Q&A: Networking with communities and armed groups in CAR's humanitarian response

NAIROBI — The deteriorating humanitarian crisis in the Central African Republic remains a challenging operating environment for the humanitarian sector, as aid workers navigate violent clashes between armed groups and targeted attacks against populations. The conflict is estimated to have pushed one-fifth of the nation’s population of 5 million people from their homes, which is the highest level of displacement since the crisis started in 2013. According to a report published last year by Oxfam, 28 percent of security incidents recorded in the country involved humanitarians. This includes attacks, threats, and theft, which has limited or downsized the humanitarian response in many parts of CAR. Devex spoke with Patricia Danzi, the International Committee of the Red Cross’s regional director for Africa, about the ICRC’s strategies to deliver aid under such conditions, as well as how it works to ensure the safety of its staff. One of the ICRC’s staff members was recently killed in CAR when one of the organization’s convoys that was delivering aid was attacked. According to Danzi, one of the strategies the ICRC uses includes keeping a constant dialogue with community leaders, armed groups, and other influential individuals to ensure that the ICRC’s work is understood and welcomed where they operate. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity. How is the ICRC managing security challenges with its staff? One main thing we do is talk to all of the actors. We are one of the few organizations that can actually do that. In the last two years, the number of actors has not just increased, it has actually multiplied. There are different factions and different alliances, and it’s very important to talk to all of them, all of the time, and be very much aware of how these alliances can change. Do they know what we do? Are we accepted? Do they have grievances from the past? It’s a constant dialogue and we can never take it as a given that what we have discussed and negotiated the day before is still valid the day after. It is constant. The other thing is to involve communities and community leaders. We give them the responsibility to alert us, and talk to everyone, so that our operations and activities are safe. But it’s never a 100 percent guarantee. Never. How do you assess who are the right people to speak with? Either they are traditional leaders, so they are respected by the communities, or they are arms carriers, so they make themselves respected by everyone, or they are the authorities. We choose from these different communities and types of important and influential people to find out which ones we need to talk to in order to go to different places. We do that also through our local staff that speaks the language. We have, of course, the national society, the Central African Red Cross Society, which is rooted in many of the communities. We can use that as our base of information and also for passing on messages. But each staff member is sort of an ambassador of the organization and talks to the different communities about our work. What does giving responsibility to community members entail? That means that they promote our humanitarian activities and they tell the ones that control their territories that they want and need this humanitarian assistance, and that they want the ICRC and other humanitarian actors to come. They explain to them what we do. They do that when we are not there. It’s their responsibility to prepare the ground, as well as they possibly can and as long as it’s safe for them to do so, for when we come in to bring the assistance that they need. How much of the country is the ICRC able to access? The armed groups and the government don’t have any restrictions for us in terms of telling us where not to go. All of the restrictions that we have, for the moment, are self-imposed, meaning we say that we’ve had a security incidence in this area or other actors have had one, so we will wait and access it differently. Theoretically, we could go anywhere, because there are no restrictions imposed on us, but our own security assessments vary by the week, determining where we go and where we don’t go. For the moment, it’s very difficult to access the southeastern part of the country, so we will have to invest more in networking and community engagement to make sure that if we go, we remain safe as well. Has the ICRC’s staff been a target in the conflict? I wouldn’t say our staff is a target because we are the ICRC. It’s more an issue of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. That is clearly an issue. It is also linked to security, but this time criminality. This needs to be addressed. “We are not targeted for what we do, or what we are, but what we have. We have cars, satellite phones, sometimes we have cash on us ... These are all things that some of the criminal actors on the road seek out.” --— Patricia Danzi, regional director for Africa, ICRC Many people were armed actors, but now they no longer are actors, and they don’t have a job. Because of this, income generation is necessary. Humanitarian organizations, especially if there are a few in an area, have assets. We can be targeted because of that. We are not targeted for what we do, or what we are, but what we have. We have cars, satellite phones, sometimes we have cash on us and we also have ordinary phones. These are all things that some of the criminal actors on the road seek out. CAR is currently in its dry season. How has the dry season impacted the fighting on the ground and the humanitarian response? What we’ve seen in the Central African Republic, mostly in the northern part, is that in the last dry season, it was very dry. You have a compression of resources for cattle and a compression of resources for agriculture. This means that two communities that are already clashing, clash over a smaller portion of land. The clashes become more intense and more violent. This is because of the demographic factor, but definitely the climate factor puts pressure on agriculture and pastoralists. This means that they compete over resources more often. That is a fact that we need to take into consideration when we design our programs, such as when we support cattle vaccinations. If we strengthen one community, we have to do the same with the other community, so as not to fuel this violence surrounding resources. We have to be very careful when we do this. What do you foresee happening in the coming year in CAR? In many parts of the country the situation is not improving. We work out of five offices, and have over 500 staff, and we’ve had a permanent presence since 2007 in the Central African Republic. But we see that in the northwest and also in the southeast, that this area has become much more problematic. 2017 was a difficult year and 2018 is already starting out to be quite difficult for people in these two regions. We foresee more displacement to add to the already displaced and we foresee that returns [of people to their homes] in many of the places will be very difficult. But efforts by the government to bring the state back, in some areas, has slowly, modestly started. You cannot expect armed groups to provide education and health or the justice system. They are not able to do that. Only the state can do this. In the areas that this is happening, that is something that is positive. This needs be accompanied by a very strong, trained police force. This is still lacking. Also, security needs to be provided in in the areas where the state is already present. But the deployment of the state structure is very slow, and very cumbersome, and will not be an easy endeavor in 2018.