Hard to Reach Areas, Staff Diversity and Conflict Risks – A Blind Spot?

Reaching so called ‘hard to reach’ areas (HTR) has become an increasing focus of attention in humanitarian circles in recent years and is likely to remain so, as conflicts and humanitarian access constraints intensify. Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) has been an additional focus in international aid, catalysed by the Black Lives Matters (BLM) movement and related to longstanding South-North inequalities and forms of structural discrimination. What has been less discussed and which we explore in this blogpost is the intersection of HTR areas and staff diversity, including implications for localisation, with reference to Somalia and Iraqi Kurdistan.

While increasing investments are being made to improve contextual understanding of HTR areas, less attention is being given to identifying and addressing the internal organizational factors that either enable or constrain sustainable access and aid delivery. These are particularly important and complex in situations of protracted conflict and civil war. Without an appropriate awareness of this issue, not only are humanitarian actors potentially compromised in perceptions of neutrality and impartiality, but they can be – wittingly or unwittingly – part of the continuation of social polarisation and conflict.

Given that the vast majority of aid workers are national staff, who represented 95 percent of the total number of aid workers who were affected by violent incidents (in 2020), the issues we raise may have added pertinence.

What do we mean by HTR?

There is no generally agreed definition of HTR in many contexts, including within individual countries; different agencies use different criteria. As such, HTR may include categories such as: a) populations living outside government-controlled areas; b) populations in recently retaken areas (by the officially recognised authority); and c) other populations not reached by humanitarian programming.

An important category of HTR, although not often identified as such, are populations within geographically accessible areas, but where specific population groups are hard to reach because, for example, they belong to particular ethnic, religious, linguistic or otherwise marginalised groups.

What is DEI?

In relation to both humanitarian and development programming, diversity, equity and inclusivity are clearly of critical importance within an organisation and an organisational culture. There are no clear cut definitions but why it matters to humanitarians includes the importance of valuing difference, where equity is fundamentally about fairness, and inclusion concerns meaningful participation, themes resonant of impartiality and the rhetoric of ‘leaving nobody behind’. These themes apply not only to how we engage with local communities but are about our organisational cultures and staff composition.

The Somalia case

In Somalia, the argument that aid actors contribute to or perpetuate the structural inequalities in society has been made for some time. Aid agencies tend to be staffed by individuals from majority populations and aid resources (from contracts to cash) are often distributed according to the interests of the more powerful and in ways that fail to reach those already marginalised. Marginalisation dynamics are closely related to access to basic services and vulnerability to food insecurity and famine and therefore also raise concerns related to the targeting of assistance. However, while a greater attention on this issue has taken place within the wider aid system in Somalia in recent years, there remains considerable resistance to acting on these factors as they reflect entrenched power dynamics within Somali society and the wider aid system, as well as a lack of incentives to change.

In relation to HTR, clan identity and perhaps diasporic identity are particularly important, as agencies are often identified with specific clan identities. This can affect perceptions of neutrality and impartiality by local populations, state and non-state actors, but especially in the case of diaspora[1], may also influence the level of understanding, connections to and networks with local populations that can influence humanitarian access.

One example of a current issue in Somalia is that some donors have been encouraging humanitarian agencies to work more in Al Shabaab areas, in recognition of the needs in these areas as well as the importance of demonstrating adherence to humanitarian principles of neutrality and impartiality. This requires having strong local relationships and networks, in order to identify possible entry points in a context of mutual suspicion and distrust. An agency that is dominated by one identity group and/or where that group has an antagonistic relationship with Al Shabaab, may find it difficult to develop such relations. Similarly, where an agency is led by returning diaspora or by Kenyan or Ethiopian Somalis, such individuals often bring skills to an organisation that may be scarce in country, but they do not necessarily have the local knowledge or networks (or inclination) to develop relationships with actors such as Al Shabaab (of course some will do, so this is not a black and white issue). In other words, the ability to reach HTR areas and people may be more a function of an agency’s internal staffing and culture than resistance from the authority in question.

A second example concerns the difficulty agencies have faced in reaching marginalised and minority populations in areas considered not hard-to-reach. The majority of humanitarian assistance in Somalia is delivered to urban areas and IDP populations, such as the capital Mogadishu or other large towns such as Baidoa. In Mogadishu, the vast majority of IDPs are from these two population groups – the Digil and Mirifle and Somali Bantu – and we would argue that one of the reasons why it is difficult to reach these groups emanates from the lack of representation of these groups within the aid sector, including in relation to the diversity of staff profiles within individual agencies. Whether barriers result from a trust deficit (potentially based on historic or recent experiences or perceptions of discrimination) or simply from language barriers, staff who share a language and a culture with those who are socially “hard to reach” can be critically important.

The Iraq case

In the case of Iraq, from 2014, following the displacement crisis into (from Syria) and within Iraq, staff identity and aid delivery have overlapped in many ways. The country’s history of inter-sectarian and inter-ethnic tensions and the federal relationship between the Iraqi national government and Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) played into the various dimensions of aid delivery. These had both negative and positive impacts on organisations’ ability to maintain proximity to those most in need.

Prior to 2014, agency offices were mostly based in Erbil, in the Kurdish north of the country. Relative stability and security in comparison to the south encouraged this with the result that national staff were predominantly ethnically Kurdish, and where displaced populations themselves were also predominantly Kurdish. In 2017, ECHO (European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations) funded a study evaluating the donor’s partners’ commitment to humanitarian principles. The review noted that while partners attempted to have representation across ethno-religious lines, they had difficulties hiring non-Kurdish staff due to KRG regulations (political affiliation within Kurdish areas was an added complication).

In the years after 2014, Syrian refugees and later Iraqi IDPs moved into Kurdish areas. However, as the conflict in Iraq expanded and the anti-ISIL (Islamic State in the Levant) military offensive moved westward, populations in need of assistance were no longer confined to the areas within the authority of the KRG. At the height of conflict, approximately three million people were forced to flee their homes and over 8 million were in need of healthcare and protection assistance (OCHA).

The disputed oil-rich province of Kirkuk, for example, has a history of rich ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity, including populations of Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen, Armenians and many adherents of religions such as Yezidis, Sabean, Mandeans, Kak’ais, Chaldeans and Bah’ais. In 2017, in response to the increasing needs in the province, and coinciding with escalating tensions following the Kurdish independence referendum and a change in local government, humanitarian agencies – maintaining the same team compositions – began responding in formal and informal settlements, in Kirkuk. The conflict dynamics in Kirkuk, including the varying claims on authority, compromised staff safety, limited organisations’ ability to access certain areas and subsequently compromised their acceptance and credibility with communities and authorities alike.

An organization’s ability to fulfil its mandate and reach those most in need during an emergency response became beholden to three factors: 1) one ethnic group’s willingness to cross the line, 2) their heightened risk exposure if they are willing to cross lines and, 3) the authorities’ willingness to grant them access to cross the lines. Agencies were not proactive in recognising that a lack of staff diversity, in a contested area such as Kirkuk, would have short- and long-term repercussions on the perception of aid agencies in the area as well as their ability to effectively access populations in need as well as to operate safely. While they might have a better understanding of the country of operation and the associated tensions, national staff also face a range of specific risks due to their proximity to the context. Kirkuk was just one example of similar challenges faced by agencies elsewhere in the country.

Conclusion

The intersection of three sector-wide trends – HTR, DEI and localisation – highlight the need to critically assess an agency’s own identity – or perceptions of it – in order to ensure that the pursuit of local empowerment and localisation are not traded for other forms of inequality at the national or sub-national levels.

In both of the cases we highlight, hiring ‘the right staff’ can help to open up access for organisations; staff who share identity with the powerful in local society may be needed to leverage relations to broker access and cooperation, but staff who share identity with those far from power are also needed to break down the barriers of language, trust and self-isolation common in conflict affected societies. Recruitment processes need to be sensitive to these issues and agencies need to critically assess their own positionality in local contexts. Sensitivity to staff diversity may also mitigate risks of attacks on staff and organisations.

Organisations have a delicate balance to maintain. On the one hand, there is a need for well-qualified staff (sometimes recruited on short timescales and via a restrictive administrative and bureaucratic environment) and, on the other hand, there is a necessity to recruit while being cognisant and strategic about future scenarios in fluid contexts where identity matters.

Acknowledging forms of prejudice and discrimination, whether in the form of race, ethnicity, religion or other categories, is an ongoing issue in all societies and across different working areas. Maintaining a diverse staff team which can understand social capital, religious specificities and use a wide variety of languages is not easy to achieve. In the case of the humanitarian and development spheres, failure to do so and act upon it perpetuates the role of international aid in maintaining or exacerbating structural inequalities and may often undermine efforts to address HTR obstacles.

[1] Diaspora can include ‘near’ diaspora (e.g. Kenya/Ethiopia) or ‘far’ diaspora (e.g. Europe/North America) who may have little knowledge of local power dynamics and relations.

Sarah Kilani is an independent adviser, practitioner and researcher, specializing in humanitarian access and engagement with armed actors. She brings extensive experience from the Middle East, North Africa, Sahel, East Africa, and Asia. She advises international agencies on policies, programs, and investments and operations in high-risk areas. Her background includes positions at research centres and international organizations, offering analysis and actionable strategies for government entities, non-profits, and policy institutions.

Nisar Majid leads the PeaceRep Somalia research team with the Conflict & Civicness Research Group at LSE. He has worked in and on Somalia and the Somali territories of the Horn of Africa for twenty years, in various applied research capacities, including for his PhD research which focused on transnational and diaspora aspects of the Somali.

Acknowledgements:

We are grateful for the inputs of Claire Thomas (Minority Rights Group) and Peter Hailey (Centre for Humanitarian Change) in the preparation of this blogpost.