Why aid workers need more personal security training

“Self-sacrifice is the real miracle out of which all the reported miracles grow,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of the greatest poets of 19th-century America. No words can better describe tireless and committed labor of humanitarian aid workers.

That said, when taking their self-sacrifice for granted, one should not lose sight of the fact that these people are in no less need of protection.

Alas, the grim statistics are testament to that. On November 13, UN offices around the globe lowered their flags to mourn 102 aid workers killed in the current Israeli-Hamas conflict.

Last year, a total of 235 attacks occurred in three dozen countries, which resulted in more than 400 humanitarian workers harmed, including 116 killed. South Sudan accounted for the highest casualty count, followed by Mali, Myanmar, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

What is the solution?

The truth is that security risks can be prepared for, mitigated, and even avoided. To this end, the solution should involve state actors, non-state actors, humanitarian organizations, and donors, said Sophie Buur, a security professional in the humanitarian sector and head of training at the security provider Dyami.

“State and non-state actors need to better understand, respect, and uphold international humanitarian law,” Buur told this author, citing the Geneva Conventions.

According to that document, the law “provides protection for relief actions, in that parties to a conflict shall allow and facilitate rapid and unimpeded passage of all relief consignments, equipment and personnel” and requires parties to a conflict “to respect and protect personnel participating in relief actions.”

And yet relying solely on the responsible conduct of the conflicting parties would be a mistake that costs lives. Aid workers may occasionally find themselves in the midst of hostilities or in the areas controlled by illegal armed groups whose members show no respect for international law.

In particular, terrorist groups have repeatedly chosen to target staff of international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), with the aim of attracting media attention or being paid ransom. A notorious example was an incident in the northeastern Nigerian state of Borno, where the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA) kidnapped and executed five employees of Action Against Hunger.

Knowledge is power

The factor of unpredictability, typical to most crisis situations, requires humanitarian organizations to assume greater responsibility for the security of their personnel. First and foremost, the matter concerns training for safety skills and individual security awareness.

“Humanitarian organizations need to work harder to do more to uphold their duty of care responsibilities (both legally and morally) to their staff, both national and international,” Buur noted, stressing that all staff, regardless of their position, should be provided with training.

“We should train our drivers in security awareness, everyone working in the office, everyone traveling for the organization,” the expert continued. “We need to do a better job briefing staff about the threats and risks where they operate or are traveling to, and ensuring that they are aware of the organization’s SOPs [standard operating procedures], contingency plans, etc.”

“Furthermore,” she said, “we need to continue to push for safety and security to be built into our operations. Security and safety should be involved from the start when planning new projects and how they can be achieved.”

Donors can also play a role in strengthening aid workers’ safety in dangerous locations. “Security does not always get the budget it needs to train staff, or to hire people specifically designated for the roles of safety and security,” Buur stressed.

Challenges of working for small NGOs

What is particularly troubling about humanitarians’ security and safety is that they do not all have the same level of support. The 2023 Aid Worker Security Report says that last year, for the first time in a decade, national humanitarian organizations experienced more casualties than international ones – 184 versus 162 victims.

When responding to conflicts in Syria, Yemen or Myanmar, international NGOs tended to rely on their local partners rather than sending their own staff. As a result, national aid workers turned out to be more exposed to risk. In Sudan, for instance, 43 of 44 reported humanitarian worker victims were local staff.

At the same time, the report has found out that NGOs often disproportionately allocate training resources, favoring their international staff. Additionally, while large humanitarian organizations utilize more established programs, smaller ones generally have to take an impromptu approach to personal security training.

According to Buur, the variety in organizations, their budget and capacity is the key thing to consider.

“There are big international organizations who are better adept at training staff, and hiring people for safety and security specifically, who have compliance officers looking into if the organization is living up to its duty of care.

“But we also have small local NGOs that partner with the big organizations and oftentimes bear a lot more of the risk because they are there, where the action is. And they do not have the budgets to train staff and have a safety and security team,” the expert said.

Type of training matters

In-person security training is the most result-oriented but at the same time costly modality, whereas online courses are more affordable. No doubt the guidelines contained in the latter ones can help identify and even diminish risks in operational settings.

And yet, unlike in-person training, online programs lack the capacity to simulate real-world situations. It is also common knowledge that learning through acting and face-to-face interaction allows participants to more deeply grasp the educational material.

A blended approach – combining both online and in-person modalities – is considered to be the most efficient one. And here the problem arises: a great deal of NGOs, particularly small and local ones, simply cannot afford that level of training.

Unfortunately, this comes at a high price. Insufficient security training can lead to aid workers’ greater exposure to risk, and this is something that the NGOs’ leadership and donors should thoroughly reflect on.