op 18 front pages-converted - The Watson Institute for International ...

Based on interviews and observation, the team identified
three major problems in strategic planning. The U.N.’s humanitarian
undertaking suffered from the absence of realistic
objectives, failed to cope adequately with unprecedented operational
challenges, and lacked an effective strategy for dealing
with the belligerents.
Identifying Realistic Objectives
One of the chief difficulties of the U.N.’s humanitarian
initiative in the former Yugoslavia was guiding its activities
according to realistic objectives.
As lead agency, UNHCR took a comprehensive approach
to the challenge, spelling out in July 1992 its key objectives.
These were respect for human rights and humanitarian law,
preventive protection, humanitarian access, special humanitarian
needs, temporary protection, material assistance, and
return and rehabilitation. Together, they formed the overall
concept of what it sought to accomplish in the region. UNHCR
also recommended creation of a mechanism, later represented
by the Humanitarian Issues Working Group of the International
Conference on the Former Yugoslavia, for monitoring
the situation and making course corrections as needed.
The major difficulty was that U.N. objectives were premised
largely on an end to the conflicts. As stated in the
foreword to the Consolidated Appeal for the first six months
of 1994:
The lasting solution to this humanitarian crisis
is peace and reconciliation. Humanitarian
aid is not a substitute for peace, but it can
mitigate the cruel effects of war. Until firm
steps are taken in the direction of peace, we
have no recourse but to continue all possible
efforts to save the lives of children, women
and men now placed at risk by the ongoing
conflict.
The Appeal itself, complete with 124 pages of narrative and
charts, was less a statement of objectives or an elaboration of
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