Frontline Diplomacy: Humanitarian Aid and Conflict in Africa (review)

This volume by John Prendergast is part of a growing literature by activists in the humanitarian community who have been conducting a process of critical self-examination. Prendergast and others, including Larry Minear and Thomas Weiss, Ken Menkhaus, Alex de Waal, Mark Duffield, and the interagency review of the humanitarian response to the genocide in Rwanda have raised a series of important and difficult issues. Each is struggling with the set of issues presented by Prendergast in this volume as to how emergency aid can exacerbate conflict and how to both minimize these unintended consequences of humanitarianism and to use assistance to contribute to peace building.

These questions have come to prominence in the literature on humanitarianism as a result of the role famine assistance played in sustaining both the military government and insurgent forces in Ethiopia in the 1980s, the factional leaders in Somalia in the early 1990s, and most tragically the 1994 genocide and continuing conflict in Rwanda and its neighbors. These horrors have forced the humanitarian community to question the simple principle that a hungry child knows no politics. Instead, the relief community has come to recognize that it cannot ignore politics and that, in many cases, emergency assistance is the principal source of resources that may be used to either reinforce peace or strengthen the forces of destruction. Apolitical humanitarianism is impossible in the context of complex emergencies and state collapse, as the disasters in Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi, and Sudan in Africa along with Afghanistan, Bosnia, and other cases around the world have made clear.

Prendergast focuses his attention on a region he knows extraordinarily well, the so-called “Greater Horn of Africa” that includes not only Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia but also Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (former Zaire). One of the most important contributions of this book is the insights Prendergast makes on the basis of his long involvement in the region. Much of the data for this study comes from personal observations and interviews with humanitarian officials in the field rather than at headquarters.

Despite a subtitle that suggests a continental focus, Prendergast barely mentions other cases where similar dynamics took place, most notably Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, and Angola. Prendergast justifies this focus by correctly pointing out that the Greater Horn has been a “laboratory for innovative crisis response,” although humanitarian agencies in Liberia also demonstrated a broad understanding of their relationships with political and military actors on the ground.

The book is organized around a series of basic aphorisms, including the Seven Deadly Sins of humanitarianism in complex emergencies and the Ten Commandments for providing aid without sustaining conflict. Each seems thoroughly sensible, particularly when supported by Prendergast’s carefully selected examples from the field. What is lacking, however, is a set of specific judgments or criteria to guide decision makers within humanitarian organizations and the donor community. The distinctiveness of each case and the author’s deep appreciation for context perhaps makes such generalizations difficult. In the end, Prendergast calls for a greater awareness of the political context humanitarian organizations work within when responding to complex emergencies and to experiment, consult widely and openly, and constantly evaluate one’s actions. The author’s most specific recommendations relate to the need to use humanitarian assistance to support local community structures and initiatives.

Prendergast concludes by noting the centrality of humanitarian actors in complex emergencies:

In most complex political emergencies, humanitarian aid is the most important avenue of contact among the international community, the conflicting parties, and civilians in the war zone. Ignoring the wider impacts and potential of humanitarian aid removes one of the most important policy instruments for preventing the escalation of conflict and promoting long-term peace building.

Prendergast’s insights from the Horn of Africa should help humanitarian actors become more conscious of their roles and better able to use emergency relief to promote conflict management.