Syria’s civil war grinds on, after nearly four years of relentless death, destruction, and displacement. In recent months, the rise of the Islamic State, or ISIS, has compounded violence in the country, destabilized the MENA region more broadly, and lured the United States into engaging militarily in the conflict.
Amidst this ever-intensifying violence, Syria’s humanitarian aid situation remains bleak. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), to date the conflict has resulted in over 150,000 deaths, 6.45 million internally displaced persons, and 4.6 million people in besieged areas in need of assistance. Yet despite these massive numbers of individuals in need, acute insecurity and restricted access have made the delivery of aid relief by international actors nearly impossible. As a result, large international organizations must increasingly rely on their networks of local partners to effectively deliver and administer humanitarian aid in Syria through remote management arrangements.
Research Question
Primary question: Who are the key local actors involved in the delivery of humanitarian aid in Syria?
Secondary question: How are these actors successfully delivering aid on the ground?
These research questions inform my hypothesis, which argues that successful local partners are those engaged with groups on the ground that the international aid community would traditionally not engage with themselves.
Data
Connections between international and local organizations will be measured primarily by funding relationships. As such, this analysis will first require the identification of all international organizations providing aid to Syria, as well as available funding data for these organizations, separated into two sets:
Primary question: Who are the key local actors involved in the delivery of humanitarian aid in Syria?
Secondary question: How are these actors successfully delivering aid on the ground?
These research questions inform my hypothesis, which argues that successful local partners are those engaged with groups on the ground that the international aid community would traditionally not engage with themselves.
Data
Connections between international and local organizations will be measured primarily by funding relationships. As such, this analysis will first require the identification of all international organizations providing aid to Syria, as well as available funding data for these organizations, separated into two sets:
- The total amount of funds allotted to each organization's Syria programming
- A breakdown of this funding based on how it is funneled to local partners
The ease of obtaining this data is questionable. While funding data for international organizations is available through OCHA's Financial Tracking Service, the funding afforded to local partners by these organizations will not be as easy to identify, and may require examining these organizations' financial reports, direct inquiries to the organizations, FOIA requests, or field research.
In the social network analysis itself, the ties between nodes will reflect that a funding relationship exists between a particular local and international organization. The thickness of the line will reflect the amount of funding provided in the partnership arrangement.
In the social network analysis itself, the ties between nodes will reflect that a funding relationship exists between a particular local and international organization. The thickness of the line will reflect the amount of funding provided in the partnership arrangement.
Important Network Measures
- In-degree of local partners. This centrality measure will indicate which local actors have the highest number of international donors providing them with funding. Coupled with the attribute of funding amount delineated by line thickness, this measure will give a fuller picture of the extent of these funding relationships.
- Betweenness. This measure will show which local organizations may be serving as facilitators or middlemen between the international organization and the local actor ultimately delivering the aid, defining a different type of key local actor.
Conducting this analysis has two primary objectives and motivations:
- The SNA will identify local organizations that currently have strong ties to international organizations and funding streams. Those organizations can then be targeted for further data gathering--perhaps through interviews--of their local networks, in order to get a true grasp of where international aid funding is going on the ground.
- Through this extended inquiry into the networks of these local actors within Syria, this analysis can raise questions of ethics and legality. If the SNA shows that local actors are obtaining access and achieving effective aid delivery by engaging local non-state armed groups, local warlords, or militias, this discovery could challenge traditional humanitarianism principles of neutrality and impartiality.
Existing research:
While I was able to identify previous social network analyses related to humanitarian aid coordination and delivery, the existing literature focuses on inter-organizational coordination in response to natural disaster, for example:
While I was able to identify previous social network analyses related to humanitarian aid coordination and delivery, the existing literature focuses on inter-organizational coordination in response to natural disaster, for example:
Further reading:
Sites of interest focusing on international humanitarian aid news and analysis:
1 comment:
You have identified solid objectives here, but the research question could be more focused and network measures more developed. Why is SNA a better tool for this analysis than other tools?
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