Charles Rogers is director of corporate security for World Vision International. He is the author of a guide called "A Shield About Me: A Security Handbook for World Vision Staff" which offers guidance for relief workers on how to ensure their own safety. This article first appeared in Humanitarian Affairs Review.

Attacks on humanitarian workers in the world’s danger spots represent an alarming trend that is likely to accelerate in the years ahead. This now poses a serious problem for international aid organisations, as the rise in casualties among aid workers could not only affect how aid agencies conduct their programmes, but even whether they are able to respond at all to some emergencies.

The problem is beginning to take on alarming proportions. The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR points out that two-thirds of its staff work in security risk areas and a third serve in particularly hazardous duty stations. The Los Angeles Times has reported that "it is more dangerous to be a U.N. humanitarian aid worker handing out food than to be a soldier on peacekeeping duty in a war zone." In 1998, it said, 17 UNHCR aid workers died in separate incidents and eight military peacekeepers were killed.

Concern for the safety of staff in high-risk areas had reached such a point by 1996 that it prompted World Vision to establish an Office of Corporate Security. This provides practical support and resources for staff working in moderate-to-high risk areas and its corporate security programme includes:

• A global security monitoring system that uses both internal and external sources to provide an early-warning mechanism.
• A country risk rating system that grades risk in all countries where World Vision is present.
• Security protocols and standards that draw on best practice in security management.
• A comprehensive security manual offering practical guidelines for staff safety and asset protection.
• A security management training course that offers both standard classroom instruction and field exercises that simulate dangers in insecure environments and help trainees learn how to deal with them.

World Vision’s aim is to help field management make the right decisions about the safe deployment of staff. There are a number of issues critical to decision-making when staff may be exposed to danger.

The corporate security budget represents less than one percent of World Vision's global programme budget. This amount funds my position as director of corporate security, a part-time assistant, and three security training workshops that my office conducts annually for field management staff from World Vision and other NGOs..

What humanitarian agencies can do

The security needs of humanitarian aid organisations are very different from those of international corporations or the military. For corporations, security is usually a matter of cost. If commercial opportunities exist in areas of conflict and violence, international business firms calculate the cost of providing security for employees and factor it into the overall cost of doing business. In extreme cases this can even mean hiring private armies. The military, on the other hand, uses a deterrence model for security. It ensures the safety of its troops and the success of its mission by mobilising forces and weapons on a scale that will deter most threats.

A humanitarian organisation is different. It has to employ security strategies suited to its mission and mandate. The preferred model for protecting relief workers is to gain the acceptance of the local population, including the combatants involved in any conflict. If aid agencies fail to do that, they generally operate under the protection of international security forces such as the U.N. Failing that, they may opt not to intervene in that particular humanitarian crisis.

Most humanitarian aid agencies have been slow to adopt professional security management practices as part of their staff training. Most continue to hold line management responsible for staff safety and operational security, but this is beginning to change now that the security issue is increasingly on the agendas of major international aid conferences and consultations. A growing number of aid agencies -- for instance the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Rescue Committee and Church World Service -- now offer security training for field staff.

World Vision’s security training curriculum emphasises prevention rather than protection. It covers risk assessment, stress management, contingency and evacuation planning, personal security awareness, communications networking, landmine awareness and vehicle safety.

But we also warn that security training will have little effect if it does not lead to a systematic approach to security management in the field. Basic security procedures must be strictly followed at all times. Humanitarian organisations must insist that all aid programmes in areas of moderate to high risk must have a standard security-operating plan that includes:

• Threat assessment procedures
• Incident reporting protocols
• Communications standards
• Security briefings
• Site selection and physical plant security
• Cash management and transfers
• Vehicle and convoy safety procedures
• Visitor security
• Contingency and evacuation planning
• Hostage-taking and kidnapping procedures
• Stress management

Risk/benefit analysis

Because aid agencies can never guarantee absolute protection for their workers, those operating in conflict zones have a moral responsibility to determine their tolerance for risk by establishing a threshold for staff safety and security. In other words, they must define a clear line between acceptable and unacceptable risk.

It should be left to top management to make such risk decisions rather than line management that has to operate in high-pressure conflict situations. Organisational security policies can relieve field management of at least some of the burden of making life-and-death decisions in a crisis. Such security policies also create consistent and objective guidelines throughout an organisation.

Correctly assessing risk is the foundation for good security planning and management. Without properly identifying potential risks to staff and operations, plans and procedures will miss the mark and are likely to fail in a crisis. Aid agencies must decide whether they have the capability to implement a security programme and whether it is safe to do so.

The informal methods of risk assessment that have chiefly been used in years past tend to depend on local information sources, and resulted in judgements based on intuition and subjective analysis. The preferable new methods use tools that help make the process much more objective in the way that risks are quantified.

The process begins with collecting information from reliable local sources. These can range from foreign embassy personnel to village tribal elders. Once specific threats have been identified, each is assigned a rating based on probability and consequences. The categories listed under "consequences" on the left axis must be defined by each individual locale (e.g. what is catastrophic for one programme may not be for another). Once the threats have been plotted, it is possible to determine the risk threshold. Only then can effective security procedures be developed and implemented. The dynamic nature of most conflict situations means there is an ongoing need to reassess risks and change security plans accordingly.

Humanitarian agencies’ security policies can often extend beyond protecting their own staff; they can also help defend the beneficiaries of aid programmes. Humanitarian organisations have no mandate to protect those receiving aid from the consequences of conflict but they can be vigorous advocates for the rights of war victims to safety under the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law.

Aid agencies in war zones and other high-risk situations should make the fundamental commitment to the rights of aid recipients an integral part of their mission. To do so is in an agency’s own self-interest. When advocacy on behalf of refugee and civilian rights is effective it provides another mantle of protection for NGO staff serving in insecure environments. Local peace building initiatives can also provide another layer of safety.

Corporate liability

Failure to address security issues can expose a humanitarian agency to serious liability problems. At most international aid agencies, programme managers and country directors have primary responsibility for staff safety and operational security, but they are not the only stakeholders in good security. In some circumstances, the consequences of security-related decisions can shake an organisation’s executive leadership, and, of course, serious security incidents in the field can have a great negative impact on the agency concerned.

Humanitarian agencies working in insecure areas must be able to demonstrate that they take security seriously and exercise due diligence in making decisions affecting the safety of their staff. An agency that is unable to demonstrate in court that it took prudent and reasonable security measures in a high-risk environment exposes itself to serious liability, and the financial and public relations cost to that agency could be enormous.

For legal, financial and ethical reasons, humanitarian agencies must become more serious than ever about security. That attitude must start at the top, with the chief executive championing security concerns. In many organisations this requires a radical change in corporate culture. Gone are the days when semi-autonomous "lone rangers" operating on wit and intuition can respond to humanitarian emergencies. Today’s world requires a culture of corporate responsibility in which security issues are paramount.

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