Now that the dust has begun to settle on the BBC's refusal to air the Disaster's Emergency Committee (DEC)'s Gaza appeal, it is time in the cool light of day to take a good hard look at the issue of political bias.
The spat between the BBC and the DEC should never have happened. The modern Aid agency movement was set up in the aftermath of war, Save The Children was set up in 1919 to relieve the suffering at the end of the first world war, OXFAM in 1942 and CARE in 1945. Moreover, aid agencies always work within a political context. Aid workers have to make local contacts and get local permission to work. Sometimes this is with groups that it would be wholly inappropriate for western governments to negotiate with. As an aid worker in Afghanistan I had to negotiate with radical Islamist groups such as the Taliban and the notorious Hezb-i-Islami party of Gulbadin Hekmatyer, in order to be allowed to travel to areas that they controlled access to. However, anyone who has worked in such areas is acutely aware that whoever is seen by the local people as introducing or facilitating the entry of aid workers to an area will get an enormous amount of political kudos when the aid work starts. In fact, it is often a very difficult task for aid agencies to avoid increasing the political influence of some rather unpleasant political groups. For example, in going to an area in Afghanistan where no other aid agencies were then working, I had to negotiate hard for my agency to be allowed to travel there without being accompanied by Hezb-i-Islami soldiers.
The situation in Gaza is particularly difficult for aid agencies as Hamas very deliberately and successfully used aid projects as a means of gaining power in the 2005 elections. Whilst Hamas' share of the vote for the nationally decided seats remained at almost exactly the same level as it had been in previous elections, it won by winning an unexpectedly large number of locally decided seats. This was achieved by local Hamas candidates deliberately pursuing a long term strategy of starting local humanitarian projects, often funded by western sources, as a means of increasing their personal vote. Many Palestinians who had voted for local Hamas candidates were then shocked when a succession of local seat wins led to Hamas winning the overall election.
In any distribution of aid now Hamas will be looking to ensure that the distribution of aid increases its own political influence with the local population. Aid agencies will have to make tough choices in this situation. But we should never forget that aid agencies are different from governments. They exist for one purpose only - to relieve suffering. That is what they will do, and provided that is all they seek to do, the rest of us should hold back from criticism, even if we don't like some of the political consequences.
However, hard choice on the field are one thing. It is quite another when aid agencies back in the safety of the west start lobbying for policies that cannot be justified simply in terms of the need to deliver aid effectively, but are aligned with left wing political ideology. Tim Montgomorie recently drew attention to one such action during the war in Gaza. The public affairs departments of a number of DEC agencies called on the EU to halt closer ties Israel until a comprehensive ceasefire was agreed - i.e. placing the blame squarely on Israel for the fighting, a stance which fundamentally undermined the very political neutrality that aid agencies need in order to operate on the ground.
The problem is not with the work that aid agencies do on the ground, much of which is outstanding and done in incredibly difficult contexts. It is with some of their public affairs and campaign departments that work out of offices in the west. I came across this a couple of years ago when shortly after the Lebanon war I met with the UK head of public affairs and the campaign manager for one of the world's largest aid agencies. When I briefly explained the main ideology of Hezbollah, it was immediately clear that they had no concept at all of this, even though during the Lebanon war they had, on behalf of this aid agency, lobbied the British government to pressurise Israel to agree an immediate ceasefire. Neither of them had any long term experience of aid work on the ground. However, they did tell me that they were both 'passionate' members of the Labour Party and at least one had been a full time party worker for a Labour MP. I left that meeting prfoudnly concerned. My one reassurance was that having a few months earlier discussed similar issues with senior international figures in that aid agency, it was clear to me that their actions were not representative of the aid agency as a whole.
This is unfortunately by no means an isolated case. When I returned from Afghanistan 3 and half years ago I was shocked to see one of the DEC agencies run a campaign against 'Free Trade'. Given that in the nineteenth century Britain introduced free trade by abolishing the protectionist corn laws, in order to lower the price of food and prevent mass starvation in Ireland, this seems an almost bizarre argument. The aid agency's advertisement claimed that 27 million people in the developing world, including a million in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka alone would lose their livelihoods as a result of free trade allowing the export of western made clothing to developing countries. The campaign may well have been run with the best of motives, but ultimately it owed more to left wing political ideology than to any real understanding of how the economies of developing countries actually work in practice. Any one who had actually lived in a developing country would know that western made clothing imports rarely if ever compete with locally made clothes. This is for the simple reason that they are at least 5 if not 10 times more expensive, a function of much higher wage rates in the west and the exchange rate in developing countries. For example, in Pakistan one can buy a locally made western style shirt (so similar to western ones that it may even have a forged 'Beneton' label on it!) for around £1-50. However, a similar shirt genuinely imported from the west will cost at least 10 times as much. They simply have a different niche in the local market.
The preponderance of former Labour Party researchers in the public affairs and campaign departments of aid agencies seems to be a real nettle that aid agency directors and their boards need to grasp.
There will always be actions that aid agencies take on the ground when trying to relieve desperate suffering, whose political ramifications we may not always find terribly palatable - having to deal with Hamas is clearly one of those. When this happens the rest of us need to respect the integrity of the aid agency's motivation and the very difficult decisions they have to make as non governmental organisations in seeking to relieve human suffering. As such it was simply not the BBC's call to say that it wasn't convinced that the all the aid would get through to the ordinary people in Gaza - and so wouldn't broadcast the DEC appeal. The BBC clearly overstepped the mark in this respect.
However, now that the heat is beginning to go out of the furore over the BBC's refusal to broadcast the DEC Gaza appeal, it is time for large agencies, including some of those that make up the Disasters Emergency Committee, to take a long hard look at their campaigning and public affairs departments. There is no question that a future Conservative government will listen very carefully to aid agencies. Whilst in opposition the Conservative Party has probably spent more time specifically eliciting the views of aid agencies that any other political party - both through its shadow ministerial team and it's policy commission on international development. It has deliberately sought to listen to the best expert advice on how to bring about real and sustainable development. However, aid agencies really do need to do a lot better than simply lobby for policies developed by former researchers for Labour MPs. Such people typically have had no actual field experience of implementing aid and development programmes and come up with policies which sometimes seem more aligned with left wing political ideology than any real understanding of the issues facing developing countries.
Aid agencies need to understand that governments don't need to hear from professional political lobbyists. After all, if they want to hear a left wing opinion they can just listen to the Labour Party! But, as David Cameron showed by setting up the International Development Policy Commission, at least in the case of a Conservative government, they do want to hear from those with professional and first hand experience of implementing aid and development programmes on the ground.
As a first step towards helping aid agencies make this sea change in the type of people they recruit for their public affairs and campaign departments, a future Conservative government could require all lobbying submissions from aid agencies to state the evidential basis for each proposal they lobby for - whether field experience of the person writing the submission or professional development studies.
Aid agencies have an incredibly important task to do and as such it is essential that they urgently address this issue. If one good thing comes out of the spat between the aid agencies and the BBC, this could be it.
