US military were the same colour as cluster bombs, which they also dropped in over 235 locations.

    —  Most armies are not equipped to provide health services for civilians. They are geared up to provide medical care to a predominantly male, adult, healthy population. However, 80% of all displaced people are women and children.

    Jane Barry with Anna Jefferys, January 2002,

    HPN Network Paper,

    Overseas Development Institute

  It is worth noting that humanitarian aid is not limited to food drops and field hospitals. It has crucial social elements that are linked to both food security and health, but which are also wider in scope such as child protection and transitional justice. Neither the army nor DFID have this type of expertise. For an NGO to do this work under the auspices of a Comprehensive Approach would create challenges of access, security and the actual humanitarian space required to ensure all the civilians in need were assisted regardless of their ethnicity, religion, age or gender.

  Humanitarian assistance delivered through a Comprehensive Approach diverts funds away from the established humanitarian aid architecture. This prevents independent humanitarian actors from doing their job effectively and so establishes the conditions in which they will fail. Consequently, a pretext is provided for humanitarian assistance to be delivered through a Comprehensive Approach (rather than through independent humanitarian actors) and the shaping of it by political and military interests.

  For example, in Kosovo only 3.5% of total funding from the top six EU contributors went to UNHCR. In overstepping UNHCR's mandate and bypassing UNHCR's role as coordinator, governments unilaterally (and through NATO) started to run the humanitarian operation.

  Finally, whenever military actors are involved in the delivery of humanitarian assistance, very little effort is made to learn and evaluate effectiveness.

    For example, feedback from field staff on NATO's Response Force involvement in the response to the Pakistan earthquake raised concerns "about mission creep which occurred with NATO contingents getting involved... in rehabilitation and other longer term programmes, which could have been led by civilian agencies. The NATO deployment also became politically controversial in Pakistan; leading to the expedited withdrawal of NATO troops. To date, no surveys have been conducted to assess the implications of NATO involvement in the flood response for perceptions of International NGOs, longer term rehabilitation assistance and humanitarian space. Furthermore, despite the wider investment in "humanitarian reform", policy makers also appear deaf to proposals that donor nations might resource alternative civilian options for providing such air-lift capacity."

    NGO Seminar on Civil-Military Relations, February 2008, VOICE

Theme 4:  Has the MoD and/or UK Government worked effectively with the international community to adopt a Comprehensive Approach?

  In the Joint Discussion Document and the Stabilisation Unit's paper on the Comprehensive Approach there is no consideration of how adopting the Comprehensive Approach will require the buy-in and commitment, as well as capability development among other nations, not least NATO and EU member states.

  As a consequence, there appear to be significant inconsistencies across a variety of key international actors.

    For example, the US military's Army Modernisation Strategy establishes the Comprehensive Approach as a means of ensuring full spectrum dominance. This can be reasonably interpreted as total victory (see p.12 of http://downloads.army.mil/docs/08modplan/Army_Mod_Strat_2008.pdf), which is not consistent with statements by the UK Government's Stabilisation Unit core script on the Comprehensive Approach:

    "The term "success" is now supplanting the term "victory" in conflict-related operations, even those in which military force is deployed and encompasses the much wider requirement to ensure that the object of our engagement is left in a viable condition—politically, economically, socially and militarily."

  This leads to a cloaking of vying interests and creates distrust, conflicting interpretations of key terms and inevitably, a lack of coordination with regard to humanitarian activity. Consequently, humanitarian activities become even more vulnerable to exploitation by political and military requirements, threatening the core parameters of humanitarian space, not least impartiality and neutrality.

  This has been starkly illustrated during the course of 2008 in Afghanistan where the consequences of military activities on civilians do not appear to have been considered as a particular factor in working effectively across the international community's efforts.

  High levels of civilian casualties undermine the achievement of the objectives and/or strategic aim of the Comprehensive Approach. With this in mind, neither the MoD nor any other element of the UK Government in Afghanistan has sought to monitor the excess mortality of Afghan civilians as a result of the occupation, nor has this been championed as a necessity to ensure informed policy and decision making within the delivery of the Comprehensive Approach in Afghanistan. Therefore, there have only been limited efforts to mitigate the consequences of military activity on civilians across the international community, which challenges the local perception of legitimacy and so undermines the Campaign Authority element of the Comprehensive Approach:

    —  "...it is virtually impossible to get a clear and uncontested account of Afghan civilian deaths... No organisation has undertaken sustained and consistent data gathering and presentation, and so there is no agreed authoritative record, nor any widely respected body able to authenticate future claims to such authority."[66]

    —   "UNAMA Human Rights recorded a total of 2,118 civilian casualties between 1 January and 31 December 2008. This figure represents an increase of almost 40% on the 1523 civilian deaths recorded in the year of 2007. The 2008 civilian death toll is thus the highest of any year since the end of major hostilities which resulted in the demise of the Taliban regime at the end of 2001. Of the 2,118 casualties reported in 2008, 1,160 (55%) were attributed to antigovernment elements (AGEs) and 828 (39%) to pro-government forces. The remaining 130 (6%) could not be attributed to any of the conflicting parties since, for example, some civilians died as a result of cross-fire or were killed by unexploded ordinance."[67]

    —  "In 2007 Afghan security forces and IMF [International Military Forces] supporting the Government in Afghanistan were responsible for 629 (or 41%) of the total civilian casualties recorded. At around 39% of total civilian casualties, the relative proportion of deaths attributed to pro-government forces remained relatively stable for 2008. However, at 828, the actual number of recorded noncombatant deaths caused by pro-government forces amounts to a 31% increase over the deaths recorded in 2007. This increase occurred notwithstanding various measures introduced by the IMF to reduce the impact of the war on civilians."[68]

Theme 5:  Has the MoD and/or the UK Government built the UK's capacity to engage in a Comprehensive Approach to a crisis? What more could be done?

  No

  Because:

    —  A truly comprehensive civilian agency is not in place nor capable of leading the planning or delivery of a Comprehensive Approach;

    —  The lack of DFID's institutional muscle to influence outcomes in a Comprehensive Approach. If DFID were to be made a part of the FCO this would have catastrophic consequences for the department's capability to champion the importance of humanitarian an development issues outside a military agenda, thereby significantly limiting the scope of a Comprehensive Approach; and

    —  of the limiting attitude of the military.

    For example, Lieutenant General Sir John Kiszely, Director of the UK Defence Academy and, therefore, ultimately responsible for the training of all military personnel, limited the purpose of a Comprehensive Approach to "driving a wedge between the insurgent and the people".

    US Government Counter-Insurgency Conference, Washington, 28-29 September 2006

    —  The focus on crisis management only and not prevention, or post-crisis follow up.

    —  Lack of capability to consult and genuinely enrol the support of local stakeholders.

    —  Inadequate commitment of humanitarian resources.

Theme 6:  What are the challenges faced by NGOs in engaging in the planning of a Comprehensive Approach to a particular crisis? How might the MoD/UK Government assist NGOs in addressing these challenges?

  The current decision making architecture utilised throughout the Comprehensive Approach is very difficult to penetrate. Therefore, the potential of NGOs to influence the planning of the Comprehensive Approach is negligible.

  For example, the federal and decentralised structure of NATO operations in places like Afghanistan means that trying to engage in planning is challenging and often fragmented. "Many of the fundamental questions regarding civil military interaction in Afghanistan, like the military's involvement in development and reconstruction activities, are decided upon at a political level. Debates between NGOs and junior military staff and policy makers at the working-group level have little impact on these decisions."[69] This massively constrains NGOs ability to engage in planning.

  Even where NGOs are able to engage with planning processes, it is rarely a meaningful exercise and can be obscured by vested military interests.

    For example, without exception every meeting held by War Child staff with ISAF on security trends in Afghanistan have been on a one to one basis, in order to promote confidence, candour and transparency. In all cases, including during 2008, War Child was specifically told that the security situation in Afghanistan was improving. This calls into question the point of actually seeking to use resources in engaging the planning process in a comprehensive approach if it is going to be predicated by the avoidance of vital facts for the purpose of portraying a more positive situation than actually exists. It also undermines confidence in the integrity of information shared.

Theme 7:  What are the challenges faced by NGOs in engaging in the delivery of a Comprehensive Approach to a particular crisis? How might the MoD/UK Government assist NGOs in addressing these challenges?

  Because NGOs are unable to influence the planning of a Comprehensive Approach, the effects on delivery are likely to be catastrophic.

  Although NGOs are, for the most part, the primary champions of civilian consultation, inclusion and rights—the escalation in the number of deaths, kidnappings and intimidation of humanitarian workers,[70] has massively affected humanitarian access to large numbers of people in Afghanistan thereby compounding existing challenges to civilians. This is a huge problem to NGOs and is, in part, attributable to their perceived and sometimes actual engagement with the Comprehensive Approach.

  In Afghanistan, the Comprehensive Approach is led by military interests and objectives. It is not, therefore, balanced, based on the needs of local civilian populations, and so lacks legitimacy in the eyes of Afghans. Consequently, security continues to deteriorate nationally.

    Human Rights Watch raises "concerns as to whether the attacking forces acted in accordance with their obligation under the laws of war to exercise `constant care to spare the civilian population' and take "all feasible precautions"' to minimize loss of civilian life."

    "There has been a massive and unprecedented surge in the use of airpower in Afghanistan in 2008. In response to increased insurgent activity, twice as many tons of bombs were dropped in 2007 than in 2006. In 2008, the pace has increased: in the months of June and July alone the US dropped approximately as much as it did in all of 2006. Without improvements in planning, intelligence, targeting, and identifying civilian populations, the massive use of airpower in Afghanistan will continue to lead to unacceptably high civilian casualties."

    "NATO lawyers involved in investigating? airstrikes told Human Rights Watch that in some TIC [Troops in Contact] situations in which airstrikes have been called in, US and NATO forces did not know who was in the area they were bombing. Civilian casualties increase when forces on the ground do not have a clear picture of the location and number of combatants and civilians in an area. Such gaps in knowledge, when combined with fear and the `fog of war' at times mean that forces resort to airstrikes when options less likely to cause civilian loss are available."

    "Air-strikes remain responsible for the largest percentage of civilian deaths attributed to pro-government forces. UNAMA recorded 552 civilian casualties of this nature in 2008. This constitutes 64% of the 828 non-combatant deaths attributed to actions by pro-government forces in 2008, and 26% of all civilians killed, as a result of armed conflict in 2008. Nighttime raids, and `force protection incidents' which sometimes result in death and injury to civilians, are of continuing concern. Also of concern is the transparency and independence of procedures of inquiry into civilian casualties by the Afghan Government and the IMF [International Military Forces] |and the placement of military bases in urban and other areas with high concentrations of civilians which have subsequently become targets of insurgent attacks."

    Troops in Contact: Airstrikes and Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan.

    Human Rights Watch, 2008

  The delivery of NGOs' humanitarian and development efforts are greatly compromised in Iraq due to the lack of funding available. This has been acknowledged by several members of a coalition of NGOs who work together to advocate for Iraq. A recent War Child Iraq Appeal provides an example of how War Child believes the current weak Comprehensive Approach in Iraq has affected our funding. Our appeal was launched to raise money for children affected by the war in Iraq. Despite having a significant communication campaign[71] we only raised tiny amount of money from the public. We believe that the dominance of MoD messages in the media could have contributed to this. In addition to government messaging about the urgency of military operation, if DFID had given equal priority to communicating the reality for civilians on the ground—their poverty, displacement, lack of access to basic services, etc, the public may have been persuaded that the need to donate to children in Iraq was important.

  Aid provided to fragile states rarely lasts long enough to help stabilise a country/region after conflict. Development investment is not always forthcoming due to the fear that conflict will resume or that conflict is universal. This is known as the conflict trap—the less development, the more chance of conflict.[72] Similarly, the higher the chance of conflict, the lower the chance of development. The huge resource gap for post-conflict situations affects many NGOs, including War Child.

  When NGOs apply for funding, we are asked to provide evidence of the problems we describe. There is a dearth of data about communities in conflict locations, partly because of security issues but also due to a lack of commitment to invest in obtaining it. This gap in information affects not only War Child's ability to raise much needed money, but also the understanding and acknowledgement of specific issues on the ground. These combined issues have a significant affect on the delivery of humanitarian and development programmes.

  The stabilisation unit's description of the Comprehensive Approach mentions the need for "state-building" A NATO article acknowledges this and the need for building institutions including the judiciary and police.

    "Experience in Afghanistan and the Balkans has demonstrated the importance of contributing to the International Community's Comprehensive Approach for the success of operations, which are increasingly of an integrated civilian-military character. NATO is therefore trying to build closer partnerships with other international organizations that have experience and skills in areas such as institution building, development, governance, judiciary and police"

  The delivery of War Child's work on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan is often hindered by the judiciary and police, who are more frequently a cause rather than a solution to the problem. For example War Child's experience of the weak judiciary in Afghanistan includes witnessing the impunity for perpetrators of child abuse and children being kept in prison alongside adults, often for crimes they have not committed. Similarly War Child has evidence of a weak police. Rather than protecting children, the police in countries including Iraq and Afghanistan often display brutality to street children.

  For the UK government to assist NGOs in addressing this problem, there needs to be a greater emphasis on building the capacity of institutions such as the judiciary and police, which would include training on human rights, child rights, juvenile justice, etc.

Theme 8:  What are the challenges faced in moving between different stages of a Comprehensive Approach, for example from stabilisation to reconstruction?

  The primary challenge is that military actors do not know how to do this.

  Firstly, the humanitarian sector has learned from decades of experience that stabilisation—relief—reconstruction—rehabilitation—development is not a sequential continuum. These elements are inter-dependent and often occur concurrently.

  Secondly, many civilians already have coping strategies with regard to each of these elements. To impose solutions without recognition of this can undermine these often life saving coping strategies. For the most part, military actors take charge, define problems and contrive solutions with little or no consultation. This further undermines the inter-dependence of these elements. Without investment in people and their ability to address their own humanitarian needs, even administer support given to them, dependency will be inevitable and sustainability will not have a chance.

  Thirdly, the military agenda which dominates during the conflict/stabilisation elements of a Comprehensive Approach have long term consequences for the way in which humanitarian actors are perceived by civilians, which can create huge challenges to legitimacy, participation and effective aid delivery.

    For example, NGOs were identified as "force extenders" under Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, which hugely compromised perceptions of NGO neutrality and led to reduced access to civilian populations and a massive increase in security risks in the delivery of humanitarian assistance.

  Fourthly, the way in which assistance is delivered is usually as important as the substance of the assistance itself.

  Alice Thomson reporting from Afghanistan in The Telegraph noted that:

    "These people don't just need a few TV dinners that might land on their heads (ie air drops). They need water—impossible to drop from the air. They require medicine, but also someone to administer it; oral rehydration tablets for cholera; tents to keep out the snow; vaccination against measles; therapeutic feeding for malnourished babies; millions of blankets. In Herat last winter, 500 children died from hypothermia in temperatures of -25C and that was before the war started."

Theme 9:  How can local ownership of a Comprehensive Approach be established?

  The Comprehensive Approach is defined in the Joint Discussion document as: Commonly understood principles and collaborative processes that enhance the likelihood of favourable and enduring outcomes within a particular situation.

  If the Comprehensive Approach is to be an effective way of addressing international crises for civilian populations, then we have to understand its definition more clearly and ask the following questions.

  Who decides:

    —  What the common principles are?

    —  Which collaborative processes will enhance the likelihood of favourable and enduring outcomes?

    —  What the favourable and enduring outcomes should be?

    —  Who they should benefit?

    —  When and where the Comprehensive Approach should be used?

    —  How long it should be employed?

  For the most part, civilians are denied a voice in helping to shape these fundamental principles in any given situation where a Comprehensive Approach is used, thereby denying it the traction it needs to gain local legitimacy and support.

  In order to enable local influence and ultimately support of a Comprehensive Approach participatory, field based surveys should be undertaken in advance of any military action with civilians, civil society and other key stake holders in order to assess the:

    —  costs and benefits;

    —  likely impact over the short and long term, with particular regard to civilians;

    —  cultural appropriateness;

    —  likely levels of support and participation;

    —  implications for local economic, political or social structures;

    —  favourable outcome options and who they are likely to benefit

    —  strategies that will enable independent, impartial and neutral delivery of humanitarian assistance;

    —  sustainability; and

    —  potential alternative solutions to military action.

  Ultimately, the success of a Comprehensive Approach will be defined by the ability to enrol, engage and genuinely work with local stakeholders, and in War Child's experience, this will be based on the capability and support of civil society. Without exception, in all the countries War Child has operated civil society has established that it is best placed to engage, franchise and enable the genuine participation of civilians in humanitarian and development programming. Unless there is investment in the conditions to strengthen civil society—locally and internationally—many of the structures through which information, representation and accountability are enabled will remain weak. This will have a knock-on effect on the effectiveness of attempts to promote representation, relevance and governance throughout the course of a crisis intervention and its follow up. Furthermore, civil society organisations are, to varying degrees, independent. Many have the specialised skills required to deliver humanitarian assistance effectively. Limited investment in the conditions required to support civil society, therefore, limits the extent of delivery of impartial humanitarian assistance.

  The role that DFID has to play in enabling this is vital. DFID should, therefore, be the primary actor in a UK Government Comprehensive Approach.

Theme 10:  What lessons have been learnt from the application of the Comprehensive Approach in Iraq, Afghanistan or other countries?

  Based on War Child's understanding and experiences of working in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as elsewhere, we are proposing a 16 point plan that might enable the Comprehensive Approach to become effective in addressing international crises:

  1.  The Comprehensive Approach narrative needs to be realigned with a focus on civilians and their humanitarian and economic needs.

  2.  It should not be limited to response, but should also be employed in crisis prevention efforts.

  3.  Wherever the Comprehensive Approach is employed, the overall aim and objectives must be clearly spelled out and comply with International Law and be mandated by the relevant authorities such as the UN.

  4.  All military actors must be ultimately responsible to a civilian command architecture within a Comprehensive Approach.

  5.  Military action should only be countenanced if:

    —  all peaceful methods of resolution have been exhausted,

    —  protection by the controlling authorities have demonstrably failed,

    —  the overall aim and objectives of the Comprehensive Approach in any intervention must be clearly spelled out, comply with International Law and be mandated by the relevant international authorities such as the UN,

    —  there is proportionality to the protection needs of civilians at risk, and

    —  there is accountability to the UN.

  6.  The military should, if at all possible, not get involved in humanitarian aid efforts. If military actors must get involved, this should be in support of a lead civilian agency, where the military stays in the background. Only as a last resort should the military get directly involved in aid delivery, and only if the humanitarian assistance process fails (but not if this is as a result of funds and other resources being diverted from humanitarian agencies to military and other state delivery agents). In such circumstances the military should have a clear plan of what, why, how and the duration their involvement, and a clear strategy to hand over operations at the earliest possible time to the relevant agency.

  7.  Clear lines need to be drawn between independent humanitarian actors and those actors which are subject to the mandate of a Comprehensive Approach. On this basis, the criteria for dialogue to promote coordination and, where appropriate, information sharing can be developed and compliance monitored.

  8.  The probability of conflict relapse after a military intervention is high and so the Comprehensive Approach must ensure a long term commitment. A Comprehensive Approach would mean that even if the military leave, other relevant government departments would remain active until the location in question is economically, socially and politically stable.

  9.  A common language (with commonly shared meanings) must be developed between humanitarian and military actors.

  10.  A Comprehensive Approach and its core objectives must mean the same thing to all actors involved within it, especially within multi-lateral initiatives.

  11.  A genuinely independent monitoring and evaluation capability must be established to evaluate and bear witness to the effects of military actions on civilians and the delivery of humanitarian assistance (directly or indirectly) within a Comprehensive Approach.

  12.  Official monitoring and publication of the primary impact of the Comprehensive Approach must be undertaken. This must include surveying excess mortality, and must conform to internationally established epidemiological standards. Vitally, the data in such surveys must be disaggregated by age and gender.

  13.  One of the essential ingredients for a successful Comprehensive Approach must be equal power across key UK Government and/or international "departments". In the UK this would include DFID, MoD and the FCO. DFID does not currently have the mandate to fundamentally influence the planning and delivery of a Comprehensive Approach. A Comprehensive Approach must, therefore, ensure that DFID (and its UN agency equivalents on the international stage) has the institutional muscle to affect outcomes positively.

  14.  The Comprehensive Approach needs to be developed as an international norm. In order to be effective it must be adopted internationally, not least by the likes of NATO, the EU, UN and especially by the US.

  15.  Investment in the conditions to strengthen civil society, both locally and internationally. This is a vital part of crisis prevention as well as crisis preparedness. This must be undertaken in a way that secures the integrity of civil society's independence, impartiality and neutrality.

  16.  Finally, and crucially, children comprise more than 50% of all people living in failed and fragile states, the countries most vulnerable to the type of crisis that might require a Comprehensive Approach intervention. The status of children is profoundly linked to the status of women.

  Research by the likes of the ODI and IDS indicates that children are the primary demographic structure through which poverty is transmitted across generations. Children stunted by malnutrition now, and children unable to go to school now equates to drastically reduced development prospects for a country in years to come. If a Comprehensive Approach is to be successful, therefore, it must be aligned with the long term conditions required to promote the development of children and women. Otherwise, the likelihood of a crisis relapse during a prolonged post-conflict period will dramatically increase.

  This can best be achieved by utilising a rights based framework throughout the planning and delivery narrative of a Comprehensive Approach. Reference to key treaties and conventions, such as Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and so on, will need to be a central part of this narrative. This will provide a deeper human substance to a Comprehensive Approach in a way that makes it more meaningful to both civilian populations as well as to UK tax payers, and is more likely to result in its success thereby providing value for money.

16 October 2009







64   The Effects Based Approach is defined as the "the way of thinking and specific processes that, together, enable the integration and effectiveness of the military contribution within a Comprehensive Approach". Back

65   Campaign Authority is "an amalgam of 4 interdependent factors: the perceived legitimacy of the international mandate; the perceived legitimacy of the authority of those conducting operations; the degree to which factions, local populations and other actors subjugate themselves to the authority of those conducting operations; and the degree to which the activities of those conducting operations meet the expectations of factions, local populations and others". Joint Discussion Note 4/05. Back

66   John Sloboda, The Need to Acquire Accurate Casualty Records in NATO Operations, Oxford Research Group, May 2009. Back

67   United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan, Human Rights Unit Annual Report on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, 2008. Back

68   United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan, Human Rights Unit Annual Report on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, 2008. Back

69   NGO Seminar On Civil-Military Relations. Feb, 2008. VOICE. Back

70   "Aid agencies have long criticised Western troops in Afghanistan and Iraq for carrying out small development projects, "blurring the lines" between military and humanitarian actors. For instance, the Taliban issued a statement after killing four aid workers in Afghanistan on 13 August (2008), accusing them of working for "foreign invader forces"." An article by Humanitarian Relief on a report by the centre for international Cooperation and the Overseas Development Institute (see http://humanitarianrelief.change.org/blog/view/attacks_against_aid_workersBack

71   through gigs hosted by high profile celebrities, national TV advertising and radio coverage across Europe. Back

72   For example see Collier, The Bottom Billion. Back


 
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