ISLAMABAD, May 10: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) announced on Thursday that it would suspend its operations in Peshawar and Karachi after the killing of Khalil Dale, an ICRC British nurse who was kidnapped in January and killed on April 29 in Quetta.
In Pakistans development world, Dale’s death has become another significant setback.
Many speculate that other international NGOs will also start rolling back their operations after an increase of high-profile kidnappings and murders of foreign aid workers at the beginning of this year.
“Naturally we are interested in the safety and security of our staff — local and international. But we want to make sure that we do not blow things out of proportion,” said Aine Fay, the Chairperson of the umbrella organization, Pakistan Humanitarian Forum, in an interview with Dawn.
The Country Director of Save the Children, David Bright, confirms that his organisation has no plans to roll back any operations, but he does believe that high-profile incidents at the start of the year are a cause for concern.
“It is especially disconcerting that some of these kidnappings and killings have happened in pretty central areas, like the two NGO workers abducted from Multan. We have certainly tightened the movement of our international staff,” he explained.
“But it is a general policy for us to keep an eye on our security arrangements,” said Mr Bright, stressing that things should not be blown out of proportion.
Balochistan and FATA increasingly off-limits
The hardest hit conflict areas of Pakistan - Balochistan and Fata - have become almost entirely inaccessible to internationalNGOs (iNGOs). Both regions have been cut off by authorities and NOCs are required to work there, which is a bureaucratic and difficult process.
“We talk to the authorities, have an internal assessment of the security situation and then decide if an area is too risky or not,” said one development professional based in Peshawar, adding, “but if the police tell us that it is not safe, that there are high chances of kidnappings and that we are on our own for security, then it is difficult for us to take the risk of going into such an area.”
While the worry that iNGOs might start moving their operations out of Pakistan in light of the ICRC’s decision is real — especially since the International Committee of the Red Cross has worked in some of the hardest-hit areas of the world - iNGOs have often re-evaluated and found ways to continue operations in one form or another.
Tasaduq Shah, Adviser on Disaster Risk Management of PLAN International, explained, “Humanitarian organisations like the ICRC are bound to jump into a disaster area regardless of the security situation. But we are not bound like that. For example, we simply don’t work in Fata.”
PLAN, which faced a militant attack on its office in Mansehra in 2008 went through a process of re-evaluation after the attack to decide if it should continue operations in Pakistan.
“At the time we thought about moving out of Pakistan completely but then, on the request of communities and other localauthorities to continue our work, we only rolled out of Mansehra and continued our work in the rest of the country,” explained Shah.
“Since then, we have made rigid security protocols and SOPs that we follow strictly. For example, we simply don’t travel at night, and we stay out of areas that have high risks,” he said, and added that the situation in Pakistan is not as bad as it might seem.
However, there is no doubt that the security situation has discouraged some organisations.
A local journalist of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa said that after 2005, the presence of iNGOs decreased. Movement of international staff was mostly restricted. There has been some improvement in numbers since 2009 as situation has gotten under more control. “In a lot of places, where there used to be international staff, they have been replaced by local staff,” he explained.
The perceptions game
Another developmental professional, who has extensive experience with iNGOs, UN organisations and USAID, contradicted reports of iNGO presence decreasing.
“Most of the NGOs who have reduced operations are those who are facing the crunch of less funding by the US when political ties worsen. But if you consider how many disasters Pakistan has faced in terms of IDPs, floods, and the amount of aid coming in from Japan, Europe and Scandinavian countries, you’ll realize that there is a lot greater presence now,” he explained.
Even while this may be true, the reality is that iNGOs are on the losing end of the perception game right now. “INGOs come and work on humanitarian grounds and that is good, but then they become privy to threats because their actions are compromised by agendas of those who fund them,” commented Aurganzaib Khan, who has worked in the field of development for over a decade.
“The fact is that the government has toughened its stance, you are not allowed to go to Fata or Balochistan, you can’t leave Peshawar without permission – and this is for a reason.
There is a perception that NGOs are agents of the West and lot of doubt around their activities — so NGOs have to tread really carefully and follow the rules and regulations set by authorities,” he stressed.