Private military and security companies
The use of private military and security companies by humanitarian organisations, and the questions an agency should settle before contracting one.
Private military and security companies entered the humanitarian space as contractors providing armed protection, convoy escort, site security, risk analysis and, in some cases, services closer to military support than to guarding. The record set out why agencies were turning to them and what the decision involved.
Why agencies contracted them
Three pressures pushed in the same direction. Donor requirements made duty of care obligations explicit and measurable, and a contract with a security provider looked like a way to discharge part of them. Insurance requirements in some contexts assumed a certain level of protection that an agency could not supply itself. And in settings where the state could not guarantee order, an agency that wanted to keep a programme running had few alternatives to buying protection.
The questions the record put to the agency
- What is actually being purchased. Unarmed guarding, armed protection, analysis, or training. The distinctions are significant and contracts sometimes blend them.
- What the presence does to acceptance. An agency escorted by armed contractors is read by local actors as an armed actor's client. That is a security consequence that outlasts the contract.
- Who the personnel are. Their training, their nationalities, their conduct record, and what happens if one of them is accused of a crime or of misconduct against a member of the community.
- Who is liable for what. The contract has to allocate responsibility for injury to staff, injury to third parties, damage to property and the consequences of a use of force.
- What the exit looks like. Whether the programme can continue without the contractor, and what the agency will do if the contract has to be ended in a hurry.
- How the arrangement is accounted for. What the agency tells its staff, its donors and the communities it serves about the presence of armed contractors on its programme.
The record's conclusion was that the decision is a risk management decision and not a procurement one, and that an agency which cannot answer the questions above is not in a position to contract the service safely.
Practical guidance and research on the security of humanitarian staff, for the organisations that send them.