The challenges of managing Somalia aid operations from afar

As attacks against aid workers continue to rise in some of the world’s most unstable environments — 2013 claimed the lives of more humanitarians than ever recorded — international development agencies have gradually been changing the way they work. In Somalia, al-Shabab’s relentless targeting of aid professionals have caused organizations to increasingly rely on remote programming arrangements as a solution to continue providing relief while getting part of their staff out of harm’s way. Through the temporary withdrawal or reduction of international and managerial personnel from the field, remote management is an operational approach that aims to ensure the continuation of aid by transferring greater operational responsibilities to national staff, local employees or external partners. In the context of the protracted Somali crisis, the past few years have seen expatriate and senior staff increasingly manage Somalia aid operations from Nairobi, Kenya — thus raising crucial questions about the dynamics and challenges of planning and implementing aid activities from afar. How does remote management work? Remote management typically entails a physical separation of international staff from the communities for which they work, but comes in all shapes and sizes — ranging from full oversight by relocated international staff to a complete delegation of authority to local aid workers. In reality, it can be difficult to establish a clear divide between direct implementation and remote programming. Rarely used as a systematic modus operandi, remote management is employed to varying degrees by humanitarian agencies. The United Nations is a case in point. In southern-central Somalia, where prolonged hostilities do not allow agencies to have a continuous and substantial presence, reliance on local nongovernmental organizations and subcontractors is widespread. In the more peaceful regions of Puntland and Somaliland, however, most U.N. agencies have field offices with a delegated decision-making mandate, which enables them to directly supervise, implement and monitor aid projects. Operations of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Somalia are another illustrative example of the intricate links between direct implementation and remote programming features. “ICRC expatriates together with some support services staff are based in Nairobi,” explained Julien Chalier, humanitarian partnership and liaison delegate at the ICRC delegation for Somalia. “However, the delegation has more than 120 Somali staff based permanently in Somalia, who manage and implement directly ICRC’s activities in the field under the supervision from expatriate colleagues in Nairobi who are deployed on a weekly basis to various parts of the country.” Not an easy option Usually perceived as a preferable option to the outright interruption of aid, remote management mechanisms all share the common, important objective of maintaining some level of humanitarian assistance to populations in need. But when it comes to managing aid operations from a distance, the challenges are numerous. One obvious difficulty is related to the detachment of donors and senior aid personnel from the field — a situation that adversely affects all aspects of aid activity by hindering agencies’ ability to understand and gauge local realities. The assessment, monitoring and evaluation of populations’ needs are crucial to ensuring the quality and efficiency of aid programming. Yet all of these activities are extremely difficult to undertake remotely, resulting in distortions in aid coverage or corruption within delivery chains. “Collecting data on basic needs is difficult since most U.N. and international nongovernmental organizations cannot operate in many regions of south and central Somalia,” the office of the U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator for Somalia told Devex. “The absence of reliable monitoring systems [has] led to the diversion and misuse of aid, mainly by gatekeepers in IDP settlements.” Good situational knowledge is all the more critical in Somalia, where the sensitive political and security situation significantly amplifies the complexities of engagement and the consequences of flawed interventions. “Remote management would limit our ability to both carry out and supervise our humanitarian activities, starting with the assessment of the needs and the selection of beneficiaries, in a context where clan affiliations and rivalries play, among other factors, a great role,” Chalier stressed. An additional challenge of remote management, Chalier emphasized, relates to program accountability. When agencies only have a restricted presence on the ground, flaws in program design and implementation are likely to be ignored or unrecognized. “In terms of accountability, [remote management] would also pose great challenges, proving very difficult to ascertain that the right assistance has actually been delivered to the right people and having an impact on their condition,” he said. Finally, by amplifying the inherent difficulties of logistics, communications and interagency coordination, remote management often leads to an increase in organizations’ expenditures. “One has to convince the donor that doing business in Somalia remotely is not cheap, as it requires intensified controls in a high-risk security setting. Remote implementation through partners inevitably also has a cost aspect, as there will be some double operational costs,” Rudi Van Aaken, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s acting representative for Somalia, told Devex. All of these challenges have led agencies and donors to accept that the overall level of quality and sophistication of programs decreases when they go remote. However, humanitarian organizations should avoid accepting too many compromises just to keep operating in a country on the short term, as it could undermine aid activities in the long run. “Remote management is primarily meant to limit the exposure of a certain category of staff to grave security risks,” Chalier pointed out. “On the other hand, not delivering adequate assistance (for lack of proper and verifiable assessment) to the right people undermines your reputation, further endangering your security and access,” he stressed. Overcoming the challenges Despite the significant risks and challenges associated with remote management, organizations supervising aid operations from afar still manage to get much right in conditions that are unquestionably tough. This leads to a fundamental question: How to continue providing high-quality assistance to populations despite reduced capabilities and oversight? When engaging in remote management, any organization’s topmost priority should be to ensure sufficient capacity to analyze, understand and manage the risks caused by reduced access to beneficiaries and information. “A key success factor is a heavy investment in risk management … which can help to reduce the chances of diversion and misappropriation of funds. The U.N. has put in place innovative risk management structures for the Somalia program, including a pioneering Risk Management Unit to help U.N. agencies to improve accountability and manage risks appropriately,” George Conway, country director for Somalia at the U.N. Development Program, highlighted. “The RMU provides analysis, expertise, risk assessments, advice and training services — including advising partners on risk management, risk management training for U.N. agencies, NGOs and governments and facilitating information-sharing,” he added. To compensate for the lack of proximity that remote management involves, organizations can also rely on satellite and telecommunications technologies — the improved sophistication of which is offering improved ways to “engage” with aid beneficiaries remotely. This is for example the case of FAO, which has gradually strengthened its monitoring and evaluation framework with various modern technologies, including a biometrics-based information system, aerial photographs, satellite images and systematic geolocalization. Nevertheless, more traditional solutions can be used to reduce the harmful effects of remote management on aid quality, such as the recruitment of experienced locals, robust control and clearance processes of local partners, and a dependable reporting system. “There are many challenges in remote management, but we have overcome them through the recruitment of competent Somali-speaking staff who are able to access all the program sites and provide the needed supervision and mentoring to our national staff,” explained a humanitarian organization that asked to remain anonymous. In the case of U.N. agencies — which devolve most aspects of program implementation to third parties — pre-screening mechanisms, weekly reports, routine phone-based surveys and the use of photographic evidence all help guarantee as much liability as possible. All in all, there is no golden rule to ensure the success of remote management. But full transparency goes a long way. “A lot can go wrong when applying remote management in a complex and fraud-prone setting like Somalia — and it does,” FAO’s Van Aaken underlined. But because all of these precautionary measures and evaluation procedures are applied, wrongdoings will be uncovered — guaranteed. By the time these transgressions are found, however, it will be too late to rectify them. “We have always communicated such cases (and our follow up actions) to both our HQ-based Office of the Inspector General for further investigation as they deem necessary, as well as our donors,” he noted. “This trust and transparency gained us a lot of credits, and long-term confidence.” Check out more insights and analysis provided to hundreds of Executive Members worldwide, and subscribe to the Development Insider to receive the latest news, trends and policies that influence your organization.