International NGOs and the provision of assistance to migrants in France: the example of Action contre la Faim

Action contre la Faim in France: a mission that has gradually taken shape

The question of whether to conduct operations in France is not new for Action contre la Faim (ACF), nor for any other humanitarian organisation. It nevertheless became more pressing in 2015, when we decided to conduct evaluations at Europe’s borders. On that occasion, we decided not to launch an operation: first of all, because a certain number of actors were already present and taking action, and also because when we decide to take action, it is for the long term. We needed more time to think about our operational methods, our relations with local authorities and other actors, etc. rather than arriving like a bull in a china shop. We wanted to take our time, and proceed with care and caution.

This issue came to the fore again in 2018 and we began by meeting with different actors over a number of months. We consciously made this decision to take our time despite the urgency of the situation. I was not yet in my current post, which I took up in mid-2019, and these meetings were carried out principally by a person with a background in associations. After this very useful preparatory work, I joined the mission in order to share my humanitarian perspective, and ‘translate’ what had already been observed into humanitarian language.

The first lesson to emerge from that period was how important it is to take time to understand the people in need of assistance, as well as the associations involved, their language, their actions, etc. This requires time, but it is time that is crucial. Without it, very quickly, we can get things wrong. Do we always take the time that is needed in the different countries where we work?

Questioning the added value of our organisation

This is a question that has guided us since we began taking action, and continues to preoccupy us. Of course, we quickly saw that there were significant needs: the living conditions in the camps are appalling. They are probably the worst conditions that I have seen in the whole of my humanitarian career, despite the fact that France is supposed to be a state that has the means to protect these people. The holes in the state system are being filled by associations. The latter are therefore used as operators in a highly competitive context where resources are cruelly lacking and where all the organisations involved are exhausted.

For all these reasons, associations – and citizen-based groups – often have to make do with the resources available. And, of course, from my perspective as a professional humanitarian, with my principles and my frameworks, certain things are questionable, and some are even problematic, such as food distributions that do not meet people’s needs, or decisions that place staff or beneficiaries in danger. The added value of humanitarian organisations in such a situation is perhaps the vigilance that they can bring in terms of ‘doing no harm’, or, in other words, not having a negative impact.

Based on this assessment of needs and capacities, we established our strategy. Given that those providing assistance – citizen-based groups and associations – were exhausted trying to compensate for the limits of the system, we decided to ‘assist those providing assistance’. We then defined the main principles of our action (rather than activities). Of central importance was the need to ‘work with’ rather than working alone and organising one more food distribution. The idea was really to support those who were already providing assistance.

Developing partnership relations

Once we had established our strategy to support actors, we then needed to take the time to build relationships. This began with very simple and humble things like taking part in meetings held by the associations and groups involved in providing exiled people with assistance. We then carried out a number of surveys which allowed us to build working relations with other actors and learn operational lessons. This was a very important process that helped us to mobilise different associations and bring people together. We also set up training activities, particularly for volunteers (on the position of the aid provider, on personal security, etc.).

Very quickly, we decided that ‘vertical’ power relations were out of the question. As was turning up with ready-made projects. It should be pointed out that the traditional tools used by humanitarian actors remain relatively vertical, as is their way of interacting with ‘local partners’. Humanitarians often operate with standard partnership agreements, but collaboration is not necessarily formalised in France as this would undermine certain dynamics and create power relations that were too vertical. In this specific context of providing assistance to migrants, I would never consider offering a standard partnership agreement to certain actors because they would take it very badly.

Another difference is the vocabulary used in France, which is not the same as the vocabulary we use on international missions. For example, we do not talk about ‘capacity building’ here: we learn from other actors as much as we ‘train’ or ‘reinforce’ them. Here, it is more a question of mutual exchange and sharing.

To conclude, there are two other important points that should be underlined. Firstly, humanitarian actors have developed monitoring and evaluation mechanisms which could be applied to the activities carried out in France. This would help actors to take a step back from their work and would produce reliable data (crucial for advocacy, and to adapt activities to the context). And lastly, we can sometimes add our voices to lobbying campaigns, giving them greater reach than campaigns that are led by actors that are seen as being ‘too’ activist.

Hélène Quéau is Action contre la Faim’s Country Director France.