Q&A: How to handle humanitarian negotiations in politicized environments

CANBERRA — For humanitarian actors and frontline negotiators, navigating the minefield of politics to maintain neutrality is a confusing but all-too-common challenge. In a high-level panel hosted by the International Committee of the Red Cross and Centre of Competence on Humanitarian Negotiation in Geneva on Dec. 5, Médecins Sans Frontières, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Food Programme and the U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura discussed with 120 of the best humanitarian frontline negotiators this challenge and new approaches to maintaining impartiality while leveraging the better elements of political methodologies. Following the panel, Devex spoke to ICRC President Peter Maurer to dig deeper into the issues, and understand how the Centre of Competence on Humanitarian Negotiation improves approaches and practices. Here is the interview, edited for length and clarity. Can you discuss the Centre of Competence on Humanitarian Negotiation and this panel discussion — why is it important to have this discussion and what are the key issue humanitarian negotiators face? This panel and the Centre of Competence on Humanitarian Negotiation is the result of more than three years of effort that the ICRC, UNHCR, WFP, MSF and the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue have undertaken in order to create and facilitate the building of a community of practice of frontline negotiations. “The commonality between political and humanitarian negotiators are much bigger than what we might have initially thought — some of the methodology is the same and some of the approaches are the same.” --— Peter Maurer, ICRC president We are all seeing conflicts which are increasingly complicated to negotiate. Negotiations at the frontline and creating humanitarian spaces are key challenges for us in today’s world. In response, we and our colleagues from those different humanitarian organizations are becoming lonely in the tasks of engaging with belligerence from all sides to negotiate access and humanitarian action. This panel was a reunion of the best frontline negotiators of those organizations and a couple others who joined in. It came in the middle of a two-day conversation which basically we built the Centre of Competence on Humanitarian Negotiation for here in Geneva. It can help organizations to exchange experience, learn from each other, strategize on how to best find access to people in need, and develop common training tools and case studies. The increasing politicization of humanitarian responses was a focus of this panel discussion — what were some of the key points discussed? One of the big issues discussed was how do humanitarian frontline negotiations and the impartial approach compare to political mediations? One of the conclusions I drew from discussions is that you see some political actors increasingly use humanitarian work for other than humanitarian objectives — and that is the negative example of what we call politicization. But we also discussed positive developments where the work of humanitarians can contribute to the betterment of societies. For instance, looking at Syria today, humanitarian work can contribute to the reintegration of returnees and those displaced — and this can represent a major advantage humanitarian negotiations can play in modifying a political solution. So we discussed the good and bad examples of when political actors and humanitarian actors meet in the same space, how we eventually keep our mandate separate while at the same time pursuing some positive dynamics among those different categories of negotiators. What do you find is the best way to approach negotiations to ensure there is impartiality and a strong focus on the humanitarian agenda? In the past, humanitarian actors have thought that the best way to maintain impartiality and neutrality was to not engage with political actors and keep the two mandates separate. The panel discussion showed that while we still wish to keep the mandates and areas of activity separate, proactive engagement to understand the two, enable the comparing of notes and understand what the political and humanitarian analogies of the situation would be is important in today’s negotiations. The commonality between political and humanitarian negotiators are much bigger than what we might have initially thought — some of the methodology is the same and some of the approaches are the same. And there are emerging professional standards for what we can do best in negotiations, whether humanitarian or political. You hosted the best 120 frontline negotiators and I’m interested in their mix — what diversity do you have among these negotiators in terms of gender, ethnicity, religion and more that allows you to have the right people for each situation? We are making progress in terms of diversity, but we still have a challenge to get the right frontline negotiators in terms of gender and representatives of the southern hemisphere. But we are improving the numbers. We had a 70 to 30 ratio of men to women at this event. In terms of location of activities, we have Nigeria, Syria, South Sudan, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Colombia, Kenya, Afghanistan and Myanmar — these are our top locations. We all agree that diversity is a key issue. We are determined to really continue the diversity of approaches we have. We invite not only senior negotiators but junior people, and I think we are doing quite well in bringing diversity to the table. To increase diversity, do you need to be targeted in your recruitment approach? You need some positive advocacy in order to change the ball game. For instance at ICRC, this year we targeted training sessions to bring a bigger number of women into the first experience as frontline negotiators. You need to be quite targeted, otherwise nothing really changes. The Centre of Competence on Humanitarian Negotiation is an important focus for discussion on issues such as these. What role will the center continue to play and how will discussion and progress continue to enhance frontline negotiations? We want to collect case studies of humanitarian frontline negotiations and build upon this — we want to train people, ensure there is peer review and advice within a community of practice. We are all very optimistic that this is the best way forward to ensure and enhance participation of frontline negotiators. But it is also interesting in what we can learn from cross-fertilization of disciplines, including commercial and political negotiations. There is work we can do in order to try to affect prototypes. And we will continue to work on approaches and target knowledge creation for the next generation of frontline negotiators.