Registered Engineers for Disaster Relief (RedR)assigns engineers and other experts in humanitarian relief to aid agencies in need of experienced staff. With a possible U.S.-led military campaign against Iraq looming, John Howard, RedR's London-based assignments and membership manager, told Katherine Arie about preparations it is making should war break out and the likely reluctance of aid agencies in the region to rely on experts with U.S. or British citizenship.

AN: What is RedR and when was it founded?

JH: We're 21 years old this year. The full name of the organisation is Registered Engineers for Disaster Relief, although RedR has moved away from being specifically engineers for disaster relief to experts for disaster relief. Our main mission is to provide relief for suffering caused by disasters by selecting, training and providing competent personnel to humanitarian programs worldwide.

AN: What do you do, exactly?

JH: The part of the organisation I manage recruits people on to a register and we then deploy these people, members, when we receive assignment requests from aid agencies. We have about 150 client organisations that look for experts through RedR and we have a register of 1,500 members, which cover a wide range of specialisations appropriate to humanitarian programming. We're also involved in training -- in fact, a very high proportion of our annual budget is spent to training people in basics and in specialisations for humanitarian work in which they'll be involved.

AN: Has RedR considered how military action in Iraq might affect its work?

JH: We're currently receiving a number of direct assignment requests that are orientated around possible action in the Gulf. Several agencies have approached us for staff to set up offices primarily in Oman but also for building up capacities within their organisations in order to respond effectively in the event of war. The preparations we're making on the membership side -- although we have generally a good idea of where our 1,500 members are and what their availability is -- include requesting updated detail about members' availability, which we'll share with key agencies, agencies that are likely to be active in and around the Gulf, so that operational agencies and donors will have a reasonable idea of who might be available and what their profiles and competencies are. In the case of large-scale humanitarian emergencies quite a lot of people who are not normally available or who are engaged in full-time work outside the humanitarian sector do become available. It's almost, if you like, the CNN factor, which brings out of the woodwork, and people who are not normally available become available. So what we're in the process of doing at the moment is a mobilisation of the membership. ctor, which brings out of the woodwork, and people who are not normally available become available. So what we're in the process of doing at the moment is a mobilisation of the membership.

AN: What are some of the problems you're preparing for, should a military campaign take place?

JH: Well, we are looking at the issues around the practicalities of working in the Gulf. Some of the issues we're considering have to do with the possible use of chemical or biological weapons, so we're looking at whether this would be a major security issue for our members working for agencies in the region. We're carrying out a certain level of risk assessment, and we're trying to brief ourselves so we can effectively brief RedR members who would be employed in the area. We're also looking at nationalities and passports of our members. If the primary belligerents happen to be the U.S. and the U.K., this might present specific risks to people holding British or American passports.

AN: What are you suggesting to those people, and how are you going to deal with that issue?

JH: We would be in a position to brief those individuals as effectively is as humanly possible. More than that, if agencies perceive certain risks to people of those nationalities, they would come to us looking for people of non-British and non-American nationality. And we would hope to be able to put forward names of individuals of other nationalities. This was an issue we encountered in Afghanistan. Many of the agencies perceived specific risks to individuals of American and British nationality, and many of the agencies were looking for non-U.K., non-U.S. passport holders.

AN: And does RedR have a lot of members whom they can put forward who are not British and not American?

JH: Yes, there are four accredited RedRs. There's RedR London, which recruits many European members. There's RedR Canada, RedR Australia, and RedR New Zealand. Those primarily manage the membership of people from their own countries. Because RedR London is the oldest of the RedR organisations, it has recruited significant numbers of people from around the world. Probably around 50 percent of the total membership is non-U.K., non-American.

AN: Is RedR making any other contingency plans?

JH: Primarily, we are looking at the mobilisation of members and we're focusing on the kind of competencies the agencies are going to need. The requests that we're currently receiving are for people at programme-management level, security specialists and trainers to work within the organisations to implement their own training. Several of the agencies are looking at contingency planning around water and sanitation, reconstruction and so on. So we are talking to them about the best ways to access the right people to implement such programming. Clearly, water and sanitation, shelters and site planning are going to be major issues if war does take place and there will be refugees and internally displaced people. We're also currently in the process of merging with International Health Exchange, so we're in discussions with them as to how we can work together to be in a position to provide agencies with appropriate health specialists and nutrition specialists.