Risk Management Toolkit is intended to contribute to an increased understanding of the connection between counterterrorism measures and humanitarian action and highlight steps that humanitarian organisations can take and are taking to address some of the main challenges and risks associated with these measures.
The starting point is that principled humanitarian actors should seek to place their risk management procedures in relation to counterterrorism measures within the framework of the humanitarian principles and not vice-versa.
This risk management toolkit in relation to counterterrorism measures benefits from the contributions of staff across many non-governmental organisations (NGOs), UN agencies, International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and donor governments in headquarters and the field, who participated in interviews during the research phase of this document.
Scope
This risk management toolkit in relation to counterterrorism measures should be read against the backdrop of the humanitarian principles. To support or endorse an armed group in their political or security aims, including through the provision of aid, contravenes the humanitarian principles of impartiality, neutrality and independence. As such, most humanitarian actors have well developed policies, procedures and systems covering security, human resources, finance and administration to prevent this from occurring.
This toolkit is directed at decision makers including those with operational and risk management responsibilities and policy-makers within humanitarian organisations, in headquarters and/or field locations.
It has two objectives:
- To provide an understanding of current counterterrorism policies and their potential impact on principled humanitarian action, while directing users to additional resources and information.
- To provide a collation of the risk management procedures, policies and practices employed across the humanitarian sector.
Focus
The toolkit focuses mainly on counterterrorism measures imposed by donors, rather than those imposed by states hosting affected populations.
- In part 1 of section II, the toolkit briefly summarises the counterterrorism policy environment. There are numerous research and policy papers which examine aspects of counterterrorism in more detail. There are links to these publications in the bibliography. It also includes an overview of the relationship between counterterrorism measures and IHL, UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions related to counterterrorism and a sample of counterterrorism laws introduced by some member states.
- Part 2 provides an outline of counterterrorism clauses placed by donors within partnership agreements, highlighting areas that may require further consideration by humanitarian organisations, including negotiating donor agreements, while part 3 looks at risk management and mitigating risk.
Section III sets out ideas and methods for a risk management framework based on the methods, tools and SECTION I Introduction 3 procedures employed by those who contributed to this toolkit. This section also covers enterprise risk management (ERM) and monitoring and evaluation (M&E).
Finally, the toolkit focuses only on situations of armed conflict, although it should be noted that counterterrorism measures apply to conflict and
non-conflict settings and humanitarian and development activities.