5.1 Humanitarian assistance
When international military missions deliver or provide secure conditions for the delivery of humanitarian supplies, they might become embroiled in corruption, bribery and extortion schemes.
Risk Pathways
In conflict-affected and fragile areas, armed forces could find themselves partially taking over the functions of the civil authorities, especially the delivery of humanitarian resources and provision of emergency medical care to civilians or armed forces personnel. They will often be required to either deliver humanitarian aid themselves, or to secure access for the passage of aid.
As with all mission activities, these also come with potential corruption risks that can undermine their goals and delivery, and that can empower malign actors. Aid inflows are another source of funds to be captured and diverted. Militants, criminals, warlords, and indeed ordinary citizens often pilfer, skim, or steal foreign aid. At the national level, jobs in ministries to which developmental aid flows will be in high demand due to the ability to skim funds, divert aid projects to allies, and hire their own private companies as contractors in major projects. Donors may also feel conflicted. They may be unwilling to push funds through a fragile government, while at the same time perceiving that funnelling it through government may actually enforce sovereignty and drive it to create change to comply with funding schemes.
Resource flows associated with humanitarian and medical assistance can create or support power structures which, in the long term, can be detrimental to sustainable peace and security. Equally, corruption in humanitarian and medical aid means that assistance does not get to those who need it, which in turn depletes trust and undermines force protection.
Diversion of humanitarian resources to spoilers and criminal networks
Rise and consolidation of a wartime profiteer class in peacetime: due to amnesty for ‘economic crimes’ following the Dayton peace accords, wartime criminal networks could shape Bosnia’s peacetime economy and politics. By 2002, the World Bank estimated that the shadow economy constituted up to 50 to 60 per cent of Bosnia’s GDP.Reputational risks and loss of trust
These risk areas provide further information on specific corruption risks related to assistance to civil power, including specific guidance how to identify these risks and what measures can be implemented to mitigate them.
When international military missions deliver or provide secure conditions for the delivery of humanitarian supplies, they might become embroiled in corruption, bribery and extortion schemes.
Explore Risk Area
Promoting strong integrity standards among mission personnel can help set expectations for relations with the host nation, and prevent creation of new opportunities for corrupt networks.
Civil society organisations can be valuable allies in the fight against corruption, at a strategy-setting level and when attempting to limit low-level corruption that feeds higher-level networks.
Stronger oversight of mission resources will help limit opportunities for corrupt networks, and helping develop host nation or civil society oversight mechanisms will help create longer-term accountability.
Stronger oversight of mission resources will help limit opportunities for corrupt networks, and helping develop host nation or civil society oversight mechanisms will help create longer-term accountability.
Adapt the mitigation measures above to contracting in humanitarian operations.