Fifteenth Special Report
On 6 August 2019, the International Development Committee (IDC) published its Fourteenth Report of Session 2017–19, on Tackling violence against aid workers (HC 2008). The Government response was received on 7 October 2019. The response is appended below.
Appendix: Government Response
Executive Summary
This report contains the Government’s responses to the IDC recommendations given in the ‘Violence Against Aid Workers’ report. The IDC report provided 10 final points in the ‘conclusion and recommendation section’, of which only 8 are distinct recommendations. In summary, we fully agree with 5 recommendations, partially agree with 3 and disagree with 0. All recommendations addressed are accepted or partially accepted.
The UK Government wishes to thank the IDC for its timely and clear report following its thorough and thoughtful inquiry. The report states that its conclusions and recommendations should be considered as interim and that once the IDC has received the Government’s reply—and any other feedback invited—they will consider what further evidence-gathering and other steps are merited. The UK Government stands ready to engage fully with any further process or updated report on this important topic.
The UK Government is firmly committed to reducing violence against aid workers and strongly condemns the targeting of humanitarian and development workers who are giving lifesaving support to vulnerable people. We put on record once more our thanks to all the brave aid workers, medics and other staff who work on the frontline to save lives delivering aid around the world. The Department for International Development (DFID) provides direct funding to organisations improving security and risk management of aid workers. We will continue to do all we can to protect our staff and our partners in the most efficient and effective way.
Recommendations
1.We assume that DFID, in concert with the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) and other departments, are already: strenuously promoting policies and practices that strengthen adherence to international norms and humanitarian laws; acting to broaden and deepen the understanding of such norms and laws amongst the international community at every opportunity; and arguing and pressing for humanitarian access to currently closed areas around the world. We recommend that the Humanitarian Summit of 2016 be now followed up by the UK hosting an international humanitarian worker safety and security summit. This summit should be aimed at raising the profile of this topic for a global audience and establishing a consensus around best practice and pathways forward–perhaps back–to an understanding of, and respect for, humanitarian relief as a protected activity. (Paragraph 55)
Government position: Partially agree
DFID and the FCO confirm that the Committee’s assumption is correct. The UK continually seeks opportunities to strengthen adherence to the rules based international system. HMG encourages all states to respect international humanitarian law, to adopt relevant legislation and act in accordance to their obligations under it. Where they are willing but unable to do so, the UK has offered assistance. This has included support to build knowledge of international humanitarian law and help establish more accountable defence and security forces as well as fairer justice systems. We are increasing the amount of specialist training on rule of law that we provide to foreign governments and armed forces.
In October, DFID, the FCO and the MoD, along with the British Red Cross, will hold an event at Lancaster House commemorating 70 years of the Geneva Conventions and reaffirming the UK’s commitment to the importance of International Humanitarian Law. At this event we will be showcasing the UK’s Voluntary Report on the Domestic Implementation of international humanitarian law, providing an example of the UK’s commitment to compliance with international humanitarian law which we hope other states will follow. To this end we are now working on a project to provide practical assistance to other States seeking to produce their own report and will be using the 33rd International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent in December to share best practice through a UK-led session on voluntary reports.
We will look for opportunities to highlight the issue of aid worker safety and security, including at the upcoming Lancaster House event to commemorate the Geneva Conventions. We will also continue to highlight our commitment to support our partners to work according to the humanitarian principles, which foster safety and security, as set out in the UK’s Humanitarian Reform Policy.
2.Our interim recommendations—on which we welcome feedback—are as follows. (Paragraph 56)
3.The UK should: (Paragraph 57)
- take a stronger stance within the international community to promote and support the pursuit of accountability for violations of international humanitarian law; and
Government position: Agree
Justice and accountability for the most serious international crimes is a fundamental element of our foreign policy. We support the role of the International Criminal Court in pursuing accountability for the most egregious crimes when national authorities are unable, or unwilling, genuinely to do so.
The UK provides political, financial, and practical support to the ICC and we are one of its largest financial contributors, contributing £9.7 million in 2018. The UK has also politically and financially supported International Tribunals in their pursuit of accountability for violations of international humanitarian law, specifically the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, the Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.
We have also been at the forefront of international efforts to gather and analyse evidence of atrocities committed in the Middle East, including pressing for accountability for international humanitarian law violations during the conflict in Syria. The focus of our accountability efforts has therefore been on a) continuing to call out violations of international humanitarian law, and b) practical activities such as documenting evidence and training Syrians how to do this to international standards. Since 2016, we have committed almost £1 million to the UN International Impartial and Independent Mechanism to support the preparation of legal cases for serious crimes committed in the Syrian conflict. The UK also led efforts to adopt a UN Security Council resolution establishing an Investigative Team to collect, preserve and store evidence of Daesh atrocities in Iraq, and contributed £1 million towards its operation. Most recently at a UN Security Council meeting, the UK pressed for accountability for crimes against civilians in Idlib and urged Member States to do more to prevent regimes from violating international law and imposing suffering on their people. The UK will continue to call for increased accountability for violations of international humanitarian law and will contribute to discussions during the 70th Anniversary Conference of the Geneva Conventions being held by the UK international humanitarian law committee in October, and at the 33rd International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent in December.
- be prepared to use its influence and, where possible and necessary, take meaningful diplomatic action against sponsors and enablers of perpetrators of attacks that contravene the rules of war.
Government position: Agree
The UK will continue to hold perpetrators of attacks contravening the rules of war to account, and to encourage others to do so, through the appropriate and necessary channels.
The UK has actively influenced decisions to take action against violators of international humanitarian law, including through sanctions. The UK has taken steps to hold Syria to account for using chemical weapons, by strengthening the Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and adopting sanctions against those responsible for chemical weapon use in Syria. The UK has repeatedly called on the Assad regime and its backers to abide by international humanitarian law. Following UK-led lobbying, on 1 August the UN Secretary General announced a new Board of Inquiry to investigate attacks on civilian infrastructure during the recent violence in Northwest Syria.
In July 2018, we played a leading role in the UN Security Council decision to impose a UN arms embargo on South Sudan. This was a vital step towards stemming the flow of weapons that is fuelling the conflict and putting the safety of civilians at risk. In May 2019, we actively supported the renewal of this regime. The UK also supports the UN’s sanctions regime on Mali (created by UN Security Council Resolution 2374) which is designed to target individuals and entities that obstruct the implementation of the 2015 Peace Agreement, including those who plan, direct, or commit violations of international humanitarian law. We will continue to work with other States and organisations, such as the UN, to encourage action against violators of international humanitarian law.
4.Gaining acceptance among hard-to-reach communities and populations is a critical—and probably most effective—component of aid agencies’ risk management strategies. DFID should focus resources on developing and supporting a suite of effective approaches to relationship-building and trust-establishment with local host communities to try and avoid and/or break the cycle of suspicion, threat and counter-measure that appears guaranteed to lead to hostility and confirm any negative narratives coming from opposition forces. (Paragraph 58)
Government position: Agree
Gaining acceptance for aid workers by parties to conflict to safely access hard to reach communities is dependent on aid workers observing the humanitarian principles of independence, neutrality, impartiality and humanity, and of parties to conflict respecting these principles. When aid is politicised, humanitarian workers risk being perceived as agents of other’s foreign policies. Maintaining the apolitical nature of humanitarian action is paramount to aid worker’s safety and the safety of those they seek to assist. The UK’s Humanitarian Reform policy reiterates our commitment to support humanitarian organisations to work according to the humanitarian principles.
Ensuring the safety and security of aid workers also involves community trust and ownership. For example, in eastern DRC, insensitive approaches to Ebola care can risk alienating local communities and thereby heighten the danger to responders. The UK repeatedly raises this issue with the international aid community, including as part of discussions at the UN Security Council and with partners on the ground in Kinshasa and Goma. Following extensive lobbying on the part of the UK, community trust and ownership is integral to the fourth Strategic Response Plan (July-December 2019). Moreover, the UK is funding a number of research projects through the Social Science in Humanitarian Action Platform, to understand local community dynamics and then feeding this understanding back into the response. It is crucial in eastern DRC that we break the cycle of suspicion, threat and violence that have led to hundreds of attacks against health workers and health facilities, thereby severely hampering response activities and putting frontline responders at risk.
5.Data on sexual violence and violence based on diversity characteristics such as ethnicity, disability and sexual orientation are weak. As a consequence, strategies to counter threats to workers with diverse profiles can be based on assumptions that are not evidence-based. Special efforts are needed in this area and the Department should support research to understand better the extent of violence against workers with diverse profiles. (Paragraph 59)
Government position: Partially agree
Overall data and evidence about sexual violence against both aid workers and aid recipients is weak. It is not surprising then, as the Committee’s report point outs, that data on the diversity of those attacked is not always available and that there is little data about whether aid workers are targeted for the work they do (e.g. health workers), who they represent (e.g. a funding organisation or country) or a particular personal characteristic (ethnicity etc). The analysis of gender-based risks and sexual violence for this year’s Aid Worker Security Report did though find that male aid workers experience attacks at rates 3–6 times higher than female aid workers overall, and that women are predominantly the victims of sexual violence (as reported) and slightly more likely to be victims of other types of bodily assaults.
DFID supported The International NGO Safety Organisation (INSO) in the development of the Conflict & Humanitarian Data Centre (CHDC) and this is now nearing completion. A powerful and versatile database of incidents involving aid workers, the CHDC makes detailed security data accessible and allows users to extract data for individual circumstances and contexts and should help NGOs deliver aid more safely. CHDC records incidents by incident type (e.g. sexual violence) as well as diversity characteristics such as gender and nationality. DFID also provides funding to the European Interagency Security Forum (EISF) which works with the aid community to improve the safety and security of operations and staff. This includes reports and recommendations on “Managing the Security of Aid Workers with Diverse Profiles”, “Safeguarding Aid Workers”, and “Managing Sexual Violence against Aid Workers: prevention, preparedness, response and aftercare.”
We are keen to better understand the risks of sexual violence faced by aid workers with diverse characteristics, while recognising that there are severe risks and challenges that more involved research with and about aid workers with certain characteristics could pose to those individuals. DFID’s Safeguarding Unit chairs an Independent Reference Group (IRG) with diverse participation including across ethnicity, disability and sexual orientation and we are exploring what more could be done through the IRG’s work. It is not clear at this stage whether this will involve supporting specific research. Other safeguarding-related research being funded by DFID over the next few years may also provide relevant information.
6.DFID should explore the case for a longer-term strategic investment to support specialist aid worker security organisations, such as the European Interagency Security Forum (EISF) and the International NGO Safety Organisation (INSO), that provide risk analysis, and safety and security advice to aid agencies. The current reliance of these bodies on a combination of membership fees and periodic contributions from donors does not seem appropriate in the light of the potential contribution they have to make in this area. (Paragraph 60)
Government position: Agree
DFID already provides funding centrally to INSO and EISF through the Humanitarian Global Services programme. The current programme runs until 2021 and future funding will be considered in due course. DFID also provides funding at country level: for example, DFID Nigeria has recently agreed multi-year funding for INSO from April 2019 to March 2022; DFID Somalia has provided £750,000 to INSO since 2015 and will provide a further £1 million in support between 2019 and 2022. In line with the UK’s commitment to UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2286, research funding was also awarded to a consortium led by the University of Manchester for 5 years from Jan 2019, aiming to deliver against the UK’s commitment to show leadership in support of the UNSCR 2286 (demanding an end to impunity for those responsible for international humanitarian law violations, and respect for international law by all warring parties), and the corresponding call to improve data collection on attacks on healthcare in armed conflict.
7.Measures by aid agencies to secure the safety and security of their staff can result in the transfer of risk to local delivery organisations. When screening bids for aid funded programmes and projects, DFID should take fuller account of the duty of care owed to agency personnel, as well as downstream delivery partners, to prevent the transfer of high levels of risk for the sake of lower costs. (Paragraph 61)
Government position: Partially agree
When contracting, DFID employs robust due diligence processes in line with our framework to assess the risks associated with potential supply partners. The use of contracts in itself results in risk transfer from DFID to the contractor, with supply partners being contractually responsible for areas including the duty of care to their staff. This allows other organisations and their employees, who may possess specific contextual knowledge, skills, training, or experience that DFID staff do not and are, therefore, better equipped to manage particular risks.
DFID’s responsibility is to contract reputable supply partners who satisfy its assessment procedures and provide them with accurate information relevant to the implementation of the particular project, taking into account their state of knowledge. The supply partner then has primary responsibility in relation to its staff and third parties. Residual risk (the threat that remains after all efforts to identify and eliminate risk have been made) is considered against the development return in programmes. By using explicit assessments of risk and development return in our interventions we can make better decisions and manage our portfolios more effectively.
DFID has worked with NGO partners to revise its application process for the humanitarian Rapid Response Facility. The budget template, against which applications are assessed, now includes provision for security risk management activities, including staff training.
8.Any revised systems or guidance developed by DFID in this area should be made available to other government departments, or cross-government funds, with ODA-funded programmes to ensure consistent use of best practice when awarding grants and contracts to maximise the safety and security of development operations in fragile and conflict-affected states. (Paragraph 62)
Government position: Agree
DFID, FCO and MoD regularly share security assessments and information on their policies, programmes and guidance. The UK is developing cross-government approaches to the Protection of Civilians at field level. These serve to highlight the greatest risks in the protection of all civilians and lay out mitigating actions, agreed at post between FCO, DFID and MoD. Additionally, the UK Government is currently undertaking a review of its protection of civilians strategy, a process led by the FCO, with support from DFID. This process involves consultation with key organisations, including those working in insecure contexts.
Published: 10 October 2019