April 22, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
What happens if Sudan’s government allows aid groups back into Darfur, but only if they accept new restrictions on their work?
So asks Michael Kleinman on his Change.org blog about humanitarian relief.
Should aid organizations allow the government to have say over whom they hire and fire? How much they pay? How they design and carry out their programs?
Humanitarian charities have an imperative to help needy people, writes Mr. Kleinman, but they also strive to be neutral and impartial. And it’s pretty difficult to be impartial, he says, if a government demands near-total control over a group’s operations.
To a large extent, of course, the Sudanese government already does demand control over charities’ work in Darfur. Mr. Kleinman points readers to an anonymous aid worker blogging for Reuters Alertnet, who recounts how Sudan has seized all the group’s assets and required that all local staff appointments and new projects get approved by the government.
But what if Sudan’s government orders charities to stop doing, for example, work related to gender-based violence, asks Mr. Kleinman? Or to put in place new programs to encourage people displaced by violence to return home, regardless of the risks they face?
What would — and should — aid groups do?
