Afghanistan is rated as one of the most dangerous places in the world for aid workers at the moment. According to figures from the German aid organization Welthungerhilfe, 23 security incidents and five deaths made July the worst month of the year for aid agencies.

The Welthungerhilfe's secretary-general, Wolfgang Jamann, said the increasing involvement of the military, such as Germany's Bundeswehr, in humanitarian projects was a major factor for this development.

"The Bundeswehr and other armies are using development activities for their military purposes," Jamann said. "This puts our activities in danger and blurs the line between civil and military activities."

Germany is the third largest troop contributor to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), with up to 4,500 soldiers deployed in Afghanistan. It has been active there since 2002 and is the lead nation responsible for the northern region, where it heads Provinical Reconstruction Teams (PRT) in Kunduz and Feyzabad.

According to Jamann, PRT projects, such as building bridges or providing medicine to hospitals, were "clearly beyond" a military mandate and did not serve real humanitarian needs.

"But they do serve the purpose of winning the hearts and the minds of the local population," he said. "They help in gathering intelligence and are good for the morale of the troops."

Ashley Jackson, a researcher from the development agency Oxfam based in Kabul, said she was critical of military staff from PRTs doing humanitarian work in villages with guns and tanks.

"They're not doing this for the good of the Afghan people primarily; they're doing it to further their own aims: to create a sense of loyalty, to buy allegiance from these communities," Jackson said.

Endangering civilians

Jamann said his staff working in Afghanistan is increasingly perceived as being part of the various groups that intervene in Afghanistan from foreign countries.

"So there's no more distinction between those who carry arms and those who are there, like Welthungerhilfe, for different purposes," he said. "The proximity of the Bundeswehr forces and Welthungerhilfe staff in similar regions blurs this line and puts our people in danger."

Jackson also said this commingling has been detrimental.

"It creates confusion in the minds of the Afghan public, but also provides an excuse for insurgents to target civilian institutions and aid workers," Jackson said. "The use of humanitarian and development aid to further political and security objectives has limited the humanitarian space in Afghanistan."

She said this had drawn aid workers further into the conflict, as well as civilians.

A report from Tufts University in Massachusetts, USA, published earlier this year confirms the aid organizations' assessment.

"Aid agency staff is being increasingly targeted by the Taliban and other insurgents for their perceived instrumentalization by, and support of, alien political agendas," said Antonio Donini from the university's Feinstein International Center.

"Aid agencies are justifiably concerned that they may be tarred with the same brush as the foreign militaries, with potentially deleterious consequences for their security," Donini said in his briefing paper "Afghanistan: Humanitarianism Under Threat."

The Bundeswehr's role

The Bundeswehr said its role in the civil-military PRTs was creating the security climate needed for reconstruction efforts.

"It makes sense to work together here," a Bundeswehr source told Deutsche Welle. "It is difficult to see to security without collaboration."

The source said some aid organizations had "reservations" about working together with the Bundeswehr, despite taking advantage of the military's protection for their work.

Jamann stressed that he was not criticizing the actual presence of the Bundeswehr or any other army active in Afghanistan. He said he was aware that an agency's good reputation no longer protected its staff.

"We are not protected by the fact that we provide assistance to civilians," Jamann said. "Aid workers almost become a proxy target for terrorists, for criminals and for the Taliban in Afghanistan. We cannot pretend that we don't need any kind of protection."

However, he said the utilization of armed forces to protect the organization's activities was the very last resort.

"In a number of contexts, that's even not an option because we are being portrayed as siding, as losing our neutrality," Jamann said. "So what we try to maintain is some kind of interaction with the military on the ground, informing them of our whereabouts, but we're not asking for military protection of our activities. If this is what's required for humanitarian intervention, then we're probably in the wrong place."

Jackson said the aid workers she has spoken to in Afghanistan don't wish for armed protection.

"For the people we work with, working in an environment where any party to the conflict is present is dangerous and stressful," Jackson said. "It doesn't provide feelings of security by any means."

In addition, it did not coincide with Oxfam's philosophy.

"We operate on the basis of community acceptance and developing relationships with communities on an equal footing," she said. This enabled Oxfam to also work in dangerous areas, for example by supporting local organizations with close links to the communities in which they work.

"So we rely on the communities for our security and on that relationship," Jackson said.

Expertise where it belongs

The Bundeswehr source said it was generally clear to the German military where its priorities lie.

"We are responsible for the security and the development organizations for reconstruction," he said. Yet it would remain difficult to completely separate the two sides in a country such as Afghanistan.

In Jamann's opinion, the military has a clear role to fulfill.

"I think the military has a strong mandate and role to focus on the safety and security of the people on the ground, not just humanitarian aid workers primarily, but the Afghans," he said. It should help the Afghan security apparatus function more effectively and not engage in humanitarian and development activities as a "showpiece."

"Leave the work of the development, reconstruction and humanitarian assistance to those who can do it better and focus on the provision of security for the Afghan people through the means that the military has traditionally at their avail," Jamann said.

Jackson agreed that the military was not cut out for development work.

"They often don't have the appropriate expertise to be doing this work, so it's often badly done and it doesn't have community ownership which you really need to make it sustainable and participatory," she said.

Author: Sabina Casagrande
Editor: Rob Mudge