What is the relationship between traffic lights and humanitarianism? The common traffic light which has been developed in the last century has only three light colours: green for permission, orange for caution and red for danger.
However, I have similar ideas that are relevant to the humanitarian work: “The Traffic Light Theory”. My traffic light has five components: white, green, orange, red and black. You will ask “why the need for five, instead of three?” My answer would be that the diversity and the flow of humanitarian needs and activities in different parts of the world make it impossible to just stick to three.
The white will reflect our success in achieving a strong direct relationship with the beneficiaries through our programmes.
The green light enables us to promote capacity building and advocacy training for local organisations to turn them into international humanitarian actors.
When we have an orange light, we only relate to international NGOs and communities. The danger of being in the orange box is that, even though it can take you to the green box, it can also direct an organisation to operate in the red box, because it might lose focus on the individual needs of the community.
The red light consists of exclusively fund driven and government directed work. In this box, the organisations are only looking for funding for their operations and losing their impartiality when it comes to the local community.
The black light happens when humanitarian actors overuse the military in our relief work. In my opinion, the black box is a no-go area as it can challenge the humanitarian principle of impartiality and neutrality never the less transparency in our humanitarian work particularly in conflict struck areas.
We all must aim to operate when the white and green lights are on and empower local organisations at grass root level, in order to reach the ones we truly serve: the neediest.
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