DO NO HARM: HOW AID CAN SUPPORT PEACE
- OR WAR.Mary Anderson. Boulder,
Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999. pp. 147. Cloth: $35.00; Paper:
$16.95.
In Do No Harm: How Aid Can Support
Peace-or War, Mary Anderson invokes the time-honored words from
the Hippocratic oath that calls upon medical doctors to put the interests
of their patients first. The book's primary goal is to "challenge
aid agency staff members to take responsibility for the way their assistance
affects conflicts" (p.161). Anderson encourages aid staff to applaud
themselves where aid has affected a conflict situation positively. The
challenge is to step back and look more closely at the conflict situation
that they are operating in and seek lessons from past actions by other
aid agencies to try and decrease the negative impact of aid. She is
quick to point out that she is often accused of a "rosy optimism"
(p.vii), but accepts this verdict because, even in the most atrocious
war conditions, she has borne witness to the greatness of the human
spirit. The book's target audience includes aid agency staff and the
wider international development community.
The book is an easy read, divided into
three sections. The first section covers war in general and the impact
of external aid viewed through the lens of relative resource transfers,
as well as the implicit ethical messages that often come with aid. It
also offers an analytical framework for mapping a particular conflict
setting in which one is administering aid. The framework walks the participant
through a series of questions that seek to identify the "connectors"
or "local capacities for peace" that bring cohesion in a society
as well as "tension" or "dividers" that have the
capacity to push a society into conflict or keep a society in conflict.
The second section covers five case studies in Tajikistan, Lebanon,
Burundi, India and Somalia. Here, she seeks to bring out the positive
actions by aid agency staff in catalyzing peace initiatives, as well
as actions by the communities in which conflict was rife, that showed
a capacity to seek an end to the conflict. The third section is a short
summary of the main lessons learned from the theoretical framework presented
in the first section and case studies.
Anderson satisfies the continued need
among NGO staff to step back and look at the impact of the aid they
are administering. NGOs have been under attack for over a decade concerning
the negative impact of aid policies and implementation plans. Most of
these diatribes have been scathing. Anderson attempts to center the
debate by pointing to examples of the positive effects of aid while
analyzing the negative aspects in those very same cases. This is a difficult
endeavor. The first section attempts to categorize the reasons why wars
are fought and what shapes responses among communities to pursue or
not to pursue war. As with all categorization, the beauty of it is in
the eyes of the beholder.
Although the text in the first section
makes a good effort to describe how one would carry out an analysis
of an intensely complex emergency, the analytical tool seems too simplistic
and bare. Furthermore, the case studies omit four important prolonged
conflicts that would have shed more light on any lessons learned: the
former Yugoslavia, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the war in Northern
Ireland, and the Sudan conflict. For the five cases presented, however,
she provides a solid background summary of the political economy of
the conflicts. This is achieved without turning this section into a
dense history text. Each of these case studies represents a different
phase of a complex emergency. How the model determines the specific
phase of a conflict was not immediately clear.
The final section could have presented
the lessons learned in a much more comprehensive manner. One needs to
come away with a clear summary of how aid can "do no harm"-when
an adequate analysis of the conflict is carried out in a dynamic fashion,
when "local capacities for peace" are identified and nurtured
throughout the various phases of conflict, when "tensions"
and "dividers" are identified and diffused as best one can
as aid is distributed. Instead, this section seems hastily put together,
leaving the reader to summarize any lessons learned from the text.
Two important caveats to the conclusion
section need further analysis and study. The book is unable to show
how micro-level support for local peace capacities can be linked to
the macro-level efforts or hindrances often occurring simultaneously.
All NGOs grapple with this in their programming, advocacy and outreach
efforts. None has found a suitable answer to how to do this best, but
in this Information Age, the answer
might be around the corner in the recipient communities as they increasingly
access information and an education. The second caveat concerns the
role of "outsiders" who comprise the majority of NGO staff.
Anderson fails to mention a changing trend, as NGOs are increasingly
staffed by "insiders" who struggle to maintain objectivity
and provide an appropriate lens to the conflict setting, ensuring that
programming achieves its overall aim to "do no harm."
Anderson's book reads well. It is not
geared for a heavily academic audience. The bibliographic essay is sparse,
but gives enough leads for a more rigorous examination of peacebuilding.
NGO staff members are encouraged to put some of their scarce time for
learning aside to read this book, provide the fodder for future learning
and advocacy, and ensure that aid does indeed support peace, not war.
Angela M. Wakhweya
Independent Health Policy Consultant
Wollaston, Massachusetts.
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