Paper details

Paper authors	Elba Rahmouni
In panel on	Working in the Sahel
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

Humanitarian organizations working in the Sahel have, for the past ten years, been faced with growing security problems, as conflicts in Northern Nigeria, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso intensified. The presence of radical jihadist groups has put humanitarians at risk of kidnapping, while hostilities between insurgents and Western-backed national armies have exposed them to bombing and shootings.
Faced with these dangers, NGOs have had to radically rethink their operating mode and their security strategy. This is how MSF, among others, has developed the practice of profiling. A long-standing practice at MSF – in countries such as Afghanistan, Colombia –, that is to say the selection of staff according to their gender, nationality, religion, or morphology, is widely implemented in the countries of the region, to the point where ‘we have made the exception normal’.

As a result, international staff in most MSF projects in the region are of black African origin. However, the questions, of an ethical, operational or institutional nature, that it raises are numerous. To what extent can we discriminate in order to act? What are the consequences of these measures on the staff members who are the object of such practices? On the institution itself? Does profiling reduce the risks?
We propose to try to answer these questions on the basis of research carried out with MSF teams involved in operations in these four countries, in particular a consultative workshop held in Dakar in 2020 and a wide-range of interviews led with profiled staff.

Michaël Neuman, Director of studies at Crash

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