Ten Years Later: A Q&A With Joel R. Charny, Vice President for Humanitarian Policy and Practice, InterAction
September 11, 2011
If 9/11 didn't change everything, it certainly changed many things. From the way we fly, to our awareness and knowledge of Islam, to the war on terror, the events of September 11 changed us as individuals and as a country and society. One of its most telling legacies, the USA Patriot Act, was signed into law by then-President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001, reauthorized (with most of its provisions intact) by Congress in 2006, and extended in large part by President Barack Obama earlier this year. The act, which includes watch list and anti-money-laundering provisions intended to impede the flow of funds to suspected terrorist groups, has had a significant impact on international aid organizations working in some of the most unsettled and impoverished regions of the world.
Last week, as part of our "Ten Years Later" series, we asked Joel Charny, Vice President for Humanitarian Policy and Practice at InterAction, an alliance of U.S.-based relief and development organizations, to comment on how the funding and operating environment for U.S.-based nonprofits working overseas has changed since 9/11, what aid groups can do to combat the waste and corruption that hampers so many international aid operations, and whether the recent easing of restrictions on NGOs working in the Horn of Africa represents a permanent change in U.S. policy.
To access the other Q&As in our 9/11 series, click here.
Philanthropy News Digest: How has the funding and operating environment for U.S.-based nonprofits working on international issues changed since 9/11? Do those changes represent a seismic shift in the international aid paradigm, or has the impact of 9/11 on nonprofits working internationally been less than predicted?
Joel Charny: Since 9/11, the global war on terror has become the dominant paradigm for U.S. foreign assistance. One consequence -- until the very recent emphasis on reducing the budget deficit -- has been strong bipartisan support for increases in overseas aid in the name of addressing the root causes of extremism and winning the "hearts and minds" of people who may be susceptible to affiliation with terrorist groups. U.S. programs in countries on the front lines of the war on terror, such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, have received huge budget allocations, while programs in more peripheral countries have been sustained.
The strong support for international relief and development programs has been a boon, but not an unmitigated one. Groups accepting U.S. government funding in the battleground countries are de facto signing up for the war on terror, with the expectation that they will collaborate closely with the joint U.S. civil, military, and diplomatic effort in the affected countries. This compromises their ability to act independently. Further, the post-9/11 decade has seen a dramatic increase in the direct involvement of the U.S. military in relief and development work, which means that even groups that strive to retain their independence of the U.S. war effort may find themselves working in the same locations as the military, creating confusion in the minds of local people and jeopardizing their security.
The past decade has seen erosion in the respect for and the possibility of humanitarian action. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld famously described the Geneva Conventions as "quaint," undermining the very foundation of international humanitarian law that has protected civilians in armed conflict for six decades. The International Committee of the Red Cross, the organization mandated to ensure the implementation of the conventions' provisions, has seen their staff targeted and killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Governments from Sudan and Zimbabwe to Sri Lanka and Pakistan have aggressively restricted the access of international and local agencies to vulnerable people, often using the imperative of combating terror as the rationale. The ruthlessness of governments and the nihilism of extremists have mutually reinforced the assault on humanitarian agencies and the values that they represent.
Nonetheless, the post-9/11 world in the relief and development sphere is largely familiar to anyone who tried to implement and support independent assistance during the Cold War period, when both the U.S. and the Soviet bloc identified enemy countries and movements and subjected aid agencies to political manipulation. The comprehensiveness of the war on terror as a guiding framework is reminiscent of the anti-communist one that prevailed from the 1950s to the early 1990s. While the erosion of the respect for humanitarian action is disturbing, on the whole the post-9/11 decade does not represent a seismic shift in the funding and operating environment for U.S.-based nonprofits working on international issues.
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