Impartiality means that it is need which determines who receives assistance.

Impartiality is not indifference to injustice but entails an effort to engage all stakeholders and to avoid alignment with particular actors.

Impartiality requires humanitarian actors to make no discrimination as to nationality, race, religious beliefs, class or political opinions in their operations and to relieve suffering, giving priority to the most urgent cases of distress

Impartiality: Our humanitarian actions are based on need and prioritise the most urgent cases.

The principle of impartiality requires us to take appropriate action according to the level of suffering.

The reports and affidavits compiled by the field workers in Gaza Strip and the West Bank form the basis of this report which the Unit Director prepares without excluding any violations whatsoever. Naturally, this requires tremendous effort and verification of every incident to ensure impartiality. The unit releases this report on a regular basis and is responsible for finalising this report, and an English translation, before the programs committee meets every Thursday.

The Board of Trustees is made up of a mix of independent experts and representatives of Network member agencies. Independent Trustees are selected for their expertise in areas of importance for the Start Network, and to ensure impartiality of decision making. Member Trustees are nominated by members based on their background and skills, to ensure member representation on the Board.

In countries such as Ethiopia and Pakistan, governments have sought to exercise greater control over humanitarian aid, including in assessment and coordination. This has at times led humanitarian actors to conduct 'shadow assessments' to ensure impartiality. Interviewees in Afghanistan, DRC and Yemen also noted that some coordination improvements run the risk of edging out host government actors, for example when eliminating projects from appeals had the effect of reducing the role of the government in vetting projects.

In countries such as Ethiopia and Pakistan, governments have sought to exercise greater control over humanitarian aid, including in assessment and coordination. This has at times led humanitarian actors to conduct 'shadow assessments' to ensure impartiality. Interviewees in Afghanistan, DRC and Yemen also noted that some coordination improvements run the risk of edging out host government actors, for example when eliminating projects from appeals had the effect of reducing the role of the government in vetting projects.

In line with our mission, core values and our alliances and partnership in carrying out our humanitarian work, AHD commits itself to the following principles: Impartiality We maintain impartiality in the selection of our staff. The selection of our beneficiaries will be on a purely needs basis and not based on race, religion and political affiliation.

For example in the distribution of food items, differences over the priority arises and here ANCC gather a meeting of involved parties including officials of the government and heads of local councils and let them decide and here ANCC keep its impartiality while defending the deserved ones in indirect way as we are vulnerable too.

Are you accompanied by armed guards when travelling? No, we are never armed. That would contradict the principle of impartiality and would harm our reputation.

The impartiality of aid risks being compromised if humanitarian actors have access to only part of an affected population, or can only have limited or inconsistent interaction with the affected population.

Donors are highly susceptible to media and political interest. The pressure to act can override commitments to principles such as impartiality; donors' reactions to the Indian Ocean tsunami are but the latest example of a lack of rationality and needs-based planning in donor decision-making.

Because the ICC is an independent body, and because the situation in Uganda had been referred to it by the Ugandan government, rather than the UN Security Council – as was the situation in Darfur – it was difficult for UK.based agencies to know how and to whom to voice their concerns. Clearly, the independence of the ICC is vital, so lobbying the British government to influence the Court would not only be ineffective, but also contrary to the desire of these agencies to ensure the ICC's impartiality. Direct advocacy with the ICC was difficult because of its understandable reluctance, for reasons of confidentiality and to protect witnesses, to speak about its investigations.

Funding according to need If the tsunami response revealed a lack of donor coordination, it also raised major questions about donors' adherence to the core humanitarian principle of impartiality – funding on the basis of, and in proportion to, need. It is clearly important to show solidarity with those affected, and for donor governments to demonstrate to their publics that they are responding. However, in the first days of a disaster such as this it is impossible to contribute 'on the basis of need and in proportion to need', given the lack of information about needs.

A good humanitarian donor might pledge, but be clear that its pledges are subject to detailed assessments of need on the ground. These assessments would be carried out according to the same criteria as in humanitarian crises elsewhere in the world, in terms of indicators such as mortality rates, levels of malnutrition, numbers in need of shelter and so on. Rather than going back on pledges, it should also be possible to roll over humanitarian pledges into longerterm development responses if the assessments and level of other donor contributions argued for this. For many administrations this would be bureaucratically tortuous and politically unpalatable. The tsunami response demonstrates the challenges that remain in operationalising the principle of impartiality in the real world. Funding decisions after the immediate response were presumably beginning to be made on the basis of rough estimates of death tolls, numbers affected, local capacity to respond and suchlike.

There is consensus that better needs assessment is required, and some donors see the Inter- Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Needs Assessment Framework and Matrix as a step in the right direction, but few specific initiatives are in evidence. In particular, donors could do more to support the principle of impartiality by funding the development of needs assessment methodologies, and looking at ways to fund independent needs assessments for specific crises. They could also do more to develop clear criteria for allocating resources according to need. In addition, while beneficiary involvement is widely cited as a priority, few donors have examined existing tools or developed new approaches to ensure that this occurs

Values Most Western NGOs claim to rely, in their operations, on the values of impartiality, independence and neutrality. By contrast, there is a clear perception that the religious basis of Muslim NGOs does not allow similar space for such values. Could this perceived difference be the basis for a justification for relying on Muslims in Muslim contexts? If indeed humanitarianism in Muslim minds precludes such values, then Muslims would find the Western framework difficult to accept. But is this true? The impartiality debate centres on whether charitable funds should be available only to Muslims, or whether they can be allocated indiscriminately to all. In other words, can Muslim aid be impartial? Some argue that funds should be given based solely on need: poor people should be helped whatever their religion. Others contend that, while zakat can only be disbursed to Muslims, sadaqa can be given to anyone in need. In principle, Islam allows for impartial giving, and all Muslim NGOs in the UK claim impartiality. While in practice it might be difficult for Muslim NGOs to convince their donors to abide by an impartial interpretation of zakat, this is an operational difficulty, rather than a fundamental religious impossibility. If there is no intrinsic reason why Muslims should be unable to support impartiality, then there should be no religious reason not to accept non- Muslim NGOs or NGO workers in a Muslim context. Is Muslim charitable aid independent? Can Muslims and Muslim NGOs give zakat or sadaqa independently from political affiliations? Answering this question entails looking into the division between the political, the religious and the civil in Islam. It is commonly believed that, because the Prophet Mohammed was not only a spiritual leader but also the supreme ruler of Medina, there is no distinction between these different spheres. Indeed, some Muslim states, such as Mauritania, Saudi Arabia and Iran, partly base their legitimacy on their role as protectors of the faith. However, processes of modernisation throughout the Muslim world have brought a higher degree of separation between state and religion in countries like Algeria, Turkey and Tunisia, as well as increased secularisation. This suggests that, while the origins of Islam as a religion were intertwined with politics and state formation, this has not always remained the case. Muslim charitable giving will not therefore necessarily be linked to the state or to the clerical establishment.

The difficulty of translating principles into practice, however, is well known among agency staff. The notion of impartiality , for example, is widely accepted by NGOs, but what does it look like on the ground? In the face of growing risks and a more complex operational environment, we require a greater capacity for decision-making and on-the-hoof reflection, which takes into account both the principles at the core of our identity and the contextual realities and needs we seek to address.

War Child's ambition to reach as many children in conflict as possible with the best possible quality, drives its innovation. It is necessary to find solutions to the challenges that come across the 21st century. For example security for aid-workers is a growing concern as their impartiality is often not assumed by those in conflict. This reduces War Child's ability to send own staff or even support staff of local organisations in their work. This leaves hundreds of thousands of children unreached, due to the remoteness and insecurity where they live.

The challenges of humanitarian crises to affected states – and the possible impact they might have for government survival (politically) – means that the humanitarian agenda will be increasingly affected by calculations reflecting national interest that may not always square neatly with humanitarian principles, particularly impartiality (World Disasters Report, 2011).

Olivia Collins worked for Groupe URD from 2009 to 2011 and is now an independent research and evaluation consultant, focusing on humanitarian principles and conflict-sensitive programming. She is currently based in Sri Lanka and studying part-time for a Masters in Social Anthropology. 1 This challenge is also commonly faced by international staff who remain for a number of years in a place and become emotionally involved in local issues, the dilemma being that the longer they remain the better they understand the context, but the less they may trust themselves to be impartial. The question of whether true impartiality is in itself realisable will not be addressed here, let us assume that it is a sliding scale from partisan to impartial, and one can be closer or further from the stated aim of impartiality.

The diversity of the NGO community is understandably confounding to the US military, especially in places where humanitarian and development NGOs are working side by side. Development NGOs in particular do not frame their role in terms of impartiality or treat access to all populations as a fundamental operational requirement.

Organisation-managed needs assessments also lead to a disproportionate focus on the services delivered by their own organisations, rather than an unbiased assessment of what affected people need. This raises questions as to the impartiality and accuracy of individual needs assessments, as well as the compilation of needs assessments used when formulating humanitarian appeals.

Along with opportunities for lesson-learning from military innovation, there is an equally important need to critically engage with the risks this may pose to humanitarian principles and practice. Many of these principle-based issues are concretised in the evolving application of specific military-derived ICT innovations in humanitarian assistance. Increasing reliance on 'data philanthropy' from government military intelligence sources, for instance, poses a growing challenge to humanitarian impartiality .

When agencies say they deliver principled humanitarian action, one can wonder what this implies in practical terms. Is there a noticeable difference between principled and non- or unprincipled action? The Iraq review revealed that while all agencies consider the principles in planning and carrying out their activities, there is great divergence in the way they understand and apply them. Only a small minority of them, for example, consider that the aspect of most in need, which is part of the principle of impartiality, implies that they should deliver their services as close to the frontline as possible