WHITE HELMETS INITIATIVE
A humanitarian disposition
Background
The White Helmets Initiative is an efficient and viable mechanism for making pre-identified and trained homogeneous teams available to the international community, in support of immediate relief, rehabilitation, reconstruction and development activities. In the light of the increasing number, growing magnitude and complexity of natural disasters and other emergencies, the need for homogenous, integrated and multidisciplinary response teams has become evident. So too is the need for the conceptual incorporation of a multilateral or regional volunteer network as a tool against hunger, poverty and natural or man-made catastrophes.
Its immediate predecessor, Argentina’s Commission Against Hunger and Poverty, was created through Presidential Decree No. 1131 (July 13th, 1994), to promote the creation of a United Nations-backed international organization dedicated to fight poverty, hunger, malnutrition, educational deficit, health and infrastructure problems, among others.
In August 1995, by Argentine Presidential Decree No 379, the Commission’s name was changed: the White Helmets Commission was established in the belief that all humanitarian emergency issues -and not only hunger and poverty- should be met. Another reason for the change is the growing use of “humanitarian emergency” as the preferred expression in national and international circles.
As has been the case since then every two years, the White Helmets Initiative was ratified during the United Nations 58th General Assembly (December 2003), in accordance with Secretary General Mr. Kofi Annan´s Report. Approved by Resolution A/58/118 and sponsored by over 70 countries, the White Helmets Initiative is widely recognized in the context of the international humanitarian assistance.
On a hemispheric level, the Organization of American States has approved three Resolutions on the White Helmets Initiative. They are the following: GA/RES. 1351 (XXV-0/95) of June 1995; GA/RES. 1403 (XXVI-0/96) of July 1996; and GA/RES. 1463 (XXVII-0/97) of June 1997.
The Pan American Health Organization, as an agency that works closely with White Helmets in the implementation of the SUMA (Supply Management) System, has continually pointed out White Helmets’ role as an assistance mechanism that delivers humanitarian aid to countries stricken by emergencies and catastrophes. In this sense, the Organization’s Director, Dr. Mirta Roses Periago, underlined the Initiative’s activities during Argentina’s social emergency in 2001 and 2002, the earthquakes in El Salvador (January 2001) and Peru (June 2001) and Haiti’s recent crisis, among other joint efforts.
Basic Elements that distinguish the White Helmets Initiative from other Humanitarian Assistance instruments
Each of these elements is indispensable to the constitution of the Initiative, and must be taken into account when considering the replication of this experience in other countries, so as to effectively articulate a hemispheric humanitarian assistance mechanism. White Helmets:
1. Requires little administrative bureaucracy, while insuring at the same time the participation of a large interdisciplinary corps of volunteers that cover the whole spectrum of needs related to humanitarian assistance and the struggle against hunger and poverty.
2. Guarantees professional and technical support, through the signing of agreements with governmental, non-governmental and international organizations, which also constitute sources for volunteer selecting.
3. Incorporates volunteers into a database that is used for the development of humanitarian assistance activities.
4. Organizes, articulates, promotes and orientates volunteering to respond in the prevention of endemic situations and humanitarian assistance.
5. Responds to international (UN) and regional (OAS) callings on different humanitarian issues.
6. Contributes to the fulfillment of international organization mandates. In this sense, it helps attain UN Millenium Goals, such as the reduction of hunger and poverty, education, reduction of the HIV/AIDS, respect for the equality of gender, human rights and democratic values.
7. Guarantees efficiency, effectiveness and transparency in the management of human and material resources.
8. Selects and trains multidisciplinary volunteer teams.
9. Integrates teams that are self-sufficient in the development of projects and possess a distinct identity.
10. Within the framework of one type of action, the Rapid Response Teams (RRT) arrive on terrain as quickly as possible after a disaster has occurred.
11. Promotes the involvement of developing countries in humanitarian assistance issues.
12. Use and are supported by local human resources in their activities. White Helmets teams include volunteers from the countries that are receiving the assistance.
White Helmets Initiative: Concepts
Being a novel Initiative in some aspects, there is a series of distinctive features that must be underlined in order to have a better idea of White Helmets profile and what distinguishes it from other existing programs, institutions and organizations. White Helmets:
· is a valuable instrument in the struggle against poverty and hunger, in the american continent and the rest of the world, thus contributing to economic development and growth.
· is an innovative instrument available to the international community, whose guiding principles are solidarity, cooperation, involvement and humanitarianism, on a regional and global level.
· does not compete with or overlap with existing national aid organizations, because it works bilaterally or abroad, with an emphasis on Mercosur and the american continent. Only under special circumstances does it carry out activities on national soil.
· complements and strengthens humanitarian actions carried by international and regional organizations, by introducing the concept of political commitment on the part of those countries who sponsor their operations.
· allows each country, through their local humanitarian organizations or entities, to take part in the articulation of a larger assistance network and help other countries.
· works under the United Nations banner, as do the United Nations Volunteers and the UN’s Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs Office (OCHA), which has the General Assembly’s express mandate to promote the use of White Helmets to resolve humanitarian and emergency crisis. It is also available to other cooperation organizations and agencies of global (WFO, UNESCO, UNHCR, UNICEF) and regional scope (the Inter-American Agency for Cooperation and Development of the OAS, for example, has agreed to use White Helmets as its humanitarian instrument in the Hemisphere), or as part of argentine bilateral assistance.
· possesses an institutional framework that allows it to develop bilateral, multilateral and even internal activities if thus required.
Objectives, Mission and attributes of the WHI of Argentina
The following list may be useful to understand White Helmets of Argentina distinct nature and profile.
· Promote White Helmets Initiative activities and transform it into an effective and efficient instrument in the struggle against hunger and poverty, for humanitarian assistance and the strengthening of peace.
· Plan programs and projects that will prevent endemic situations (hunger, plagues, diseases, etc.) on a regional and international level.
· Strengthen the implementation of activities along country borders, overcoming prejudices between countries, maximizing bilateral and regional efforts in the development of solutions for the affected populations, beyond formal political divisions.
· Replicate and consolidate the White Helmets Initiative in the region and throughout the world, creating a volunteer network with one common goal: to fight poverty and hunger and offer a means so that communities can maintain their own integrated and sustainable development.
· Promote, train and stimulate social volunteering, especially among the youth and women.
· Give the different governments and international organizations an effective instrument to carry out humanitarian prevention, rehabilitation, reconstruction and development missions, as well as to take part in the consolidation of post-conflict peace processes.
· Form, coordinate and train a White Helmets Volunteer Corps and develop humanitarian assistance missions in the struggle against hunger and poverty, inside and outside of the argentine territory.
White Helmets primary mission includes the following:
· Carry out diplomatic activities oriented to obtaining the support of White Helmets Commission activities and objectives by governments, multilateral organizations, entities and personalities of national and international prestige.
· Remain at the disposal of the National Executive Branch to assist in emergency, extreme poverty and catastrophe situations within the country, if required.
· Assist in emergencies throughout the region and the world, by implementing humanitarian and emergency missions, if thus required.
· Defend and promote the values of volunteering.
· Plan and carry out volunteer-training activities, especially in support of the equality of gender and among the youth.
· Assume representation of humanitarian issues in Peace Operation ad-hoc workgroups.
· Involves itself in derived activities of the World Food Programme.
· Supervise and coordinate White Helmets Volunteer Corps activities, in humanitarian operations within the country and abroad.
Activities of the White Helmets Commission of Argentina
The White Helmets Commission includes professionals that carry out diplomatic tasks and liaison activities with governments and international organizations, professional human resources who create and evaluate projects and handle volunteer selecting, and personnel that implement and oversee missions on terrain.
These projects and missions, which seek to reduce poverty and hunger, are of various types: from the response to crisis and emergencies, to reconstruction and development activities. They can be bilateral or multilateral, depending on the needs expressed by the international community and the demands of the States involved.
White Helmets is also constituted by the Volunteer Corps, selected by the Commission and organized as an assistance team. It is not merely a list of individualities, but pre-selected and trained teams of experts, available to the international community.
White Helmets Volunteers, in their various specialties, have different origins. They belong to ONGs or public institutions such as universities, hospitals or community-based support centres. They can also be people concerned with and spontaneously committed to humanitarian actions.
Their range of expertise varies greatly from one individual to another. Some are medical doctors or experts in assisting vulnerable groups. Many are experts in sanitary engineering and proper drinking water use. Others are agricultural experts specialized in nutritional self-sufficiency or training disaster relief teams. Youth and people who have proven their capacity during the 2001 crisis in Argentina have also been incorporated. Complex emergency scenarios with mutilated, wounded, hungry or sick refugees/evacuees require the assistance of well pre-trained multitask teams that guarantee proper treatment and caring for of the victims.
White Helmets have sent Rapid Response teams in missions that assisted in emergency and natural disasters, in Lebanon, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Colombia, Venezuela and Mozambique. The Commission has established rehabilitation activities within pre-existing programs led by other UN System Agencies -such as the World Food Programme (WFP), the World Health Organization, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and UNICEF- in Kosovo and Mozambique. Reconstruction and Development programs led by United Nations Volunteers (UNV) and OAS in Palestine, Rwanda, Angola, Paraguay, Armenia, the East Caribbean, Lebanon, Nicaragua and Honduras, among others, have also received substantial backing of the White Helmets.
It has recently collaborated with the PAHO in the Haiti crisis; with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Red Crescent Society in assisting the post-earthquake activities in the City of Bam, Iran; with the government of Bolivia in the prevention of floods; and will in short assist Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia with projects covering different issues.
The White Helmets Commission of Argentina works closely on a regular basis with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. During multilateral missions, the UN Development Programme (UNDP), UNV, the WFP, the UNHCR and many other agencies of the system operate as White Helmets focal points, by offering their support, experience and organization skills to the project development and verifying the team’s preparation level. In many cases, these agencies previously help in the identification of situations that might require White Helmets action. This collective framework multiplies the mission’s overall efficiency, extends human resource recruitment potential and guarantees the non-interference in a country’s internal political affairs.
For the development of its activities, the White Helmets Commission has its own financial line in the national budget. It also has three Special Windows (Bank Accounts): the first one with the United Nations Volunteers agency, the second one with the OAS/White Helmets Special Fund, and a third one within the OAS/IADB/White Helmets Agreement. These funds, which are administered exclusively by the United Nations and the Organization of American States, administer public and private contributions and finance humanitarian assistance missions.
The funds allow the implementation of multilateral missions, executed within the framework of the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and their respective Agencies; bilateral missions, carried out by White Helmets directly, without the mediation of an International Agency or Organization; and national missions, in which assistance activities take place within Argentina’s borders (only if the magnitude of the need requires it and it is thus directed by the national government, even though White Helmets express mission is to carry out humanitarian activities abroad).
White Helmets Intervention Types
The White Helmets Initiative bases its activities on two fundamental areas:
1. The struggle against poverty and hunger: includes the attaining of the Millenium Goals and rehabilitation and reconstruction for development activities.
2. Immediate attention of disasters and catastrophes: oriented to humanitarian assistance in emergencies and to reconstruction processes.
Accordingly, the White Helmets Initiative carries out different types of humanitarian activities, which can be summarized in four basic types of intervention:
Humanitarian aid delivery
This modality responds to a specific disaster, and consists in the coordination, shipping and delivery of different supplies (clothes, blankets, tents, rehydration salts, drinking water tablets, medical supplies, food, tools, etc.) to local authorities. Actions rarely last more than three days. White Helmets volunteers withdraw from the terrain once the delivery has been made and the donations have been distributed.
Examples of this modality include, among others, Lebanon, Iran, Bolivia, Haiti and post-Hurricane Mitch activities in Central America.
Humanitarian assistance in emergencies
During this type of intervention, White Helmets Rapid Response teams are fielded in the quickest time possible after a given emergency, to work on specific pre-established subjects. The duration of these interventions does not exceed 3 months, during which time a module including resource development and victim assistance is carried out on terrain.