FRANCAISNorwegian People’s Aid - Comments
6) The institutional learning
-NPA claims to be a political organisation and does not try to be neutral. So it doesn’t make sense to analyse its institutional learning regarding the reduction of the harmful effects of humanitarian action when aid is diverted by warring factions. In Sudan, for instance, the organisation militarised aid, perpetuated the conflict and sustained repression according to the European-Sudanese Public Affairs Council. A pilot interviewed in a documentary on “weapons smuggling in Sudan”, broadcast on Norwegian NRK Television on 17 November 1999, explained how NPA planes from Lokichokio (Kenya) supplied war material to the southern rebels. The cargo included land-mines, in contradiction with NPA’s official position as a member of the Co-ordinating Committee of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.
-NPA’s programmes were sometimes evaluated in reports which were published but, most often, made no critical assessment of the situation because they were financed by the funding organisations, especially the Norwegian cooperation agency. Independent feedback from the local population is scarce and quite different. At Torit in Southern Sudan, a reverend interviewed by Sofrono Efuk in 1996 complained for instance about the unnecessary allowances given to expatriates and wondered where had gone the money raised by NPA in the name of war-victims: health centres supposedly run by the organisation did not function and people had to travel all the way to Kenya or Uganda in search of medical services. At Aterieu, Zoë Marriage also notes that income generation projects are not sustainable because of the lack of transport, market and capital. Tomato agriculture is completely and artificially supported by NPA, which provides seeds, pumps, wheelbarrows, jerry-cans, etc. According to Zoë Marriage, such projects are an NGO “fantasy”, disconnected from reality. In Yirol, still in Southern Sudan, Amalie Hilde Tofte and Ruth Haug are a bit more positive about the introduction of veterinary activities and immunisation against rinderpest in 1995. Yet they acknowledge that they do not really know if the expansion of livestock results from NPA programmes or a reduction of the fighting. According to Frode Sundnes and Nadarajah Shanmugaratnam, only a small minority, the wealthiest households, benefited from these interventions. The NPA food security project was socially uneven and created a division with the majority, i.e. the poorest families who had no cattle. Moreover, it was not sustainable, “without sufficient consideration of herd quality and the emerging issues of rangeland and water-resources management”. Likewise, forests have been cleared for shifting cultivation. “Agricultural expansion has been entirely extensive in nature, without adequate attention to soil and land management”. As a result, there is now a growing competition between cultivators and cattle breeders.
