Examples of Resource Transfers and Implicit Ethical Messages

From Peacebuilding

Contents 1 Purpose 2 Time 3 Participants 4 Materials 5 Process 6 Debriefing 7 Source 8 Handout: Do No Harm – Resource Transfers and Implicit Ethical Messages

Purpose

• To introduce “resource transfers” and “implicit ethical messages” as ways aid manifests its effects on conflict;
• To generate examples of effects from “resource transfers” and “implicit ethical messages” on conflict.

Time

90 minutes; more if needed.

Participants

At least 6, divided in two groups. The activity works better with at least 10-12 participants.

Materials

• Copies of the handout “Resource Transfers and Implicit Ethical Messages”;
• Flip chart papers;
• Markers.

Process

I) Divide the plenary in work groups of 3-5 individuals.

II) Introduce this activity with a short presentation on “resource transfers” and “implicit ethical messages” as ways aid manifests its effects on conflict. You can use the text of the handout below for the content.

III) Distribute copies of the handout to each group and assign the task: to generate examples of how “resource transfers” and “implicit ethical messages” impact on conflict. Assign some groups to work only on “resource transfers” and others to work only on “implicit ethical messages”.

Example: Your plenary is composed of 20 individuals. You divide participants into four work groups. You assign two groups to work only on generating examples of “resource transfers” and the remaining two groups on generating examples of “implicit ethical messages”.

In practice, the first group has to work on “resource transfers”. You invite them to refer to the handout and provide examples for each of the five ways “resource transfers” are alleged to affect conflict. The first point says: “Theft or Diversion for Use by Warriors. Aid’s resources are often stolen or taxed by military authorities who use them directly, or sell them, to support the war effort.” The group’s task is to generate an example (better if from their reality) where aid resources are stolen or diverted by warriors and end up supporting war. They will repeat the procedure with the remaining four points.

The same goes for the groups working on “implicit ethical messages”. The handout envisages seven of these; they will need to generate examples on each of these.

IV) Start group work; assign sufficient time. You can distribute papers and pencils in order to facilitate groups taking notes of their discussion.

V) After group work return back to the plenary and help participants share their findings. Instead of having each group listing all examples generated, for instance you can start by asking the plenary for one example of aid resources being stolen or diverted by warring parties and ending up supporting war. Then, you can ask for an example of aid agencies refusing to cooperate with each other – or even deriding each other – and how this implicit ethical message has affected the conflict. Continue asking for examples, jumping between groups and participants. Stimulate a discussion and take note of issues emerging on the flip chart papers.

Debriefing

Not needed.

Source

The text in the handout is from Anderson, Mary, B. (ed.), Options for Aid in Conflict: Lessons from Field Experience, Cambridge: Collaborative for Development Action, Inc., 2000, http://www.cdainc.com/publications/dnh/options_for_aid_in_conflict_lessons_from_field_experience.php pp. 13-16.

Handout: Do No Harm – Resource Transfers and Implicit Ethical Messages

The following text is from Anderson, Mary, B. (ed.), Options for Aid in Conflict: Lessons from Field Experience, Cambridge: Collaborative for Development Action, Inc., 2000, http://www.cdainc.com/publications/dnh/options_for_aid_in_conflict_lessons_from_field_experience.php pp. 13-16.

The effects of aid on conflict—on the things that divide people and on the things that connect them—occur in two basic ways.

A. RESOURCE TRANSFERS

Aid is a vehicle for providing resources to people who need them. Aid’s most direct impacts on conflict are a result of the introduction of resources (food, health care, training, shelter, improved water systems, etc.) into conflicts. Aid resources represent both wealth and power in situations where these matter in intergroup struggle. What resources are provided, how they are distributed and to whom, and who decides about these matters all affect the economy of war (or peace) and intergroup competition or collaboration.

RESOURCE TRANSFERS Affect Conflict in Five Ways:

1. Theft or Diversion for Use by Warriors. Aid’s resources are often stolen or taxed by military authorities who use them directly, or sell them, to support the war effort.
2. Distribution Effects. Aid is given to some people and not to others. Insofar as the groups included and excluded match or overlap with those in conflict, aid reinforces the conflict.
3. Market Effects. Aid’s resources influence wages, prices and profits. Some people gain; others lose. Incentives to pursue a war economy or a peace economy are affected. These impacts can either reinforce intergroup conflict and the war economy; or they can reinforce economic interdependence and civilian economic activity.
4. Substitution Effects. When international aid agencies assume responsibility for civilian survival in conflict areas, this can free up the resources that are available internally for pursuit of warfare.
5. Legitimization Effects. How aid is given legitimizes some people and some activities and de-legitimizes others. These impacts can reinforce warfare or non-warfare.

B. IMPLICIT ETHICAL MESSAGES

The second way that aid affects conflict environments is through IMPLICIT ETHICAL MESSAGES. These are the immeasurable impacts that aid workers feel their own actions and attitudes have on conflict. They include the ways that aid workers operate to reinforce the modes and moods of warfare or, alternatively, to establish non-conflictual relations, mutual respect and intergroup collaboration.

Some IMPLICIT ETHICAL MESSAGES are:

1. When international aid agencies hire armed guards to protect their staff or their goods, one IMPLICIT ETHICAL MESSAGE is that it is legitimate for arms to determine who receives goods and who does not. This is one of the messages of warfare.
2. When international agencies refuse to cooperate and, even worse, deride each other’s work, the IMPLICIT ETHICAL MESSAGE is that it is not necessary to work with people with whom you disagree. This is also a message that prevails in warfare.
3. When international agencies have different policies covering the safety and care of their international and national staff, especially when they evacuate international staff in times of danger but leave local staff behind, the IMPLICIT ETHICAL MESSAGE is that different lives have different value. Again, warfare is based on this belief.
4. When international staff use aid resources for their own pleasure (as when they take an agency vehicle to the mountains for a weekend outing when petrol is in short supply), the IMPLICIT ETHICAL MESSAGE is, if you control goods, you can use them for your own purposes without accountability to those for whom they were intended. Such behavior with impunity characterizes warlords and militias.
5. When international aid agency staff say, “But you cannot blame me for things that go wrong. I am just one person in a complicated situation. My headquarters makes me behave this way! The donors make me behave this way!” the IMPLICIT ETHICAL MESSAGE is that individuals do not have to take responsibility for the outcomes of their actions in complex situations. This sentiment is frequently heard among people in war zones—“We cannot help what we do. Someone else makes us do it.”
6. When international staff approaches every encounter in a conflict setting (such as approaching a checkpoint or negotiating with a commander) with suspicion and belligerence, the IMPLICIT ETHICAL MESSAGE is that trust is naive and that interactions are safest when undertaken from positions of toughness and power. Such actions reinforce the modes that prevail in warfare.
7. When international agencies use pictures of atrocities to raise funds, this can reinforce the demonization of one side in a war. The IMPLICIT ETHICAL MESSAGE is that there are victims and criminals in warfare and—although this is certainly true at the extremes—in most wars individuals act both criminally and kindly and both sides perpetrate atrocities and suffer victimization. Reinforcing the sense that there are “good” and “bad” sides in war can reinforce the motivations of people to push for victory and excuse their own behavior.